This paragraph was enough to account for the “Quarterly” article; but the personal grievance was kept well out of sight, and Willis was taken to task for his alleged abuse of the rights of hospitality in reporting for a public journal private conversations at gentlemen’s tables. The article was a very offensive one, written with ability and with that air of cold contempt of which Lockhart was master. It sneered at Willis as a “Yankee poetaster,” and a “sonneteer of the most ultra-sentimental delicacy;” intimated that his surprise and delight at the manners of the English aristocracy came from his not having been familiar with the usages of the best society at home, and accused him of “conceited vulgarity” and “cockneyism” (an awful word, under which the Scotch Tories connoted all possible offenses against sound politics and good literature). The passages that seem to have given most offense to the critic were the report of the conversation with Lord Aberdeen at Gordon Castle and the remarks of Moore about O’Connell at Lady Blessington’s. “It is fortunate in this particular case,” wrote Lockhart, “that what Lord Aberdeen said to Mr. Willis might be repeated in print without paining any of the persons his lordship talked of; but what he did say, he said under the impression that the guest of the Duke of Gordon was a gentleman, and there are abundance of passages in Mr. Willis’s book which can leave no doubt that, had the noble earl spoken in a different sense, it would not, at all events, have been from any feeling of what was due to his lordship, or to himself, that Mr. Willis would have hesitated to report the conversation with equal freedom.” The article concludes as follows: “This is the first example of a man creeping into your home and forthwith printing,—accurately or inaccurately, no matter which,—before your claret is dry on his lips,—unrestrained table-talk on delicate subjects, and capable of compromising individuals.” Lockhart, as usual, contrived to insult Willis’s country, through her representative. “We can well believe,” he said, “that Mr. Willis has been depicting the sort of society that most interests his countrymen.
‘Born to be slaves and struggling to be lords,’
their servile adulation of rank and title, their stupid admiration of processions and levées, and so forth, are leading features in almost all the American books of travels that we have met with.”
To this censure Willis replied, in substance, in the preface to the first London edition of “Pencillings,” first, that from “the distance of America, and the ephemeral nature and usual obscurity of periodical correspondence,” he had never expected that the “Mirror” letters would reach England; nor would they have done so, had not the “Quarterly” “made a long arm over the water,” and reprinted all the offending portions; thereby forcing the author’s hand and compelling him to publish the entire collection in justification of himself. Secondly, that his sketches of distinguished people were neither ill-natured nor untrue; that he had said nothing in them which could injure the feelings of those who had admitted him to their confidence or hospitality. “There are passages,” he allows, “I would not rewrite, and some remarks on individuals which I would recall at some cost,” but “I may state as a fact that the only instance in which a quotation by me from the conversation of distinguished men gave the least offense in England was the one remark made by Moore, the poet, at a dinner party, on the subject of O’Connell. It would have been harmless, as it was designed to be, but for the unexpected celebrity of my ‘Pencillings;’ yet with all my heart I wish it unwritten.” And finally, that whatever violations of delicacy and good taste might have been committed in the “Pencillings,” the author of “Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk” was not the one to throw a stone at them. The first plea in this defense was sincerely made, as might be easily proved from Willis’s private letters. It was a disagreeable surprise to him when the “Quarterly” reprinted passages from the “Mirror” letters. And it is true that America was much farther away from England than England was from America. Still, if Willis had published anything that he should not have published, it was not a perfect excuse to say that he had done it in a corner. As the event showed, foreign correspondence in an American newspaper might reach England. But this apology was not needed, for his second plea covered the ground. There was, in truth, nothing malicious or slanderous in “Pencillings;” almost nothing that could give pain even to the most sensitive. The people described were, nearly all of them, in a sense, public characters, accustomed to seeing themselves gossiped about in print. In one or two instances Willis had been indiscreet, as he freely admitted. But it is hard for one living in these times of society journals and “interviewers” to understand why the papers should have made such a pother over a comparatively trifling trespass upon the reserves of private life. The best proof of Willis’s innocence in the matter is that the people whose hospitality and confidence he was charged with abusing took no kind of umbrage at the liberty. On the contrary, Lord Aberdeen, Wilson, Dalhousie, and others wrote to him in warm approval of his book. “With what feelings,” said the “Quarterly” article, apropos of the description of Gordon Castle, “the whole may have been perused by the generous lord and lady of the castle themselves, it is no business of ours to conjecture.” This point, however, need not be left to conjecture, as it is amply answered in the following letter to Willis from the Earl of Dalhousie, dated February 25, 1836:—
… In the long evenings of winter we have beguiled the time with “Pencillings by the Way,” and whatever critics and reviewers may say, I take pleasure in assuring you that we all agree in one sentiment, that a more amusing or more delightful production was never issued by the press. In what we know of it, it is true and graphic, and therefore in what is foreign to us, we think, must be so also. The Duke and Duchess of Gordon were here lately and expressed themselves in similar terms.
Lady D—— desires me to say that the reviews could not have done more for its success by their amplest praises, for it is now in every hand.
Our family has been much occupied by Ramsay’s marriage this winter, he following your steps so closely. He has added greatly to his parents’ happiness, and, I hope, to his own in life. Lady Susan Hay is a handsome woman, and an amiable, pretty creature. They have settled themselves at Coalstown, until called into a more active life, which I hope he looks forward to, and you have thought him fitted for. It is not unlikely that he will be chosen member for the East Lothian, in which he has made his residence, triangular between me and his father-in-law, Lord Tweeddale, about sixteen miles from me.
Pray let me hear from you, as your sincere attached friend,
Dalhousie.
Lady Dalhousie had written some two mouths before:—