The following observations are from one who was acquainted with all the circumstances: “It is a curious instance of Lockhart’s moral obtuseness that he could make some most painful and needless disclosures in regard to Scott himself in that Life (of Scott), to say nothing of his foul and elaborate misrepresentation of the Ballantynes throughout. To that evil deed it is necessary only to refer; for the confutation immediately published was so complete, and the establishment of the fair fame of the Ballantynes so triumphant, that their libeller had his punishment very soon. Some lovers of literature and of Scott still struggled to make out that the Ballantynes and their defenders, as tradesmen, could know nothing of the feelings, nor judge of the conduct, of Scott as a gentleman. The answer was plain: the Ballantynes were not mere tradesmen; and if they had been, Scott made himself a tradesman, in regard to his coadjutors, and must be judged by the laws of commercial integrity. The exposures made by the Ballantynes and their friends of Scott’s pecuniary obligations to them were forced upon them by Lockhart’s attacks upon their characters and misrepresentation of their conduct and affairs. The whole controversy was occasioned by Lockhart’s spontaneous indulgence in caustic satire; and the Ballantynes came better out of it than either he or his father in-law.”[42] Another of Lockhart’s charges was that of professional incompetence, made not from his own knowledge, but on the conjectural statements of Robert Cadell, the partner of Constable and afterwards his supplanter in the publication of the Waverley Novels. This objection mainly rested on the assertion that James Ballantyne had not been trained as a printer, but it need count for little. Neither Caxton nor Chepman, nor yet Baskerville, all of them celebrated typographers, received the education of a printer; and of how many printer-capitalists of the present day can it be said that they have been subjected to the technical training of a skilled workman? This, however, may be better answered from some notes by Dr. Robert Chambers, a printer and a publisher,[43] who personally knew both Scott and the Ballantynes. He maintains that Scott watched closely over all the arrangements, was cognisant of the most minute transactions, and alone planned all the necessary ways and means for carrying on the business. He says further that “the printing business, which was James Ballantyne’s legitimate work, was always prosperous, and we can say with equal confidence from what we have ascertained through our own experience, and that of friends, that his printing-office was decidedly the most ably and carefully managed for all ends with which its customers had to do in Edinburgh.” And Mr. R. P. Gillies, in his “Recollections of Sir Walter Scott,”[44] observes regarding James Ballantyne: “A character of more sterling integrity, or more friendly disposition, never existed.