Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

222 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
Crawford Tait t'other day,^ who evidently came in the view of
sounding Timotheus, placed on high amid the sounding choir,
touching the possibility of procuring the effectual aid of your
friends to a weekly anti-' Scotsman ' paper. The Sage scorned
the idea in the shape it came in, justly thinking that any pro-
posal (even a more feasible one than this) should have been
brought forward through some very different sort of channel.
Sym had his gun and bayonet standing in the corner of the
room, and every way kept up the character of the Tickler.
I have seen a great deal of Mr Ellis, the Irish barrister, and
been much pleased. He went with me to Roslyn yesterday,
and left Edinburgh this morning per smack. He seems to
have been delighted with everything here, and threatens another
visit by Xmas, which I hope he will perform. Much ought to
be done and thought in regard to Ireland.
This familiar sentiment has been perennial, as
everybody knows, in England and Scotland for a
multitude of years : at the moment indicated the
agitation for Catholic emancipation was going on
a question very different, however, from those that
move us now.
Lockhart wrote, I think, all his novels in this period
of his life. They were much above the average as
novels, and full of talent, but not of genius ; and
they made little difference in his reputation or in his
career. The first was ' Valerius,' the scene of which
was laid in the first century. It was followed by
'Adam Blair' and later by 'Matthew Wald,' both
studies, and very sombre ones, of Scotland in his own
day : between which came a novel full of university
experiences, called ' Reginald Dalton, a Story of Oxford
Life.' We hear, however, very little of them
in these letters ; and though moderately successful,
^ Robert Sym, ah-eady referred to, called in the Magazine Timothy
Tickler.
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