Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

THOMAS DOUBLEDAY. 491
seems to a cursory glance to afford so few centres of
a better light.
Doubleday speaks of the requirements of " the ship-
ping season " as delaying his contributions, and of the
attention he is called upon to bestow on the business
of which his father is the head, with the air of a man
actively engaged in these occupations ; but the stream
of papers on every subject which flowed forth to Edin-
burgh for many years would not have disgraced a writer
whose implement was the pen alone, and who was
bound to no other care. It may be remembered that
Wilson and Lockhart both refer to his productions as
sometimes too aggressive and sometimes too lengthy,
on subjects of political economy and politics, but there
is not a trace of divergence in point of political opinion.
A great many letters are taken up with descriptions
and reports of progress in his poem of 'Diocletian,'
about which he wrote with great confidence to the
publisher, who was (almost) always so much pleased
with his articles—a confidence which came to sad and
sudden downfall when the completed poem came back
to him from these usually so kind and receptive hands,
and the resigned, yet aggrieved, astonishment of the
poet is almost too much for words. The following
short extracts, though of no great importance in his
correspondence, give a glimpse at once of his literary
opinions and unceasing industry. It was still the
Byronic period, when the air was full of the life and
acts as well as the utterances of the noble poet who
was so deeply interesting to his time. In a previous
letter Doubleday had made an assault on Lady Byron,
characterising her as one of Miss Edgeworth's heroines,
too coldly good for sympathy, and fitted only to exas-