Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

166 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
exception of " Hazlitt Cross-questioned " (of which anon), there
is not one word to be ashamed of. In September we can perceive
nothing that can give rational offence. The article on
and that
M'Vey is confined entirely to his literary pretensions ;
on Playfair is, we conceive, not only merited and unanswerable,
but so written as no gentleman need be ashamed to have signed
it. That both of these will give offence to some friends of the
parties who doubts? and what severe articles, either in your
Eeview or Jeffrey's, do not give offence in the same manner ?
Must not you have exaggerated things when you talk of wish-
ing not to have published numbers containing these articles of
offence alone. Take them, read them over, and say if, with the
exception of Hazlitt, there is one page that might not have ap-
peared in any work—in so far at least as the spirit is concerned ?
I have pressed this on you, not that I think you are giving un-
founded statements, but that I think you have overcharged a
true outline.
With respect to Hazlitt there is no doubt that your obser-
vations are just. There is a seeming ferocity in the tone that
must disgust many, and on reflection disgusts us. With those
to whom Hazlitt is an utter stranger such an article must have
seemed execrable. To those who know the truth of the worst
things that can be said of him, the principal fault of the article
will appear to be confined to its manner and expressions. We
quite agree with you that the same thing might have been said
in a different, in a very much better way ; and rest assured that
of this execrable style no further specimen shall appear.
How-
ever, doubt not that the frenzy and wrath of Hunt, Hazlitt, &c.,
are the true keys to all these fierce paragraphs in the papers,
and much of what has distressed you in conversation.
On this part of the subject allow me to remark that, with
the exception of this last article on Hazlitt, the articles on the
Cockney School are little if at all more severe than those in
the ' Quarterly Eeview,' and that they gave more offence to the
objects of their severity only on account of their superior keen-
ness—above all, that happy name which you and all the reviews
are now borrowing, the Cockney School. Hazlitt and
Hunt conceived that they could crush an infant work, and
knew that they were powerless against the ' Quarterly.' There-