Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

SECUEING SCOTT. 155
am essentially assisting my friend Mr L., I have little doubt of
occasionally assisting the Magazine, as much as any curious stray
information, anecdotes, &c., may be gathered in this country.
It was Lockhart whom Sir Walter recognised as
the head ; many others selected Wilson ; these two,
best informed of all, though they sometimes rebelled,
generally submitted, though with a very bad grace,
as shall be seen hereafter, to the strong resolution of
the "man in plain apparel," whose silent strength
was behind them, and upon whose comparatively
innocent head all the bolts fell.
Another letter from Scott conveys the idea that he
was occasionally consulted as a critic by Blackwood,
and consented to help him in that way. " I return
you," he says on one occasion, " the MS. Voyage."
The latter part of it is interesting ; in the first there is too
much description of well-known places ; and through the whole
there is a little ambition of fine writing, which spoils the effect
of a plain narration. Also the manuscript poem, which is of
the kind endured neither by gods, men, nor columns. ... I
return also Wat Tyler, which is an ill-natured book. But it
may be a warning to men of genius not to enunciate all their
first ideas too strongly on political subjects.
A letter of Laidlaw, received in February of the
next year (1818), while the fight was yet at its
hottest, gives Blackwood still more distinctly the
assurance that he had "secured Scott." His agri-
cultural contributor was Scott's right-hand man in
all his diggings and plantings, though but a very
simple henchman in literature :
W. Laidlaw to W. Blackwood.
Mr Scott left us this morning. He has been riding and
walking about from morning to night, and all our talk was of
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