Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

DEFENCE. 165
on the matter as decisive, and admit that something out of the
common order has been done, and that something of an outcry
does exist, and that, therefore, independently of all argument,
it is the duty of all that some change should take place.
The next thing to be considered is whether this outcry has
not been somewhat exaggerated to you by your own imagina-
tion—to ascertain, in short, to what extent it is truth. This
may probably be best accomplished by tracing the outcry to its
elements, by discovering what the combustibles have been that
can have raised the fire. We know of nothing but the Chaldee
MS., the verses on the Booksellers, the attacks on the Cockneys,
and those on the ' Edinburgh Review.' Let it be granted, then,
that in each and all of these indiscretion and violence have been
used. But is this enough to have given a general bad name to
a book wherein all these things taken together form a very,
very small item of contents—where they are outbalanced by
such a preponderance of good calm feeling and principle ? Our
own opinion is that, notwithstanding all the outcry you have
heard, and which has distressed abundantly us as well as you,
were the voice of the whole town and country taken, the odium
excited is neither so general nor so terrific as you apprehend.
It is the nature of whatever is new to astonish. People must
have time given them to come to their wits. In different parts
of the country where we have been, we have found that among
two great classes of our own countrymen, the religious and the
ministerial people, the sensation excited by the Magazine has
been decidedly a very encouraging one, although these people,
and those from whom they most differ, have indeed found faults
and blamed them. This applies of course to a limited circle
and experience ; but perhaps your town circle and experience
may also be in their way limited
i.e., you may have conversed
too exclusively with literary men, who have fears, hopes, and
opinions peculiar to themselves, not partaken except reflexly
and weakly by the main body of English readers, in whose
minds we have no doubt the general good feeling and principle
of the Magazine, were that work once fairly put into their
hands, must infinitely outweigh all the defects with which we
admit it to be deformed. Look at the last two numbers alone
and examine what it is you are afraid of. In August, with the
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