Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

272 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
otherwise give me. It is not, as you well know, that I can
possibly be such an ass as to dislike criticism. But this is
mere drivelling falsehood and misrepresentation— calculated
to injure the book, I declare, even in my own eyes, and to do
it the greatest injury with the public. It is the most sickening
dose of mawkish misrepresentation I ever read.
The article which filled Wilson (and Mrs W.) with
such disgust and resentment never appeared in the
Magazine— probably it was only in proof that he read
it : and this angry remonstrance caused its being re-
placed by a laudatory review in June 1822. It is
edifying, however, to perceive how little the critic
liked the methods which he himself used so freely.
The murmurs of the passing storm echo still, though
much softened and mingled with the usual business
of the Magazine, in the following letter. Old M.
is forgotten ; the usual circle comes into sight again
and the matter discussed is a critical letter^ on Mr
Blackwood's books in general, attributed to that
great authority Mr Croker, with interpolations from
the ubiquitous Maginn, by this time mixed up with
everything that was going on :
John Wilson to W. Blackwood.
—
E^ELSO, Wedm£8day.
You must have observed that I am excessively sore and silly
on the subject of ' Lights and Shadows.' I do not wish it cut
up or greatly sneered at in your Magazine. Probably I shall
have quite enough of that in good time elsewhere. I do not
object, however, to a nice little eulogistic touch of censure now
and then, but I must always do these with my own hand. As
to the Doctor's addition, I object to it, first, that it is most
brutal ; secondly, stupidish ; and thirdly, quite unlike in style
and sentiment to Croker's letter. These are three good reasons,
1 In'Maga,' July 1822.
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