Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

men :
THE CRAFTY AND THE SCORPION MEET. 217
and, what also seems usual—obeying a law more
subtle still than the fondly cherished theory of develop-
ment— perished in the direct line, leaving no children
to carry on his name. But Lockhart was the son of
his heart, his confidant and faithfuUest friend through
all the troubles that followed, and his children were
the only heirs of Abbotsford and their great forebear's
glory. Lockhart 's letters are seldom without an allu-
sion to Scott after they became thus closely connected.
Here is one of a later date which shows the position
in which he stood to the great Magician of the age,
when his " crowned estate began to pine in that
reverse of doom." Blackwood had recently attained
civic honours, whence the title :
—
Abbotsfokd, 2Tth May.
My dear Baillie,—You have indeed much reason to be
cockahoop, for your present number is a glorious one through-
out, and contains one passage (that on the Bloody hand row)
worth alone twenty volumes of ordinary wit. It is the very
finest thing I think he ^ ever wrote. I propose being in Edin-
burgh for two or three days next week, but can't exactly fix a
day, as I should not like to leave Sir W, S. on one of those
dull days that now chequer his existence. On the whole, how-
ever, he is mending, and I hope to see him pretty well restored
before the summer is over.
From the same place he writes in 1825 of a visit
of Constable, the (supposed) deathless enemy of the
brotherhood. " Here is Constable and his hopeful,
both as smooth as silk," he says. " I suppose the
bargain is being ratified touching the next novel.
The Crafty says there is a favourable review of
Hogg's Jacobite songs in the forthcoming number of
the * Blue and Yellow.' " It may seem a curious fate
^ Professor "Wilson in ' Maga,' June 1831.