Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

"he never shall be shamed." 157
unaccustomed. Had he avenged that offence, or
done more than blow off the hasty exasperation in
a word, he might have seriously injured, perhaps
ruined, at that very important crisis of his career,
the sturdy and independent bookseller. But he was
no such man, and lent his honest friendly hand to
his honest critic with all the magnanimity of his
nature. "Whatever record leaps to light, he never
shall be shamed."
A letter from Lockhart, which I have found quite
accidentally fastened up with the letter from Scott
on page 146, and evidently written at the same time,
gives so clear a picture of the general agitation and
excitement that I may include it here before passing
on to other features of the fray :
J. G. Lockhart to W. Blackwood.
I write chiefly because I imagine it will be agreeable for you
to hear from one of us each day, so long as the battle is un-
finished. The correspondence, if preserved, may afford us all
much diversion at some distant day. Surely you were allowing
too much vanity to mingle with your usual discernment when
you suppose that C. and Jeffrey went to the fastness [Abbots-
ford] merely to annoy the man in plain apparel and his book.
However, being there, they may do you harm, and the letter to
Laidlaw is the likeliest counterplot you could have invented.
I send this along with the Leven MSS. Set up in type forthwith
Lee's review of Madam de Stael. These will both, we
think, be good in this number. And omit anything against
Sharpe in the conclusion. Should he take violent ground
against us in the adversary's book, woe be to him hereafter
In the meantime he merits a sugar-plum. Wilson is anxious
to see Hamilton before going to Edinburgh, but seems now to
think he will certainly be with you by Saturday evening. I
shall not be later than Tuesday, nor can I possibly be sooner,
or I would. I wish you would write me out literatim some of
—
!