But we’re dune wi’ Rob.
“I forget if I mentioned Terry in my list of friends. Pray send me two or three copies as soon as you can. And we must not forget Sir William Forbes.—Yours ever,
“W. S.”
The allusion to its being a “tough job” refers to the labour of producing the book in his shattered state of health in 1817, the year of the publication of “Rob Roy.”
Transcriber’s Note: image is clickable for larger version
CHAPTER X
LOCKHART AND THE BALLANTYNE CONTROVERSY
Into the merits of the disputes which arose over the disastrous business transactions it is not necessary, perhaps, to enter at length. What is brought together here is mainly drawn from materials left by contemporaries of the persons immediately concerned. Recent criticism has not supported Lockhart’s view that Scott was unaware how things were going, and it has never been explained how a man, so exact about his personal expenses, could have been so careless in his commercial dealings as partner in a printing firm. Lockhart was well known in literary circles to be a pungent critic, and his severity as a reviewer gained for him the name of the “Scorpion.” His studiously insolent tone and his wilful misrepresentations led to the publication by James Ballantyne’s trustees of “The Refutation of the Misstatements and Calumnies contained in Mr. Lockhart’s ‘Life of Sir Walter Scott’ respecting the Messrs. Ballantyne.” This was followed by “The Ballantyne Humbug Handled” from Lockhart; and this again was answered by a “Reply to Mr. Lockhart’s Pamphlet. By the Authors of the Refutation.”