ABSTRACT
During the discussions occasioned by John Scott’s attack upon Blackwood’s Magazine, and the fatal duel that ensued, Horace Smith had expressed his unqualified condemnation of the ungenerous and personal warfare waged by that periodical against all its political opponents; and when he recollected how freely he had spoken upon this subject, it seemed not unlikely that its conductors might avail themselves of the paragraph in question, to assail him on the ground of his imputed heterodoxy. Under apprehensions, Smith wrote to Sir Walter Scott avowing his perfect readiness to submit to any criticism, however severe, in his literary capacity; but requesting his interference to prevent any onslaught upon theological grounds from the parties in question. Sir Walter was not young when he began to write, he was not old when he sank into fatuity, yet if his disembodied spirit could hover above us, how truly might he exclaim, in the words of the old Roman poet.
