Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

392 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
I have got considerable influence in that valuable corps, the
gentlemen of the press—some of whom I have obliged, and others
libelled. Either gives a man a sort of claim to civility. You
may tell L., as he is anxious on this head, that a provincial
paper here—the ' Advertiser '—for which I write a great deal,
is to come before God and its country for telling the truth of a
priest. There is an immense tumult expected, which I am
happy to think of. I, however, am not the writer of the alleged
libel. The business has created a sensation throughout all
Ireland.
The idea of Maginn's interference, either to heal the
wounds of John Murray or to smooth down Cadell,
does not appear to have been taken advantage of;
but there were occasions when his help was called for,
and most readily given—especially during the terrible
crisis in the life of Wilson which has been already
related, the threatened action of Martin, when our
Professor showed but the heart of a mouse in his big
bosom. It will give the reader a kind thought of the
wild and disorderly Irishman if we here quote the
two letters which bear upon that unpleasant story.
They are more like him, we think, than the picture
of Captain Shandon, who was too refined and gentlemanlike
in his debtor's prison, and at the same
time too cynical, for our unfortunate man of letters.
This little apologue shows how he met another Irishman
like himself, wild for bloodshed and damages
and a trial for libel, and with native instinct, the
profound knowledge of a fellow-countryman, plucked
the sting out of him, and smoothed him down—or
at least for the moment was supposed to have done
so. The account of the transaction is vsritten to Mr
Blackwood, who was, as usual, the person left to
bear the brunt, as he had done for Maginn himself