Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

ACTION FOR LIBEL. 371
others of my friends, so as to make them tired of the Magazine,
then they think they would at once ruin both me and it. To ac-
complish this, there is no kind of trick or falsehood they will not
have recourse to. Leslie, in this case, is a mere tool in their
hands. . . . All they want is to annoy me or any of my friends.
For myself I have no fears ; but I confess it unnerves me a
little to think even of the possibility of this vile crew, by these
continued attacks, making it unpleasant to any one of my
friends to lend me his aid. I trust in God they never will
obtain such a victory, and I flatter myself that these base at-
tacks will in the end have the contrary effect, and only rally
my friends more closely around me.
I shall expect most anxiously a letter from you. Indeed, if
you were nearer at hand, and the season favourable, I would
offer you a visit; but at present this is out of the question.
What would not I give to have the pleasure of seeing you here,
for I have so much to say to you !
Dr Maginn's reply has much of the coolness of the
man who, being entirely out of harm's way, and free
from any possibility of even social annoyance, keeps
his head, and perceives all that is excessive in the
agitation of his friend who is in the middle of the
fray :—
R. T. S. to W. Blackwood.
Dec. 12, 1820.
I am truly concerned that you should be engaged in so unpleasant
a business as the action of Prof. Leslie against you;
but I am quite sure that if your Scottish courts of law be regulated
according to the principles that actuate ours in England
and Ireland, you are in no danger whatever. Every point in
the summons is trivial or justifiable, and in this country the
man who would undertake such an action would be the butt of
ridicule from one end of the Island to the other. There are
some legal friends of mine who would expose the unfortunate
Plaintiff worse than if they had him grinning through a pillory.
I have only received your letter of the 6 th this moment, so that