Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

152 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
it may be seriously questioned. Edinburgh is rather too narrow
for satire so markedly personal, and there are certainly several
individuals who, from their character and situation, have reason
to resent having been so roughly treated. And I must add
that, disapproving of the whole in point of prudence, I am not
greatly pleased with the mode in which one or two of my
particular friends have been mentioned, as, for example. Play-
fair, Charles Sharpe, and Eobert Jamieson. You will readily
hold me acquitted of the childishness of resenting the goodhumoured
pleasantry exercised towards myself, with which I
was really entertained, and thought the humour very well
sustained. Connected as I am with Mr Laidlaw, and regarding
the continuance of the work as a matter of consequence to him,
I have no idea of suffering my disapprobation of a particular
article, on the grounds I have expressed, to interfere with my
promised assistance to him. I do not know any of my friends
(meaning such as may have a right to complain of aggression
in the present case) who would wish me to resent their quarrel
at the risque of disturbing an arrangement made with the
views which influenced me in entering into the present. This
you will of course understand to be very different from either
approving the insertion of the article or subscribing to the
justice of the satire. And unquestionably did I conceive it
likely that the Magazine could continue to be a receptacle for
articles, however able, composed in the same tone, I could not,
consistently with my feelings of what is due to the literary
society of Edinburgh, continue my permanent assistance. The
field for fair pleasantry is wide enough without enlarging it at
the expense of exciting, and not unjustly, feelings of personal
and private resentment.
My time for leaving this place now approaches so nearly that
it would perhaps be giving you trouble and expense to little
purpose to invite you out here. If, however, you should think
it of consequence to see Mr Laidlaw and me together, I will
be happy to receive you any day next week.
The piece of "good-humoured pleasantry" which
Scott took so kindly might have been construed less
favourably by a less genial nature, and certainly sug-