Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

THE 'NOCTES.' 199
the foreground, a gay and reckless yet powerful band,
wielding the flying pen in caricature of each other,
in light-hearted personal sallies and attacks, in which
each man had the power of instant retaliation upon
his neighbour, and all went merry as marriage-bells.
It was true that it was generally a Barmecide's feast
at which these imaginary sittings were held, and the
draughts of the giants therein recorded were the com-
pletest fiction ; but as the lively manuscript passed
from hand to hand, or two of the laughing critics
laid their heads together over it, each man's sayings
were probably more like him and true to nature than
if the mirth of Ambrose's had been as noisy as they
pretended it to be.
The letters of Lockhart which are to be found in
the overflowing repositories of Blackwood are consider-
able in number, but they are extremely fragmentary
and hasty in character. They give us a flying glimpse
of the man in his overflowing energy and haste of
youth, dashing off" advice, direction, suggestion, as
fast as his fingers can move over the paper, and with
all the sharpness and decision of his age and character
—without, however, penetrating into the inmost soul
of him, or revealing much of his profounder nature.
I have not, indeed, seen any of Lockhart 's letters
which do this. He was not introspective, according
to the favourite jargon of our time. His age had
scarcely begun to indulge in such terms, or to unrobe
itself before the public. His letters to Blackwood
are chiefly a series of illustrations of the work of the
Magazine. They are the rapid billets interchanged
by men who saw each other every day, or most days,
and who spoke to each other as much by allusions