Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

338 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
a curious little passage of arms, may be given here.
Hogg's Autobiography, a work very offensive to many
persons, and open to the severest criticism, had been
commented on very freely, and certainly with no deli-
cacy of treatment, in the Magazine. James Ballantyne
was at the time the printer employed by Blackwood.
And here is his protest against the coarse and unlovely
fun of the article. We imagine it would
startle the publishers of to-day, almost as much as
Balaam was startled by an unlooked-for remonstrance,
did there proceed from any printing-office charged
with their work an indignant appeal like this :
—
James Ballantyne to W. Blackwood.
Do you really mean to insert that most clever but most
indecently scurrilous attack upon Hogg ? For my own part, I
do not stand up for Hogg's conduct ;
but such language as is
applied to him appears to me absolutely unwarrantable, and in
your Magazine peculiarly and shockingly ofifensive.
You will do as you think best certainly ; but I must at once
say that if it goes in I must withdraw, in all subsequent
numbers, from the concern. How much I shall regret this on
many accounts I need not say; but I cannot allow such an
article to appear with even my implied approbation attached to
it. It is hard, you may think, that an editor should be fettered
by his printer ; but I cannot help this. The printer must not
be made to encounter what he considers to be disgrace.
Mr Blackwood immediately replied as follows :
W. Blackwood to James Ballantyne.
The article on Hogg is to be very much altered indeed, else
you may depend upon it that / could not allow it to appear.
But really of this you must permit me to be judge, for, dis-
agreeable and unpleasant as it would be for us to part, I cannot
submit to be told what / must not insert in the Magazine. My
character and interest are at stake, and you may depend upon