Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

454 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
I don't think, however, that Gait, or any other
except the privileged writers who made up that fine
personality, were ever allowed to magnify their own
cleverness at the expense of Christopher North. No
one but Maginn, whose adoption of all the habits
of thought and language current among the original
knot of friends was so prompt and so extraordinary,
ever was admitted to disport himself in that char-
acteristic field. And Gait had a heavy hand, quite
incapable of such light yet dashing warfare. He
could no more, we fear, have set Christopher upon his
canvas than he could have forestalled ' Waverley,'
It was not, however, through the Pringle family
and their fellows that Gait considered himself to
reach his highest level. He plumed himself on his
acquaintance with the " higher society " which Croker
denied him any knowledge of, and into which he led
his hero. Sir Andrew Wylie ; and on his intimate ac-
quaintance with public men and " the best circles."
His articles on these subjects, however, did not always
please the censor of Princes Street, and still less the
two advisers, Wilson and Lockhart, who found the
author of the ' Legatees ' prosy and pompous, and
put no faith in his knowledge of the world. It is
curious to find that he was one of several persons
who were to have been chosen to write the Life of
Byron (with whom he had some personal acquaintance),
which was contemplated by the executors and
Mr Murray before the Autobiography was destroyed.
And he had in fact much intercourse with notable
personages, in the position of representative of the
Canada Company, which he held at this period, and
which explains his oflScial address.