Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

232 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
out doubt, as we have indicated, the bitter and painful
controversy with Mr John Scott, ^ the editor of the
'London Magazine,' which, after many discussions,
sending of embassages on both sides, and pubhcation
of opposing " Statements," was suddenly turned into
unexpected tragedy. The ridicule with which public
sentiment had already begun to treat the practice of
duelling, and the particular jest supposed to be in-
volved in a projected duel between two men whose
weapon was the pen and not the sword, were abruptly
changed into horror and dismay by the death of Scott,
not even by the hand of the man he had assailed, but
by that of Lockhart's friend and intended second, Mr
Christie, who had been forced into the field after the
first challenge had been insultingly refused. It is im-
possible to treat a matter lightly which ends in this
way, otherwise the exaggerated abuse of Scott, and
mock heroics of both parties, would be both ludicrous
and offensive. To call a man a professional scandal-
monger, a mercenary dealer in calumny and falsehood,
because of even the worst of the attacks upon
the Cockney School, was of course excessive and absurd.
Whereas, on the other side, Lockhart's resentment of
attacks upon himself, who had made so many light-
hearted attacks upon others, and never hesitated to
give forth a scathing word, was equally ridiculous.
The elaborate accounts given by both parties of the
discussions that preceded the duel might have afibrded
an admirable subject for Lockhart's own power of
stinging banter. He would have held both sides up
^ The reader will find this miserable story much more fiilly treated in
Mr Andrew Lang's ' Life of Lockhart,' along with other incidents of his
career.