Scott’s Weekly Paper.—Scott, the great “Practical Printer” who was bred in “Alexander’s time,” has, by eating a good deal of it, become a hero in ours—and survived the decay which usually attaches itself to mortals who press “the rugged pathway up the steeps of Fame.” He lives on air—or at least on that fast press which came off with a feed at the Astor. Hoeing his own row most elegantly, he disdains in ’52 the mean competition of trade, which leads men to haggle for sixpence profit, but becomes a prophet himself, and carries out his own predictions.
Scott, last year, having announced a sheet “as big as all out doors”—if we except one from a Dutch barn in Berks—was accused of endeavoring to pull down the whole literary temple, like another Sampson—of proceeding at a gait that would not pay, and of throwing dust in people’s eyes, who were expected to go it blind. The charge was a plain one—being delivered by people who use the plain language—the inclined plane—and Scott, who having lived “in Alexander’s time,” had opportunities to observe that people who play with “edged tools,” however expert, are apt to suffer from such familiarity with such hardware—determined, like a true Caledonian as he is, to make somebody smart for it, and to
“Meet the devil an’ Dundee.”
So, never minding the expense, but paying his price like a man, he rushed into the fray, shouting his war cry:
“Cock up your beaver,
And cock it fu’ sprush,
We’ll over the border
And gie them a brush;
There’s something there
We’ll teach better behavior—