266 EDITOR, 



cord and Edinburgh Evening Post was opportunely 

 taking place at the time ; and I wrote such an article on 

 the sort of marriages through which expiring newspapers 

 get into a state of coverture and disappear, as rendered 

 it impossible that, without the most ludicrous inconsist- 

 ency, the Witness and Guardian should ever be united. 



' I may mention, that I received about this time two 

 several visits from Mr Sheriff Monteith. What the 

 Sheriff had to suggest on these occasions was a good 

 deal veiled in that peculiarly delicate kind of phrase- 

 ology, somewhat professional, which has to a simple man 

 the effect of casting a misty obscurity over the subjects 

 which the words envelop. On thinking, however, with 

 all my might, over his proposals, I came to discover that 

 they embodied a scheme of salaried censorship for the 

 Witness, devised, it would seem, for the express purpose 

 of keeping the editorial articles right ; and I straight- 

 way intimated, in a note to Mr J. G. Wood, that what I 

 had succeeded in seeing of the business I did not at all 

 like. The judgment of the proposed Censor might, I 

 thought, be scarce worth a hundred a-year to the Wit- 

 ness : it might be even a judgment not a great deal 

 stronger or more honestly directed than my own, save 

 and except, of course, in the matter of Whig elections : 

 and, besides, if the Censor and I came to differ, we 

 might quarrel. After communicating with Mr Wood, I 

 heard no more of the design, nor did I receive, though I 

 have experienced some kindness at the Sheriff's hands, 

 any after-visits from the Sheriff. It is perhaps scarce 

 worth while adverting to this circumstance ; but it may 

 probably have some bearing on the present state of 

 matters, and there can be no doubt that it indicated at 

 least one incipient attempt more to improve the Witness. 



1 The next scheme of improving the Witness was 



