a larger income perhaps, but a highly responsible situation in London.  I considered this matter very attentively, and recalled to my recollection all I had known of Mr. Lockhart both before and since his connection with my family.  I have no hesitation in saying that when he was paying his addresses in my family I fairly stated to him that however I might be pleased with his general talents and accomplishments, with his family, which is highly respectable, and his views in life, which I thought satisfactory, I did decidedly object to the use he and others had made of their wit and satirical talent in Blackwood’s Magazine, which, though a work of considerable power, I thought too personal to be in good taste or to be quite respectable.  Mr. Lockhart then pledged his word to me that he would withdraw from this species of warfare, and I have every reason to believe that he has kept his word with me.  In particular I know that he had not the least concern with the Beacon newspaper, though strongly urged by his young friends at the Bar, and I also know that while he has sometimes contributed an essay to Blackwood on general literature, or politics, which can be referred to if necessary, he has no connection whatever with the satirical part of the work or with its general management, nor was he at any time the Editor of the publication.

It seems extremely hard (though not perhaps to be wondered at) that the follies of three—­or four and twenty should be remembered against a man of thirty, who has abstained during the interval from giving the least cause of offence.  There are few men of any rank in letters who have not at some time or other been guilty of some abuse of their satirical powers, and very few who have not seen reason to wish that they had restrained their vein of pleasantry.  Thinking over Lockhart’s offences with my own, and other men’s whom either politics or literary controversy has led into such effusions, I cannot help thinking that five years’ proscription ought to obtain a full immunity on their account.  There were none of them which could be ascribed to any worse motive than a wicked wit, and many of the individuals against whom they were directed were worthy of more severe chastisement.  The blame was in meddling with such men at all.  Lockhart is reckoned an excellent scholar, and Oxford has said so.  He is born a gentleman, has always kept the best society, and his personal character is without a shadow of blame.  In the most unfortunate affair of his life he did all that man could do, and the unhappy tragedy was the result of the poor sufferer’s after-thought to get out of a scrape. [Footnote:  This refers, without doubt, to the unfortunate death of John Scott, the editor of the London Magazine, in a duel with Lockhart’s friend Christie, the result of a quarrel in which Lockhart himself had been concerned.] Of his general talents I will not presume to speak, but they are generally allowed to be of the first