Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

THE JOHN SCOTT TRAGEDY. 231
to the Magazine, and receive a most liberal remuneration for
your contributions, I should be the last person in the world
to have expected one line from you.
The last letter on this subject is the following.
The matter had evidently grown more and more
serious as it went on :-^
J. Q. Lockhart to W. Blackwood.
I do not think any good end is likely to be served by a
correspondence on these subjects—concerning points of which it
is evident enough our opinions are very widely different. There
are also some expressions in your letter which give me pain, and
I should be sorry to have disagreeable feeling increased by any
repetition of the like. I am not aware of having been at all
the reverse of open in regard to the Magazine. On the con-
trary, I think at least eighteen months ago I told you very dis-
tinctly that I was resolved periodical literature should never
occupy any serious part of my attention. The longer I live I
am the more steadily impressed with the utter worthlessness of
that sort of thing. I have already had too much share in it
but I see neither the necessity nor the propriety of my having
more connection with the periodical press than any given individual—unless
I please. There are always enough of young
people to write for Magazines, if they be paid. At the same
time, I never have made or expressed any resolution not to
write in your Magazine. I intend to send you from time to
time anything that occurs to me, and I shall be happy if what
I send proves acceptable. I have shown Mr Wilson your let-
ter and this answer, and I am happy to say he approves of the
light in which I have viewed the subject.—Believe me, very
sincerely yours, J. Gr. Lockhart.
Was this note, so solemnly signed (the others only-
bear initials), intended for the moment to be the last ?
This is what we do not know ; but if so, the intention
was speedily abandoned. The " disagreeable occur-
rence " referred to in Mr Blackwood's letter was with-
;