Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

THE MAN OF FEELING. 269
In 1822 there was published Wilson's first work
in prose, ' The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life,'
a work exceedingly popular at the time, though per-
haps giving too sentimental and superlative a view
of peasant life in Scotland or anywhere else. There
are several highly amusing letters upon this publication
and the criticisms it called forth, which we
may quote as highly characteristic of the man. No
tyro could have been more anxious, more excited,
than he who had dealt death and wounds round him
with so much gaiete du cceur. He expected a review
from Lockhart, which he writes from the country to
say he did not wish to see before it was published.
" I wish to swallow it in one lump. You have no
idea how sweet flattery is in the country. My appe-
tite for it even in a town is steady, if not voracious
here, I verily believe I could bolt anything." It does
not seem, however, that his hopes of flattery were
satisfied. The book was given for review to Henry
Mackenzie, the now very old head and patron of
literature in Edinburgh, the Man of Feeling, long
since reconciled to the Magazine, and whose approval
was supposed to be the highest gratification to which
any writer could aspire. Mr Blackwood thanks the
old gentleman efiusively for his review of Gait ; but
Wilson evidently was very far from being of this
opinion, and his reply to Mackenzie's criticism is so
tremendous in its wrath, and it is so seldom that an
author's remonstrance is made visible to the public,
that though the letter is somewhat long, we venture
to give it entire. It is dated "Kelso, Friday." The
date was probably sometime in May 1822, and begins
by an announcement that he has "read over the
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