me:-:'"^ BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF r 1891 ..fi,-JXp^.L :..^^^^^^„ ^ m 3 1924 092 468 721 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092468721 THE PUBLISHING HOUSE OF BLACKWOOD Y}-}^^ i-r?5^^,^^ X^Ut^'-^O' f'// -^7^<^ ^^'-''^'^X Annals of a Publishing House WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND HIS SONS THEIE MAGAZINE AND FRIENDS BY MRS OLIPHANT Ti VOLUME I. SECOND EDITION WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCXCVII PEEFATOEY NOTE. It was a project ever present to the mind of my late uncle and partner, John Blackwood, with whom I had the pleasure and great advantage of working in the closest intimacy for over twenty years, to use the abundant records of the firm for some permanent chronicle of the earlier portion of its history. He entertained the conviction that it behoved him to pay to the memory of his father and elder brothers the tribute of putting on record the not uneventful annals of the publishing house and the ' Magazine ' which William Blackwood founded, together with some account of the brilliant band of authors and contributors whom his energy and his very genuine love of literature succeeded in rallying to his sup- port. And in addition to this natural motive, it was further my uncle's belief, and one which, as VIU PREFATORY NOTE. his successor, I am fain to share, that the history of 'Maga' and its contributors would contain much that was of Hterary value as illustrating a strangely interesting period of our literature, and in especial as furnishing some important side-lights on the progress of the periodical press. Unfortunately it was not given to the projector of this scheme to live to witness its commencement. My uncle died after materially adding to the history of the firm without having had time to superintend the chron- icling of its past. A few years ago, when I was talking with Mrs Oliphant over some new outlet for her ceaseless liter- ary activity, the happy thought struck me of asking her to carry out my uncle's idea and to become the historian of the firm in whose service she was al- ready an honoured veteran. For forty years she had worked incessantly for the ' Magazine,' intimate with its history, thoroughly imbued with aU its traditions, and very loyal to its past. Mrs Oliphant eagerly accepted the trust, entered into its fulfilment with even more than her wonted enthusiasm, and, with a pathetic prescience of what was to come, regarded the work as a fitting completion of her long and strenuous literary life. To my great sorrow, this anticipation has proved only too true, and two volumes of the history of 'William Blackwood and PREFATORY NOTE. IX his Sons/ which was all that their faithful and accomplished ally had overtaken, are now submitted to the public surrounded by the melancholy interest attaching to a posthumous work. It is proper to add that the first of the three volumes of these annals was carefully revised by Mrs Oliphant before her last illness : for any errors in the second I am responsible. To give these two volumes a certain completeness, it has seemed to me best to furnish them with an index. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. 45 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH, August 1897. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST YOLUME. CHAPTEE I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Birth and antecedents — ApprenticesMp to Messrs Bell & Bradfute — The booksellers of Edinburgh. — He is agent to Messrs MundeU in Glasgow — Introduction to his future wife — Goes to London — Three years in Cuthill's — Letter of Miss Steuart in reply to proposal — Establishment in South Bridge — Marriage — Dealer in old books — Agency of Ballantyne, afterwards of John Murray — First publication — Letter of Sir Walter Scott — Thomas M'Crie — James Hogg — Miss Ferrier ..... CHAPTEE n. THE TALES OF MT LANDLOED. Correspondence with John Murray — Byron and his publisher — Scott dines with Blackwood— ' The Siege of Corinth '—Charles Kirk- patrick Shaxpe — Letter to Southey — Negotiations with Ballantyne for publication of 'The Tales of my Landlord ' — ' The Black Dwarf' — Blackwood's criticism — Scott's rejoinder: the "Black Hussars of Literature " letter— William GifFord— Murray's letter to Scott — Friction with Ballantyne — Future editions to be pub- lished by Constable — Blackwood's regard for Scott . . 46 XU CONTENTS. CHAPTEE III. THE MAGAZINE. ' The Edinburgh Monthly Magazine ' — Incompetency and treachery of the editors^ Pringle and Cleghorn — They secede to Constable — Wilson, Lockhart, and Hogg rally round Blackwood — No more mediocrity — Blackwood becomes his own editor — Composition of the Chaldee Manuscript — The first number of 'Blackwood' — Extraordinary effect of the jeu d'esprit . . . .93 CHAPTEE IV. THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. Actions for Ubel — The Cockney School of Poetry — Leigh Hunt and HazUtt attacked — Characteristic letters from Wilson and Lockhart — Blackwood stands firm — He secures the countenance and co-operation of Scott — Letters from Scott — William Laidlaw — Scott's opinion of the Chaldee Manuscript — John Murray's notion of what a Magazine should be — Lockhart and Wilson's joint -reply to Murray — They challenge an anonymous assailant — Blackwood refuses to sell 'Don Juan' .... 129 CHAPTEE V. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. His unique personality — Early friendship with Wilson — Studies in Germany on funds furnished by Blackwood — Makes the acquain- tance of Goethe — His exertions on behalf of the Magazine — " The Scorpion which delighteth to sting the faces of men " — A very Proteus of literary capacity — His share in the 'Noctes' — First meeting with Scott — At Abbotsford — 'Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk' — The Scott -Christie duel — Accepts the editorship of the 'Quarterly Eeview' — Letters and contributions from London — Collaborates with Maginn — Last letter and contribution to 'Maga' . 180 CONTENTS. xiii CHAPTEK YI. CHRISTOPHER NORTH. A descendant of Montrose — Election to the Moral Philosophy Chair — First connection with 'Maga' — An attack on Coleridge — Charles Lloyd's unfortunate poem — A puhlisher's injured affec- tions — A sensitive critic — Onslaught on the " Man of Feeling " — The ethics of reviewing — Leigh Hunt's threatened Ubel — The publisher visits EUeray — Wordsworth assaulted in the ' Noctes ' — An indignant "Jackass" — The giant unnerved — An ample apology for a bad joke — An author's good resolutions — Senti- mental passages between the Professor and the Publisher — " Not editor but friend " — More sentiment — Mrs Hemans — Thomas Aird — Becollections of a visit to the Professor .... 254 CHAPTEE VII. THE ETTRIOK SHEPHERD. An inherent vanity — A kind patroness — "A frequent guest at his Grace's table " — An uncompromising critic — " The Tent " — Jamie Laidlaw's prayer for Cow Wat — At Abbotsford — Laidlaw, Hogg, and Scott — A unique use to make of a publisher — Writing for another Magazine — A printer's fine feelings — The mystery of the fifty poimds — Quarrels and reconciliation — 'Maga' becomes a serious periodical — A shepherd without any guile — A new way to pay old debts — Delta — "Feminine pribble-prabble" — The Shepherd's home — Mrs Hogg . . . . .317 CHAPTEE VIII. WILLIAM MAGINN. A brilUant youth — The typical Irishman — Balph Tuckett Scott — A facile contributor — An anonymous libeller — The Leslie trial — A repentant satirist of Keats — Complimented by Christopher — The publisher declines to "swallow blarney" — A criticism of 'Don Juan' — O'Doherty's first appearance in the Saloon — A joyous reception — Disturbances in Ireland — "Little Crofty" — Irish diplomacy — How the Martin libel was drowned in cham- pagne — Colbum and his ' New Monthly Magazine ' — Criticism of 'Maga 'by a candid friend — Theodore Hook— An expert's views on puffing— The Publisher's eulogy of Maginn's style — Captain Shandon — Lockhart's epitaph ..... 361 XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTEE IX. COLERIDGE DE QUINCBT. A magnanimous poet — " The scheme upon which a Magazine should be conducted"— The Editor's diplomatic reply — The Christa- belliad— Magnificent schemes of work— An alarming seizure — Coleridge's praise of De Quincey's style— A tribute to 'Maga' — "An elegiac pliisquam, sesqui sonnet to my tin shaving-pot" — The miseries of De Quincey's life — De Quincey's introduction by Christopher North — An unpunctual contributor — An unfortunate piece of humour and its result — A plausible apologist — Projects for articles- The 'Quarterly' v. 'Maga'— Domestic difiaoulties- Systematic promises never ' kept — The Publisher's respect for literature — A eulogy of Michael Scott . . . . 406 CHAPTEE X. JOHN GALT JOHK WILSON OEOKER. Gait the founder of a distinct school — His appearance hailed by the Publisher — Croker's sensible criticism — Encouraging letters — Popularity of the ' Annals ' — A humble author — The ' Last of the Lairds' — A Scottish Defoe — Momentary indignation — Life in Canada — ' Eingan Gilhaize ' — ^Fadiag health and literary powers — The ' Borough ' — A disappointed contributor — Croker criticises ' Maga ' — His eulogy of Gait — A candid friend . . . 445 CHAPTEE XL OTHER CONTRIBUTORS : EBV. DB CROLY CHAPLAIN-GENERAL GLBIG THOS. DOUBLBDAT MRS HBMANS. A publisher with open arms — ' Maga's ' crimps — Kev. Dr Croly — Uninteresting letters — ' Salathiel ' — Rev. Dr Gleig, Chaplain- General — The personality of 'Maga' — The 'Subaltern'— 'Life of the Duke of Wellington ' — Thomas Doubleday, Radical politician — The question of libels — Mrs Hemans — Miss Caroline Bowles — Alaric AttUa Watts — A chronicler of small beer — A criticism of Lamb — Advertising schemes — A literary celebrity's costly dinner — The coronation number of ' Maga ' — Murray and Benjamin Disraeli — The Abbey of Eonthill — Foundation of the 'Spectator' — Crofton Croker — Compliments from the elder D'Israeli — News- paper notes — An epitome of the course of life . . . 477 PORTRAITS. VOLUME I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD .... . Frontispiece From miniature; etched by F. Huth. VOLUME IL WILLIAM BLACKWOOD ...... Frontispiece From painting by Sir William Alla/nj etched by F. Huth. ROBERT BLACKWOOD To face p. 254 From painting by R, Scott Lauder; etched by F. Hnth. MAJOR WILLIAM BLACKWOOD .... To face p. Hi From photograph ; etched by F, Huth. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD HIS SONS. CHAPTEE I. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. BIRTH AND ANTECEDENTS— APPRENTICESHIP TO MESSRS BELL & BRADFUTB — THE BOOKSELLERS OP EDINBURGH — HE IS AGENT TO MESSRS MUNDBLL IN GLASGOW — INTRODUCTION TO HIS PUTTTRE WIFE — GOBS TO LONDON — THREE YEARS IN CUTHILL'S — LETTER OP MISS STEUART IN REPLY TO PROPOSAL — ESTABLISHMENT IN SOUTH BRIDGE — MARRIAGE — DEALER IN OLD BOOKS — AGENCY OF BALLANTYNE, AFTERWARDS OP JOHN MURRAY — FIRST PUBLICATION — LETTER OP SIR WALTER SCOTT — THOMAS m'CRIE— JAMES HOGG MISS FERRIBK. WE will not begin the history of the house of Blackwood with the " ell of genealogy " which, according to Lockhart, is appropriate to every Scots- man. Such preliminaries are unnecessary to a man who, in a better sense than that of any of the Norman invaders of whom others brag, was the father of his own fortunes. It may be almost taken for granted that every man in Scotland in the end of last century VOL. I. A 2 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. who came to any note could, if he took trouble enough, or if the Lyon Office and court of honour had been as active as it is now, have proved easily enough his own descent from, or attachment to, some rural house of great or small gentry, the vigorous and continually multiplying race which threw out offshoots in every generation, not only into the learned pro- fessions, chiefly law, and into the army, but also into the humbler medium of the trades, when the house was too full to hope for commissions and appointments enough to take them all in. The world was tolerably full then, though not so crowded as now ; and though a boy's living did not in those days hang on the un- certain chance of an examination, yet there was a limit, very quickly reached, to a country laird's means of influence and patronage. It was the hackneyed thing to say, which every noble father says accordingly to every son, in fiction and the drama, that the only profession which could be adopted by a gentleman was that of arms. If the Scots lairds were ever so foolish, which we doubt, they changed their minds when there were seven or eight Quentin Durwards to send forth into the world. Sir Walter Scott puts into the mouth of King James himself a very graphic account of this process, by which the young man put his pedigree and his blazon in his pocket, and set up his booth and sold his stuffs until the lucky day when he could cock his beaver once more with the best, and assert the old pretensions of the stock from which he came. This national tendency shows itself perhaps for the last time with bewUdering effect in the black lists of the Fifteen and the Forty-five, where a number of names, " fifth son of the laird of Drumthwacket," " seventh HIS BIRTH. 3 son of Armiger of TuUieveolan," though each but the other day a builder of houses or sawyer of wood in Edinburgh, appears suddenly as a soldier and a gentleman among the victims of the forlorn-hope. We will not attempt to dive into these depths with the usual industry of the biographer. The name of Blackwood has had considerable illustration both in the past and in our own age. From Adam the Scholar in the sixteenth century to her Majesty's late representative in France, the Marquis of Dufferin, the race, never very largely extended, has honour enough with which to plume itself The name came originally, as we are proud to think so many notable families have come, from Fife, where it flourished in earlier days near the town, once a regal seat, of Dunfermline. The particular branch from which the Edinburgh Blackwoods sprang had, in the person of a well-to-do burgess of Edinburgh, the ill-fortune, which half of Scotland shared, to be ruined by the terrible fate of the enterprise of Darien, and was thus reduced to comparative poverty. From that period the family records are vague, until the name was revived by the founder of a house which has had so much to do with the great efl3.orescence of literature in the early part of this century as to figure among the limited list, con- fined to three or four only, of the Great Publishers who have given a special development to that much- abused but often important profession. WiUiam Blackwood was born in Edinburgh on the 20th November 1776 : and the period of his youth and early manhood was thus one in which Edinburgh was at its highest glory as a centre of intellectual life and influence. Scotland then was much more widely 4 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. separated than now from the other, larger, but not more distinct capital and metropolis of the south. The University of Edinburgh flourished greatly, not perhaps as it does now, by monster classes mak- ing a Scottish chair one of the prizes in the world of learning ; but by the fame, which was European, of many of its teachers, and the large invasion of pupils of higher rank and greater pretensions than the youth of Edinburgh to partake the instructions which gave an intellectual stimulus beyond their im- mediate sphere of action to half the world. There were thus brought together many of the men who swayed and were born to sway the conquering race of the world, the united but various peoples whom it sometimes vexes our little Scotland, which has contributed so much to its force, to consent to hear identified among the heathen as " English," — a whimsical yet by no means unreal, though we fear inevitable, grievance. She has always had plenty of revenges upon the more abundant neigh- bour who, for general purposes, has swallowed up in his, like a husband with his wife, an equally dignified and considerable, if not so wealthy, name. She has never been without her large share in actuating the policy of the co-partnership ; and in those days she moulded the minds of almost all the budding states- men of the time, English as well as Scottish. Even now, when everything tends towards London, Edin- burgh preserves a very distinct stamp of her own; but in those days she was as individual and distinct as Paris or Vienna. That time has had abundant record. The great professors, the judges, the doctors, the wits and humorists of the Parliament House, and. " THE TRADE. 5 above all, the quaint and highly coloured background of the ancient ladies and gentlemen, who still lived, as their ancestors had done, in the stately houses of the Canongate, and scoffed at all the world — with tender bursts of romance, and all the tales and wonders of family history, pathetic and tragical as well as ridicu- lous, coming in between — have had such historians as few cities could emulate. To have had one such as Walter Scott himself is enough to satisfy any appetite for fame. We will not attempt to tell anything of this story, or to depict anew a region and a period which have had the full honours of portraiture from the best hands. Our sphere is a different one, not in the tall houses of Mrs Margaret Bethune Baliol and her kind, but on levels of social comfort, fresher if less picturesque, and alive with so much stir of rising activity and enterprise that they add a chapter scarcely less interesting to the animated history of so remarkable a town. Since the period when literature became a recog- nisable agent in national life, the capital of Scotland has been one of the centres from which that inner current flowed most strongly ; and the Bookseller has held an interesting place in her annals. The eigh- teenth century, in all the glory of the Augustan age, brought this profession, " the Trade " jpar excellence, into higher development : and from the days when Allan Eamsay, that brave wig-maker and poet, began the issue of brochures and ballads, which he himself produced to make the business more simple, at the shop in the High Street which is still distinguished by his name, it has become an important link be- tween the different classes, giving a common ground 6 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. of meeting to the writer and the reader, the man who had something to say and the many men who desired nothing better than to listen. He is the first we know of who made his shop an agreeable lounge for clever persons, where professors and wits and scholars from the College and Parliament House, and lairds and lords from the country, who loved a new book, might drop in to talk and turn over such new publications as found their way to the North, and where strangers belonging to what was called the Eepublic of Letters were received with en- thusiasm. The smiling master of the place was no Jacob Tonson, nor was there a Grub Street, so far as appears, in the Scots capital. On the contrary, the fashion of the time was to consider literature something too fine and sacred to be produced for money. Jeffrey himself, so much later, had an apolo- getic air when he suggested the XI a- sheet, which was a mere " acknowledgment," not to insult the divine fire by even a possibility that it could be brought down from heaven for a price. The early Edinburgh booksellers were men who themselves dabbled in that craft of which they had all the loftier opinion because of what they would have called their "trifling with the Muses." Creech and Smellie, two of the first of those booksellers, the latter a printer besides, wrote Fugitive Pieces, of the most elegant, moral, and sentimental tendency : some of which may have appeared in the 'Lounger' or ' Mirror,' two mild imitations of the ' Spectator,' under the conduct of Henry Mackenzie, the most superlative of literary leaders, of whom Edinburgh was reveren- tially proud — the Man of Feeling, as he was devoutly "WILLIAM CREECH. 7 called from his earliest production. The Man of Feeling belonged to the aristocracy of letters, Creech to the aristocracy of trade. The latter was in the Town Council, and was eagerly bent on the renova- tion and embellishment of Edinburgh. " Auld Eeekie aye he keepit tight, An' trig an' braw : But now they'll busk her like a fright — Willie's awa' ! " was the mournful prophecy of Burns as to what would happen when the genial bookseller, his crony and patron, came to the end of his career. " The brethren o' the Commerce Chaumer May mourn their loss wi' dolefu' clamour ; He was a dictionar an' grammar Amang them a' ; I fear they'll now mak' mony a stammer — "Willie's awa'." In the autobiography of Archibald Constable, Mr Creech is described as " standing on the steps that led to his shop, as was his fashion, along with a number of other gentlemen who used there daily to associate"; and he gave breakfasts at which all the literati were entertained, and still more convivial parties, at which that same Ayrshire ploughman, Robert Burns, who had so dazzled and bewildered Edinburgh, enjoyed himself more than in the draw- ing-rooms. Indeed all the booksellers were fond of entertaining, and hospitality was the order of the day. They loved above all to bring a few of the great men together, and triumph over their social superiority by something more telling and attractive still, a distinction which no territorial designation nor 8 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. any title could give, — the power of being able to com- municate a novel sensation, to read a manuscript which was a mystery, and to set a fine scene of fiction, or a masterpiece of poetry, before their guests' dazzled and delighted eyes. This was the condition of " the Trade " in Edinburgh when Archibald Constable and William Blackwood, " friends in youth," as the son of the former con- gratulates himself, though so much separated after- wards, began their career — Constable being by a few years in advance of his future rival. The first was a country lad from Fife ; but Blackwood had the advantage of being Edinburgh born, and keen to all the traditions of the historic town. His father died early, we may suppose without having had time to make much provision for his family ; but there is never any note of early want, or indeed undue pres- sure of any kind, in the history of the little house- hold, three well-trained, well-dispositioned sons living under the guardianship of their mother — which soon turned, as they grew up into manhood, into a kind and watchful care of her on the part of her boys, 'the most fitting and beautiful development of such a re- lationship. There are no details, however, of young Blackwood's education or schools in the scanty rem nants of family tradition. He began his apprentice- ship at fourteen, so that there was not much time for school-training, nor probably was it very necessary. Such a man as he was afterwards to be educates him- self unconsciously, by much reading, and that close observation unawares which furnishes the mind with- out betraying even to the possessor the origin of the stores which gather there. He was apprenticed in HIS APPRENTICESHIP. 9 1790 to a firm of booksellers, Messrs Bell & Brad- fute — whose name still remains over premises in a lower storey of one of those tallest of old houses on the rising ground between the Old Edinburgh and the New, though the original firm must long since have melted away. Their premises at first were in Parliament Square, beside the courts of law with the judges and advocates, and near the College with all its learned professors. With many of these great person- ages the boy would be familiar as they came in on their passage from the quickly growing crescents and squares of the New Town to the Parliament House and the University — to turn over the new books and discuss them, dropping at the same time many a seed of instruction, as successfully into a young mind in a bookseller's shop as into those more directly under their sway. Here the lad worked out his indentures diligently, with all the instincts of a man born to advancement, unconsciously laying by many a suggestion and ex- perience for use in his after-career — going cheerfully home at night to his mother and the society of his brothers, one older and one younger than himself. Games were not in those days what they are now. No doubt he would play golf now and then in a foursome on the Bruntsfield Links, which were then free and open ground, not restrained and limited by any girdle of villas. But even golf had not the ascendant which it holds in our days, and the boys would play only an occasional match on a Saturday afternoon or in the long hngering light of a June evening. The long strolls that young citizens love, especially those who have it in their power to lose themselves on misty 10 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. mountain slopes, or encounter the pleasing risk of a broken neck on the giant crags within reach of their homes, were a still more frequent amusement ; and the boys would roam the Pentlands over, or wonder and wander in Roslin Chapel and the leafy depths of Hawthornden, as Scott did with his companions. And they would read and read, and train themselves in some more ambitious branch of knowledge for which they had not had time at school, in the long evenings of winter under the satisfied eyes of the mother, thankful to see that her sons thought of something better than play. We hear of no heroic attempts at self- culture like that of an earlier bookseller of Edin- burgh, one of William Blackwood's predecessors, who managed to attend the lectures in the College in the intervals of his work, and of whom it is told that " the printing-office in which he served being within the precincts of the College, he generally continued at work till he heard the bell ring for lecture, when he immediately laid down his composing-stick, shifted his coat, ran off with his note-book under his arm, and returned to his work immediately after lecture." Young Blackwood, with the strong, practical good sense which distinguished him, was probably aware intuitively that doses of knowledge taken in this way, without leisure to digest and apply them, seldom came to much ; whereas sound and complete under- standing of a subject within the immediate range of life and duty was the most solid foundation upon which a man could build his life who meant to thrive and do well, and to waste none of his energies on unproductive labours. We are not told, however, how he took that turn THE BOOKSELLERS SHOP. 11 towards old books which occupied so much of the earlier portion of his life, and introduced him to many of the friends of his after-progress. Bibliomania must haye been in the air, one of the many revivals of that fertile period ; for Constable, too, a little earlier, had entered upon his very active career in the same way. The Book-hunter had arisen, a new and interesting, if rather dusty, kind of sportsman, whose fury of the chase was boundless, and led him everywhere into much more intricate recesses than those of the woods and fields. Most people of literary habits are aware what an entrancing pursuit that is, and what a bond of union it makes between persons of the most different pursuits and attainments. And while this gave an impulse towards the study of old books, the more difficult science of the new was being attained less consciously in the ordinary routine of his life. Young Blackwood had begun at a very early age to study, and compare, and learn what was really curious and valuable, keeping his eyes and his ears open to aU that was done and said by Messrs Bell & Bradfute's important customers : over which volumes the great men of the College pored, and which the general public tossed aside in their lighter examination : till he learned to know, without in the least knowing what he was learning, that astute distinction be- tween what will be popular and what will not, which he possessed so strongly in after-life, and which de- scended to his sons after him — a rare and invaluable gift. This faculty is not a thing which depends on mere literary perception and taste, for sometimes the public will prefer the best and sometimes the worst, and very frequently indeed picks up something be- 12 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. tween the two, by some fantastic rule of selection which never has been fathomed by any man but a heaven-born publisher. When the young man had become independent and at liberty to follow his own instincts, public taste was safeguarded by the un- questionable reign of Scott, which nobody could gain- say, and against which criticism was of as little avail as the spray against a rock. But the very greatness of Scott, and the romance of his sudden development and his great semi-transparent secret, produced a general vividness of expectation in the mind of the age of other triumphs that might be to come. And the gift of discernment was never more wanted than at a time when- new codes were forming, and there were audacious critics who did not fear to crack a joke upon the Man of Feeling, or even doubt the infalli- bility of Alison on Taste. As soon as he had finished his apprenticeship, which was in 1797, young Blackwood was engaged by Messrs Mundell & Co. — a publishing firm in Edinburgh, which has not attained general fame, though we hear that its after-failure created almost a panic in " the Trade," and brought down several smaller houses — as the agent and manager of a branch establishment which it proposed to set up in Glasgow. It does not seem to have attained much success in what was at that time by no means a literary city ; but one of its transac- tions is recorded, in which we should be glad to think our young agent had been directly employed. Mun- dell & Co. were the publishers who bought from Thomas Campbell the poem which first brought him into notice, the " Pleasures of Hope " — the price given, it is said, being " fifty printed copies " of the work. IN GLASGOW. 13 and no more. This, no doubt, would be considered a smart bargain in those days, when poetry was by no means a drug in the market ; but we doubt much whether any publisher nowadays would give the value of fifty printed copies for a poem on the Pleasures of any moral quality whatsoever. During young Blackwood's residence in Glasgow he is believed to have attended lectures in the College there, though without attempt- ing to graduate. The first letter of his which we have met with is one quoted by Mr Thomas Constable in his Memorials of his father, and shows how, in the midst of his other occupations, the pursuits of a book- hunter were taking a foremost place. The young man was then twenty-two. He assures his correspondent that it is no trouble, but a pleasure, " to pick up books," and sends him the following list of some of his ac- quisitions, acquired it would seem on Constable's ac- count. The date is Glasgow College, 10th September 1798, though whether this date denotes his presence there as a student, or that Messrs Mundell's ofiice was within the University precincts, we are unable to say. I have got a book very much in your way, entitled Ane Dialog betwix Experience and ane Courteour, Compylit by Schir David Lyndesay, Imprentet at the Command and Ex- pensis of Dr Machabeus in Copenhagen. At the end there is a date, 1522. It is a small quarto black-letter. It is certainly a great curiosity, and though I was not sure of its value I paid pretty high for it. You will probably know it. I have also got a copy of Nicol Burne's Disputation, Par. 1581, likewise HoUngshed's Chronicles, black-letter, fol., Lond. 1586 ; it is rather gone in the binding, and wants the last leaf of the Index, but it is otherways clean enough : say what you would give for any of these. I have also two or three other things 14 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. which I could send you at the following prices : Sir Thomas More's Works, 2 vol. fol, black-letter, fair, J. Cawood, Lond. 1557, 19s. The Works of W. Tyndal, J. Frith, and Dr Barnes, black-letter, fol., fair, John Daye, Lond. 1573, 9s. (You will see both of these in White or Egerton's last catalogues.) Home on Bleaching, 8vo, Edin. 1756, 7s. 6d. Pardovan's Collection, 8vo, Edin. 1770, 6s. 6d. Eeynolds' Triumphs of God's Eevenge against Murther, fol., Lond. 1640, 5s. 6d. ; Gildae, de excidio et conquestu Britannise, etc., epistola, 18mo, J. Daius, Lond. 1568. This, I believe, is a scarce little book, but I cannot see it in any catalogue, so I leave the price of it to yourself. This would seem to be about the beginning of his independent dealings, and the young man was no doubt picking up knowledge along with the experi- mental volumes. But they show at least how his mind and his thoughts were turning. It is curious to note the mixture of new and old, of the humbler and the more ambitious enterprises, which was so much a matter of course in those days. The book- seller of the beginning century would not seem to have been aware that the sale of old books was in any respect a less worthy work than the production of the new. He stepped from one to another with the most easy simplicity. Constable was still buying and sell- ing libraries, and undertaking their regulation and arrangement, when he began the publication of the Waverley Novels. It is a strange conjunction. William Blackwood came back to Edinburgh, after a year's absence, a fresh-coloured lively youth, twenty- two, not averse to talk, full of notions of his own as likely a lad as could be met with in the little busy world of intellectual Edinburgh, where there was a great deal of liveliness and much talk, and unusual intercourse among all classes on the subject of books. EARLY LOVE. 15 He went back at first to his old employers, and there resumed his work as before, though with his eyes intent on every opening, and ready to embrace the first that ofiered. It was probably at this period that his friendly employers, who had known him so long and found him so admirable an apprentice, gave young Blackwood an introduction which was of the deepest importance in his after-life. This was to Mrs Brad- fute, a relation of one of the firm, who had at the time a young lady resident with her for the purpose of attending classes in Edinburgh. This has always been an occupation much followed by lonely ladies in Edinburgh — there having been for many years, as there still continues to be, excellent instruction to be obtained in this way, without the confinement, and, as our forefathers thought, the doubtful asso- ciations of what was called a "boarding-school" — a place where the best that was produced was a sort of Lydia Languish, and " a boarding-school Miss," a well-known title of contempt. Miss Janet Steuart, the daughter of Mr Steuart of Carfin in Lanarkshire, was probably a young lady of higher social preten- sions than WUliam Blackwood ; but the lady to whose care she was intrusted took no heed, appa- rently, of these punctilios, and William Blackwood soon became a constant visitor and attendant. Miss Steuart must have been in her young days a stately brunette, with the abundant black hair which is so much more rare nowadays than it used to be, her somewhat dark but clear complexion tempered by blue eyes, as if she had been an Irishwoman or Spaniard, though we are not aware that there was any Milesian blood in her veins. The pair must haye 16 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. formed a pleasant contrast to each other — for William was of light complexion and lively humour; while Janet was imposing in appearance, grave and caustic in wit, not given to enthusiasm, which was to him the breath of life. There are no dates nor other particulars in the little romance : we are only told that it did happen, and the manner in which it happened, through the agency of the old lady, who found her brother-in-law's young assistant a very agreeable visitor, always ready to attend upon the ladies in the evenings, and coming in with all the news and a new book from time to time. This would naturally make the young man still more anxious to find some way of beginning for him- self and pushing his fortune. Perhaps it was his eagerness on this subject which prompted, young Blackwood's next step in life, which was the forma- tion of a partnership with a certain Robert Ross, " a bookseller and bookseller's auctioneer" — a, description which explains some of the early catalogues put forth by William Blackwood. Some of these are bound up in a volume of the more dignified and important catalogues published by Blackwood himself in later days. The books are described as to be sold at 7 o'clock P.M. for several consecutive nights ; and the sales seem to have been prefaced by some sort of feast, like the dinner which, in the higher circles of the trade, formed a preliminary to the periodical sales of "remainders" and other stock. Blackwood, how- ever, does not seem to have liked the auctioneer business, and the partnership of Ross & Blackwood lasted only one year. He acquired no doubt a little HE GOES TO LONDON. 17 additional experience by the aid of these sales, in which the country bookseller, coming up to Edinburgh to replenish his humble stock, rubbed shoulders with the book-coUector, who knew that a rare work was now and then to be acquired in this way. The miniature which forms the frontispiece of this volume, and in which our young bookseller appears in powder, with the finest of blue coats and cambric neckerchiefs, represents a personage who would have been rather out of place, we should imagine, in the atmosphere of the auction room. After this Blackwood started for London, where he went to the establishment of Mr Cuthill, "famous for his catalogues," with whom he remained for three years — making himself acquainted with all the Lon- don methods of work, and especially, no doubt, with this matter of compiling catalogues, for which already he had showed so much aptitude. Many years after- wards,, when his own position and fortunes were assured, he sent his eldest son to go through all the drudg- ery of a clerk in a London bookseller's business, which proves that he thought himself to have profited by it. There is httle information to be gleaned about Cuthill. If he taught his pupil anything, it was probably the art of cataloguing, which in its turn led the young man's thoughts back again to his old fancy for that class of literature concerning which catalogues are most interesting — the old books which are loved not by conamon readers, but by men of peculiar tastes and more recondite studies, among whom the young man was eager to find a footing. He had dreams already of publishing, of finding some man of great VOL. I. B 18 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. genius to attach himself to, and of making the welkin ring again with the name of Blackwood, then so humble and little known. We do not know if his private affairs had at this point reached to an acute stage hurrying a decision, or if he found that he had as much of Cuthill and the other methods of London as would serve his purpose. At all events in 1804, he returned definitely to Edin- burgh, and launched himself upon the world in an independent establishment on the South Bridge, which had the advantage of being exactly opposite the College — the best position possible for the sale of old books as well as of new. In this place Blackwood remained for a number of years. He not only sold old books but bought them, and undertook commis- sions to arrange and classify and value gentlemen's libraries. Constable had begun in a similar way not many years before. It seems to have been one of the shortest cuts to fortune. The book-hunters had sud- denly developed in English and Scottish circles, often in the most unlikely places, hungry for their prey. Heber was prowling about Edinburgh in every place that promised discovery of a forgotten volume ; and Dibdin in England was busy with his work on the pur- chase of old books and their value and classification. While these changes were going on Blackwood had attained the age of twenty-eight, and would seem to have also risen to such modest prosperity in his busi- ness as made marriage possible. And in the begin- ning of 1805 he seems to have found an opportunity of offering his hand and his rising fortunes to the young lady who had secured his early admiration. The letter in which she replied to his proposal has MISS STEUARTS LETTER. 19 happily been found among the masses of old letters put into my hands, and its old-fashioned dignity is "weU worthy of quotation : — AprU 12, 1805. Sir, — Yours of the 2d inst. I only received on Monday, and return you many thanks for your kind inquiries after my Father, who I am happy to say continues to get better, which affords me much pleasure. I certainly have thought of what passed between us when I saw you last, and your candour de- mands mine in return. I therefore frankly acknowledge I am disposed to think favourably of your proposal, but it must rest upon a better acquaintance. We know too little of each other to enter into any engagement. I am much afraid you have in a great measure formed your opinion of me from Mrs Bradfute, whose good wishes I know I am so happy as to enjoy, and whose friendship I highly esteem. I could not bring my mind to write to you without telling my brother, who told me he could give me no advice, knowing nothing of you ; but to act with candour if I thought you had done so to me, and to let nothing but my own comfort direct my choice. — I remain your most ob., Janet Steuart. This moderate encouragement had no doubt been followed by opportunities for the " better acquaint- ance" which Miss Steuart prudently desired; for in October of the same year the pair were married. Mrs Blackwood was brought home to her own house on her wedding-day in a postchaise, the bridal pair being accompanied, as was the remarkable fashion of the time, by the bridesmaid her sister, and the best man. The house was an ordinary one in an Edinburgh street on " the South-side " ; but within a year the young couple removed to a house of their own in one of the leafy roads of Newington, with a wide view from the windows over the fair surrounding country. 20 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. a pleasant garden, and those large rooms and airy- passages which are the charm of Edinburgh houses. This dwelling, their first possession, in which the Blackwoods settled before the birth of their first child, was large enough to receive and contain the numerous family of boys and girls who made haste to follow. The pleasantness of that home is proved with a very- tender pathos by the many pilgrimages made to it still (1895) by the last survivor,^ Miss Isabella Blackwood, to whom the image of " my Father " still seems to smile benignant over the mists of eighty years. To this house very shortly after there came another inmate in Mrs Blackwood's sister. Miss Elizabeth Steuart, between whom and the young wife there existed one of those lifelong unions which are often almost the closest of any ties. She was, like her sister, a woman of somewhat severe and caustic wit, a bustling housewife, a keen critic, always ready with the sharp edge of an uncompromising opinion or the pungent wisdom of an old Scots proverb : but, under this veil of strong character and perfect independence of mind, possessed of an absolute devotion to the family which she had thus adopted and made her own. None of the disadvantages which sometimes accompany the presence of such a domestic spectator seem to have existed in her case, though she always spoke her mind freely, and was no ministering angel 1 Since the above sentence was written Miss Isabella Blackwood has ended her long life, to the heartfelt regret of the present writer, who had hoped to present to so old a friend, and one from whom so much informa- tion was derived, this record of those most dear to her. No one more faithful to her family or more concerned for its credit and reputation ever lived, and the scenes and surroundings of her youth were always nearer to her heart than anything else in life. HIS MAEEIAGE. 21 in the sentimental sense of the word, but a stout- hearted and sagacious old Scots gentlewoman, given, as they aU were, to strong statements of the right and wrong of every question. TUl their latest day the Blackwoods always quoted " my aunt " with the respect due to a domestic oracle, if with something also of that affectionate banter which is so often appropriate to the best-beloved member of the band of household potentates. The family opinion of the qualities of the young wife are expressed with great propriety by Mrs Steuart of Overton, an aunt, whose letter would seem to have followed them on their journey home, thanking the bride for her " kind remembrance," which would seem to have taken the form of wedding- cake and gloves, a gift which it was the Scots custom at a marriage to send to all friends. I think your prospect of happiness is fair [says this lady with caution], and I fondly hope your affections as a Wife will not fall short of those as a Daughter, in which case your better- half will have reason to congratulate himself on making such a choice. Do write me soon and give me all the news. You know what a treat even a little bit of scandal is, in a long winter night. This letter is addressed to Mrs W. Blackwood " with a cheese," which no doubt — " a specimen of my dairy " — was her wedding present to the young minage. Another Mrs Steuart, the sister-in-law of Mrs Blackwood, sends a year later with some humour her kind messages on the first great event which took place in the Newington house, the birth of Alexander Blackwood, the first of the family. Mrs Steuart writes congratulating her sister-in-law, or rather her 22 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. sister-in-law's husband, on this auspicious event, " which gives us much genuine satisfaction." " Say to her from me," continues this experienced lady, " that by this time I daresay she agrees in my Opinion that that business is no Joke." She adds a very pretty expression of feeling which shows how mutually serviceable to each other were the different branches of the family : — I can make every allowance, my dear Sir, for your silence, and I am happy to hear how throng [busy] you are — nothing like a man in business being compleatly occupied ; long may it continue so. I have got a full and particular account of my youngsters. I want words to express how much I am oblidged by your Fatherly care of our Children, and if any of them dis- obey you they will lose my favour ; also, your Brother Mr Thomas, who, I understand, makes them read on Sunday nights : it is a friendly of&ce, my dear Sir, to imbibe in the young mind a sense of Keligion and Duty — and a consciousness of so doing is a noble reward to a good heart. On this pleasant picture of the pleasant house and all the many ties that were gathering about the new family it is agreeable to pause, before plunging into those records of business which became more compli- cated and more important day by day. There is every proof of the success of that business, and of the pros- perous development of its centre on the South Bridge, where the young master was, as Mrs Steuart and we are glad to hear, so throng. In this quiet period William Blackwood was making for himself many friends, and gaining recognition everywhere as a safe and steady man of business, not given to flights of fancy, but full of enthusiasm for literature — which is a thing we are but little accustomed to look for nowa- EARLY FAMILY LIFE. 23 days in the new members of " the Trade" — and with a distinct opinion and judgment of his own : while his family life continued full of sunshine and a benignant atmosphere of kindness. He showed himself, as we have seen, from the beginning, the most genial mem- ber of his wife's family. He was fatherly to the Carfin children sent in to Edinburgh for their education, and the kindest of brothers to the lady who, for all the rest of her life, formed part of his household. His own mother lived for many years after his' marriage, and those of her other sons — in serene old age, in a smaller house than that which she had occupied in that heyday of a mother's life when her sons were still under her wing : but still gathering her children and her children's children round her on all the anni- versaries, and presiding in her retirement over the general family life in a way most satisfactory to human sentiment. Her son William never failed day by day to pause at his mother's door as he went to and returned from his business, bringing her the news, consulting her on all that occurred, filling the mono- tony of the days of old age with a constant thread of happy anticipation, and pleasant moments of confiden- tial talk. It is impossible to imagine a more perfect exemplification of the kind natural round of duty and family affection, no one left out, no sense of neglect possible to even the most retired member of the family. From her favourite seat in the window of her parlour, chosen for that reason, the old lady could see her William's children coming and going to their first school ; and morning and evening watched for her son's footsteps, secure that, however throng he might be, these visits were the last things which he would 24 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. neglect. This was the cheerful background of his life for many years. Meantime an increasing number of book-hunters and others gathered round the young bookseller. And there began to be visitors whose names are enough to stir our hearts, Walter Scott chief among them : and visions of better things to come irradi- ated the dustiness of the old books, suggesting fresh new ones, damp and delightful, from the press, and fortune and reputation within reach (almost) of the young man's eager hand. We hear of no special difficulty, however, or struggle in the career of one who established himself so early in all the responsi- bilities of life, and who seems to have been so completely independent without the aid of patron- age or connection. There was from the beginning plenty, and a liberal provision for all wants, in the young household in Salisbury Road ; but the progress of business was quiet, and there was no rush for success nor any sensational strain at a new chance, until the steady advancement culminated in a crisis of which William Blackwood was prepared and ready to take advantage. There were rivals in the same field a step before him in the race, and straining every nerve to keep that place, especially in respect to London agencies and other external signs of prosperity. They were aU somewhat rash in the rush of new energy which had revolutionised " the Trade," bold in their ventures, and entertaining a faith in literature which has been much subdued, we fear, since then, or at least turned into very different channels. It was the moment of a wonderful new flood of genius over the THE STATE OE LITERATURE. 25 face of the country, and this had been accompanied by a generation of booksellers, scarcely accustomed as yet to the larger name of publisher, and not quite certain of the powers of that Pegasus which they were eagerly endeavouring on all sides to yoke to their private chariots. But they overvalued rather than undervalued his powers. The Ballantynes, who have a fictitious importance through their connection with Scott, and Constable, who has left autobio- graphical notes of his own progress, throw much light upon the eagerness with which their eyes were directed to everybody who showed any signs of literary merit. Such a discovery as Scott, such an adventure as the ' Edinburgh Review,' disclosing in the heart of the small capital a very nest of men capable of entertain- ing and dazzling the whole world, went a little to the heads of these new men in the new business which for the moment seemed about to take its place at the top of all commercial affairs. It is a common belief in the literary world that publishers are the most grasping of middlemen, eager only to have the lion's share of the profits. But in those days there was a certain spirit of daring and romance in " the Trade." The Revival of Literature was like the opening of a new mine : it was more than that, a sort of manufactory out of nothing, to which there seemed no limit. You had but to set a man of genius spinning at that shining thread which came from nowhere, which required no purchase of materials or "plant" of machinery, and your fortune was made. We remember that, later. Constable went gravely to the Bank of England to negotiate a loan upon the sole security of the unwritten books to be drawn from the 26 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. brain of the author of ' Waverley.' This confidence had seemed justified by long experience, and it was the very breath of the eager booksellers, on tiptoe to find in the first young gentleman who came into their shop with a manuscript in his pocket another Scott, or perhaps a Byron, ready to take the world by storm. " Abandoning the old timid and grudging system, he stood out as the general patron and payer of all pro- mising publications, and confounded not only his rivals in trade but his very authors by his unheard-of prices, ' says Lord Cockburn, speaking of Constable, " Ten, even twenty guineas a-sheet for a review, £2000 or £3000 for a single poem, and £1000 for two philo- sophical dissertations, drew authors out of their dens, and made Edinburgh a literary mart famous with strangers, and the pride of its own citizens." It was in one great case a sort of madness while it lasted, and brought its natural catastrophe : but the result in others was much prosperity and success, and in the first stage it stimulated every brain, and half con- vinced the world that Poetry, Romance, Philosophy, and even Criticism, were the first crafts and the most profitable in the world. Of all the young booksellers who thus set out almost at the same moment, 1808, to benefit their country and develop literature, — among whom might also be reckoned the new firm of John Ballantyne & Co., a short-lived competitor, though its possession of the favour of Scott and a large stock of unsaleable books made it for as long as it lasted a stumbling- block in everybody's way, — Blackwood was the only man who may be said permanently to have mastered fortune. He was rash like the others, but not so HIS CATALOGUE. 27 rash ; and though the romance and excitement of literary assault and attack mounted also for a moment to his brain, it was but as a temporary ebullition. There is no trace of anything of the kind in the calm days of the beginning century. Perhaps, though it seems a strange thing to say, the fact that he did not succeed in establishing that connection with Scott which was the aim of every man's ambition at the time, and which, had he succeeded, we cannot but feel might have saved Scott from much of the tragedy of his life — had also much to do with the steadiness of Blackwood's brain and fortunes. For Scott was a discomposing influence in his very greatness and nat- urakiess, bringing with him to others a sort of moral vertigo from the very steadiness of his own mind. A man to whom nothing is impossible, who only buckles to his work more bravely when it is most crushing, and does not know what it is to fail in courage or in strength, is apt to demoralise all about him. However, aU high-flying enterprises were still far off at the time when the South Bridge was the centre of Blackwood's life and fortunes. One of his first pub- lications was one of which he was also the author — a catalogue of his own books, amounting to more than fifteen thousand volumes, so admirably executed that it attracted immediate attention, and brought him not only orders but the most friendly letters, from all sides. It shows that his knowledge of old books must have been very considerable, and afforded in its succinct descriptions and note of prices an ad- mirable guide to the book-coUector. From this point of view it was received with much interest by the many well-known people to whom he seems to have 28 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. sent it, on its issue. Among the correspondents who spring into sight around him after this publication, all anxious to have some book or other from his stores, some of them enclosing long lists, there are one or two whose names have still power to touch the reader. From their letters we may quote one from Sir Walter Scott, charming in its pleasant gleam of character. He ought not to indulge in books, the great Magician knows — but still Abbotsford, 2lst May 1812. Dear Sik, — I am greatly obliged to you for your attention in forwarding your curious and interesting catalogue. I am here ruining myself with plumbing and building, so that adding to my library is in fact burning the candle at both ends. But I am somewhat comforted by observing that the increased value of books has very nearly doubled the prime cost of my little col- lection, and proved me a wise man when I had much reason to account myself a fool. I therefore subjoin an order for some articles, to which I may probably make additions on coming to Edinburgh ; for few people except princes can afford to marry or buy books without making their own eyes the arbiters of the bargain. — I am, with best thanks for your attention, dear sir, yours very faithfully, Waltee Scott. It is evident from this that Sir Walter was already on terms of some acquaintance with the active book- seller. The list of books — I do not remember that there are any of special interest — is written at the back of the letter, which is thus inscribed : " Given under my hand this day of my flitting from Ashestiel " — a historical note which goes to one's heart. He must have paused to write it, his heart all aglow with the pleasure of that entry into Abbotsford which he was about to make — Abbotsford, where all was to come to an end. DIBDIN. 29 Another letter in the same collection is from the well-known bibliographer, Dibdin, who also " encloses a list of some articles which I hope I shall be fortu- nate enough to obtain from your collection," and inquires anxiously which will be the safest and most reasonable method of conveyance. "I suppose the Waggon," says the careful book -lover, unwilling to trust his precious books to the mercies of the Smack. " I have just received your catalogue," he says, " and without compliment it does you great credit — an immense collection ! " though he regrets that the Miscellanea are so highly priced ; then having done justice to his correspondent's business, he introduces his own : — I enclose you a prospectus of the sumptuous and truly valuable work on which I am now engaged — the subscriptions to which fill rapidly. All the 1. c. are bespoken ; and when I inform you that the Bibliomania — of which 750 copies were printed — has been out of print this month (never to be re- printed), you wUl allow I am neither sanguine nor precipitate when I conclude that the present work, of which a much smaller impression will be published, will have a similar fate within the same period. You may procure me subscribers if you feel no disposition to embark in it yourself. To you each copy will be £3, 18s. 6d. On the same subject Mr John Murray writes the first letter I have found from him. May 1812 : "Your Catalogue I hear incessantly praised by Heber as the head of many others ; it does great credit to you in many respects. I am just going to the Duke of Rox- burghe's to see his Boccaccio sold ; a thousand, fifteen hundred, and even two thousand guineas are spoken of" Thus it is evident that in the midst of their large new transactions they all took an interest in 30 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. old books, a fine taste we fear scarcely shared by the profession now. The Duke of Roxburghe was a great book-coUector, and had been Constable's special patron when he too was a dealer in old books. We are told by another authority that Blackwood's catalogue was the first in which the books were classified, and that it continues to be an authority in the present day. The first event, however, of radical importance in Blackwood's life was his appointment as the agent of John Murray, not then of Albemarle Street, the great London publisher, whose alliance all the Edin- burgh publishers sought, and who had tantalised one firm after another by the temporary possession of his confidence. His first connection had been with Constable, whose London agent he was ; but this connection being broken, the Ballantynes, who had succeeded to his favour, disgusted the great London potentate by their disorderly ways, to which, with his more prudent standards and sense of the dignity of his own position as a sort of Metropolitan and High Priest of the Trade, he objected strongly. They drew bills upon him which Murray coldly returned, with a statement that he never did business in that way, and a few words about the imprudence of going beyond their capital. The Ballantynes in revenge did not offer Murray a share in the ' Lady of the Lake ' when they published that poem, and this greatly stung and mortified the London publisher : — You cannot suppose that my estimation of Mr Scott's genius can have rendered me indifferent to my exclusion from a share in the ' Lady of the Lake ' ? [he says with much indignation.] I mention this [he adds], as well to testify that I am not in- different to this conduct in you as to point it out to you that "able to theow a book or two in one's way." 31 if you mean to withhold from me that portion which you com- mand of the advantages of our connection, you must surely mean to resign any that might arise from me. The sole agency for my publications in Edinburgh is worth, to any man who understands his business, £300 ; but this requires zealous ac- tivity and deference on one side, and great confidence on both, otherwise the connection cannot be advantageous or satisfactory to either party. Having thus shaken off the Ballantynes, who were too hungry for money and bills to escape for long the grave disapproval of so serious and prudent a man of business, Mr Murray transferred his connection to Blackwood, then rising into note. Though he was no longer connected with Constable in business, Mr Murray was still on sufficiently confidential terms with his house to consult him on the subject of his new alliance. His letter is dated the 25th September 1811, and is the first distinct statement we have of the increasing value of Mr Blackwood's business and connection : — I wish you would do me the favour to say if you think I have done well in inclining to Blackwood's proposal to be my agent. He does now and then get a book or two to throw in one's way ; but really no other person does except your house, which gets all the rest. We should have had everything and done everything if it had not been for our unfortunate misunder- standing. If already the young publisher was sufiiciently established to be able to throw a book or two in the way of the cautious and careful London publisher, it proves that the progress he had made was very considerable indeed, and upon this ground of mutual support and backing up their connection began. The 32 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. relations of the publishers of that period, taking share in each other's enterprises, and setting their hopes of fortune on the same touch of good or evil chance, were very close ones, and perhaps, like blood-relation- ship, less conducive to peace than the more indepen- dent inter-position of men standing each on his own ground ; but the intercourse between these new associates was for some time most cordial and friendly. Murray hastened to communicate to Blackwood the wonderful terms upon which he stood with Byron, who was the great glory of London, as Scott was of Edinburgh ; and when Blackwood in his turn had the triumph of securing, if but tempo- rarily, the author of ' Waverley,' he made a point of procuring for his correspondent a share in that much- coveted honour. The curious intrigues, conspiracies, checks and counter-checks of these changing com- binations of publishers, scarcely as yet assuming that name — for they all call themselves booksellers — may be perceived in the records of the Murrays and the Constables, already published. There can be no doubt that the politics of the ' Edinburgh Re- view,' for instance, were obnoxious to many of its readers and even to some of its writers, and that Murray had long contemplated the establishment of a rival Review. But it was the fact that the ' Edinburgh,' having been confided to him as its London publisher, was then summarily taken out of his hands by the establishment by the Constables of a branch of their business in London, which sharply decided him to lose no time in setting up that other a periodical very anxiously and carefully ushered into the world, but which did not command the sudden M'CEIE's 'life of KNOX.' 33 and brilliant success of its predecessor, though brought into being with much more care, capital, and foresight, and possessing writers quite as distinguished as those of the rival camp. Murray was a very steady fighter, very solid and immovable, standing like a tower ; but he had nothing in him of the dare-devil, the reck- less and dauntless spirit which at that period of literary history certainly seems to have suited the existing state of affairs better than the most care- fully laid plans. The ' Edinburgh ' had started gaily, taking all the risks with a temerity almost culpable ; and so did the Magazine, of which Mr Blackwood had scarcely as yet begun to think. They were both Berserkers, wild riders of the North, incautious, dar- ing, irresponsible : the ' Quarterly,' on the other hand, was respectable — if not always in utterance, at least in methods — ffom the beginning of its days, and ob- served all the rules of success ; but did not, I think, make any commotion to speak of, even in an eagerly expectant world. By this time our young bookseller had already begun to publish cautiously on his own account, the most conspicuous of his early publications being the ' Life of John Knox,' by the Rev. Thomas M'Crie, — a work which made much commotion in its day, and was one of the first of the publications of a new historical school, more pious, more reverential, less elegant and classical, than the works of Robertson and Blair; and starting from an altogether different point of view from that which regarded Queen Mary as a wronged heroine, and the Reformer as a fierce fanatic. M'Crie was a Scottish Dissenting minister, one of the Auld Licht upon which Burns was so VOL. I. c 34 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. severe, and which recent Scots romancists have en- deavoured to raise once more to popularity and the honours of the picturesque. No romance, however, was in the work of the new historian, which it is said was suggested by his own careful researches into the early history of the Scots Church, undertaken rather by way of clearing up the many schisms and divisions in his own primitive branch than with any greater aim. It was the first attempt to pre- sent Knox in the light of a statesman as well as a divine, and to estimate justly (if too favourably) his real influence upon Scotland. It was an important publication to be the first of the new publisher's undertakings, but it was one worthy of the zeal and enthusiasm with which he threw himself into literature. His eagerness to secure distinction for the authors with whom he was connected comes very clearly out in a correspondence which I find between Mr Blackwood and Dr Lee, afterwards Principal of Edinburgh University, but then occupying the same position in St Andrews, on the subject of an honorary degree for Mr M'Crie, which seemed to Blackwood the most flattering reward that could be obtained for the still young author, — who was not, however, it appears, of the same opinion, for there is an amusing letter of oifended dignity from M'Crie, refusing the honour to which he had no right, in the true spirit of the Anti-Burgher. The first of the band which was so soon to surround Blackwood and carry him into the greater tides of life, appears among the earliest of his connections. " The Ettrick boar," he writes to Murray in September 1814, "unfortunately left Edinburgh the day I ar- JAMES HOGG. 35 rived." James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, had already published a volume of poetry, and had been heard of even in London. This son of the soil has had a curious fortune. He possessed a spark of un- deniable genius ; and certainly he had a distinct tune and melody of his own among the poetical pipings of the fields. But it feU to his lot to be caught up from the borders of his forest into the company of a number of men much more brilliant than himself — men who, without possessing his special quality, were in all ways more able, more capable, of higher intellect and infinitely higher training than he. The Shepherd never was in the least the half-inspired delightful talker which he appears in the ' Noctes ' : but he was a poet in his way, an echo of the inspiration of Burns, " trailing clouds of glory " from the inheritance of that one great Peasant-Poet, who seemed in those days to make it more possible to find poets among peasants than in any other class. The Shepherd is the first of the men with whom he had in future so much to do, who came visibly into William Blackwood's life. The beginning of what turned out to be a very long correspondence refers to the publication of 'The Queen's Wake,' and is addressed to Blackwood not as publisher, but as trustee or executor of a certain Mr Goldie, a minor publisher, who had died before the book could be brought out. Hogg suggests that half of the printed copies should be made over to him on condition that he should pay for paper and print ing. This no doubt was his simple way of interpret- ing an agreement for half profits. " I am suffering," he says, "a double injury by having my principal work thus locked up from the public, it never having 36 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. been regularly published." There is a balance-sheet of the transaction between Goldie and Hogg enclosed with these old letters — by which it appears that Hogg received for the slim volume of poetry no less a sum than £245, a reward which a minor poet in our own day would certainly think no unsubstantial one. It was not, however, until the year 1816 that Blackwood came out prominently in literary his- tory, through the means of a remarkable and tan- talising incident, which we shall fully relate in the following chapter, as it is one of which the right par- ticulars have never been known, — the transaction by which he became for a moment the publisher of Scott, with intoxicating hopes of a transference to himself of the position previously secured by Constable — and the distinction of seeing his name on the title-page of the Waverley Novels, the thing most coveted by every publisher existing. In the meantime he had changed his establishment from the South Bridge to 17 Princes Street, an address soon made memorable as the head- quarters of a literary group unequalled in Edinburgh or within the limits of Great Britain. He was now not the agent of Murray only, but also of Messrs CadeU & Davies, in London, and had shaken from his fingers for ever the dusty traces of the old books. As the remarkable literary incident to which we have referred is too long to come in at the end of a chapter, we may here place, though it is in some degree antici- pating our story, the account of one of those dis- coveries which publishers still are proud to make, and which brought a new novelist, who has proved a per- manent distinction to her age and country, before the world. MISS FEREIEE. 37 It seems a little doubtful, from the tenor of his first letter, whether he was aware who the writer was that had sent him, as appears, a portion only of the MS. to which it refers ; but it is plain that he had already acquired not only the gift of letter-writing, in which the house of Blackwood has always been strong, but much of that wise literary discrimination in which his descendants have rarely failed. There is a tone in this communication which will tantalise the literary aspirant of the present day with visions of what once were — though we believe only in occasional cases — the accents in which a publisher addressed an author. It is dated the 6th May 1817 :— Mr Blackwood now returns to the author the enclosed manu- script, which he has perused oftener than once with the highest delight. He feels not a little proud that such a writer should express a wish to receive any suggestions from him. The whole construction and execution of the work appear to him so admir- able that it would almost be presumption in any one to ofiPer corrections to such a writer. Mr B. begs to assure the author that unmeaning compliment is the furthest from his thoughts, and he flatters himself that at no distant period he will have the high delight of assuring the writer in person of the heartfelt sincerity of the opinion he has ventured to offer. Mr B. will not allow himself to think for one moment that there can be any uncertainty as to the work being completed. Not to mention his own deep disappointment, Mr B. would almost consider it a crime if a work possessing so much interest and instruction were not given to the world. The author is the only critic of whom Mr B. is afraid, and after what he has said he anxiously hopes that this Censor of the Press will speedily affix the imprimatur." These words were addressed (though the writer as yet probably did not know it) to Miss Susan Ferrier, a lady fuU of wit and sense, in Scott's very circle, and well known as a delightful person to meet, though no 38 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. one had thought of attributing authorship to a lady in society, considered in those days to be protected, and superior to any wish of entering the arena of letters — or, indeed, any other. We may well imagine that there was no restraining the new author after this enthusiastic opinion, which was no " unmeaning com- pliment," and that the half-completed story was carried on with energy and satisfaction. About three weeks later it would appear that a second portion of the tale had been forwarded to him, and Mr Blackwood writes again : — 30th May 1817. Mr Blackwood embraces the opportunity of returning the MS. to offer his warmest thanks to the author for the high enjoyment he has received from it. It is unnecessary for him to repeat how much he is flattered by his observations being considered as at all worthy of notice by one who is so far above his feeble praise, and who stands so little in need of criticism. Mr B. cannot forbear remarking how admirably the cold and selfish character of Lady Juliana continues to be sustained, as well as the fine contrast afforded by the sensitive and feeling heart of her devoted daughter. Every one has felt in youth the glow of enthusiasm so well portrayed in Mary ; and any one who has ever associated with the English of a certain class will at once recognise in Dr Eedgill the living portrait of hun- dreds, though never before hit off so well. The first paragraph of the second chapter is alike remarkable for its truth, brevity, and neatness. Mr B. hopes he will be excused for making these observations, which he has been tempted to make from the por- tion he now has before him being so small. If he had attempted to say what he felt on perusing the former part of the work, he fears he would have said too much for the author's patience, and at the same time would not have been able to do justice to his own feelings. He anxiously hopes that the author will not lag, but finish the work with all convenient speed. When it suits the author's conveniency Mr B. need not add how happy he would be to receive either a large or small portion of the MS. "quite in the right spirit." 39 The next letter of the series is written in the first person, and shows that the veil had been removed, and that Blackwood was now aware who his corre- spondent was. His admiration goes on increasing, and his desire — for which he is " quite impatient " — to " have it in my power to let others enjoy what I have enjoyed so much myself" "You are quite in the right spirit at present," he says ; " I entreat you to go on, and to have no advisers but your own heart and feelings." There is in some of these remarks a curious resemblance to the style in which his son, fifty years after, executed the office of the genial critic and encoiu-aging friend. "You are quite in the right spirit," dans une bonne voie, as the French painters say. Those of us, and the number is fast decreasing, to whom John Blackwood wrote on similar subjects in the fifties and sixties, will recognise with a smile and a sigh the accents of the son in those of the father. ' Marriage ' was published in the beginning of the next year. I am almost sorry [Blackwood writes], when I ought to be glad, now that I send you the end. I have had more enjoy- ment and pleasure in the progress of your work for the last twelve months than I have ever had in any that have passed through my hands. I am now as impatient to have it fairly afloat as I was to have it concluded, being confident that there will only be one opinion of its merits. The copyright of the book, or rather I think of the first edition, would seem to have been bought for £150 — which was a very reasonable price for the new work of an unknown writer, of which the publisher had good hopes. 40 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. He was already established in Princes Street, in premises more adapted to his rising fortunes, when these negotiations were going on. The old books dropped out, the bookselling altogether became but an unimportant adjunct to his business, which was now plainly that of a publisher, and the establishing of his career in the lines which it was to follow till the termination of his life was now complete. And his household was flourishing and multiplying year by year. Already the eldest son Alexander was suffici- ently grown to be sent, no doubt a proud messenger, riding into town upon his pony in the freedom of the holidays from the house in Newington, or more pro- bably from the more important dwelling in the coun- try, to which the family had already begun to migrate for the summer months. " He will ride out again with the sheet completed if you give him the manu- script. Do not mind my sending him out again, for I can perfectly spare him," writes the father, no doubt proud of the publisher in bud, on his pony in his holi- day time, making acquaintance with the new author. The sons who were to carry on the work, so many of them in succession, were thus brought in early to lend an ornamental aid, and to cultivate that personal pride and glory in the work, as of a profession intermediary between the immortals and the ordinary world, which distinguished them all in later life. That Blackwood very early showed the true dis- crimination of a literary critic is evident from an accidental letter to Miss Ferrier on the subject of another novel, evidently sent to him through her hands, his tone in respect to which is most flatter- ingly different from that which he used in speaking A SCOTS GENTLEWOMAN. 41 of her own performance. He approved on the whole, and had " formed a high opinion of the talent dis- played in it," and, " commercially speaking, I should be happy to publish the work." At the same time [he adds], I hope the author will pardon me for the liberty I take in hinting that I feel confident she could very greatly improve the first volume, so as, in my humble opinion, to make it more acceptable to British readers — who are not accustomed to a husband knocking down his wife, nor yet to some other traits of Continental manners. That novel has gone the way of all novels : it was one of Lady Charlotte Bury's, and probably no one living knows whether she took the advice of her judicious publisher or not ; but the letter transports us whimsically back to the period in which " Con- tinental manners" were credited with all kinds of atrocity, and only a chance traveller here and there had brought any knowledge of the dark countries long shut up by the wars, and naturally believed to be the home of every cruelty. "We fear that, in respect to the knocking down of wives, at least, the associa- tion nowadays is anything but Continental. Perhaps it may be well here, and more convenient to the reader as enabling him to keep the thread of the different interests and personages who cross this busy scene, to anticipate a few years of Mr Blackwood's career, and trace out his connection with Miss Ferrier to its conclusion. Everybody now knows something of the witty and delightful " sister shadow " to whom Sir Walter paid so beautiful a tribute. She came from the same original, genial, sagacious, and humor- ous race, that strata of Scottish gentry deposited in Edinburgh, and owing, perhaps, some readiness and 42 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. flow of social gifts to the associations of the northern capital, and the constant intercourse and sharpening of its wits — which produced Sir Walter himself, and was his sister spirit in more than writing. She was afterwards connected with the circle of wits who in- spired the Magazine through her nephew, J. F. Terrier, the well-known metaphysician, and his witty wife, the daughter of Professor Wilson : but these were all "unborn faces" at the time of Susan Ferrier's liter- ary beginning. There was as yet no Magazine ; and Wilson was an unknown young university man, known at least only for athletic feats, and an inclination to- wards poetry of the sentimental kind. ' Marriage ' came out of the cheerful and critical centre of Edin- burgh society, as ' Sense and Sensibility ' came from the serene levels of English country life, with no warning, floating upwards like the tiny balloons which were one of the wonders of that day, carrying each the little circle of a new undiscovered world to the bigger universe around. Miss Ferrier was as Scotch as Miss Austen was English ; but the Edinburgh lady had not that fine and pointed cynicism with which her contemporary touched the lines of the minute all-em- bracing picture. There was much fine sentiment and ideal portraiture mingled with the broader humour and larger laugh of the Scot, and perhaps her super- fine Marys and Gertrudes took away a little of the unmingled effect of the other ; though Miss Girzy, on the other hand, is as amusing as Miss Bates, although she has a much sweeter attraction. The two writers may, however, be now said to occupy a very similar level, and there are very few names which can be placed beside them. We feel disposed to believe SCOTT S OPINIONS. 43 that part of the divine element which had gone to the making of Scott, heing left over, had framed these other secondary yet not inferior souls. It was Mr Blackwood, ever thoughtful of giving pleasure to his friends, who sent to Miss Ferrier " the concluding sentence of the new ' Tales of my Landlord,' which are to be published to-morrow." This consisted, if the reader perchance may have forgotten, of the following words : — " If the present author, himself a phantom, may be permitted to distinguish a brother or perhaps a sister shadow, he would mention in particular the author of the very lively work entitled ' Marriage.' " "After this," says the publisher, " surely you will be no longer silent. If the great Magician does not conquer you, I shall give up all hopes." Up to this time, it is evident, Miss Ferrier, like her contempor- ary. Miss Austen, shrank with a horrified femininity, which it is amusing to see nowadays, from any be- trayal of identity. Her packets of proof are directed on one occasion under cover to a friend, as if they had been clandestine love-letters. " There are none of my people who wiU suppose anything whatever," says the publisher demurely. We are not informed whether the great Magician overcame these scruples — but there are some delightful letters from Blackwood to Miss Ferrier, dated in the year 1824, touching another of her novels, which I must be allowed to quote. The first has been published before in an article upon Miss Ferrier in the 'Temple Bar Magazine.' The last, I believe, is quite new to the public : — On Wednesday I dined in company with Sir Walter Scott, •and he spoke of the work [' The Inheritance '] in the very high- 44 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. est terms. I don't always set the highest value on the Baronet's favourable opinion of a book, because he has so much kindness of feeling towards every one; but in this case he spoke so much con amove, and entered so completely and at such length into the spirit of the book, and of the characters, as showed me at once the impression it had made on him. Every one I have seen who has read the book gives the same praise to it. On another occasion he has been urging the writer to go on with and finish her next novel, " having full confidence in your own power." "You are in such a vein for it just now," says the genial publisher, " that I hope you have been able to shut yourself up to-day, and not been disturbed by the Saturday's young folks." And he adds the following as his highest argument : — I had not had time till now to read the two new chapters, and I wanted to tell you how much I had been delighted with them, particularly the last one. Lyndsay is admirably brought out, and you have only to go on as you are going to sustain the character which Sir Walter gave me of ' Marriage ' — that you had the rare talent of making your conclusion even better than your commencement : for said this worthy and veracious per- son, " Mr Blackwood, if ever I were to write a novel, I would like to write the two first volumes, and leave anybody that liked to write the third " ! The delightful ease and irresponsibility of " this veracious person's" wish is enchanting. It is a wish, however, which will be echoed by many a smaller romancer. For this novel, 'The Inheritance,' which was the second of Miss Ferrier's books, the publisher gave £1000, a great improvement upon the £150 he had given for the first ; and this not for the entire copy- VARIATIONS OP PUBLIC OPINION. 45 right. But, curiously enough, the book does not seem to have been successful — so little so indeed that the correspondence in respect to ' Destiny,' her third work, was much cooler in tone ; and this book was not pub- lished by Mr Blackwood. It was, in fact, much less able than the others. Miss Ferrier lived to old age, and became, we are told, so completely occupied with religious questions as to dislike and disapprove of the delightful works of her earlier days, which is an unfortunate circum- stance. She has retained a high and quite individual place in fiction, one of a band of three women who form a sort of representative group in their way of the three countries, which, it is to be hoped, no un- propitious fate will ever sunder or make to be other than one. CHAPTEK II. THE TALES OE MY LANDLORD. CORRESPONDENCE WITH JOHN MURRAY — BTRON AND HIS PUBLISHER — SCOTT DINES WITH BLACKWOOD — 'THE SIEGE OF CORINTH ' — CHARLES KIRKPATRICK SHARPE — LETTER TO SOUTHBY — NEGOTIATIONS WITH BALLANTYNB FOR PUBLICATION OP ' THE TALES OF MY LANDLORD ' — ' THE BLACK DWARF ' — BLACKWOOD'S CRITICISM— SCOTT'S REJOINDER : THE " BLACK HUSSARS OF LITERATURE " LETTER — WILLIAM GIFFOKD — MURRAY'S LETTER TO SCOTT — FRICTION WITH BALLANTYNE — FUTURE EDITIONS TO BE PUBLISHED BY CONSTABLE — BLACKWOOD's REGARD FOR SCOTT. The correspondence between Murray and Blackwood is our chief guide through the obscurity of these early years. Not long after the Edinburgh bookseller be- came the agent of the important house in London, he extended his business at home in the following manner — a step which he immediately communicates to his correspondent : — W. Blackwood to J. Murray. Edin., 10«A March 1813. John Ballantyne has transferred to me all his retail custom- ers, and makes me his retail publisher here. This will be of very great use to me, as it interests Walter Scott deeply in all my concerns. I have of course a stock of all their books and will therefore be able to supply you with any new book of theirs 5 per cent below sale. If you want any 8vo ' Eokeby ' FIRST NEWS OF WATERLOO. 47 when ready, please write me. They have just published a very pretty poem, ' Triermain,' which Jeffrey talks of in the highest terms, and is to review in the next number of the ' Edinburgh.' I have sent you 20 copies by yesterday's smack, and enclosed 12 ' Widow's Lodgings,' a novel which they have also just pub- lished. I have not been able to hear who he [the author] is, nor yet who is the author of ' Triermain.' . . . ' Triermain,' you may be sure, is not written by Mr Terry. The occasional item of news which occurs from time to time in these letters sometimes throws a curious contemporary light upon a well-known event. Here is the first intimation of the battle of Waterloo. There is a solemnity in the tone of the announcement which must have made the reader fear a great dis- aster instead of the extraordinary triumph which changed the whole course of modern history. The letter is dated June 21, 1815 : — I sent you yesterday the ' Courier,' and have ordered another, that you may learn more satisfactory particulars of the dread- ful event than have yet been published by Government, or (perhaps) received by them. I very much fear the truth to be that both Wellington and Blucher were surprised, and that it was a desperate battle, falling chiefly upon the British, and that it [here words omitted, " ended well "] only by Bonaparte's not effecting his too well-designed attack. We have lost one- fourth at least of our army — perhaps one-third of our very best troops. We ought not to conclude, however, without authentic despatches, and we shall certainly be more vigilant hereafter. It is an awful moment. In the biography of the Murrays, we are informed that Blackwood ran all over Edinburgh with this wonderful news ; but the way in which it is stated would scarcely justify any such outburst of delight. A great controversy, scarcely silenced even now, arose 48 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. afterwards as to whether Wellington was surprised or not; and Alison in his History, which was one of the most successful books ever published by the Blackwoods, warmly maintained that he was. It is curious to note what seems to have been the opinion of the moment — though this, of course, is the merest passing report. More in the usual scope of the correspondence is the long letter in which the proud and delighted publisher of London reports to his friend the last new incident of his intercourse with Byron, of which he was naturally so proud. If Blackwood had the hope of interesting " Walter Scott deeply in all my concerns," Murray could for the moment overcrow him with his noble poet : — John Murray to W. Blackwood. Dec. 5, 1815. Lord Byron is a curious man. He gave me, as I told you, the copyright of his two new poems, to be printed only in his works. I did not receive the last until Tuesday night. I was so delighted with it that even as I read it I sent him a draught for 1000 guineas. The two poems are altogether no more than twelve hundred and fifteen hundred lines, and will together sell for five and sixpence. But he returned the draught, sayino it was very liberal — much more than they were worth ; that I was perfectly welcome to both poems to print in his (collected) works without cost or expectation, but that he did not think them -equal to what they ought to be, and that he would not admit of their separate publication. I went yesterday, and he was rallying me upon my folly in offering so much,' that he dared to say I thought now I had a most lucky escape. " To prove how much I think so, my lord," said I, " do me the favour to accept this pocket-book" — in which I had brought with me my draught changed into two bank-notes of £1000 and £50 ; but he would not take it. But I am not in despair THE ' SIEGE OF CORINTH.' 49 that he will yet allow their separate publication, which I must continue to urge for mine own honour. These poems are not by any means equally finished as the ' Corsair,' but the ' Siege of Corinth ' contains two or three of the finest scenes he ever conceived, and the other, called ' Parisina,' is the most interest- ing and best conceived and best told story I ever read. I was never more affected ; and you may be sure, from habit, I can tell when a thing is very good, and, moreover, that I have, according to our respective situations, as much to resign in my property in his name and fame as he has. I shall long to send them to you, and should think that James Ballantyne would give you and Scott and Erskine a dinner to read them. It was Mr Blackwood himself who gave the dinner at the house in Salisbury Road ; which, I think, must have been the time when a little speech made by the distinguished guest found its place in the domestic archives. Mr Scott, sitting by the side of the mistress of the house, and looking out upon the garden, re- marked upon the fact that a green lawn occupied the greater part of it, instead of flowers — to which Mrs Blackwood replied that the pleasant green was better for her little boys than flower-beds. "Ah, they are your flowers," said the genial guest, no doubt with a glance at the sturdy little figures trooping in with joyful pride to dessert, whoever might be there : a pride and joy more complete to the father of the family than even the presence of the greatest poet, or of ' Parisina ' on the side-table waiting to be read. But Mr Scott was "quite enthusiastic with regard to the Poems, and considers Monday's meet- ing one of the highest treats and greatest favours ever done him," as Blackwood made haste to report. It was not, however, solely on Byron's account that this dinner was given. There were in the VOL. I. D 50 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. meantime mysterious hopes and speculations in the air which touched the Edinburgh publisher with an excited expectation fully equal to the complacent delight of the Londoner over his noble poet. James Ballantyne, the man of confidence, agent, and to some extent, as such a confidential vassal always believes at least, director of the veiled Prophet of the day — the great unknown author of ' Waverley ' — had lately been throwing out hints and suggestions enough to turn a young publisher's head. Ballantyne had a double prize in his hand for skilful manipulation. There was Mr Scott, with the poetry which had been supreme till Byron appeared, and which even now was popular enough to be well worth securing, not to speak of the honour and glory ; and there was the author of ' Waverley,' who was or was not Scott, according to the balance of surmises which rose and fell every day. The next poem perhaps — the next novel : whichever it was, it would be a piece of immense good fortune for the young book- seller in Princes Street, aspiring to the very highest levels of the trade. And Ballantyne's vapourings and often -repeated hints and professions — quite sincere, no doubt — of friendship and desire to serve his friend might refer to either. "He assured me that Mr Scott would take an interest in me, and matters would take that turn with you and me which I had so long been wishing to bring about," Blackwood wrote. " Independent of the delight of listening to Lord Byron's poetry, it was one of the great objects I had in being so anxious for your sending me the poems, that I might have an opportunity of drawing closer as it were to Mr Scott, and at the MINGLED SENTIMENTS. 51 same time showing him the confidence you had in me and the friendship you showed me. All this acts for our mutual interest." There are few writers in the literary world now, or at any time, whose works excite the general mind, and above all the mind of a publisher, as Byron and Scott did in their time ; neither, so far as we are aware, in these days when literature is weighed by the thousand words like a packet of tea, would any publishers, scarcely perhaps the heads of the tradi- tionary houses, rouse each other's enthusiasm, and fish for one man of genius with the celestial bait of a primeur of the productions of another. Murray and Blackwood were both careful business men, calcu- lating the effects of such a coup, and with many solid and serious meanings under the social triumph and literary enthusiasm of such a party as that in the Salisbiiry Road. But shrewd and astute as they were, they had also a true literary enthusiasm, and were perfectly sincere in the conviction that this same genius, though so excellent a slave and so apt to draw their chariots to the heights of fortune, was at the same time the finest thing in the world, made to be adored and applauded for its own sake. There was true delight and admiration, as well as high policy, in the pocket-book with its two crisp new notes which John Murray tendered to the jesting dis- dainful lordship whom still, notwithstanding several refusals, he did not despair of persuading to accept it in the end ; and honest enthusiasm in William Blackwood for the great northern minstrel and magi- cian, already the pride of Scotland, whom he made such eager efforts to attract and convince that he himself. 52 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. in the confidence of the great English publisher, and intrusted with an astounding unpublished work of the great English poet, was the man above all others to be trusted. The rumour of that great entertainment — " that Mr Scott dined with me, and read the poems, and was in raptures with them" — ran over all the town. "I should have liked," adds Blackwood with natural triumph, " to have seen Constable when he first heard the intelligence." Thus all the elements of dramatic interest were in the position, — pure hero-worship and love of literature, honest de- termination to secure one's own interest, and lively- pleasure in discomfiting a rival. To the credit of both publishers, it must be added that the first motive was quite as genuine as the others ; and if ever the younger of the two envied his partner, it was for his power magnificently to send that thousand guineas to the object of their admiration, without taking thought. " You have the happiness of mak- ing it a liberal profession, and not a mere business of pence," he wrote admiringly. " This I consider one of the greatest privileges we have in our business." We may pause, however, here to note that these poems were of course published shortly after, not in Lord Byron's collected works, and that he was per- suaded to accept the publisher's liberal offer, though before this time the noble poet's career was drawing near that crash of ruin and misadventure in which it closed in England, but into which we are glad to have no occasion to enter. Here is a curious piece of criti- cism on Murray's part, in answer, it would appear, to some impertinent comments of the public upon the publication. It accompanies a consignment of four MURRAY S CRITICISM. 53 hundred and fifty copies of the ' Siege of Corinth,' to be sold in Edinburgh : — I am glad that your friend M'Crie is pleased, for he is a Genius, and represents many of a strong but peculiar form of mind whom one would not have expected to be smitten. And I am no less delighted to find Dr Brewster occupy half a letter to- day with an account of his exstasies. Many who " by numbers judge a poet's song " are so stupid as not to see the powerful effect of the poems, which is the great object of poetry, because they can pick out fifty careless or even bad lines. The words may be carelessly put together, but this is secondary. Many can write polished lines who will never reach the name of poet. You see it is all poetically conceived in Lord B.'s mind. There is a dazzled vagueness in this comment through which one can see that the writer had a faint comprehension of what he himself meant, with- out much power of expressing it. It is prose expound- ing poetry with a general sense of something in it beyond verbal criticism. I find very early in Blackwood's career a sharp little correspondence with the well - known Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, in which the young and scarcely yet fully fledged publisher puts forth his own principle of action against the querulous writer — whose attempt to stand upon what he considered his superior station is more contemptible than dignified — with much pre- cision and firmness. Sharpe was about to publish a book heavily laden with notes, and had warned the publisher that he would admit no criticism. The date is so early as 1815 : — W. Blackwood to C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe. I have only this moment on my getting home opened your packet and found your note. I feel as much as you can do the 54 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. necessity of our understanding each other. Till we do so I do not consider myself at liberty to read a single line of your notes, and have therefore sealed them up till I hear from you. You state as your sine qua non that you will not cancel a single line of these notes. Now, I hope you will pardon me for saying that if I understand you rightly this is so much en cavalier that I cannot without some explanation publish a work where I conceive myself to be so very differently treated from what I have always been by the authors with whom I have had the honour to be connected. I have always been accustomed to take an interest in the literary department of my business, and however trifling my suggestions may have been, I have had them considered and attended to by men of no small note. From the very slight glance I had of your notes on Thursday I could form no decided opinion ; but I expected when you did me the honour of putting your MS. into my hands I should have been at liberty to state frankly my opinion if anything occurred to me that I conceived might be either altered or omitted. I never, however, conceived that, contrary to your own judgment, you would either have altered or omitted what you thought right. I have thus fairly stated to you what occurs to me, and if we now understand each other I shall be extremely happy to go on with a work which I hope will do credit both to Editor and publisher. I therefore wait your answer till I know whether or not I may commence the lecture of your notes, from which I expect not a little entertainment. Mr Sharpe answered this note in a still more cavalier strain, treating the very independent person he ad- dressed as one so much beneath him in the social scale as to make good manners unnecessary. "Dear Mr B.," he says, "I shall be sorry if I have said any rudeness to you, because I hold that no distinctions of station warrant ill-breeding." Mr Blackwood was not one who held distinctions of station lightly ; but the pretensions of " Cheeping Charlie" fired his blood. After the previous correspondence [he says] it was quite ROBERT SOUTHEY. 55 unnecessary for you to propose anew my publishing ' Kirkton.' I should never be able duly to appreciate the " distinctions of society " and the " punctilios," which really I was not aware of. My mode of conducting business is uniform, and I hope will always be found correct as well as honourable. As I am to pay you for your labour it mattered not to me, nor did I ever think for a moment whether you were, as you term it, an author by profession. Your choosing another publisher puts me to no inconvenience whatever, except that on the faith of our agree- ment I had ordered paper, and engaged with a printer, who ordered type on purpose for the book ; but it surely can be no matter of difl&culty with you to make it a condition with your new publisher that he should employ Mr Cleast, and take the paper from Messrs Cowan. It may have been — who can tell ? — this passage of arms which made Kirkpatrick Sharps figure in the Chaldee Manuscript ; but no doubt the young men had their grievances against him too. To show that Blackwood's suggestions were very differently received in some quarters, and that his correspondence was already extensive, I may quote here the following note : — W. Blackwood to E. Southey. Edinbdegh, July 5, 1816. A few weeks ago I took the liberty of sending you a small packet, which I hope you have received. I now beg leave to enclose my friend Dr M'Crie's report concerning the Protestants in the South of France. I have always been expecting to see an article on this interesting subject in the ' Quarterly Eeview,' and I hope it will yet be taken up. I trust you will pardon me, almost a stranger to you, for venturing to suggest the subject. The suggestion bore fruit : we find an allusion to it in one of Murray's letters, in which the London pub- lisher thanks the Edinburgh one for the idea, and 56 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. begs him when he thinks of anything of the kind to be sure always to mention it. In the meantime, while Byron and his proceedings occupied all the foreground in London, the great hope which had irradiated the Edinburgh publisher's horizon began to take form. The transaction that followed has been curiously misrepresented, though probably not with any unkind meaning. Lockhart distinctly assures us that, both Ballantyne and Blackwood being dead at the time he wrote, and Murray having no personal knowledge of the facts and evidently no desire to dwell upon them, he had no accurate infor- mation on the subject. The transaction is dismissed accordingly with a hot and hasty note from Scott ; and the impression left by the incident altogether is disagreeable, disrespectful to Mr Blackwood, and harsh and unfriendly to all concerned. The letters which passed day by day, however, and which are now before us, convey no such impression, nor did Scott's resentment in respect to criticism, or any other similar sentiment, occasion any breach between author and publisher. We are glad to be able to set this inci- dent, which was one of great importance in Black- wood's early life, in its proper light. It may be premised that Scott at this time had not definitely connected himself with any one publisher. It had been Constable who brought out 'Waverley,' while ' Guy Mannering ' was given to Longman. Whether the negotiations with Blackwood were intended as a third experiment before the matter was finally settled, or whether their design was to stimulate Constable to stronger efforts to secure such a valuable OFPER OF "a work OF FICTION." 57 monopoly, as some people think, I am unable to say : at all events, the offer to Blackwood seemed of a per- fectly honest and straightforward kind to begin with. Shortly after the dinner-party above recorded, the hints and promises of Ballantyne came to a definite proposal, and he offered to Blackwood, "by instruc- tions from the author," a work in four volumes to be called ' The Tales of my Landlord ' : each volume was intended to contain a separate tale, an arrangement afterwards altered, and the work was thus to be of more than usual importance, as including a succession of books. We may quote from Blackwood's letter to Murray an account of the interview in which the proposal was first definitely made : — W. Blackwood to John Murray. He [James Ballantyne] began by telling me that he thought he had it now in his power to show me how sensible he was of the services I had done him, and how anxious he was to ac- complish that union of interests which he had so long been endeavouring to bring about. Till now he had only made professions : now he would act. He said that he was em- powered to offer me, along with you, a work of fiction in four volumes such as ' Waverley,' &c. ; that he had read a consider- able part of it, and knowing the plan of the whole, he could answer for its being a production of the very first class ; but that he was not at liberty to mention the title, nor was he at liberty to give the author's name. I naturally asked him, was it by the author of ' "Waverley ' ? He said it was to have no reference to any other work whatever, and any one would be at liberty to form their own conjecture as to the author. He only requested that whatever we might suppose from anything that might occur afterwards we should keep strictly to ourselves: that we were to be the publishers. The terms he was em- powered by the author to offer for it were: — 1. The author to receive one-half of the profits of each 58 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. edition : these profits to be ascertained by deducting the paper and printing from the proceeds of the book sold at sale price — the publishers to be at the whole of the expense of advertising. 2. The property of the book to be the publishers', who were to print such editions as they chose. 3. The only condition upon which the author would agree to these terms is, that the pub- lisher should take £600 of John Ballantyne's stock selected from the list annexed, deducting 25 per cent from the affixed sale prices. 4. If these terms are agreed to, the stock to the above amount to be immediately delivered, and a bill granted at twelve months. 5. That in the course of six or eight weeks J. B. expected to be able to put into my hands the first two volumes printed, and that if, on perusal, we did not like the bargain, we should be at liberty to give it up. This he con- sidered to be most unlikely ; but if it should be the case, he would bind himself to repay or re-deliver the bill on the books being returned. 6. That the edition, consisting of 2000 copies, should be printed and ready for delivery by the 1st October next. I have thus stated to you as nearly as I can the substance of what passed. I tried in various ways to learn something with regard to the author, but he was quite impenetrable. My own impression now is that it must be "Walter Scott, for no one else would think of burdening us with such trash as John B.'s wretched stock. This is such a burden that I am puzzled not a little. I endeavoured every way I could to get him to propose other terms, but he told me these could not be departed from in a single part ; and the other works had been taken on the same conditions, and he knew they would be greedily accepted again in the same quarter. After giving it my consideration and making some calculations, I confess I feel inclined to hazard the speculation ; but still I feel doubtful until I hear what you think of it. That this curious offer of a mysterious work without name or author known, however strongly and justly divined, and weighted by a preliminary tax of £600, for the unsaleable books of John Ballantyne's "wretched stock," should yet have been, notwithstanding their DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRANSACTION. 59 anxious correspondence, accepted in each man's mind from the beginning and with eagerness, is a wonderful evidence of the atmosphere of wonder and expectation with which the author of 'Waverley' had filled the world. There could be no doubt, to any one who knew the circumstances, that the book was his ; and yet it was his caprice that there should be a double veil of mystery over this new venture, and that the new publisher should accept it blindly from the silent hand stretched out from the darkness, with the most complete faith. The success of this astonishing pro- posal, and the scarcely concealed eagerness of the serious and sober men of business to whom it was made, must have afforded a whimsical amusement as well as satisfaction in his own boundless success and power to that mysterious author, the so-little-mys- terious man who met them every day with all the frankness and cordiality of his nature. But he would not waive a jot of the demands, which he knew would be " greedily accepted " in other quarters, indeed wher- ever it might please him to offer them. These demands were harder than the two publishers at first under- stood. " James has made one or two important mis- takes in the bargain with Murray and Blackwood," writes Scott. " Having only authority from me to promise six thousand copies, he proposes they shall have the copyright for ever. I will see their noses cheese first. ... He talks of volumes being put into the publishers' hands to consider and decide on. No such thing; a bare perusal at St John Street only." Notwithstanding all this, there never was reaUy any doubt that the proposal would be accepted. 60 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The following letters respecting this bargain which passed between James Ballantyne and Mr Blackwood disclose all the different steps of the transaction very clearly : — J. Ballantyne to W. Blackwood. mth April 1816. I enclose you a formal offer, with this positive assurance that I cannot vary from it in one single particular ; so that if you wish, as I believe most firmly you do, that the bargain should be completed, I will sign the offer to-day before dinner. But I again repeat, that whatever may be my wishes I cannot vary from the terms of the offer in any one respect. By the by, I should say that bills for the author's profits will be accepted at twelve months if you insist on it ; but I advise you not to insist upon it. The compromise I have put in of six and twelve months would be extremely well taken by the author. And he knows he could get them from other quarters. A subsequent letter hesitates even in respect of this compromise, repeating the warning that there were other ways of obtaining all that the author desired, " If the bargain appears in the least hard to Mr B., there are others ready to accept for these profits at six months, the instant the first volume goes to press. He is only to accept at six and twelve months from the period that the whole four volumes come from the press." These lesser stipulations, however, seem at last to have been accepted, and, what was perhaps most important to the intermediate agent at least, the six hundred pounds' worth of John Ballantyne's unsaleable stock was unwillingly selected, and the money paid in bills at six months, according to the ordinary custom. In this as in the other conditions of the bargain. A DISAGREEABLE PAUSE. 61 Mr Murray writes that he is willing to take his " full share of the responsibility." The manner in which he agrees to the transaction is characteristic : — " I enter upon it, however, not as a matter of business, or even almost experiment, but in the same way as I should buy a lottery ticket, considering it as money which I could afford, or rather choose, to throw away — and think no more of it unless it actually came up a prize." It is perhaps also in respect to this that he writes significantly in another letter, " I take care that everything pays me in some way," — a statement full of meaning. After this there occurred an interval of silence, and everything dropped into its usual routine, — a silence soon full of uneasiness for Blackwood, who waited week by week with great anxiety to hear something more of his book : but not a word came. The bills for John Ballantyne's stock had been given at once and the books delivered, and there for the moment the trans- action seemed to have stopped short. In the original bargain it had been stated that the book was to be ready for publication on the 1st of October. In the meantime other incidents had occurred to make Black- wood uneasy. A historical work, described as "Letters upon the History of Scotland, by Walter Scott," had been offered to him in conjunction with Murray, and then had been announced as about to be published by Constable, — a fact which wounded him deeply. He complained to Ballantyne of this, and received through him a somewhat haughty message from Scott desiring Mr Blackwood to apply for information on the subject to himself, as it was a matter with which Ballantyne had nothing to do ; but this was the last thing in the 62 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. world that the publisher desired. " One in business must submit to many things," he writes to Murray, " and swallow many a bitter pill when such a man as Walter Scott is the object in view." Murray too was willing rather to swallow the pill than to endanger the attainment of Walter Scott with the author of ' Waverley ' at his back. But as the summer went on the sense of uncertainty and the tediousness of waiting grew more and more. In July it began to be insup- portable, interrupting every other thought. Early in this month Blackwood communicated his feelings to Murray, who was little less anxious than himself : — W. Blackwood, to John Murray. Jvly 2, 1816. This morning I got up between five and six, but instead of sitting down to write you, as I had intended, I mounted 'my pony and took a long ride to collect my thoughts. Sitting, walking, or riding, it is all the same. I feel as much puzzled as ever, and undetermined whether pr not to cut the Gordian knot. Except my wife, there is not a friend whom I dare advise with. I have not ventured to mention the business at all to my brother, on account of the cursed mysteries and in- junctions of secrecy connected with it. I know he would blame me for ever engaging in it, for he has a very small opinion of the Ballantynes. I cannot, therefore, be benefited by his advice. Mrs Blackwood, though she always disliked my hav- ing any connection with the Ballantynes, rather thinks we should wait a few weeks longer till we see what is produced. I believe, after all, this is the safest course to pursue. By the end of the month, however, his impatience was no longer to be controlled, and on the 31st July he addressed James Ballantyne as follows : It surely will not be thought unreasonable that Mr Murray and I should, at a distance of three months from the period SIGNOR AliDIBORONTOPHOSCOPHORNIO. 63 at which we granted our acceptances for six hundred pounds, feel rather impatient at hearing nothing whatever of the Work of Fiction of which you assured me the first volume would be printed and put into my hands upwards of two months ago. We beg you would now inform us what is doing, or is to be done, as it is most unpleasant to have the business hanging in this way. The plausible James replied instantly to Mr Blackwood : — I should be myself entirely unreasonable if I thought there was anything unreasonable in the solicitude which you express in Mr Murray's name and your own respecting this work^ for which you have granted your bills — I think it, on the contrary, natural and unavoidable. This matter has taught me a lesson which I will nofforget — which is, never to give my own conviction for that of others. In place, therefore, of saying what / think upon the subject, I shall teU you what the author says to me. He says, then, that I shall have the first vol. in my hands by the end of August, and that the whole work will, as he all along said, be ready for publication by Christmas. This I say for him : I will pledge myself no longer. This clever assumption of a grievance in his ow^n innocent person, and candid incapacity to ansvrer for another unaccountable individual, is a very good ex- ample of Scott's Aldiborontophoscophornio, the genial vassal ready to serve his principal's eccentricities even by blaming him when needful, with uplifted hands and eyes of regret and wonder. " This matter has taught me a lesson which I will not forget " ! Plausible as it all was, however, it did not satisfy Mr Blackwood, and there would seem to have been in the beginning of August a conversation of the most important kind between the impatient publisher and the slippery 64 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, agent. There is no record of this conversation, but its purport is easily divined from the letter that follows : — J. Ballantyne to W. Blackwood. 5th August 1816. After the decisive conversation which we had on Saturday, you may perhaps be surprised that I should again wish to bring the subject before you. But, independently of my most anxious desire that a thing which I continue as strongly as ever to think would be mutually advantageous, should not be blown away by a trifling delay — independently of this wish, it is my duty to remove one important misconception under which you appear to have long laboured, and this I am sure I can accomplish although I should fail in everything else. You appear to think, and I rather think you have distinctly stated that you do so, that the author of the work of fiction has wittingly or rather wilfully delayed putting the volume into your hands " because he had views elsewhere," views which you must suppose to have arisen after my first being empowered to make an offer of the work to you. Now, if this was really the case, it is undeniable that he would joyfully avail himself of your rejection, and feel that he had accomplished the object he was driving at. But so far is this from being the case, that he desires me to express to you in the strongest terms his wish not to change his publisher. His words are these : " The work is now ready to go to the press ; and you will have the copy in two days. The work will to a certainty be out in the month of November, a period which I have always under- stood to be the very best for publication. This I beg you will state to Mr Blackwood distinctly and explicitly; and there is so much reason in the thing that I cannot but think he will listen to it." Such are the precise words of the author, and whatever other impression they may produce on you, you will surely admit that they at least prove beyond the possibility of denial that he had and has no such views as you ascribe to him • that he does nwt wish to change his publishers; and that he SMOOTHING DOWN. 65 has Tw views elsewhere. Indeed, it is with a view of clearing his and my own good faith to you and Mr Murray, that we are anxiously desirous you should be convinced that you refuse the work, if you refuse it, when it is ready for press, and when the author is pledged to its pubhcation at a specific period, the very best in the whole year for publication. Now, my dear Sir, what more can be said, or what more can you wish ? If the negotiation is now broken off, surely you will allow that it is not the fault either of the author or of myself; and if, after this distinct explanation and assurance, you continue in the mind which you stated on Saturday, I can only say it will give us both deep and sincere concern. — Beheve me to be, and I trust I do not say so for the last time, your sincere friend and faithful servant, James Ballantyne. This letter was supplemented later in the day by another bearing the same date, 5th August : — In addition to what I stated in my letter to you of this morning, I beg to say, that rather than have recourse to other publishers than yourself and Mr Murray, the author of the Work of Fiction authorises me to agree to the terms of credit which you originally stipulated for — to wit, 12 instead of 6 months [bUls]. If it were merely a pecuniary matter that was at stake, I assure you I should feel no solicitude whatever in this business ; ' for, should your decision render it necessary, I should be ready in as short a period as could reasonably be expected to deliver up your bills. But however conscious both the author and myself are of our perfect good faith in this transaction, it is painful beyond measure that it should be suspected ; and it is to convince you of this, or at least to afford you the strongest reason for being convinced, that our anxiety arises for completing the bargain. Certainly, also, it would to me be extremely painful to lose a friend through the very measures by which I had hoped to confirm him. I beg leave to conclude with asserting upon my solemn word not only that the author has not, nor ever had, " any views else- VOL. I. E 66 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. where," but that the existence of the work in question is at this moment unknown to every human creature except yourself, Mr Murray, myself, and my brother. As I understand that you are now at Dalhousie Castle, I think this communication of sufficient importance to send it after you. I ought to add that I have this moment received a considerable portion of the MS. of the work; and that I distinctly pledge the author's word that the whole will be ready in the month of November. These anxious excuses and arguments went on for some days — there being also a secondary question to discuss in respect to some portion of John Ballan- tyne's stock which was not according to the bargain, and for which a hundred pounds was subtracted ac- cordingly — until at length James Ballantyne wrote to announce that about two-thirds of the first volume were to be sent to-morrow evening, — the date is 21st August : so it is evident that no time had been lost. Blackwood had requested, with some urgency, that he might have permission to send the manuscript on to London. I have myself [says Ballantyne] read it with the greatest admiration and delight. The remainder, I think, will be ready for your inspection about the beginning of next week. I read your letter about the transmission of the first volume to London to the author, thinking that the best mode of signifying your wish, and the causes on which it was founded. The author's refusal is couched in these words : " JSTothing shall induce me to allow the book to go out of your hands. To send it to Lon- don would hazard things, which I cannot think of risking. Mr Blackwood's taste is as competent as that of any man to enable him to come to a just conclusion, and I will not subject the book to the refusal of another." Any further application would be needless, I am sure. But I trust your own judgment will decide you. Few men have a better. APPROACHING THE END. 67 Blackwood replies to this on the same day. We quote from the scroll or brouillon of his letter, which is a thing frequently found among his papers, and often even more characteristic in the passages struck out than in those which are allowed to stand. He writes on this occasion : — W. Blackwood to J. Ballantyne. To thank you for the welcome intelligence, and to congratu- late with you upon our now being fully in sight of land, with every prospect, from what you say, of coming to a right anchor. You will give me all that you have ready as early as you can to-morrow, as I need not tell you how great my impatience is to devour it. Be so good as to let me know in the morning at what hour I may expect it. The author and you are kind enough to soften the refusal of my request as to Mr Murray [" about its being sent to London " struck out] by saying very much too flattering things with regard to my judgment (which I would have been as well pleased to have dispensed with). I should have been much more pleased to have been praised less and listened to more. But this cannot be helped, and I anxiously hope the Book will speak for itself to all and every one, and so that my responsibility will be trifling. Next day another anxious note heralds the all- important proof:— J. Ballantyne to W. Blackwood. 22nd Aiigust 1816. You shall have all that is thrown o£f, and what is composed, before diuner. The remainder of the volume will be ready, I think, early next week. Tastes are as different as faces ; and you may not like what I think altogether exquisite. But I have strong hopes of our coming to an immediate and mutually agree- able conclusion to this business. F.S. — By waiting till seven this evening I find I shall be able to send you 8 sheets ; only, as the two last are perhaps the 68 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. finest of the whole, I am averse to your not getting them. Don't worry ! for you shall have them at tea-time. One can imagine the excitement, the eager anxiety, the watch kept at the door for the messenger from the printing-office — no printer's devil in this case, but a messenger of the gods. Alas ! at this point there is a gap in the correspondence. The excited publisher was too warmly inspired to write any scroU of his reply. We find another version of it, however, in the correspondence of Mr Murray, dashed off on the same eventful evening, without stopping to take breath : — W. Blackwood to John Murray. August 23, 1816 — Midnight. My deae Mueeay, — I have this moment finished the reading of 192 pages of our book — for ours it must be — and I cannot go to bed without telling you what is the strong and most favourable impression it has made upon me. If the remainder be at all equal, which it cannot fail to be from the genius dis- played in what is now before me, we have been most fortunate indeed. The title is ' The Tales of my Landlord ; collected and reported by Jedediah Cleishbotham, Parish Clerk and School- master of Gandercleugh.' There cannot be a doubt as to the splendid merit of the work. It would never have done to have higgled and protested about seeing more volumes. I have now neither doubts nor fears, and I anxiously hope you will have as little. I am so happy at the fortunate termination of all my pains and anxieties, that I cannot be in bad" humour with you for not writing me two lines in answer to my two last letters. It is clear that the reply to Ballantyne was not less enthusiastic than this, for the next letter, we find, is from that able negotiant, and is full of the triumphant composure of a victor, one who has been conscious from the beginning of inevitable glory : — "a woek of tbemendous splendour." 69 J. Ballantyne to W. Blackwood. 23rd August. I need not say that your letter has given me great pleasure. I never in my life had anything more at heart than to show you by substantial proof that I felt as I ought to do towards you : and my vexation was proportioned to the disappointment which at one period had overset all my hopes. Nothing kept me up but the consciousness that I had done my possible. Your approbation is just as it ought to be. Had it been calm, it would have been unworthy both the work and yourself. Yes; it is a work of tremendous splendour, and may it turn out — it must turn out — as we both expect. Your letter to Murray, which I enclose, is a most excellent precis. Keep the sheets as long as you like, but I beg you to return them. I have most especial reasons for this. We might now suppose that everybody vras as much satisfied and wholly triumphant as it was pos- sible to be ; but there were still further troubles in the way of the Work of Fiction, as it had been hitherto comically and formally entitled between these corre- spondents. The story was told by Lockhart in the ' Life of Sir Walter Scott ' in a way which — probably without intention, yet perhaps, who can tell? in the character of the Scorpion who delighteth to sting the faces of men — left a disagreeable impression as to the part taken by Mr Blackwood, and seemed to account for the fact that the ' Black Dwarf was the only one of Scott's works published by him. I will quote this from Lockhart's narrative, premising that, by his own account, before it was written, both Blackwood and Ballantyne were dead. Mr Murray, not caring, I presume, to open up the records of a story which came to an inglorious end, furnished little informa- tion ; and, except the sons of the Edinburgh publisher, there was nobody to be wounded by the story : — VO WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. I know not how much of the tale of the ' Black Dwarf ' ha^ been seen by Blackwood, in St John Street, before he conclude! this bargain for himself and his friend Murray ; but when th closing sheets of that novel reached him, he considered ther as by no means sustaining the delightful promise of the open ing ones. He was a man of strong talents, and though withou anything that could be called learning, of very respectable in formation — greatly superior to what has, in this age, been com mon in his profession; acute, earnest, eminently zealous i: whatever he put his hand to ; upright, honest, sincere, and coui ageous. But as Constable owed his first introduction to th upper world of literature and of society in general to hi ' Edinburgh Eeview,' so did Blackwood his to his ' Magazine which has now made his name familiar to the world — and a the period of which I write, that miscellany was unknown he was known only as a diligent antiquarian bookseller am the Scotch agent of the great London publisher, Murray. Th abilities, in short, which he lived to develop were as yet un suspected — unless, perhaps, among a small circle ; and the know ledge of the world, which so few men gather from anythin but painful collision with various conflicting orders of thei fellow-men, was not his. He was to the last plain and blunt at this time I can easily believe him to have been so to a de gree which Scott might look upon as "ungracious" — I tak the epithet from one of his letters to James Ballantyne. M Blackwood, therefore, upon reading what seemed to him th loose and impotent conclusion of a well-begun story, did nc search about for any glossy periphrase, but at once wrote t beg that James Ballantyne would inform the unknown authc that such was his opinion. This might possibly have bee endured; but Blackwood, feeling, I have no doubt, a genuin enthusiasm for the author's fame, as well as a just anxiety a to his own adventure, proceeded to suggest the outline of wha would, in his judgment, be a better upwinding of the plot of th ' Black Dwarf,' and concluded his epistle, which he desired t be forwarded to the unknown novelist, with announcing h: willingness, in case the proposed alterations were agreed b that the whole expense of cancelling and reprinting a certai number of sheets should be charged to his own personal ac "the black hussaes of literature." 71 count with James Ballantyne & Co. His letter seems to have further indicated that he had taken counsel with some literary person, on whose taste he placed great reliance, and who, if he had not originated, had at least approved of the proposed pro- cess of recasting. Had Scott never possessed any such system of interagency as the Ballantynes supplied, he would, among other and perhaps greater inconveniences, have escaped that of the want of personal familiarity with several persons, with whose confidence — and why should I not add ? with the innocent gratification of whose little vanities — his own pecuniary inter- ests were often deeply connected. A very little personal con- tact would have introduced such a character as Blackwood's to the respect — nay, to the affectionate respect — of Scott, who, above all others, was ready to sympathise cordially with honest and able men, in whatever condition of life he discovered them. He did both know and appreciate Blackwood better in after- times; but in 1816, when this plain-spoken communication reached him, the name was little more than a name, and his answer to the most solemn of go-betweens was in these terms, which I sincerely wish I could tell how Signer Aldiboronto- phoscophornio translated into any dialect submissible to Black- wood's apprehension :-^- Walter Scott to James Ballantyne. "Dear James, — I have received Blackwood's impudent letter. G — d his soul ! Tell him and his coadjutor that I belong to the Black Hussars of Literature, who neither give nor receive criticism. I'll be cursed but this is the most im- pudent proposal that ever was made. — W. S." This story is exactly the kind of skilful compound of truth and imagination which has ruined the character of many a man. The fact evidently is that Blackwood did write such a piece of criticism and made such a pro- posal (which makes the historian hold his breath) ; but the house of Blackwood never have been complaisant publishers, and have always loved to say their say, some- 72 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. times very wisely. But this is all the truth there is in it, as the reader will see by the following letters. For one thing, Scott knew Blackwood very well, and had shown him every sign of respect and friendly appreciation. But this was a sharp provocation, and no doubt the above very hasty and very profane note was dashed off in the first moment of exasperation, as I daresay all of us would have been well enough in- clined to do. I recollect, for my own part, to hate received letters from Mr John Blackwood which would have made the use of strong language very consola- tory ; though after a little consideration they were generally found to be worthy of much more serious thought. But there was more in it than this. We resume the correspondence at the point where we broke off. On the 1st September James Ballantyne wrote from Kelso, during a temporary absence : — J. Ballantyne to W. Blackwood. Our friend Jedediah highly approves of your management in respect to the ' Tales,' and thinks your setting up a rival author an excellent thought. He leaves you at perfect liberty to pre- sent a copy of vol. i. to Mr Murray as a matter of course, and to Lord Dalhousie according to your own discretion : not doubt- ing, however, that they will be managed with a due regard to inviolable secrecy. I have, therefore, written to Edinburgh ordering two copies to be sent to you immediately. These copies were of course of the printed sheets, the book being not yet ready for publication. It is at this point in the correspondence that Mr Blackwood's startling criticism and suggestion should come in : but no copy seems to have been preserved of it, and we are, therefore, unable to tell except from Lockhart's FIRE AND BRIMSTONE. 73 description what it was. There is no reason to sup- pose this was not true enough. One of Blackwood's principles, always clearly acknowledged, was his habit of " taking an interest in the literary department of my business" — so there can be little doubt that he would say his say with vigour and precision. To the letter containing these suggestions James Ballantyne replies on the 4th October 1816 with a different version of Scott's angry note : — J. Ballantyne. to W. Blackwood. Our application to the author of ' Tales of my Landlord ' has been anything but successful, and in order to explain to you the reason why I must decline to address him in this way in future, I shall copy his reply verbatim : — " My respects to our friends the Booksellers. I belong to the Death -head Hussars of Literature, who neither take nor give criticism. I am extremely sorry they showed my work to Gifford, nor would I cancel a leaf to please all the critics of Edinburgh and London ; and so let that be as it is. They are mistaken if they think I don't know when I am writing HI, as well as Gifford can tell me. I beg there may be no more com- munications with critics." Observe — that I shaU at all times be ready to convey any- thing from you to the author in a written form, but I do not feel warranted to interfere further. The reader may believe that this was how Signor Aldiborontophoscophornio "translated" Scott's note " into a dialect " that could be submitted to Blackwood ; but I think for my own part that there is more in it — that it was probably an amalgam of two notes, and that the reference to Gifford was genuine, and not the invention of the smooth-tongued James. The intrusion of the London critic no doubt changed the 74 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. whole face of the matter, and that this was believed to be the special sting is proved by Mr Blackwood's reply, written on the following morning, 5th October : — W. Blackwood to James Ballantyne. I am not a little vexed at having ventured to suggest any- thing to the author of ' Tales of my Landlord,' since I find he considers it in the light of Ne sutor ultra crepidam. I never had for one moment the vanity to think that from any poor remark of mine, or indeed of any human heing, he would be induced to blot one line, or alter a single incident, unless the same idea occurred to his own powerful mind. On stating to you what struck me, and finding that your opinion coincided with mine, I was induced to request of you to state it to the author, in order that he might be aware that the expense of cancelling the sheets was no object to me. I was the more anxious to do this, in case the author should have given you the MS. of this portion of the work sooner than he intended, in order to satisfy the clamouring for it which I teased you with. I trust the author will do me the justice to believe that it is quite impossible for any one- to have a higher admiration of his most extraordinary talents: and speaking merely as a bookseller, it would be quite unnecessary to be at the expense of altering one line, although the author himself (who alone can be the proper judge) should wish it, as the success of the work should be rapid, great, and certain. With regard to the first volume being shown to Mr Gifford, I must state, in justification of Mr Murray, that Mr G. is the only friend whom he consults on all occasions, and to whom his most secret transactions are laid open. He gave him the book, not for the purpose of criticism, but that as a friend he should partake of the enjoyment he had in such an extraordinary per- formance. No language could be stronger than Mr Gifford's, as I mentioned to you ; and as the same thing had occurred to Mr G. as to you and me, I thought there could be no harm in stat- ing this to the author. I have only again to express my regret at what has taken place, and to beg you will communicate this to the author in any way you may think proper. GIFFORDS CRITICISM. 75 If our conjecture is true, it must be concluded that the thing most strongly and justly resented by Scott was the interposition of Gifford. Nothing could be more natural than that he should fling forth fire and flame at the thought that the chief critic of one of the literary coteries of the time had thus secretly sat upon him, in a private committee behind his back, and had it in his power to shake his head in solemn doubt as to the prowess and success of the author of ' Waver- ley.' It was a thought full of exasperation to a man little used to criticism in any form. But whether Lockhart was mistaken as to the note he quotes, or whether that first sharp volley of expletives was but a first explosion on the moment, followed by the other, we have no means of knowing. No one but Murray could have known the exact facts, and even by him they would seem to have been forgotten or imper- fectly apprehended. " I remember nothing but that one of the proudest days of my life was that on which I published the first 'Tales of my Landlord,' and a vague notion that I owed the dropping of my connection with the great novelist to some trashy disputes between Blackwood and the Ballantynes," is the only explanation given by Mr Murray as re- ported by Lockhart, which was scarcely a correct statement. "If he had been at all consulted about it (which I much doubt)," says Lockhart. But it could scarcely be forgotten that the little incident about Mr Gifford was one of the causes, at least, of Scott's resentment. The latter part of the story is set forth very distinctly in the letters now discovered ; and it is interesting to trace this episode to its end. 76 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The success of the 'Tales of my Landlord' left nothing to be desired. The 'Black Dwarf was fin- ally published on the 1st December 1816, and on December 13 Murray wrote to Blackwood recom- mending him "to go on printing as many and as fast as you can ; for we certainly need not stop until we come to the end of our unfortunately limited 6000. My copies," he adds, " are more than gone, and if you have any to spare pray send them up instantly." Before, however, the actual moment of publication, Blackwood thus emits his note of subdued exaltation. It is dated the 22d November 1816 : — W. Blackwood to J. Ballantyne. I send you two copies of our glorious book for the author, one of which I have no doubt he will present Mr Ballantyne with, else I should have done myself that pleasure. I need not tell you that any copies he wishes to present will be at all times at his command. I hope he will pardon me for having sent the very first copy I had done to Mr Scott. The next I will send to the author of ' Julia de Eoubign^.' Written on the back of this is the following " note to Mr Scott." The transparent mystery of the author- ship of ' Waverley ' could not be more amusingly shown than by the copies under cover mysteriously sent to the mysterious author on one side, and the fine candid "first copy to Mr Scott" on the other. It is with no small satisfaction [writes the publisher to the latter personage] that I send you the first perfect copy I have got of the ' Tales of my Landlord.' If Jedediah interests the public at all in the way he has interested (you will excuse me for saying) his fortunate publisher, he will be the most successful editor who has almost ever appeared. MURRAY AND SCOTT. 77 It is characteristic of Blackwood's modesty and self-restraint that these are the only direct congrat- ulations we find on his part. Mr Murray wrote in a much more effusive tone to Scott, and his letter has found a place both in Lockhart's ' Life ' and in the ' Book of Murray.' It is — besides being, no doubt, a very genuine expression of his own delight and triumph — a clever attempt to " draw" the author, who, however, was too old a bird to be beguiled. The London publisher begins by thanking Mr Scott — " al- though I dare not address you as the author of certain Tales (which, however, must be written either by Walter Scott or the devil") for at least his influ- ence with the author, to which "I am indebted for the essential honour of being one of their publishers " ; and offers him "most hearty thanks — not divided, but doubled — alike for my worldly gain therein, and for the great acquisition of professional reputation which their publication has already procured me " : J. Murray to Walter Scott. As to delight, I believe I could, under any oath that could be proposed, swear that I never had experienced such great and unmixed pleasure in my life as the reading of this ex- quisite work has afforded me; and if you witnessed the wet eyes and quivering cheeks with which, as the author's chamber- lain, I receive the unanimous and vehement praise of them from every one who has read them, or heard the curses of those whose needs my scanty supply would not satisfy, you might judge of the sincerity with which I now entreat you to assure the author of the most complete success. After this I could throw all the other books I have in the press into the Thames, for no one will either read them or buy. Lord Holland said, when I asked his opinion, " Opinion ! we did not one of us go to bed all night, and nothing slept but my gout." 78 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. There is, though perhaps only suggested by Mr Murray's after -forgetfulness, a whimsical suggestion that " Codlin's the friend " in this enthusiastic epistle. Scott was by this time accustomed to much flattery on all sides, and to hear that men, to whom all the usual experiences of life had come, had never known " such great and unmixed pleasure in all their life " as in the reading of his last book ; at which we can well under- stand how that most natural of men smiled, and turn- ing to the quite other side of the question, bid John Ballantyne mind his ways, with the carol of an old ballad — " Consider weel, gudeman, We hae but borrowed gear ; The horse that I ride on It is John Murray's mear." Murray's letter would seem to have suggested to Scott the delightful jest of reviewing his own works in the ensuing number of the ' Quarterly,' for which peri- odical it was so essential always to secure his support. But it would not appear that the London pub- lisher was always so convinced of the real authorship of these works as he professes to be : for in one of the letters in which he informs his partner in Edin- burgh of the rapid sale of their book he begins by confirming — "in the greatest confidence" — a sugges- tion already made by Blackwood : " I have discovered the author of all those novels to be Thomas Scott, Walter Scott's brother. I make no doubt that Mr Walter Scott did a great deal to the first ' Waverley,' from his anxiety to serve his brother, but you may rely upon the certainty of what I have told you." Murray then adds : — BAPID SUCCESS. 79 " The whole country is starving for want of a Com- pleat Supply of ' Tales of my Landlord,' respecting the interest and merit of which there continues to be but one sentiment. I make no doubt that you are urging on the printing of new editions, which may not stop, I calculate, until it arrives at about the Eighth. As I told you in my last, I have never had any copies- left a day on my hands, and all that you have been so good as to get for me have been be- spoken." " Notwithstanding this rapid success," Lockhart adds, "circumstances ere long occurred which carried the publication into the hands of Constable." These circumstances are made sufficiently plain by the cor- respondence between Blackwood and Ballantyne which winds up this transaction. It is evident enough from the beginning that as long as the author of ' Waver- ley ' did not choose to disclose the secret of his identity to any other publisher, it was much easier and better on the whole to fall back upon Constable, who knew, than to continue to negotiate painfully through James Ballantyne, in whom the more serious business men of " the Trade " had little confidence, and who was not a satisfactory medium on either side. The conclusion was inevitable, however much to be regretted. The method, however, of the severance was as follows. The discussion which brought it about began with the following letter, dated 20th January 1817 : — J. Ballantyne, to W. Blackwood. Ab the last edition of the ' Tales ' to which our bargain was extended is now nearly finished, and a new one — I hope many new ones — will probably soon be wanted, I hasten to say that 80 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, it will be delivered to you as soon as it can be got ready, on the single condition that you take the £200 additional from the stock of John Ballantyne & Co., which the error of their clerk prevented you from taking when the bills were granted in terms of the original bargain. To this I feel assured that you will not object, as it is a very light rider indeed upon a transaction which hitherto has proved so remarkably advantageous ; and I will thank you to inform me upon the subject when you have consulted Mr Murray." It is to be supposed that this extension of the bargain was accepted, notwithstanding the curious " rider," which was exacted in all these bargains, for the dispersion of John Ballantyne's unfortunate stock, the relics of his still more unfortunate arrested business as a bookseller, — stock which Scott jocularly writes to him must now be "Wearin' awa, John, Like snaw-wreaths when it's thaw, John'' — and which certainly seems to have possessed some features of the widow's cruse. In the meantime, however, the sale of the ' Black Dwarf ' appears to have slackened before the third edition was ex- hausted ; and on perceiving this the publishers pru- dently determined to postpone the printing of the fourth. But their intimation to this effect does not seem to have been weU received. J. Ballantyne, to W. Blackwood. The 4th edition of the 'Tales' was completed, except the working off of a very few sheets, before the receipt of your letter desiring it might be stopped. It is now therefore on the eve of being ready for delivery. I have forwarded your letter to the author, and shall of course be regulated by his instructions as to what is now to be done. BICKERINGS. 81 To this startling intimation Mr Blackwood replied on the same day, 7th April 1817 : — I am rather surprised at your thinking it necessary to send my letter to the author of the 'Tales.' Mr Murray and I expected it [the edition] would have been called for ere now, but have been mistaken, and I told you several weeks ago not to hurry. We had the strongest interest, and surely must be the best judges when a new edition is necessary. We hope this will very soon be the case ; but while we have 600 or 700 in hand it is not to be thought of. The only inconvenience that can arise is as to the paper for a few weeks, and our friends Messrs Cowan are always leisurely in this respect. Again on the same day Ballantyne replies : — I confess I do not see why you should be surprised at my sending an extract of your letter respecting the ' Tales ' to the author. His interest is most naturally concerned in knowing when editions are wanted, and at the time you ordered the 4th to go to press I informed him that you had done so. When you told me not to be in a hurry, I also acquainted him with this; and when you desired me to suspend the printing till further orders, I communicated that also. Surely this was all very natural and proper. What I now have it in commission from the author to say is this : and I beg you to observe that I have no discretionary power in the matter. When you desired me not to be in a hurry with the 4th edition, I was obliged of course to use my own discretion as to the latitude conveyed by your instructions. The 3d edition having been printed in little more than five weeks, I believed that I should comply with the spirit of your letter if I got the 4th done in nine — which was taking the work easily, neither hurrying nor retarding it. The author, who had an interest in knowing these matters, was, of course, informed by me, upon his inquiring about it, that the edition would be ready on the 12th or 15th of the present month, and as a very considerable sum is exigible [sic] by him upon the edition, he made his pecuniary arrangements depend upon that sum being VOL. I. F 82 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. paid him at the period I told him the edition would be ready. You will thus see that the disappointment would have a more extensive influence than with regard to the paper only. You will recollect that, previously to the ordering of this edition, I wrote to you that the author had stipulated that the bills for his profits should be granted at 6 instead of 12 months, renew- able at your expense for 6 months longer. Now he is willing to agree to take bills at 9 in place of 6 months, in order to give full time for the sale of the remaining books in hand. This you will observe has the same effect as if I had taken five months to print the work, which assuredly would not have been hurry- ing it. As the author's instructions are full and precise to the above effect, I shall hope to have the pleasure of hearing from you as soon as possible upon the subject. Mr Blackwood replied : — I shall communicate to Mr Murray the contents of your letter of yesterday, which I have just received, and as soon as I hear from him will let you know the result of our deliberation. I would also beg the favour of you to assure the author that nothing would give me more pain (and I may say the same of Mr Murray) than putting him to any inconvenience. You have never had an hour to wait for a settlement hitherto, and I hope he will do me the justice to believe that he will not have any reason for complaint in our further transactions. To this Ballantyne answers, acknowledging fully that he has never had to wait an hour for a settle- ment ; and there ahruptly the discussion ends for the time. Whether the sale quickened again so as to make the postponement unnecessary, or the publishers preferred to risk a possible loss rather than endanger their connection with " the author," we are not in- formed. But, at all events, the fourth edition, though considered by Messrs Blackwood and Murray as un- duly hurried, was eventually published by them, and things went on quietly until more than a year later, THE PUBLISHEE's INDIGNATION. 83 when I find the sequel and conclusion of the trans- action in a correspondence between Murray and Blackwood, containing a packet of letters which had passed between the latter and James Ballantyne. A sudden thunderbolt had fallen into the peaceful air, in the shape of an advertisement of a fifth edition as about to be issued by Constable, without warning given to the original publishers or any preparation for such an announcement : — W. Blackwood to James Ballantyne. 6th May 1817. I was so completely surprised, and I must say indignant, yesterday, when I saw in your paper an advertisement announc- ing the publication of a new edition of the first ' Tales of my Landlord/ that had I written at the moment I might have given way to feelings that would not have been pleasant to either of us. My opinion of the matter is not now one whit altered, but I trust I shall be able to state it more calmly. In the first place, then, I beg to say that as I have upwards of 1200 copies here, and as I believe Mr Murray has also some hundreds of the fourth edition on hand, a new edition was quite uncalled for and unnecessary ; and you, besides, were not en- titled to put a new edition to the press without having first consulted us, and ascertained that our stock was nearly exhausted. In the next place, I beg to say that, even had another edition been required, Mr Murray and I were both by courtesy and right entitled to the first offer of it. I was surely entitled to expect this from the repeated assurances you gave me that the author was perfectly willing, after our stipulated number was exhausted, that the future editions should go on with us, exactly on the same terms. ... As another edition, however, is unfor- tunately not yet required, it is unnecessary for us to discuss this last point at present, and I therefore return to the first point — the state of the fourth edition. Erom this you must see the necessity of instantly repairing the injury which has 84 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. been done Mr Murray and me by allowing the advertisement to appear, or any copies of a fifth edition to be sold while we have such a heavy stock on hand, even waiving any claim we may have upon a fifth edition when it is wanted. To this the printer, always so Ml of resource in the way of excuses, answers with the following quite in- consequent and unsatisfactory reply. After repeating Mr Blackwood's argument that the fifth edition ought not to have been put to press till the fourth was ex- hausted, he exculpates himself in the following exas- perating fashion : — J. Ballantyne to W. Blackwood. To this I answer that I did not put this edition to press — that is, in the sense in which you use these words : as a printer I obeyed the orders of the bookseller to whom the edition had been sold, and was not called upon to consult anybody. You next state that had another edition been required, Mr Murray and you were, both by courtesy and right, entitled to the first ofifer of it. The answer to this is most easy on my part, and can hardly, I should think, be regarded even by yourself as anything else than entirely conclusive. I am not called upon to discuss how far Mr Murray and you were entitled to have the first offer of any new edition, because I had no power to make this offer either to you or to anybody else. As agent for the author, I transacted with you for the edition prior to that which is now advertised ; but the author has long since changed his agent, and I assert in the most unqualified terms that the bargain for the present edition had been concluded for many weeks before I had even heard that it was in contemplation. How, then, can I be made responsible for a transaction over which I had not only no manner of control, but of which I did not hear until it was concluded ? I appeal to your candour. This very irritating mode of begging the question is, however, followed by an admission of the real prin- COKTROVERSIES. 85 ciple of the case, which shows that Mr Blackwood was right in his surmise that the intention of the premature advertisement was to buy out the interest which he and Mr Murray held in this much-discussed publication. Ballantyne adds : — I beg to reply that any injury that may have arisen from this transaction to Mr Murray or you is not imputable to me, but that it appears common justice and common sense that this last edition should not come into the market until the stock in hand shall be sold off or otherwise settled, so that you may be no loser. As I am the only person with whom you can transact in this matter, I shall lose not a moment in transmitting either your present letter or a more formal claim on your part (as you think best) to the author. Nothing will give me more pleasure, nor is there anything which I can consider as more a duty, than that I should give you every aid in my power to arrange this matter, so as to prevent your being losers by the edition which you purchased. Mr Blackwood's reply was naturally an angry one. As a matter of course, he repudiates Ballantyne's somewhat impudent argument as to not being any longer the agent of the mysterious author : — W. Blackwood to J. Ballantyne. I admit most freely that if you stood in the capacity of a mere printer, it was your business to execute the order without consulting B. or any other letter of the alphabet. The present case, however, is very different. We entered into a transaction, relying upon each other as men of business and character who would honourably and fairly fulfil our mutual engagements. The author might change as often as he pleased, but he had no right to do the smallest act which might interfere with any arrangement which you had contracted in his name, and with his authority. I need hardly repeat what you seem to be sensible of, that the publication of this fifth edition (at all 86 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. events in present circumstances) is in direct violation of our bargain. Therefore, as you are the only person I have to look to for reparation, the author will (no doubt) instantly do you justice by extricating you from the very awkward situation in which he has placed you. However much deference I might have shown to any request or any arrangement which the author might have proposed to me in a proper manner, yet you will not wonder that now I will not give up any claims or compensation I may think myself entitled to, nor will I allow myself or my rights, even by Him, to be trampled upon, as I conceive has been at- tempted to be done by this unwarrantable publication. I have no formal proposal to make : it is for the author to do so through you. The smart encounter between the very spirited publisher and his plausible friend of the printing- office here pauses ; and in Blackwood's report to his partner in London there occur a series of dramatic scenes between publisher and lawyers, the latter advancing and retiring with true legal skill. At first they agree entirely and astutely with the in- dignant complainant, suggesting that it is clearly a case for an Injunction to prevent the publication of the uncalled-for edition, and for damages. W. Blackwood to John Murray. lith May 1817. They are quite decided and clear as to our grounds for applying for heavy damages on account of the copies we have on hand, and that it is not enough to tell us that the copies would all be taken off our hands, because, independent of the profit we expected to make by their sale, we are entitled to say it is for the advantage to our business derived from the credit of publishing such a work that we paid the sums of money we did. They are not, however, so clear with regard to our legal right of publishing future editions, and they are to consider this CONTINUED CONTEOVERSIES. 87 point also. They are, however, quite clear as to our right in equity and honour. Subsequent consultations, however, show a gradual drawing in from the original boldness of this advice. Two days after the lawyers consider the Injunction unnecessary, but stUl think an action for damages the proper mode of procedure. It is seldom that we can follow this moderating process so clearly. On the 19th May the summons was prepared to com- mence the action, and a copy enclosed to Mr Murray ; but the lawyers (wise men, who knew this to be im- possible !) thought it better first to " make a demand for the name of the author from Mr Ballantyne." On the same day Ballantyne transmits the answer of the author, who acknowledges no "right whatever" in the claim upon further editions of the ' Tales,' but has " no hesitation in admitting that your copies must be taken off your hands ; and I am authorised to say that they will all be repurchased from you upon reasonable terms." This offer, however, does not please either publishers, or apparently lawyers, for the time. Murray would seem still to have in- cHned towards an Injunction ; but Blackwood wavered, with still a sense of offence obscuring his sound judg- ment — though he is the first to suggest that subscrip- tion price for the copies in hand would be the fairest settlement. "My first idea was the same as yours, to put a complete stop to the selling of the piracy, and finish the transaction in this way," he says in his letter to Murray; but further thought modified the conviction. For a short time both partners, however, held by the idea of damages as a punishment for the apparent breach of contract ; but again the lawyers 88 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. came in, and more peaceful counsels prevailed. The final argument, which quieted the wounded spirit at least on Mr Blackwood's part, was this : — W. Blackwood to John Murray. Had it gone on it would have made a complete breach with Mr Scott, which would have been more hurtful than the loss of the difference of our claim. Both from what I have heard from his friends, and from what has occurred lately to myself, I saw that he did not wish any difference should take place. To BaUantyne, accordingly, he wrote on the 3d July, announcing his desire "to close amicably this unfortunate business " by accepting subscription price for the stock of books, which the other party had offered. " In this I have been regulated by the strong feeling I have with regard to ' the Author,' " he says. Even to the disappointed and outraged publisher, who had been, it must be allowed, rather scurvily treated, the speU of Scott's name was too strong to permit his sacred shield to be touched. With Constable and BaUantyne, let us also be sure, the blame lay. In this way "the fortunate publishers," who had so rejoiced and triumphed over their mysterious author, and exchanged all the surmises of the times as to his real personality, with unconcealed delight in their connection with him, were for ever severed from his great and troubled career. This, one can- not but feel, was one of those tragically insignificant circumstances which so often shape life apart from any consciousness of ours. Probably ruin would never have overtaken Sir Walter had he been in the steady and careful hands of Murray and Blackwood, for it is un- THE CONlRACT DISSOLVED. 89 likely that even the glamour of the great Magician would have turned heads so reasonable and sober. We can only remind ourselves in consolation that Scott in that case would probably not have been the man we know. He might have died serenely, the for- tunate and safe Baroneb of Abbotsford, with no shadow of tragedy upon him. But, on the other hand, that sublime and wonderful struggle — and the Journal, unparalleled record of the noblest and sad- dest ordeal — would never have been. Would we have saved him this if we could, to our own in- finite loss ? I know not. It would have been a great self-denial had the world had any say in the matter, for it would have been a distinct impov- erishment to us all. Other smarts besides those which came from the author's side were involved in the transaction. Murray, who in reality was slow in agreeing to the amicable settlement of the matter, and who had been responsible in a great degree by his unpunctuality in correspondence for the delay of the second edition, had blamed Blackwood for putting it to press on his own responsibility; while Blackwood had been wounded by his unusual conduct in sending informa- tion concerning the progress of the book in London to James Ballantyne, while remaining silent to his partner in the venture. The following remonstrance is temperate, but shows the wound : — W. Mackwood to John Mwrray. Mr Ballantyne read me the interesting account contained in your letter to him. The only remark I shall make upon your writing so fully to him and so briefly to me is that I think, 90 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. placed in your circumstances, I should have felt myself bound in honour to have addressed this information in the first place to my partner in the Book, who had obtained for me a share in it, and who I knew would instantly communicate every syllable to the persons interested in it. Men differ, however, in their views of these matters. I hope we will be able to get up an article for the Eeview which will redeem the former ones. Mr Scott also told me about the very satisfactory letters he had from you. I need not tell you how cordially I agree with you in think- ing that this work is one of the most extraordinary that has appeared in our times. I reckon it one of the proudest things in my life to have attained it. I laboured for many years through many difficulties and many discouragements to ac- complish something of this kind. I had always your interest in it as much at heart as my own, though I never received assistance from you of any kind to forward my views, only that my connection with you may be considered to have been of general use to me. At last I did obtain the prize I had been so long striving for ; and now when it has turned out so much greater than my most sanguine expectations, and when I might have flattered myself with having some credit as well as favour with you for what I had done, and I may add suffered in the cause, I have short querulous letters. But this is a most unpleasing as well as ungrateful subject. I hope in God we shall be done with it either in one way or another. I have not time for long letters, and I cannot afford the time and thought that these disagreeable dissensions cause. If I answered your letter at all, I felt I could not do justice to myself or you without entering into this long detail. I have kept a straightforward course, and can lay my hand on my heart and say that to the best of my judgment I have always made your concerns my own, and have thought no work too much, or any exertion too great, that could be of the smallest use to them. It is no small satisfaction to my own mind that whatever disagreeable things have occurred in the course of our connection I have never at any time slackened my exer- tions as your agent, whatever credit I may have had from them. FRIENDLY HOSTILITY. 91 From the first, however, and even when Blackwood had realised his hope of "getting a book or two to throw in one's way," it will be seen that the great London publisher sometimes treated his partner de haut en has, in a manner not agreeable to a man of Blackwood's high spirit. Murray either wrapt him- self in silence, not answering the frequent questions to be asked or mutual interests to be discussed, which are necessary in every business arrangement — or made brief communications by the hand of a clerk, or replied in a few hurried and oflPhand words to the long epistles and elaborate explanations of the other. At other times he Avas touchy and ready to take offence, especially when, by reason of delay on his part, matters had to be settled without him. A number of bicker- ings, to which we can scarcely give a more dignified name, went on in the background, even while there was the closest union of interests. But no purpose can be served in raking up these old quarrels. They went on with a sort of friendly hostility at bottom, breaking out now and then into fire and flame, some- times giving rise to affecting reconciliations, some- times to periods of estrangement, as so many connec- tions, business and otherwise, unfortunately do. As for Scott, for whose spotless reputation every- body is concerned, my own opinion is that his venture with these two new publishers was tentative, and it was quite on the cards that they might have secured him, but for this irritating check : while on the other hand it was also quite natural that he should have found the burden of James Ballantyne's mediator- ship unbearable, and felt that, without an additional disclosure of his secret, which, whether wisely or 92 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, foolishly, he was determined not to make, his sim- plest method was to return to the man who did already know, and with whom he could arrange at first hand, without any interference of a fussy though bland go - between. Neither Murray nor Blackwood throw any individual blame upon him, and he was, strictly speaking, within his rights in transferring the book, as he had expressly limited the arrangement to certain editions. The offensive announcement of a fifth edition before the fourth was exhausted was no doubt due to Constable, who thus celebrated his triumph over his rivals. It was thus that this tantalising episode came to an end. CHAPTEE III. THE MAGAZINE. ' THE EDINBURGH MONTHLY MAGAZINE' — INCOMPETENCY AND TREACHERY OF THE EDITORS, PRINGLE AND CLEGHORN — THEY SECEDE TO CONSTABLE — WILSON, LOCKHART, AND HOGG RALLY ROUND BLACKWOOD — NO MORE MEDIOCRITY — BLACKWOOD BECOMES HIS OWN EDITOR — COMPOSITION OP THE CHALDEE MANUSCRIPT — THE FIRST NUMBER OF ' BLACKWOOD ' — EXTRAORDINARY EFFECT OF THE J EU D' ESPRIT. Blackwood had now arriA^ed at a point in his life when impatience of a monotonous career, and that desire to "make a spoon or spoil a horn" which is so strong among those predestined to fortune, had risen to fever-point within him. He was impatient of bookselling and of the moderate risks and rewards of a humdrum publishing business, especially after his disappointment in respect to the ' Waverley ' series ; and all his faculties were on the watch for an oppor- tunity to step forth from the usual routine, and make a distinct place for himself The method in which it was easy and natural to do this is indicated in a curi- ous letter addressed to him by Murray, whose relations with the Edinburgh publisher were so varied and often full of friendly feeling, though broken by occasional misunderstandings and makings-up. Murray seems 94 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. to have assumed an attitude of superiority, as of a man of much greater experience and knowledge of the world, which, though probably quite justifiable from his point of view, must often have been exasperating to one so independent and high-spirited as William Blackwood, fuUy conscious of being as good a judge in his own case and perhaps a better man of business than his irregular and dilatory correspondent. In one of the many recapitulations of the services ren- dered by each to the other, in which both Blackwood and Murray were wont to indulge, each with an aggrieved tone and sense more or less of ingratitude on the part of the other, there occurs the following statement of what the great man of Albemarle Street considered it expedient for his colleague and opponent to do, and also of the manner in which it ought to be done (which was a different matter), in strict alliance with and submission to Me : — John Murray to W. Blackwood. My advice has, I believe, mainly assisted in determining you to change your late situation of business. In your present establishment you may improve to a most valuable extent the foundations already laid of a solid retail business, which in a few years may be consigned to the care of attentive clerks, while you will be gradually from this time rising into the higher duties of cultivating the young men of Genius of the day, whom your present situation and literary attractions and attentions of all kinds will indisputably draw around you. If you are confidential and liberal in your communications with me upon the subject of the works which may present them- selves in this way, you may rest assured that it may lead to more incalculable advantages to you. But I will venture to tell you what you must not do. You must not, as in a recent instance, calculate upon gaining £10 more or less by keeping the whole of one little volume to yourself, but estimate to what SAGE ADVICE. 95 an extent of publication you may proceed by dividing your risque and the very increased profits which may arise thereby by commanding the whole range of the English market. Con- stable is so fully aware of the importance of creating a power- ful interest in a bookseller here, that he has not in any instance engaged in one book of which he has not offered a share to a London publisher. With regard to the ' White Cottage,' your proposal to me should have been something like this : " It is the work of a very ingenious man who does not desire his name to be known, and therefore I mention it to you in the most honourable confidence. The work itself is very respectable, and it promises more from the same person, who will, I think, prove a valuable connexion. I have it upon such and such terms, and if you like to join with me I shall be very happy thus to increase your exertions." It is not the little profits of this little volume, if it sell, that should be thought of, but what must be gained on a large scale by the additional capital, divided risque, and moral certainty of extensive success. The volume thus unjustly withheld from Mr Murray was a little tale by one Arthur Mower, who is jocularly alluded to in the Chaldee Manuscript. It evidentlv did not take the world by storm or set the Firth of Forth on fire. There is a certain tone in the com- plaint, at once aggrieved and dictatorial, which is more amusing than probably the ' White Cottage ' was ; and the occupation recommended of cultivating young men of genius was one which Blackwood proceeded to carry out in a way which afterwards produced many shocks and great alarm in the bosom of his adviser. The early years of the century, which now had reached the seventeenth summer of its youth, had introduced, amid its many other developments, the new form of the periodical to the world. The fly- ing sheet of the 'Tatler,' followed by Spectators and a lessening tribe, had taught the lively sub- 96 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. jects of Queen Anne to look forward to a delight- ful stimulant of news and criticism along with their chocolate of a morning on certain happy days ; but it was only in the nineteenth century that the seri- ous Eeview had begun its being. Everybody knows, as one of the most romantic episodes of literary his- tory, the reckless, youthful, light-hearted enterprise got up among a few clever young men, much desir- ing both money and fame, but a little fun and ex- citement above all, and delighted by the idea of setting up an irresponsible tribunal, and judging those who by nature had the gift of judging and condemning them. That a great organ of opinion, both political and literary, and an important com- mercial speculation, bringing large practical recom- pense, should have grown out of the merry meeting round Jeffrey's dinner - table, would probably have surprised the originators of the ' Edinburgh Review ' as much as it did the world which it took by storm. But success came so quickly at their call that they set the fashion, and became a kind of model for other undertakings opposed to them in every point except the talent, the youth, and the rashness, — the last quality particularly taking the mind of the time, like the dash of one of the famous regiments of the great, just concluded war, which were the more pop- ular with the country in proportion to the impetuous impulse with which they rode down everything before them. The Whig Review had been in a great measure a revolt against the unbroken rule of the Tory in litera- ture and life. But in the revolution which soon after occurred, and in which the Whigs came to the top and THE EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. 97 absorbed ever3rfchmg, it became intolerable on the Tory- side that such an organ should hold the field in literary matters ; and the necessity of a periodical to support other interests, and assert the right of the constitu- tional party to an equal hearing, was very clearly seen. It is true that the ' Quarterly Review ' was formerly the rival and chief opponent of the great organ of the Liberals; but it was perhaps, as we have indicated, too ponderous from the beginning, too sober, digni- fied, and middle - aged, lacking the dash and the fiery energy of the other, coming too gently into the world to strike any exhilarating note upon the public ear. It made its mark, but not as its oppo- nent, without any of the sensation and stir which the 'Edinburgh Review' had called forth. The true champion and challenger of Jeffrey and his men— as dauntless and inconsiderate of all secondary motives as their beginning had been, as rash, spontaneous, and brilliant — was yet to seek. That this should come in the shape of an Edinburgh Magazine, — something not so ponderous, more nimble, more frequent, more familiar, — was a thought that had been for some time vaguely forming in Blackwood's brain. And perhaps the startling consciousness of a fall, which the energetic young publisher had received after the failure of aU his hopes in respect to Scott, pricked him to another effort which would make him forgive himself for his want of success, and carry con- viction to every looker-on that he was not a man to be foiled. Constable, his rival, who had just gained what could scarcely help seeming to both a victory over him in respect to the 'Tales of my Landlord,' possessed not only the 'Edinburgh Review' itself, VOL. I. G 98 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. "the horn" in which lay his strength, but also a feeble little 'Scots Magazine,' of which there was little to be said in one way or another. No doubt, however, the existence of that small periodical, and the hope of cutting the ground from under its publisher's feet, had something to do with the eagerness with which Blackwood at last began to carry out his slumbering design. There is not much information as to the manner in which he was brought into contact with Messrs Pringle and Cleghorn, the two gentlemen who became the joint editors of the ' Edinburgh Monthly Magazine.' By some it is -said to have been with them that the idea originated ; while Hogg, then very much en evidence about Edinburgh, having actually a hand in most things that were going on, and supposing himself to have much more, was of opinion that the original con- ception was his own. It is most probable that it was he who introduced the two pseudo-literary men to the publisher. Pringle was from Hogg's own country, a rustic genius like himself, though of superior educa- tion ; and Cleghorn was known as the editor of a Farmer's Magazine, probably therefore a countryman too. Of the two it was Pringle, the younger and gentler, who was the favourite, and he alone had any pretensions to literature ; but it is evident that he was dominated by the stronger spirit of the other, and swept away by his influence. On the face of it, the expedient of a joint-editorship does not seem a happy idea, and the business arrangements were apparently of a most peculiar kind. The publisher and the two editors would appear to have entered into a sort of copartnership, they undertaking to find the necessary LITEKAEY RECOMPENSE. 99 literary provision for the periodical, while he took the risk and expense of the printing and publishing. The profits were then to be divided between them. Who was to pay the contributors, or if they were content to remain without remuneration, we are not told. In those days it was considered right at all events to say, and if possible to believe, that literature was superior to payment, and that to imagine a man of genius as capable of being stirred up to composition by any thought of pecuniary reward was an insulting and degrading suggestion — an idea in which a fanciful spectator would fain take refuge once more, in face of a generation which weighs out its thousand words across the counter, with the afiectation of finding in sale and barter its only motive. It is stated in one of the letters that the expectation of the editors was to receive jointly a siun of about £50 monthly when the sale of the Magazine reached 2000 copies, — matters being much simplified, as the reader will perceive, by this high generosity on the part of the con- tributors ; but the demand for the Magazine does not seem ever to have risen above 2500 copies, a sale which would hardly content any publisher now- adays. The Magazine, however, did not last long enough to have time for development. The editors already had begun to complain piteously of the publisher's interference in the second number. He who had incurred the loss of the greatest of literary labourers by his habit of stating his opinion, — who had freely criticised Scott, besides braving the anger of two such important authorities in Edinburgh as Henry Mac- kenzie and Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, — was not likely 100 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. to allow his fine fancy of a Magazine, as powerful and as vivacious as the ' Edinburgh Review/ and in every- thing strongly opposed to that great Liberal organ, to sink into insignificance, or to put up with the meek and mild miscellany of which he now found himself the publisher. By the month of July he had discovered that he had enough of Mr Pringle and Mr Cleghorn, or at least of the latter, and when the third number was ready he gave the three months' notice which was necessary, according to the agree- ment, for breaking the partnership. For this there were many very evident reasons. In the first place, Blackwood was and always remained a high Tory, holding the ' Edinburgh Review ' and all its works in abhorrence ; whereas the publication issued under the cover of his name found nothing more expedient than to fill its first number with a panegyric on Francis Horner, one of Jeffrey's most pragmatical lieutenants, and to applaud the wisdom and skill of that peri- odical ; and, secondly, the publication altogether was a weak and washy production, little likely to do either publisher or writers much credit. There was no doubt another reason, not apparent, which was quite as effectual as either of these. Like the other publishers of the age, it had been Blackwood's desire from the beginning to make his place of business a centre of literary society, a sort of literary club where men of letters might find a meeting - place. Murray in London employed the drawing-rooms of his house, which was in those days over the shop — an honest word, which nobody shirked — for this purpose. But Blackwood's house was at some distance, and the large rooms at Princes TkE COMPANY IN PElNCES STREET. 101 Street were well adapted for their many and much- mingleii guests. There accordingly many men of note assembled, and among them certain young heroes, advocates and others, not yet of much note, to turn over the books and hear the news and tell each other all manner of stories. One of them, afterwards to bear an important part in this history, has given a very vivid description of the scene in ' Peter's Letters.' Among the frequenters of this lively company were two young men who would have been remarkable anywhere, if only for their appearance and talk, had nothing more remarkable ever been developed in them, — one a young man of grand form and mien, with the thews and sinews of an athlete, and a front like Jove, to threaten and command. Jove is not often por- trayed with waving yellow locks and ruddy counte- nance, yet no smaller semblance would be a fit image for the northern demigod with those brilliant blue eyes which are almost more effective in penetrating keenness than the dark ones with which that quality is more frequently associated. He was a genial giant, but not a mild one. Genius and fun and wit were no less a part of his nature than wrath and vehe- mence, and a power of swift and sudden slaughter, corrected in its turn by a large radiance of gaiety and good humour — sudden in all things, ready to fell an intruder to the earth or to welcome him as a brother, swift to slay, yet instant to relent. The other, who divided with him the honours of this witty meeting, was John Wilson's opposite in everything. He was slim and straight and self-con- tained, a man of elegance and refinement — words dear to the time — in mind as in person, dark of hair 102 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. and fine of feature, more like a Spaniard than a Saxon, a perfect contrast to the Berserker hero by his side. They were both of that class which we flatter ourselves in Scotland produces many of the finest flowers of humanity, the mingled product of the double nation — pure Scot by birth and early training, with the additional poUsh and breadth of the highest English education: Glasgow College, as it was then usual to call that abode of learning, with Oxford University to complete and elaborate the : strain. Wilson was of Magdalen, Lockhart of Balliol, a Snell scholar, the best that Scotland could send to England. The career of both had been perhaps more brilliant than studious ; but both had left Oxford in all the glories of success, first-class men, the pride of dons and tutors. They had both come to Edinburgh a year or two before — Lockhart in the fulfilment of his natural career, Wilson in consequence of the loss of his fortune. Wilson was considerably the elder of the two, and had enjoyed a few careless happy years at his house of EUeray on Windermere, a young married man, writing poetry, and with no anxiety about his career, before he lost his money and was obliged to turn to work as a source of income. They were both newly fledged advocates, members of the numberless and jocular band who trod the courts of the Parliament- House, waiting for the briefs which there, as elsewhere, are so slow to come. Little recked these young and laughing philosophers of the absence of fees and steady work. They were young enough to prefer their freedom and boundless opportunity of making fun of everybody to all that was serious and useful. A PAIR OF FRIENDS. 103 Lockhart was a caricaturist of no small powers. Both of them were only too keen to see the ludicrous aspect of everything, and the age gave them an extraordinary licence in expressing it — a licence in- comprehensible to us nowadays, and which is nowhere so tempting, as it is nowhere so dangerous, as in a small community where everybody knows everybody, and personal allusions are instantly taken up and understood. This pair of friends met almost daily in Mr Blackwood's saloon in Princes Street, or came together arm-in-arm from the Parliament-House, in their high collars and resplendent shirt -frills and Hessian boots. The boots form a splendid feature in the caricature-sketches, in which Lockhart represents himself stiflE" and straight, with the little tassels bobbing at his knees. Such was the costume of the day, and such were the heroes of Edinburgh youth, men of endless faculty and inextinguishable mirth, men neither ungenial nor ungenerous, yet unable to deny themselves a jest, and tempted to find in the outcries of their victims rather a relish the more to their sometimes cruel fun than an argument to give it up. With two such young men under his hand, ready for anything — as astonishing in their bursts of energy as in their boundless capacity for idling, and eager to carry out any freak which promised sport — Blackwood had naturally the strongest light by which to see the shortcoijaings of his dull editors, who moulded pain- fully under his vexed and impatient observation the dullest of inconsequent Magazines, instead of the brilliant organ he had dreamed of. To think of these mild men as leading a rival band to that of Jeffrey 104 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. was absurd. They had neither spirit nor energy for the position ; and soon, according to the tale, they lost even the care and industry which might have made it possible for the sober periodical to go on. So early as the second number Mr Blackwood's patience gave way, and his propensity to interfere, to take, as he himself explained it, " an interest in the literary part of his business," irritated the editors, who made an attempt to keep the publisher " in his place," which was not very successful. He whom even the spell of ' Waverley ' could not silence, was not likely to respect the autocracy of a couple of incapable editors ; and when the third number came out he could bear it no longer. He gave notice accordingly, which was strictly in order, by the terms of the agreement, that with the sixth number the existing arrangements must come to an end. He describes the situation in the following letter to Messrs Baldwin, Cradock, & Co., in London, who were among the number of his agents there : — Edinbubgh, 23d July 1817. I am sorry to inform you that I have been obliged to resolve upon stopping the Magazine with No. 6. I have been much disappointed in my editors, who have done little in the way of writing or procuring contributions. Ever since the work began I have had myself almost the whole burden of procuring contributions, which by great exertions I got from my own friends, while at the same time I had it not in my power to pay for them, as by our agreement the editors were to furnish me with the whole of the materials, for which and their editorial labours they were to receive half of the profits of the work. I found this would never do, and that the work would soon sink, as I could not permit my friends (who have in fact made the work what it is) to go on in this way for any length of time. Besides the labour and anxiety it cost me, it has com- THE UNSUCCESSFUL EDITORS. 105 pletely interfered with my other business. I therefore entered into a negotiation with Mr Pringle, the editor, whom I wished to retain, both on account of personal friendship, and that I expected he would soon become much more useful when he had more experience, and when the editorial duty devolved upon himself alone. I had every reason to expect we should have made a comforable arrangement by which we should have secured a certain number of regular contributors, whom we would have paid at once. "With this view I gave a notice, according to our agreement, that the work would close at the period specified in it — three months. Instead, however, of Pringle acting in the friendly way he had professed, he joined Cleghorn, and, without giving any explanation, they concluded a bargain with Constable & Co., by which I understand they take charge of their [Constable's] ' Scots Magazine ' as soon as mine stops. It is not of the least consequence to me losing them, as they were quite unfit for what they undertook. But it is most vexatious stopping the Magazine, which was doing so well. By our agreement neither party can continue it under the same title. I have, however, made an arrangement with a gentleman of first-rate talents by which I will begin a new work of a far superior kind. I mention this to you, however, in the strictest confidence, as I am not at liberty yet to say anything more particularly about it. It will be announced in good time, and I have no fears as to its making us ample amends for our present disappointment. I shall take good care to have the two numbers we are yet to publish equal, if not superior, to the preceding ones, and you will continue your exertions the same as ever. My editors have very dishonestly made it known to a number of people that we stop at the 6th number. This will interfere a little with our sale here, but I hope not with you. This rapid decision was not accepted, it is scarcely- necessary to say, without a struggle, and a long corre- spondence arose on the matter, wordy and on both sides a little tedious to the distant spectator, but full 106 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. of that wonderful flow and eloquence which personal controversy gives. The editors could have nothing to say against Mr Blackwood's resolution, for it had been fully provided for in the original agreement ; but they kept up a lengthened wrangle over the edition to be published of the last remaining numbers, arguing that there should be only a sufficient number printed to supply the subscribers, and suggesting that the pub- lisher might, if left unfettered, print 20,000 as easily as 2000, and so swamp their possible profits alto- gether. Of these profits, as is unfortunately so often the case with writers, they had apparently formed a quite unfounded idea. The Magazine had never reached the paying point. But this was a thought which did not easily penetrate the intelligence of a time in which the one periodical of which everybody thought as a model paid largely, and the profits of literature were supposed by the ignorant — demoral- ised by the reports of fabulous sums paid to Scott and Byron, and even Moore — to be immense. John Murray's pocket-book with the thousand-pound note in it cast a glamour over the productions of the humblest author, and why Messrs Cleghorn and Pringle should not be as worthy of recompense as Francis Jeffrey and Henry Brougham was a fact hid from these gentlemen's eyes. I quote the following letter chiefly as showing the first visible introduction into Mr Blackwood's arrangements of a figure destined hereafter to take so much place in them : — W. Blackwood to Messrs Pringle and Cleghorn. As you have now an interest directly opposite to mine, I hope you will not think it unreasonable that I should be made acquainted with the materials which you intend for this THE LAST NUMBER. 107 number. It occurs to me that it would save all unpleasant discussion if you were inclined to send the different articles to Mr John Wilson, who has all along taken so deep an in- terest in the Magazine. I do not wish to offer my opinion with regard to the fitness or unfitness of any article, but I should expect that you would be inclined to listen to any- thing which Mr Wilson might suggest. He had promised me the following articles : " Account of Marlowe's Edward II.," " Argument in the Case of the Dumb Woman lately before the Court," " Vindication of Wordsworth," " Eeviews of Lament of Tasso," " Poetical Epistles, and Spencer's Tour." His furnish- ing these or even other articles will, however, depend upon the articles you have got and intend to insert. I beg to assure you that it is my most anxious wish to have the whole business settled speedily and as amicably as possible. The last number thus referred to had evidently been delayed beyond the proper time of publication, which was a way they had in those days. No ex- ertions on Murray's part, for instance, could secure the appearance of the ' Quarterly ' at its correct, or indeed at any regular time, and to postpone the publication of a Magazine from day to day, or even from week to week, seems to have been a pleasant vagary of an age in which literary persons, or, to use the more flattering conventional term, persons of genius, were still considered quite above the laws of punctuality and regularity. Messrs Cleghorn and Pringle kept the threat of an indefinite delay in re- spect to this last number over the publisher's head to force him into compliance with their demands ; but m this particular they reckoned without their Blackwood —also, it must be added, without the sensible and candid arbitrator who finally arranged the matter. I may quote here a portion of the long letter recapitu- 108 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. lating all the arguments, which Mr Blackwood wrote to Mr Combe, the agent of the editors, apparently under the immediate sting of a paper printed by them, and containing a very unfair account of the proceedings from the beginning. It is dated 29th October 1817 :— W. Blackwood to Mr Oombe. You have seen from the correspondence that it was my most anxious wish to settle with your clients as speedily as the accounts could be made out; that I furnished the accounts within a very few days after the sixth number was published, and in my letter enclosing them, offered to send my clerk to settle the whole at any time they chose ; that in place of their agreeing to this, your clients still wanted a reference, when there was in^ fact nothing to refer ; that after plaguing both themselves and me by insisting I should not name any other than a bookseller as my referee, they at last empowered you to send me a scroll on Tuesday last of the submission,^ by which we were to refer all matters in dispute to the gentle- men whom I had originally proposed — on my part Mr More, and on their part Mr Brownlee. Yesterday I called upon you, and stated what I had proposed all along, — ^that if your clients would allow my clerk to call upon them, or if they would empower you to act for them, I was quite certain that the whole might be settled in a quarter of an hour. You received my proposal in the most candid manner, and after conversing over the matter a little, you agreed with me in thinking this by far the best mode for both parties. Accordingly you called upon me in the course of the forenoon with a proposal from your clients that I should pay them £300 for their half share of the property and any claims they might afterwards have upon the Magazine. I told you at once that this was entirely out of the question, and I showed you clearly by the statements of sales and expenses that I was at present nearly £140 out of pocket, so that there 1 A Scotch law-term, meaning the legal statement of details in a case. UNGENEROUS OPPONENTS. 109 was not a farthing to divide, and that even if the whole of the impression were sold off there would not be £70 of clear profit, consequently that their half share at some distant period, if ever, would only be £30 or £35. You were so much con- vinced of the justice of what I stated, that you said you would go to them again and endeavour to show them the propriety of making some more reasonable proposal. When you returned you showed me a statement of profits, claims, &c., on the basis of which they considered themselves warranted in asking from me £150 in full of all demands. I felt myself so completely tired of all disputing with your clients, that I had resolved in my own mind that I would rather sacrifice a hundred pounds to be rid of them. I therefore told you that though I felt confident no arbiter would award them anything in the present state of the concern, yet to get matters settled in an amicable way I would agree to pay them £100. After some further conference we concluded the matter by dividing the difference, which, if your clients agreed to, the matter was settled. You called on me at the Eoyal Exchange between four and five, and pressed me much instantly to write the letter of agreement. I could not then conjecture any reason for such urgent haste, and I told you that it was quite impossible for me to do it at that moment, but that I would be glad to see you at my shop at 8 o'clock, when we could exchange missives in a regular way. You called accordingly, and we exchanged the missives, with mutual assurances of satisfaction at this amicable close of all matters of dispute. The haste of the conclusion v^as, it afterwards ap- peared, in order that the bargain should be finally made before the publication of the " Printed Paper," in which these ungenerous opponents went over the whole question iagain, charging the publisher with a series of petty dishonesties, with eluding their claims for payment, and with keeping them in ignorance of the state of affairs — aU of which are, we fear, the stock accusations of unfortunate writers who quarrel with 110 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. their publishers. It was natural that this very- shabby artifice should have much exasperated a man who felt himself the loser, not only by more than two hundred pounds of honest money, but by all the defeated expectations of the previous six months, which Hnked his name with failure, a thing intolerable to his ardent mind. The eventual fate of these two incompetent editors had little to do with literature. Constable's small magazine, which they managed for a short time, soon went the way of all dull periodicals ; and after the tremendous commotion caused in Edinburgh by the Chaldee Manuscript, the names of Pringle and Cleg- horn dropped apart. Pringle emigrated to the Cape in later years, having first published a volume of amiable and patriotic poetry, which I remember to have admired in those facile days of youth when, everything that rhymed was agreeable to the ear and to the soul. It is pleasant to add that when, many years after, we find again the handwriting of Thomas Pringle in Mr Blackwood's endless corre- spondence, there is no trace in it of any unkindly feeling. Much the contrary : he writes to claim the support of his old friend for some scheme of a new church for Capetown, where he had established him- self, and to send the MS. of a friend, which he com- mends to the attention of Blackwood and " crusty Christopher," with the friendly confidence, which he expresses, that it wUl be all the better received (as he flatters himself) because it comes to them from his hands. This is very little like the utterance of a wounded spirit. Of Cleghorn we have no such pleas- ant note. Mrs Gordon, in her life of Christopher THE BEGINNING OF ' MAGA.' Ill North, describes him as having done better in business than in literature ; but there is no further information about him in connection with this episode in his Hfe. They both come into the famous Chaldee manuscript with certain personal details which perhaps might have been better spared ; though the curious fact of the lameness of both is so quaintly and not unten- derly described as " skipping on staves," that it sounds more affectionate and humorously laughable than unkind. We feel, with the disappearance of these men and all the paraphernalia of their feebleness from the scene, as if everybody concerned must have drawn deep breaths of satisfaction and freedom. The little Magazine under their charge was the most curious jumble of the high-flown and the commonplace — much serious and even fine criticism, as in the papers on the Greek Drama (believed to be by Lockhart), mingled with discussion of the early wonders of Animal Magnetism, and treatises partly archaeo- logical upon the symbolical position of the Salt on ancient tables ; while these again were supplemented by chronicles of border fairs and markets, records of village wonders, like the case of the country girl who slept for six weeks, and even the minutiae of the Reg- ister, births, deaths, and marriages. Nothing could be more clear than that it was not in this way that the ambitious hopes with which the new venture had been undertaken could be satisfied. After this curious and clumsy preface, the real ' Blaokwoob's Magazine ' at last began. It may be amusing to quote before going further the very char- acteristic letter from James Ballantyne with which that 112 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. worthy gave in his estimate for the printing. We begin to understand the half-romantic, half-absurd, and entirely humorous faithfulness of Scott to his old comrades and vassals when we turn over these letters of the always plausible and bland printer. He is so sure of his own perfect integrity when he is most conscious of being in the wrong, so amiably skilful in putting the best face upon things, and making the worse appear the better cause, that it is impossible to bear him any malice ; and we quite understand how, offended and disappointed as Blackwood must have been by the sudden transference of his prize out of his hands in the very moment of triumph, he should yet have been found not very long after anxious to give Ballantyne employment, and consenting to guar- antee, with some others, the doubtful solvency of the man who had been the instrument of his disappoint- ment, with a ready kindness which says much for his goodness of heart and something also for the personal attraction of the erratic printer. Ballantyne's large and specious argument to prove the moderation of his own charges will amuse the reader. He is evi- dently aware that objections might be made on this point, or he would not have thrown out those flying buttresses to strengthen his position. His letter is dated 7th January 1817, and clearly concerns the first beginning of the 'Edinburgh Monthly Maga- zine ' : — James BallantyiM, to W. Blackwood, A certain scale of printer's profits has been acted upon in Edinburgh from time immemorial, and the surest possible proof that that scale is not too high is furnished by the fact that printers in general are not rich men. Many, the great majority PRINTERS RATHER POOR THAN RICH. 113 of them, are rather poor than otherways ; and I do not recollect one who has become opulent by book-printing and jobs only. I infer, therefore, that the scale is an honest and fair one, and that those who do all they can do to lower it by working at inferior prices commit an act of manifest injustice to their brethren. With such opinions, it would be preposterously inconsistent in me to sanction by my own practice what I so strongly disapprove in others. There is another reason, however, for making a deduction from the regular estimate ; and this I am quite ready to admit within decent limits. A work \ike a Magazine, which may be calculated upon to last for years, ought, I think, to be able to afford a discount ; and this I am willing to do, as I believe no honest man in the trade would fairly be entitled to censure me for doing so. But I find the deduction which you propose to me to make, altogether beyond moderate limits. I have put upon the next page what I conceive to be an honest price, making a proper allowance for the benefit resulting from the probable endurance of the work. I do assure you that I cannot charge the prices one sixpence lower. My sense of obligation to you for desiring to give me a preference upon equal terms will not be lessened, however you may decide. The quaintness of the argument that his prices must be considered to be moderate because few- printers become rich, is delightful. We have heard it used in a contrary sense in respect to the great author and publisher question. The publisher often grows rich, the author very seldom does, therefore — the conclusion is the simplest and easiest in the world. But not even this admirable argument, though enforced by the natural liking for the man who stated his case with an astuteness so simple and so transparent, was sufficient to change the practical necessities of a bargain. As it turned out, it was Oliver & Boyd, and not BaUantyne, who were the first printers of the VOL. I. H 114 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Magazine, though the work returned into Ballantyne's hands in after-years. The decks were now cleared, the men were at their posts : the real battle was about to begin. One can imagine the bustle and the commotion in the rooms in Princes Street, the endless consultations, the wild suggestions : Lockhart, pensive and serious, almost melancholy, in the fiery fever of satire and ridicule that possessed him, launching his javelin with a certain pleasure in the mischief as well as the most perfect self-abandonment to the impulse of the moment ; Wilson, with Homeric roars of laughter, and a recklessness still less under control, not caring whom he attacked nor with what bitterness, apparently unconscious of the sting till it was inflicted, when he collapsed into ineffectual penitence ; Hogg bustling in, all flushed and heated with a new idea, in which the rustic daffing of the countryside gave a rougher force to the keen shafts of the gentlemen. That it must be a strong number, something to startle the world, a sort of fiery meteor to blaze across the Edin- burgh sky and call every man's attention, was the first necessity. They were determined upon this, whatever else might follow : no longer any calm of respectable mediocrity — something to sting and startle, and make every reader hold his breath. The position of the publisher between those uncontrollable, high- spirited, mirth-loving young men, who had taken possession of him and his premises and his Magazine, whose talents roused him into that enthusiasm ol which we have already seen him to be so capable, and whose gay determination to make a stir in the world was only as the foam upon the river to his own " TO MAKE A SPOON OR SPOIL A HORN." 115 indomitable resolution, right or wrong, to win or lose all, whatever it might cost him — is a most curious and interesting one. William Blackwood was too sagacious and too completely a man of his world not to know exactly what ejffect the Chaldee Manuscript would produce. If the fun went to his head, as to the heads of the others who produced it, it never did so sufficiently to make him unaware of the risk he was running — that risk which was his alone, which would not touch those dashing daring young men any more than any other excellent joke would do. We cannot doubt for a moment that he knew what he was about. He was not a man to be carried off his feet at such a critical moment — or rather he permitted him- self to be carried off his feet, casting prudence to the winds, by the inspiration of that other kind of pru- dence which sometimes sees it the wisest thing to set everything on the turn of a balance, and " put it to the touch, To gain or lose it all." There is nothing that has been more commented on and wondered at than the immense effect produced by a piece of remote local satire, which could only be comprehended by those who knew the people, the scene, and to some degree even the circumstances of the extraordinary jeu d'esjprit with which the new series began. But it is clear, for one thing, that the opinion of London and the world — almost convertible phrases nowadays, and the chief, almost the only, aim of literature and literary ambition — did not occur at all to these young men. It was for Edinburgh they wrote, and of Edinburgh they thought, which is a 116 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. most singular thing to think of among all the changes which time has brought about. No doubt Edinburgh is quite enough to make a reputation still ; but there is perhaps no one nowadays, certainly no number of men, who would venture to leave the rest of the world out of their calculation, nay, to pique and almost defy the rest of the world by a production most laughable, most able, tantalising as if written in a language but half understood, which was patent to Edinburgh alone. No such thing could be done now : we hope, but are not sure, that the personalities which gave it its zest are no longer a temptation even to the youngest and most daredevil of the literary sept ; but if this were not so, if it were still the fashion to trans- fix your foe where you found him, and search out with delight every crevice in his armour, there is no liter- ary skirmisher but would pause to think, with a cold chill upon his ardour, how many readers would care or understand what he meant. But the wits of 1817 had no such chill. They knew very well that Edin- burgh would understand what they meant, and they were disposed to chance the understanding of the rest of the world — indeed they did not apparently take the rest of the world into consideration at all. It seems scarcely necessary to explain what the Chaldee Manuscript was, for never perhaps was there a satirical composition, certainly never one which concerned so smaU a circle, and was so purely local in its aim, which has had so much fame in the world, and become so universally known. Yet we have to remember that new generations who know not Joseph are arising every day, and that what everybody knows begins after the lapse of very nearly a century to be- THE CHALDEE MANUSCEIPT. 117 come a very vague and general knowledge. When we say that it concerned chiefly the quarrel between Mr Blackwood and the two editors who had wrecked his little Magazine and disappointed his hopes, and the larger strife and rivalry which existed between Con- stable and himself, one Edinburgh bookseller against another, along with the background of people, not- able, yet only in one case world-distinguished, who took part on either side, the young reader may well be astonished that so much has been written of this production. Yet it is not too much to say that in its way it moved the world, and that readers who had never heard of half the characters in it, and to whom the personal peculiarities of the various men in Edinburgh who appeared in its scenes were altogether unknown, laughed and stormed, and disapproved, and grew solemn in reproof and denunciation, and laughed again — till the original little brown-covered brochure of the new periodical was torn in pieces by eager buyers and clamorous critics, and ' Blackwood's Maga- zine ' leaped all at once into the knowledge, the curi- osity, and the attention of the book-loving world. It was, perhaps, not the firmest of foundations, but it was a most effectual one. Edinburgh rose to it like one man, delighted, amused, offended, furious. Whatever after-criticism might be expended upon it — and that came pouring in on every side — this one thing was assured from the first day : that it had done what it was meant to do, and that whatever was to be said of the new ' Blackwood's Magazine,' which had risen with such a shout out of the ashes of the old, this at least could be said no longer, that it was dull or inoffensive — which is of aU criticism the most dreadful. 118 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The suggestion, it is said, and a part, but no one knows how much, of the composition, came from Hogg, who, whatever other failures there might be in his education otherwise, was no doubt steeped, Hke almost every other shepherd on the Scotch hUls, in Biblical language, and also a little touched with that profane familiarity with sacred phraseology which is the reverse of the medal, and has given the opponents of the Bible in schools their strongest argument. Amid aU the talk and consideration how to give a point not to be overlooked to the new issue, he rushed in among the young and dauntless band, eager to combine their immediate business with the greatest possible amount of fun and amusement to themselves, with his idea, and such scraps of it as he had already expressed in words. The suggestion filled them with delight. There is a legend that they were all three invited that night with others of their allies to dinner at a certain hospitable house, 53 Queen Street, where after dinner, and when they had got rid of the ladies, this delightful joke was propounded, and the whole company set to work it out, one after another add- ing a verse. They were a mixed party, not idle young advocates alone, but philosophers, lawyers, and men of business, all keen for the jest. Sir WOliam Hamilton was the contributor of one verse, as the story goes, and was so overcome with de- light and amusement at his own cleverness that he roUed off his chair in fits of laughter. The sound of the fun as it waxed fast and furious, com- ing in gusts from the dining-room, tantalised and bewildered the ladies above, who could not imagine what was going on ; but we are not told that they were A MAN CLOTHED IN PLAIN APPAEBL. 119 taken into the confidence of the rioters. This is a legend which is not perhaps much more to be relied on than if it were a legend of the saints. We have the fact on Lockhart's authority that he and Wilson sitting up half the night, with Mr Blackwood filling the part of the admiring audience, and cheering them on as verse was added to verse — were the real authors. And this story no doubt is the true one. It is only fair that the reader should judge for him- self of this production. He has just heard the story of Pringle and Cleghorn, and their failure. He will therefore be as able as any one to comprehend the amusing version which I quote from an old yellow proof, with the dust of nearly seventy years upon its crumpled page. It was not yet revised, and it is different a little from the final publication. He wiU, however, be very well able to decide whether there was any venom in the tale. It is prefaced by a grave paragraph, giving the exact place of the manu- script in " the great Library of Paris." The writer is set down suddenly " in the midst of a great city that looketh toward the north and toward the east, and ruleth over every nation and kindred and tongue that handle the pen of the writer." I looked, and behold a man clothed in plain apparel stood in the door of his house : and I saw his name, and the number of his name ; and his name was as it had been the colour of ebony, and his number was as the number of a maiden, when the days of the years of her virginity have expired. And I turned my eyes, and behold two beasts came from the lands of the borders of the South; and when I saw them I wondered with great admiration. The one beast was like a lamb, and the other like a bear ; and they had wings on their heads : their faces also were like 120 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. the faces of men, the joints of their legs like the polished cedars of Lebanon, and their feet like the feet of horses preparing to go to battle : and they arose and they came onward over the face of the earth, and they touched not the ground as they went. And they came unto the man who was clothed in plain apparel, and stood in the door of his house. And they said unto him. Give us of thy wealth, that we may eat and live, and thou shalt enjoy the fruits of our labours for a time, times, or half a time. And he answered and said unto them. What will you do for me whereunto I may employ you ? And the one said, I will teach the people of that land to till and to sow ; to reap the harvest and gather the sheaves into the barn ; to feed their flocks and enrich themselves with the wool. And the other said, I will teach the children of thy people to know and discern between right and wrong, good and evil, and in all things that relate to learning and knowledge and understanding. And they proffered him a Book ; and they said unto him, Take thou this and give us a sum of money, that we may eat and drink and our souls may live. And we will put words into the Book that will astonish the children of thy people ; and it shall be a light unto thy feet and a lamp unto thy path ; it shall also bring bread unto thy house- hold and a portion to thy maidens. And the man hearkened unto their voice, and he took the Book and gave them a piece of money, and they went away rejoicing in their hearts ; and I heard a great noise as if it had been the noise of many chariots and of horsemen upon their horses. But after many days they put no words in the Book ; and the man was astonished and waxed wroth, and he said unto them. What is this that ye have done unto me, and how shall I answer those to whom I am engaged ? And they said. What is that to us ? see thou to that. Unless it might happen, to be the mere title of the "beasts," which was shared by Blackwood's future "THE CRAFTY. 121 supporters as well as those who deceived him, we are unable to see the least bitterness in this. It is excel- lent fooling, and occasionally the turns of phrase, though exceedingly profane, are extremely funny ; but there is no bitterness in it, nor cause of com- plaint, that we can see. The only " personality " lies in the curious fact that both Pringle and Cleg- horn were so lame as to use crutches when they walked : whence " the great noise as if it had been the noise of many chariots " which attended their coming and going. The picture of the rival power. Constable, long before this time known as " the Crafty " among these wUd young Tories, forms an admirable pendant to that of the two beasts : — And in those days and at that time there lived also a man that was crafty in counsel and cunning in all manner of work- ing; and the man was an upright and a just man, one who feared God and eschewed evil; and he never was accused before any judge of fraud, or of perjury, or of deceit : for the man was honourable among the sons of men. And I beheld the man, and he was comely and well-favoured, and he had a notable horn in his forehead with which he ruled the nations. And I saw the horn that it had eyes, and a mouth speaking great things, and it magnified itself even to the Prince of the host, and it cast down the truth to the ground, and it practised and prospered. And when this man saw the Book, and beheld the things that were in the Book, he was troubled in spirit and much cast down. And he said unto himself, " Why stand I idle here, and why do I not bestir myself ? — lo I this Book shall become a de- vouring sword in the hand of mine adversary, and with it will he root up or loosen the horn that is in my forehead, and the hope of my gains shall perish from the face of the earth." 122 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Even Scott himself was not spared ; and the manner in which he took the joke was like himself. Lockhart tells us, on the authority of Sir David Wilkie, who was present, that Scott, when he read it, " was almost choked with laughter; and he afterwards confessed that the Chaldean author had given a sufficiently- accurate account of what really passed on the occasion." But when the spirits were gone he [the Crafty] said unto himself, I will arise and go unto a Magician which is of my friends : of a surety he will devise some remedy, and free me out of my distresses. So he arose and came unto that great Magician which hath his dwelling in the old fastness hard by the river Jordan, which is by the Border. And the Magician opened his mouth, and said, Lo ! my heart wisheth thy good, and let the thing prosper which is in thy hands to do it: But thou seest that my hands are full of working, and my labour is great. For, lo, I have to feed all the people of my land, and none knoweth whence his food cometh ; but ea«h man openeth his mouth, and my hand fills it with pleasant things. Moreover, thine adversary also is of my familiars. The land is before thee : draw up thine hosts for the battle on the mount of Proclamation, and defy boldly thine enemy, which hath his camp in the place of Princes ; quit ye as men, and let favour be shown unto him which is most valiant. Yet be thou silent: peradventure will I help thee some little. An address exactly the same is made by the Magician to the other applicant for his favour ; which is as a matter of fact what did occur. But in all this mockery there was no sting. Scott received it " al- most choked with laughter." The young rogues had THE LEOPARD AND THE SCORPION. 123 divined him, and knew that he had no mind to com- mit himself to the Crafty, any more than to pledge himself to his lively neighbours. It was thus in pure fun that the joke was carried on. In the description of the second set of beasts who came forth for the service of the man clothed in plain apparel, the writers did not spare themselves. The first that came was the beautiful leopard from the valley of the palm-trees, whose going forth was comely as the grey- hound, and his eyes like the lightning of fiery flame. And he called from a far country the scorpion, which de- lighteth to sting the faces of men, that he might sting sorely the countenance of the man that is crafty, and of the two beasts. And he brought down the great wild boar from the forest of Lebanon, and he roused up his spirits, and I saw him whetting his dreadful tusks for the battle. Perhaps of all these mocking designations the two which were affixed by the hands of the brethren to themselves have stuck most firmly — especially that of the scorpion, which is not flattering. No doubt his comrades must have recognised the appropriateness of the signalment, and seen in it the most apt resem- blance to the swift and sudden dart which was launched in a moment, without change of the pensive counte- nance, by the deftest hand among them. In all this we do not believe that the reader of to-day will see either malice or bitterness. Without doubt there were sharper stings by the way at chance personages who had not much to do with the main question — such as the injured baronet, Sir J. G. Dalyell (not a baronet, however, at that moment), to whose piteous 124 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. complaint, as we shall afterwards see, the Lords of Session were called upon to listen, and whose re- capitulation, in the terms of the law, of the missile aimed at him is even more grotesquely comic than the libel itself This assault upon all and sundry gave the delighted conspirators an amount of pleasure in the concocting which ought to have fully indemnified them for any trouble afterwards. They awaited with impatience the clearing out of their predecessors, and the coming of that jovial October that should launch them upon the world which they meant to take by storm. In some- thing of the same mind they compiled a list as long as a man's arm of articles on every subject under the sun, which were preparing, as they promised, and which it would have taxed an army of trained men of letters to produce. But they were confident in their power to do anything, and perhaps the dashing bravado, after all, was more genuine than appeared. " Wilson," says Mr E. P. Gillies — himself a contributor — in his 'Recollections of a Literary Veteran,' "instead of desiring good Mr Pringle's stores of reserved copy, very decisively maintained that any man in a state of tolerable health, and disposed for literary amuse- ment, might write an entire number in the course of two days ! He had then a rapidity of executive power in composition such as I have never seen equalled before nor since. But as he would do nothing but when he liked and how he liked, his productions, whether serious or comic, might all be regarded as mere jeux d'esprit and matters of amusement. Mr Lockhart, I suppose, was more systematic in his pur- THE PLYING PEN. 125 suits, though his rapidity of pen was almost marvellous. I remember he considered thirty-two columns, a whole printed sheet, as an ordinary day's work, which might be accomplished without the slightest fatigue or stress." This rapidity accounts for much of the tumult and rush of their proceedings. They were carried away by the flow of easy and delightful power. There was no talk in these days of over- work, no fear of shattered nerves or brain exhaus- tion. It was fortunately the fashion to be robust in mind as well as in body. They needed no artificial hush about them. Perhaps it may be allowed they would have done better for themselves and their after fame if they had been a httle more bound by these restraints. As for their audience, it was the sweep and fulness, the very torrent of young strength, impetuosity, and daring, which moved it to a kind of rapture. The position of the sober man of business, who was like themselves in swiftness of mind and readiness of spirit, and whose keen eye saw the advantage to be reaped from the very disadvantages, the reckless imprudence and dash, which are instruments in a cool and steady hand as good as any — is at this moment very curious. He withheld and subdued, when it was necessary, with great unconscious skill, with the constant steadiness and sense which always have their influence — and which were strengthened even by his faculty of being carried away and moved to enthusiasm by the flow of wit and genius, the only things that ever went to his head. He would have been more than mortal if he had not been delighted with the 126 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. demolishing of the Crafty, that equally strong and more cunning opponent who had managed to seize from him in a moment the prize which he had almost made his own. But that he had dark moments, and that he could not always moderate those fiery spirits as much as he wished, there could be little doubt. No thought of this, however, was in his mind when the October number had been seen through the press, with endless laughter and the highest anticipations of triumph. The chorus of young performers disappear into their homes, into their other frolics — perhaps to some solemn Edinburgh dinner-party where an irre- strainable laugh, a word or look thrown at each other behind backs, would be all by which they would dare to express their excitement over this new adventure and mystery, or the sensation, the explosion which they awaited on the morrow — till they could escape to the joyous relief of some favourite tavern, for clubs were not as yet, to let out the laughter and the agita- tion. In the meantime the man in plain apparel for a moment had the scene all to himself He received the new number, fresh and fragrant from the press — it is but an old and shabby number now, the brown covers faded, the columns less smooth and regular than in later days — with his heart beating in his ears. Did it mean fortune and success? or did it mean some- thing very different ? But he did not allow himself to dwell upon that darker chance. Before he left Princes Street he copied with his own hand into a new quarto volume the letter he had just sent to the captain of his forces, he "whose going forth was comely as the greyhound, and his eyes like the THE FIEST NUMBER. 127 lightning of fiery flame." The name is put in in a corner ruled off with careful lines, in the very forma- lity of which the nervous excitement shows ; thus — John Wilson, £sq., Queen Street. October 20, 1817. My deak Sir, — As in duty bound I send you the first com- plete copy I have got of the ' Magazine.' I also beg you will do me the favour to accept of the enclosed. It is unnecessary for me to say how much and how deeply I am indebted to you, and I shall only add that by the success of the ' Magazine ' (for which I shall be wholly indebted to you) I hope to be able to offer you something more worthy of your acceptance. — I am, dear Sir, yours very truly, W. Blackwood. There is a thrill of emotion and feeling in this formal little epistle which shows in every exact and carefully written line. And then he walked home in the keen evening air — with perhaps that touch of coming frost in it which is considered seasonable, and which was exhilarating as generous wine to the vig- orous and healthful man at the height of his manhood and strength — with the precious little packet under his arm. He went into his house, where all the chil- dren — by this time a nursery full — rushed out with clamour and glee to meet their father, who for once, in his excitement, took no notice of them, but walked straight to the drawing-room, where his wife, not excitable, sat in her household place, busy no doubt for her fine family ; and, coming in to the warm glow of the light, threw down the precious Magazine at her feet. " There is that that will give you what is your due — what I always wished you to have," he said, with the half-sobbing laugh of the great crisis. 128 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. She gave him a characteristic word, half-satirical, as was her way, not outwardly moved, with a shake of her head and a doubt. He was always sanguine ; but she had no bees in her bonnet. Sometimes he called her a wet blanket when she thus damped his ardour, — but not, I think, that night. And next day all Edinburgh was ringing with the wild, witty, flagrant attack upon all the notabilities. And the authors were the only men who did not venture to laugh too much over this joke which con- vulsed their world. CHAPTER IV. THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. ACTIONS FOR LIBEL — THE COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETEY — LEIGH HUNT AND HAZLITT ATTACKED CHAEACTBRISTIC LETTERS FROM WILSON AND LOCKHART — BLACKWOOD STANDS FIRM — HE SECURES THE COUNTE- NANCE AND CO-OPERATION OF SCOTT — LETTERS FROM SCOTT — WILLIAM LAIDLAW — SCOTT's OPINION OF THE CHALDEE MANUSCRIPT — JOHN Murray's notion of what a magazine should be — lockhakt and WILSON'S joint-reply TO MURRAY — THEY CHALLENGE AN ANONYMOUS assailant — BLACKWOOD REFUSES TO SELL 'DON JUAN.' The effect of the new number was instantaneous and extraordinary. There is next to nobody living now who remembers personally the commotion and tumult in Edinburgh over the Chaldee Manuscript, but many still remember to have heard of it from their elders, with such remains of the old excitement, amusement, triumph, or wrath, which, fifty years later, it needed only a word to recall, and which were almost incon- ceivable in their warmth after so long an interval. My mother was a fervent Liberal, and therefore com- pletely opposed to ' Blackwood's Magazine ' ; also a woman much out of the world, living in the country, and but slenderly acquainted, I imagine, with the subjects of the satire ; yet her laugh over it, and her remembrance of it, made it familiar to me long before VOL. I. I 130 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. I saw a word of it iii print. It was one of the old brilliant things " such as you never hear of nowadays " of her youth ; and I am afraid the trials for libel, the tremendous wounds thus lightly inflicted, the outcries and complaints, were to the temper of her generation only a charm the more. Edinburgh woke up next morning with a roar of laughter, with a shout of delight, with convulsions of rage and offence. There seems to have been nothing particularly noted in the Magazine — though the number was full of good and bad things — but this. It ran through every group of men and into every company like wildfire. The dinner-parties on that evening would no doubt be most successful parties — no want of subjects for con- versation, whether it was in fury, whether in fun, sometimes the two combined. Blackwood's first number was immediately bought up [says Mr E. P. Grillies iu his ' EecoUections of a Literary Veteran], and a new edition issued, from which, however, the firebrand Chaldee was prudently excluded. But by this concession to the prevalent taste our amiable public was put to the test. Every purchaser expected to have his copy of the far-famed satire, and every one growled at its absence. Copies of the original number were handed about, with manuscript notes identifying the principal characters, and high prices were offered for a copy which the fortunate possessor had read and could dispense with. It was truly a most laughable /eti d' esprit, while the portraits were nevertheless so grotesque and shadowy, and the whole so evidently intended for a harmless joke, that the worthies indicated, had they been wise, might either have joined in the laugh or treated the matter with silent contempt. But, on the contrary, all without exception took offence, and some commenced actions in the Court of Session, and got judgments in their favour for injuries done to their reputation. One of the first of these ill-advised persons was a MR J. G. DAL YELL. 131 certain advocate, John Graham Dalyell, Esq. (after- wards Sir John), who on the 10th of November 1817, not a fortnight after the pubHcation of the Magazine, summoned the pubhsher on the following plea : — That the false, malevolent, or wanton mockery of personal infirmities, and holding them up as a subject for public scorn and derision, is arraigning the wise dispensations of Providence, bringing the afflicted into contempt, and a cruel outrage of his feelings. That falsely and malevolently devising, uttering, or publishing contumelious descriptions, reproachful words, cal- umnious charges, and insinuations tending to disturb the peace of any individual, to depreciate his character in public or private esteem, or to impair the means of his subsistence and comfort, are aU or either of them grievous injuries, which found him in an action for damages and reparation against the aggressor. That the said John Graham Dalyell is a member of the Faculty of Advocates practising before the Supreme Courts of Scotland, and is also the author of literary composi- tions, written either on his own account or at the desire of the proprietors and editors of literary works from whom he receives remuneration. That in these employments his means of sub- sistence consist. That while the said John Graham Dalyell was reposing in the bosom of his family, following his lawful avocations and literary pursuits, and at peace and amity with all mankind, WiLLiAM Blackwood, bookseller in Princes Street, Edinburgh (the publisher of a literary work, book, or pamphlet bearing the title of 'Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine' and purporting to be printed by Oliver & Boyd for the said William Blackwood), actuated by deliberate malignity and without any provocation whatever on the part of the said John Graham Dalyell, did insert and publish a wicked, false, and scandalous libel, grossly calumniating the person of the said John Graham DalyeU, in an indecent, irreverent, and blasphemous application of Scriptural language, which libel is contained in a number or volume of the said work. The words which inflicted this injury were certainly unpleasing enough. They follow closely in the Chal- 132 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. dee Manuscript the comparatively harmless descrip- tion of the two beasts. " The man who was crafty" found that another beast had joined the first two in his momentary absence : — Now the other beast was a beast that he loved not : a beast of burden which he had in his courts to hew wood and to draw water and to do all manner of unclean things. His face was like unto the face of an ape, and he chattered continually, and his nether parts were uncomely. Nevertheless his thighs were hairy, and the hair was as the shining of a satin raiment, and he skipped with the branch of a tree in his hand, and he chewed a snail between his teeth. ... If thou lookest upon him and observest his ways, behold he was born of his mother before the months were fulfilled, and the substance of a living thing is not in him, and his horns are like the potsherd which is broken against any tree. We may allow that this is not the kind of thing which it would be tolerable to have said of one, and admire the courage of the man who applied it to himself It is to be presumed that the contemptuous description was so true to the life that no one could mistake it. We may allow even that it was, as he said, " a cruel, malicious, and wanton injury," and that " holding up in a style of mockery and derision the personal infirmities under which the said pursuer labours, impiously scoffing at what is the visitation of Heaven alone, and no fault of him the sufierer," was as cruel and unseemly in point of morals as it was bad taste and impossible in literature. Whether the poor man's feelings could be salved and his honour vindicated by the award of damages was of course for him to judge. The Chaldee Manuscript, however, we are sorry to say, was the least of the sins of which the new number ATTACKS ON COLERIDGE AND LEIGH HUNT. 133 was guilty. It began with a virulent and uncalled-for attack upon Coleridge and his ' Biographia Literaria,' which was of tenfold deeper guilt than the Chaldean vision, holding up the poet, both in his works and his person, to contempt. I am not aware that Coleridge retaliated directly at all, though he was not himself sparing in abuse while treating others, in the similar channel of a review ; but his treatment of Blackwood was magnanimous, as will be apparent hereafter. Another shorter, still more virulent, and most un- pardonable assault upon what the writer dubbed " The Cockney School of Poetry," signed with the initial Z, was the most offensive of all ; and we are obliged to allow that it was an attack for which there is no word to be said, and which can only arouse our astonish- ment and dismay that the hand of a gentleman could have produced it, not to speak of a critic. Beside these two productions, the Chaldee Manuscript was innocence and good manners combined — though, strangely enough, the other papers do not seem to have offended the public, which was still raging over the Lake School and the Byron controversy, and hotly taking sides for and against these different literary parties, with a fervour and venom of vitupera- tion happily unknown to this day. The other sufferers, however, were not silent. Leigh Hunt — who on his part was as evil-tongued a critic as coiild be found, so that there is little cause for pity, except that such a man as Lockhart should ever have been tempted to indulge in abuse so unworthy of him- self — was the special subject of attack in the " Cockney School," and lost no time in making his complaint. The summons of Mr DalyeU was ringing in the pub- 134 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. lisher's ears when his attention was called to the still more serious threat from London of an action on the part of Hunt. Lockhart himself did not hesitate to allow that the attack was actionable, and it evidently- assumed a much more grave aspect than the other, with many anxious questions whether the case would be tried in London or in Edinburgh, — a libel in the former place being tried before a jury, and therefore with a result more likely to be detrimental. The first news of this came in an alarmed and troubled letter from the respectable firm of Messrs Baldwin, Cradock, & Co., in London, honest booksellers, with no more to do with the compounding of the literary wares they dealt in than a grocer has to do with the growing of his tea. One cannot but sympathise with the feelings of these good people when there arrived by the peaceable post a red-hot cartel, not unlike a summons to deadly combat, demanding that they should instantly give up the name of a writer in ' Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine,' signing himself Z, who had given vent " to the most false, malignant, and altogether infamous aspersion on the character of Mr Leigh Hunt, editor of the ' Examiner.' " These excellent booksellers had their name as Mr Blackwood's correspondents upon his Magazine, without the faintest idea that they were thus placing themselves on the nest of a cocka- trice. The discomfort, confusion, and disapproval of their letter is almost amusing : — Messrs Baldwin, Cradock, & Co. to W. Blackwood. London, Nov. 3, 1817. We were much surprised and hurt this morning at receiving a visit from Mr John Hunt, complaining on behalf of his brother of an article in your new Magazine signed Z. Not having had ALARM or MESSRS BALDWIN AND CRADOOK. 135 time since the arrival of the copies to read the number, we were entirely ignorant of the nature of the article of which he com- plained ; but, on examining it, we certainly think that it con- tains expressions which ought not to have been used. Being a convicted libeller himself, Mr Leigh Hunt has little right to complain of such attacks ; but, as it is utterly contrary to our principles and conduct to publish them, we cannot but seriously regret that our names should be affixed to the Magazine con- taining the one in question. It appears that Mr John Hunt's object in calling was to demand that we should endeavour to procure for him the name of the writer of the article. We told him that we thought it very unlikely that we should be success- ful in such an attempt ; but that if he would state his demand in writing, we would send it to you. He immediately, in our house, wrote the annexed, which we hasten to transmit. Whatever answer you may think proper to send in satisfaction to Mr Hunt, we expect that you will make it clear that we have *no knowledge of the writer, and that we had none of the article itself till it was printed : for, whatever our opinion may be of Mr Hunt, we surely cannot sanction the publication of such an article under our name. On the present occasion we shall merely add, that our continuing the agency in London of your Magazine must entirely depend upon its being free from per- sonalities on the moral character of any individual. Mr Blackw^ood's reply was, we fear, not exactly in accordance with fact ; but there are recognised fictions in such cases which a man is almost compelled to accept whether he wishes to do so or not. He hastens to clear the character of his respectable correspondents from every shadow of blame : — W. Blackwood to Messrs Baldwin, Cradock, & Go. It is quite unnecessary for me to say anything with regard to your utter ignorance of the article in question till after you had received the Magazine; and, as I never wrote you one syllable as to the contents of this number, you were equally ignorant both of the tendency of any of the articles or by whom they were written. 136 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Mr Blackwood then, like an astute publisher, piously professes his own want of " control over the measures of my Editor," and completes the circle of virtuous irresponsibility by certain details of the accidental insertion of the article in question as sent from London by a writer of great ability, whose support the said Editor was afraid he had lost. " He was so glad to find that a person of such powerful talents was to support the Magazine, that he gave the communication a very hasty glance and sent it im- mediately to press." So that, really when you came to examine into all the details, nobody was to blame. Everything, however, he engages, is to be done that can be done to mend the matter. " My Editor," severe in moral authority, " has written to the author to say, that he cannot avail himself of his future communications unless they are free from this defect." He (the aforesaid Editor) had also offered decidedly to express his sentiments on the subject in a note in the number which will be published on Nov. 20th, in which he will also insert an able letter in vindication of Mr Hunt, which he has received by this post from an eminent young barrister. While he thus disclaims the slightest intention of counte- nancing any aspersions on the character of Mr Leigh Hunt as an individual, I may mention to you that his opinions with regard to the spirit of that gentleman's poetry coincides pretty nearly with that of Z. But Mr H. must be aware that the pages of my Magazine are open to anything that his friends or admirers may write in its defence. The next person who intervenes in the correspon- dence is a judicious Mr John Eichardson, himself a contributor to the erring Magazine, who, hearing A FRIENDLY MEDIATOR. 137 that nothing will satisfy the victim or induce him to refrain from a prosecution but a disclosure of the writer's name, calls upon the Hunts to see what he can do. This gentleman does not think that in any case there need be much feared in the way of damages. But he does not any more than the others justify the attack. Mr Richardson's discussion of the question is curious. He says that Mr Leigh Hunt can, he believes, without difficulty, "prove himself individu- ally to be almost, if not altogether, as pure and correct a man as walks the streets of London," but that no doubt the power of a jury to discriminate between abuse of a school and tendency in poetry, and abuse of a man, is doubtful. " It seems to me," he says, " that the publication of anything mischievous by a man of good character is infinitely more dan- gerous than a similar publication by a man of bad character. . . . Thus, if the poem is impure, would a pure man choose an impure subject? Would his individual purity justify his sending impurity abroad ? " These reasonings would be much out of place in our day, when this is exactly what happens, and not only men but women, themselves of perfectly good character and no naughty impulses, write all manner of immodest stories and suggestions, on prin- ciple. And it is truly astounding to discover that all this question of purity and impurity and Mr Leigh Hunt's morals, and his critic's abuse which shocked the world, was about that rhymed novel or novel- ette the ' Story of Rimini,' which very few people in our day have ever read, and which is merely a weak and lengthy paraphrase of the immortal dozen lines of Dante in which Francesca and Paolo were first re- 138 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. vealed to the world. To' make it all the more wonder- ful, Murray was the publisher of the poem, in which Blackwood either had a share, or, as the agent of Murray, pushed and sold, much exhorted so to do by his friends in London. Finally, we believe Mr Leigh Hunt's injured feelings were calmed down, and that, with various answering bursts of abuse in his paper, the 'Examiner,' the quarrel went on in an appropriate and legitimate way ; but it made a breach between Blackwood and the firm of Baldwin & Cradock, whose pious horror at being concerned in such a row, and anxiety that the world should be made aware how very little they had to do with it, are edifying beyond expression. Their name disappears from the November (1817) number of the Magazine ; but the articles on the Cockney School of poetry went on bravely, and the name stuck, if noth- ing else. Z's articles, however, in the succeeding numbers are in better, or at least in less bad taste, and consequently much more effective than that in the first, which, while exceedingly abusive, was not bril- liant, though every supporter of the Magazine was ready to go to the stake for its talent at least, if nothing else. It is most curious to find the light rhymes and trivial strains of the ' Story of E-imini ' solemnly treated, as if it might upset the morals of the world, with accusations which are not less than horrible attached to its insignificant details. But the eyesight of contemporaries is so curiously out of focus that it is impossible to overestimate its strange ten- dency to confuse all perspective. In one portion of these strictures, coming from so capable a critic, who THE COCKNEY SCHOOL. 139 ought certainly to have known better, he threatens to attack in turn " the younger and less important mem- bers " of his so-called Cockney School, " the Shelleys, the Keatses, and the Webbes." That Leigh Hunt should be supposed by any one to be more important than Shelley and Keats seems inconceivable : or that these should be associated with the trumpery pretensions of Cornelius Webbe. The critic of the present day, who is still more cock-sure than our young lions of the Magazine, and rarely so effective, should take warning from such an extraordinary slip as this. However, these young lions took the matter lightly enough, after the fashion of their age : though they were without doubt a little frightened by the idea of actions at law. They seem to have left Edinburgh while the first blast of the storm was raging, finally arriving, after various delays, in the Lake Country, where Wilson had his well-known house EUeray, on Windermere — leaving their publisher to bear the brunt : who stood like a rock, writing letters to all concerned, replying at once to indignant publishers, injured authors, and severe lawyers, with a civility and steadiness that never varied — and covering the real culprits with his ample shield. We doubt that he had probably some trouble too at home, and that the wife of his bosom would not hesitate to point out to him roundly the vexation into which his fine new Magazine, over which he had been so elated, had brought him, and what broken reeds were those writers, for whom all her life Mrs Blackwood retained an aggrieved contempt. The Magazine, however. 140 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. was selling, which was a great consolation ; and Mr Graham Dalyell (in whose name some one of those in- corrigible jokers wrote to Leigh Hunt, giving himself up as the anonymous Z, a laughable but unpardonable outrage), with his lawsuit, was an advertisement not perhaps too dearly purchased. The alarm in the minds of the writers at the be- ginning of the DalyeU business lest they should be themselves betrayed, seems to have risen to a con- siderable height, though they bore the trouble of their publisher with great equanimity. The follow- ing correspondence shows the fluctuations of their feelings. The letters are as usual without date, but highly characteristic of the disposition and policy of the moment : — John Wilson to W. Blachwood. All you have to do is to keep up your mind in good fighting condition. In all you say or do commit neither yourself nor others, even to the best and most friendly. Infringe this rule, and you are no longer safe. If Scott is secured — and I think there is little doubt of that — all is and must be well. Jeffrey is too knowing a man to care a straw about the matter. At the same time, be not too much concerned by anything you hear, nor elated. Let every- thing take its course, and, above all, let us speak and act for ourselves without any word or deed of yours. You should consult Cranstoun or some other first-rate man about Hunt. No doubt that is actionable. Whomsoever you consult retain in case of an action, and retain nobody but a first-rate man, and if possible a Whig. Cranstoun, being a Liberal himself, is the best person. Eetain one only ; and trust to chance for a junior counsel. A retaining fee is, I suppose, a trifle. Hunt will not, I think, bring an action, but he could. Speak or write to Cranstoun before Hunt can apply. Jeffrey, of course, would not advocate your cause against Hunt. Cockburn might, or ADMONITION AND ADVICE. 141 Moticreiff: all those three are unexceptionable. All this may- be a bugbear, but " it has the face of a bear." With whatever Scott says, agree ; but commit yourself to no man. Do not apply to J. M. C. or L. A. till you hear or see something of us. Meanwhile, if you could get Scott's name — and when you tell him of your tribulations, perhaps you may — that alone would be victorious. Get all other names ; think of admitting nothing dull or ordinary. Get Mackenzie (" Man of Feeling") if possible on your side. This number is of para- mount importance. We have yet done nothing, but we are sure cards. Tell the brethren to write. Another letter in a different tone is launched about the same time at the head of the sober charioteer vpho had that wild young plunging team in hand. It is a joint production from Lockhart and Wilson, the us emphatically underscored as in the above, and is written in alarm and fear that he has allowed him- self to be thrown off his guard by the lawyers in the Dalyell process : — Lockhart and Wilson to W. Blackwood. If anything was understood when you left Glasgow [Lockhart begins], it was this, that to all questions, speeches, hints, innu- endoes about the Vision, its authors, its objects, its conse- quences, you should be dumb. The only exceptions we made were in favour of Mr C. and his brother, John More and Cranstoun. Now, how after all this, and after all the letters which have passed, you could have allowed yourself, to hold any conversation whatever on this subject with Hotchki's [the agent of Dalyell], far more how you could ever have dreamed for a moment of allowing to him the possibility of D. being satirised there, or the possibility of your having any occasion to " appease the feelings" of anybody under the sun — is to me, I confess, wholly incomprehensible. Cranstoun when you went to him knew perfectly well all about the matter, and his apparent incapacity to understand the allusions was meant to teach you 142 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. to profess and assume equal incapacity. I fear, I greatly fear, you have now virtually acknowledged a libel. That we should get rid of all suspicions we never expected ; and now, in addi- tion to the original sin, we are to be lugged into the charge of pusillanimity, and of being bamboozled by Dalyell and his friends. I trust you have not proceeded any length in the matter. If you have, God grant your game may not be up. If you have committed us in the way we fear, whatever our feelings are, and always must be towards you, it will become a subject of serious consideration what further part we are to take in the concerns of the Magazine. This, in its clear small incisive handwriting, but underlined like a (proverbial) lady's letter, in nervous anger and alarm, is supplemented in the larger scrawly careless hand of Wilson, with a sort of bigger but softer echo of the tone of the other. Lockhart's voice is rarely without a certain sharpness. Deak Sie [writes Wilson], (this letter is most friendly but absolute). I am dining out, and have no time to say much. All the above I approve. Have nothing to do with D. or any- body else till we see you. We are your staunch friends. Be true to yourself and us, and fear nothing. The Vision is not actionable. Be that as it may, if you follow your own opinions or those of any other man after your solemn engagements with us to the contrary, how can you expect anything but confusion and disgrace ? Any kind of submission or parley with him is death. All this apparently concerns the action of Mr Dalyell. There is a sort of schoolboy vehemence in the tremendous assertion of the "solemn engage- ments " and the underscoring of every emphatic word. Blackwood was but moderately moved by these adjura- tions. He wrote no laments nor outcries of alarm, but stood fast in his steady way, keeping their youth- THE OFFICE OF CONSTABLE. 143 ful secrets (which they themselves betrayed freely), and paying up when necessary, — not, we presume, without an occasional wry face. But though it was very serious, and sometimes the possibilities of that ugly thing, ruin, came unpleasantly near, yet he was not without the more astute wisdom of the man of the world, and knew in the bottom of his heart that — as Mr Murray stated that great article of faith^ — every- thing could be made to pay in one way or another, damages and other evil things included. One of those days, the evening of the one probably in which the above philippic was written, a few lines " are sent in addition over our oysters " — from the same twin brethren, with a wild demand for material for the " Office of Constable," to be wrought up into " an antiquarian article in next number." " Send therefore to the ' Scorpion ' as soon as possible all the facts of the Crafty's life from youth upwards. The other materials we have : all disagreeable topics to be avoided, and the laughter innocent and amiable." Then follows, in Lockhart's neat hand, " This I think bids fair to beat Riddell's ' On the office of Marechall ' aU to nothing. Let your account of the Crafty be as fuU and precise as your leisure will permit, and trust everything for Tournaments, Coats of Arms, &c., &c., to the well-known author of the celebrated article 'Heraldry 'in your 'Encyclopaedia.'" So the young men would have stormed along, caring not much for anything but fun and fighting. It is to be supposed, however, that here the graver wiU stood fast, for we do not think the proposed essay on " The Office of Constable" was ever written. Lockhart, in his turn, echoed "Wilson's advice to 144 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. secure the help, or at least the countenance, of Scott as the one necessity of salvation. " Get Scott, and you get everything," he wrote from amid the West- moreland hills, whence the two authors of the mischief watched the explosion from afar ; but he urges caution as before — and his view altogether of the circum- stances is more serious than that of his companion. He adjures his correspondent :— Be extremely cautious in giving even to him names or power unnecessary. But secure him : 1st, To write a paper in No. 2. 2nd, To speak against the exclusion of your Magazine — should such an inquisitorial and absurd measure be talked of — in a Faculty 1 meeting. 3rd, Not to say any ill of you, your Maga- zine, or virtually of the Chaldee MS. itself. Upon him every- thing depends, for in any Faculty meeting, where literature is concerned, who can stand against Maugraby ? Besides, should it be necessary, the Advocate also miist speak, and Wilson will: Till we hear what Dalyell says, we cannot be easy ; but we think that if he does anything violent, it will be against his nature, and only in consequence of the baiting of the adversary, willing to avenge himself at the expense of the 3rd beast. See Swift's letter, and Lord Molesworth's story of the Jew of Madrid : " The boys were afraid they should lose their sport, so they clapped the poor Jew on the back all the way to the stake, saying, Staferme, Moyse." For myself I have no fear, provided you procure when necessary, but not till necessary, the avowed countenance of Scott. Wilson occupies higher ground than I do, and has less to fear. We are both firm and steadfast. Of course you will write daily. P.S.—li you are really publishing or advertising a 2nd edition of the Oct. number, add this motto : " Eara temporum felicitas ubi sentire quse velis, ut quae sentias dicere licet." This must le, and stand. Put this into your very first advertisement at all events. It is of Wilson's suggestion, and is most excellent. Mr Blackwood, however, had a more effectual 1 Meaning, we presume, from the Library of the Faculty of AdTocates. APPEAL TO SCOTT. 145 method of approaching and attaching Scott than any his correspondents suggested, and happily it was one which had been put in operation before the necessity arose. It was well known, and indeed too seriously proved in the case of the Ballantynes, that for his friends, and especially those who could in any way be called his dependants, Scott's generosity was bound- less, and that there was no trouble which he was not ready to take to promote their interests. On the occasion of beginning the new series of the Magazine, Blackwood had at once resorted to the greatest of living authorities on literature for his help. Anything from you, whether in prose or verse [he wrote to Scott], would be perfectly invaluable to me at present. I hope you may have something lying past you which you may not he intending to use otherwise, and which you may perhaps honour me with. There is no sum I could offer that would be proportionate to the value to me of any communication from you, however short ; but should you do me this singular favour, I hope you will permit me to present you with something as an expression of my sense of the obligation. These were the days, as I have hinted before, in which remuneration was suggested with delicacy, as beneath the exquisite feelings and purpose of a writer, notwithstanding the large sums which were paid to the great authors of the day. In a later letter the astute bookseller puts his bait upon the hook : — W. Blackwood to Walter Scott. I have heard my friend, Mr Hogg, frequently speaking in very high terms of a Mr Laidlaw, in whom, he told me, you took an interest. I do not know his address, else I would write to him with regard to communications on rural affairs, with which I understand he is well acquainted. This was to have been, as announced in my Prospectus, one of the branches VOL. L K 146 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. of the ' Edinburgh Monthly Magazine,' but Mr Cleghorn, from his connection in another quarter, carefully excluded every- thing of the kind. From the nature of the work, there cannot be much space allowed for articles connected with agriculture ; still, if Mr Laidlaw would undertake them, he could always have something every month. That the big fish swalloM^ed this fine bait as sweetly as could be desired is clear. The following reply from Scott I have found after some difficulty, with the date of Abbotsford, 21st September, and evidently in direct answer to that above quoted : — Walter Scott to W. Blackwood. I would have written to you long since had anything occurred worth plaguing you about. But from an idle man — and such I have been, from the necessity of taking much hard exercise to keep the cramps at [arm's-length] — there is but little to be looked for, always excepting the gratitude due for the Stirling Heads,^ which are most beautiful. I think of getting some of them done for the ornament above the compartments of my library here, which they will accord with very happily. On the subject of the Magazine, I am too much a veteran of literature to be surprised at the unexpected shoals on which the fairest undertakings sometimes are wrecked, or at the un- foreseen causes of difference which occur between publishers and authors. Mr Pringle wrote me a few lines on the subject, to which I answered, expressing the interest I feel for Scottish literature and its supporters in general, and my intention to be completely neutral, reserving the privilege of contributing any trifling assistance to either or to both publications. Indeed, understanding that the principal conduct of yours is committed to the charge of a gentleman whose talents are of the highest order, and whose good opinions and goodwill have been ex- pressed to me in more ways than one, it is naturally to be supposed I should be desirous of aiding a work he is interested 1 A book of engravings published by Blackwood. WILLIAM LAIDLAW. 147 in, so far as I have it in my power. As to any pecuniary recompense, I cannot in conscience stipulate or accept of any ; for as it can be only broken hints, detached fragments, and so forth, that I can offer, and that but occasionally, I would be very unreasonable to exact any emolument for such trifles, nor have I any thoughts of doing so. It is, however, in your power to interest me more deeply in the success of your attempt, in the event of your securing, as you propose, the assistance of my friend, Mr William Laidlaw, on the footing of a regular contributor. He is one of my oldest and best friends in this country — a man of a singularly original and powerful mind, acquainted with science, well skilled in literature, and an excellent agriculturist. Having lately given up an over-rented farm, he is at present inhabiting a farmhouse of mine called Kaeside, about half a mile from me, and I am heartily desirous, both for his sake and my own, to secure my- self the benefit of his neighbourhood, as he is amicus omniwm ionorum, my confidential adviser on rural economy, and my companion in field sports. If, therefore, you should think it advisable to trust to Mr Laidlaw for supplying a certain por- tion of your Magazine with agricultural or literary articles, I have not the least doubt they will be executed to your satisfac- tion, and will consider myself as completely responsible for what he may supply. He shall have my best advice and fre- quent assistance ; and as a very special friend of mine answered Dr Lawson of Selkirk, when in the course of the Carritch they came to the question, " What is Effectual Calling ? " "I have little doubt we will make it out between us." But, my good sir, if I am to give this sort of pledge, the emolument derived to Mr Laidlaw's family must be such as will answer my selfish purpose of keeping him in my neighbourhood, and that will cost you such a rate of copy money as shall enable him to make at least £120 per annum. Mr Laidlaw is a good antiquary, and both he and I would have pleasure in contributing to that branch. He has by him an excellent essay on converting high and over - ploughed lands into grass, written for the benefit of your humble servant in a manner likely to be generally interesting. I have a curious letter of the well-known Chevalier Eamsay to Mr Bayers on the state, political and 148 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. economical, of France about sixty years since, and I daresay I can find some other quodlibets for your starting number if you think my plan likely to answer. I am glad there is a chance of our seeing Mr Moore, and sincerely happy that Mr Irving liked Abbotsford as much as its inhabitants liked him. Laidlaw — the well-beloved Willie Laidlaw of Scott's Life — also answered with expedition, but evident trepidation, as follows : — W. Laidlaw to W. Blackwood. Mr Scott has made me acquainted with a correspondence between you and himself respecting my co-operation in the new series of your Magazine. It is, as you say, somewhat like a new work, and really I must say that your proposal of a tryst for six months appears to me reasonable in several views. For, notwithstanding whatever Mr Scott's partiality may lead him to think, my experience in literary labour has assuredly not been much. I am apt to judge that a monthly report of rural affairs cannot be made very interesting, and rarely useful, especially during the sum- mer months : perhaps a short notice of the weather and its probable effects would be enough, and I would do my best to put together a respectable quarterly report. I have one or two articles in view that might be rendered not uninteresting, particularly one addressed some time ago to Mr Scott, and which he has often honoured by his approbation. It is upon the best way of laying down his higher grounds in improved and permanent pasture. As whatever I send will have the honour of passing through Mr Scott's hands, I beg to throw myself on his judgment likewise for what emolument I ought to have for the six months. Some short time later we have another cheerful and lively letter from Scott, giving his opinion of the first of some articles on the authentic history of Rob Roy, which had a special interest at the moment from the AN IRRESPONSIBLE WRITER. 149 fact that Scott's novel of that name had just been announced for speedy publication. He then adds : — Scott to W. Blackwood. Mr Laidlaw projects a series of letters under the signature of Maugraby. I shall certainly revise and correct them, and if I should write any at length you will understand that I reserve the right of printing such myself, should I ever think it proper, which is highly improbable. Eespect- ing my name in this matter, you will understand that I merely assist Mr Laidlaw, and you are quite at liberty to say that I do so. But as to my fathering any particular portion of the correspondence, you must hold me excused if I leave that matter to your own sagacity of detection and that of the public. In fact, were I obliged to take pains — and this I must if I were to make myself responsible for what I write — my contributions would be very few indeed. Besides I may, for aught I know, give something or other to Mr Pringle, who would expect me to favour them also ; so I should be like the poor fellow who was obliged to fly the country in consequence of having rather too numerous an irregular progeny. The link thus established between Blackwood and the one effectual friend whom he was so much urged to secure no doubt gave him courage ; but yet there was a tremor in his tone when on the fateful 20th of October he forwarded the first number of the revived Magazine to Abbotsford, with copious and enthusiastic thanks for " the sanction and support " given to his undertaking, " and that I now have it in my power to say that the work is one that has your good wishes even in the way of the slightest assistance to Mr Laidlaw." " I hope," he adds, " that you will be pleased with this number on the whole, and I think that it is likely to make some noise. I anxiously hope you wiU not be displeased by the Chaldee MS. 150 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. There were various opinions as to the propriety of publishing this. The Editor ^ took his own way, and I cannot interfere with him. When you have leisure I hope you will do me the honour to tell me how you like any of the articles." Not having apparently any immediate reply from Scott, whose support was so important, Blackwood wrote again shortly after to Laidlaw, hoping thus to have an expression of his patron's views. Laidlaw himself would seem to have praised the number, in which his own contributions filled a humble place. W. Blackwood to W. Laidlaw. 29tA October 1817. I am truly happy you are so much pleased with this number. I intended to have had the pleasure of seeing you either yesterday or to-day, and therefore thought it needless to write. I have, however, been much occupied by disagreeable discus- sions, in consequence of the hue and cry attempted to be raised by Constable and his adherents against me on account of the article entitled Chaldee MSS. No one can regret more than I do that this article appeared. After I saw it in proof, I did everything I could to prevent it, and at last succeeded in getting the Editor to leave it out. In the course of a day, however, he changed his mind, and determined that it should be in. I was therefore placed in a terrible dilemma ; and as I must have stopped the Magazine if I did not allow the Editor to have his own way, I was obliged to submit. I was in hopes it would have been laughed over as a cruel joke enough, but that it would soon have been forgot, there is so much excellent 1 This title is often but vaguely given to some undiscoverable person in the early days of the Magazine, the convenient partner who was always responsible and ever regrettably inclined to take his own way. As a matter of fact the Magazine was, as might be said officially, in commis- sion, with a governing body of three, no individual of which was supreme, though the publisher lamented the self-will of the Editor, and the Editor vituperated with much force the obstinacy of the publisher. QUALIFIED DISAPPROBATION. 151 matter in the Magazine to redeem it. The enemy, however, has been so active in stirring up individuals that several are highly irritated who would only have laughed at it. He is trying to form a party against me, if it were possible, to put down both me and the Magazine. My friends, however, are not inactive ; and the storm is beginning, I hope, to subside. Little as we yet know of each other, I trust to your friend- ship in supporting me on the present occasion. I anxiously hope that Mr Scott will continue his most important counte- nance. To me at this moment it is of the last consequence, and would set my mind quite at ease. I have no fears as to his taking amiss the sportive way in which he is introduced in the MS., as I know it is not possible for a human being to have a higher admiration and respect for Mr Scott than the author has and imiformly expresses. It is most painful for me to think that any part of this unfortunate production may be unpleasant to Mr Scott, or might have the smallest tendency to weaken the lively interest he has taken in the Magazine. I trust to his candour to feel for me in the unpleasant situa- tion in which I have been placed, and I hope, if there should be occasion for it, that you will exert your best efforts in my behalf. You will of course mention this to Mr Scott in any way you think best. The answer of Scott himself was not long delayed, though it is, like so many of these letters, without date. His comments, though disapproving, were not such as to alarm the anxious publisher with fears for the discontinuance of his support : — Walter Scott to W. Blackwood. I have been for several days at Bowhill, and afterwards engaged with visitors here, which has prevented my writing. Mr Laidlaw showed me a letter this morning about the Chaldean article in your last Magazine, which I hasten to reply to in person. The article (which, from not being acquainted with names and references, I was long of comprehending) possesses a great deal of satirical humour, but the prudence of publishing 152 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. it may be seriously questioned. Edinburgh is rather too narrow for satire so markedly personal, and there are certainly several individuals who, from their character and situation, have reason to resent having been so roughly treated. And I must add that, disapproving of the whole in point of prudence, I am not greatly pleased with the mode in which one or two of my particular friends have been mentioned, as, for example, Play- fair, Charles Sharpe, and Eobert Jamieson. You will readily hold me acquitted of the childishness of resenting the good- humoured pleasantry exercised towards myself, with which I was really entertained, and thought the humour very well sustaiued. Connected as I am with Mr Laidlaw, and regarding the continuance of the work as a matter of consequence to him, I have no idea of suffering my disapprobation of a particular article, on the grounds I have expressed, to interfere with my promised assistance to him. I do not know any of my friends (meaning such as may have a right to complain of aggression in the present case) who would wish me to resent their quarrel at the risque of disturbing an arrangement made with the views which influenced me in entering into the present. This you will of course understand to be very different from either approving the insertion of the article or subscribing to the justice of the satire. And unquestionably did I conceive it likely that the Magazine could continue to be a receptacle for articles, however able, composed in the same tone, I could not, consistently with my feelings of what is due to the literary society of Edinburgh, continue my permanent assistance. The field for fair pleasantry is wide enough without enlarging it at the expense of exciting, and not unjustly, feelings of personal and private resentment. My time for leaving this place now approaches so nearly that it would perhaps be giving you trouble and expense to little purpose to invite you out here. If, however, you should think it of consequence to see Mr Laidlaw and me together, I will be happy to receive you any day next week. The piece of "good-humoured pleasantry" which Scott took so kindly might have been construed less favourably by a less genial nature, and certainly sug- DOING WELL AND BEATING CONSTABLE. 153 gested the idea of a facing-both-ways, which was not unlike his real position between the opponents, with neither of whom he had any intention of quarrelling. How perfectly just and far-seeing had been that satire is apparent from his letters : for he had indeed taken precisely the position given him by the wits, holding the rivals with a calmly impartial hand, and conscious that, " for all I know, I may give something or other to Mr Pringle too." " Your adversary is also among my familiars," the Chaldee MS. had made him say to both, repeating the same words. What he thought, in his private mind, of the more thin- skinned individuals who made the outcry, is evident from the following letter to Laidlaw : — I saw Blackwood yesterday, and Hogg the day before, and I understand from them that you think of resigning the Chronicle part of the Magazine. Blackwood told me that if you did not like that part of the duty he would consider himself account- able for the same sum he had specified to you for any other articles you might communicate from time to time. If you really do not like the Chronicle, there can be no harm in your giving it up. What strikes me is that there is something cer- tain in having such a department to conduct, whereas you may sometimes find yourself at a loss when you have to cast about for a subject every month. Blackwood is rather in a bad pickle just now, — sent to Coventry by the Trade, as the book- sellers name themselves, and all about the parody of the two beasts. Surely these gentlemen think themselves rather formed of porcelain clay than of common potters' ware. Dealing in satire against all others, their own dignity suffers so cruelly from an ill-imagined book ! If B. had good books to sell, he might set them all at defiance. His Magazine does well, and beats Constable. The occasion of this communication to Laidlaw was an apparent fright taken by him that Blackwood 154 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. might find him " a dead- weight, only made endurable by the assistance of Mr Scott's powerful pen," which was a true suggestion enough. " I learnt," Laidlaw says, "in course of our conversation that the high literary tone and character your Magazine had ac- quired, and which it was necessary to keep up, had got rather above agricultural subjects, and this ap- peared to me with greater force from knowing that Hogg's spirited paper on a very interesting process in the management of sheep had been found inconsistent with it." A further conversation with Wilson, who said " he took no hand in editing the work," showed Laidlaw that the register of public events both foreign and abroad, which had been put into his charge, was considered unnecessary by that very influential person. What was the good man to do ? — to be a dead- weight was terrible to his pride : but it would be a slight to Mr Scott to throw up an engagement which he had formed. He could only appeal to the publisher to tell him frankly what was the true state of affairs. We do not find any conclusion to this little episode. The Chronicle or Register, however, which at first even went so far as to contain births, marriages, and deaths, was continued for a considerable time. And Scott not only judiciously advised Laidlaw not to throw away his bread and butter, but went on helping him without intermission. I enclose [he writes to Blackwood] the Chronicle and an article which we must see in proof, as clubbing our information we had but just time to have it copied over. I am sorry I have no loose poetry, but I never keep copies of anything not written for the Press ; so all my trifles are either selected and printed or lost. I never write poetry nowadays. If I find I SBCURING SCOTT. 155 am essentially assisting my friend Mr L., I have little doubt of occasionally assisting the Magazine, as much as any curious stray information, anecdotes, &c., may be gathered in this country. It was Lockhart whom Sir Walter recognised as the head ; many others selected Wilson ; these two, best informed of all, though they sometimes rebelled, generally submitted, though with a very bad grace, as shall be seen hereafter, to the strong resolution of the "man in plain apparel," whose silent strength was behind them, and upon whose comparatively innocent head all the bolts fell. Another letter from Scott conveys the idea that he was occasionally consulted as a critic by Blackwood, and consented to help him in that way. " T return you," he says on one occasion, " the MS. Voyage." The latter part of it is interesting ; in the first there is too much description of well-known places ; and through the whole there is a little ambition of fine writing, which spoils the effect of a plain narration. Also the manuscript poem, which is of the kind endured neither by gods, men, nor columns. ... I return also Wat Tyler, which is an ill-natured book. But it may be a warning to men of genius not to enunciate all their first ideas too strongly on political subjects. A letter of Laidlaw, received in February of the next year (1818), while the fight was yet at its hottest, gives Blackwood still more distinctly the assurance that he had "secured Scott." His agri- cultural contributor was Scott's right-hand man in all his diggings and plantings, though but a very simple henchman in literature : — W. Laidlaw to W. Blackwood. Mr Scott left us this morning. He has been riding and walking about from morning to night, and all our talk was of 156 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. rural affairs ; but I see that he has decidedly taken part with you, so far as the Magazine goes, at least. I was sorry I had nothing in such a finished state as to give him, but I will try and send him something before next No. The connection with Laidlaw thus continued, in spite of what he himself calls " the imperfect Scotch " of his foreign intelligence : and the fact that Hogg's "spirited paper on the management of sheep" was not received, while Laidlaw's agricultural notes were always palatable, was very clearly due to the desire to retain Scott's help and friendship by benefiting his retainer — a motive reasonable enough even without the help, the "clubbing of information," the revisal and correction of honest Laidlaw's manuscript, to which the great man pledged himself The contract was quite open on both sides. Laidlaw got his steady remuneration — not fluctuating, as Scott re- minds him, but to be calculated upon ; and Blackwood got the invaluable name, and not a few efiective lines and paragraphs quickly divined by the public. "A little touch from him teUs far," says Laidlaw in one of his letters. Turning over one of those faded Magazines — the most excellent reading, and indeed vibrating still with life and energy — we suddenly came on an account of a wonderful feat on the part of a sheep - dog, in which the hand of Scott is plainly visible. The picture is as beautiful and the story as thrilling as if it had involved the loftiest passion or the most complex thoughts. It may amuse the reader if we remind him that Scott was lending this kind and friendly aid just a year after the author of ' Waverley ' had d d Blackwood for a criticism to which he was all "HE NEVER SHALL BE SHAMED." 157 unaccustomed. Had he avenged that offence, or done more than blow off the hasty exasperation in a word, he might have seriously injured, perhaps ruined, at that very important crisis of his career, the sturdy and independent bookseller. But he was no such man, and lent his honest friendly hand to his honest critic with all the magnanimity of his nature. "Whatever record leaps to light, he never shall be shamed." A letter from Lockhart, which I have found quite accidentally fastened up with the letter from Scott on page 146, and evidently written at the same time, gives so clear a picture of the general agitation and excitement that I may include it here before passing on to other features of the fray : — J. Gr. Lockhart to W. JBlachwood. I write chiefly because I imagine it will be agreeable for you to hear from one of us each day, so long as the battle is un- finished. The correspondence, if preserved, may afford us all much diversion at some distant day. Surely you were allowing too much vanity to mingle with your usual discernment when you suppose that C. and Jeffrey went to the fastness [Abbots- ford] merely to annoy the man in plain apparel and his book. However, being there, they may do you harm, and the letter to Laidlaw is the likeliest counterplot you could have invented. I send this along with the Leven MSS. Set up in type forth- with Lee's review of Madam de Stael. These will both, we think, be good in this number. And omit anything against Sharpe in the conclusion. Should he take violent ground against us in the adversary's book, woe be to him hereafter! In the meantime he merits a sugar-plum. Wilson is anxious to see Hamilton before going to Edinburgh, but seems now to think he will certainly be with you by Saturday evening. I shall not be later than Tuesday, nor can I possibly be sooner, or I would. I wish you would write me out literatim some of 158 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. the sarcasms at present going against us both. We have as yet heard only far-off hints. This cursed row has so unhinged us both that we have done nothing. I think, however, you may depend on a eulogy of Chalmers and the Office of Constable from me. Should any want of materials occur, I will retouch an essay (by me) on the Eeligious Orders of Knighthood, originally designed for your vile Encyclopaedia. But what fear have you when once the mighty creatures are within your gates, and I daresay Hogg has been doing something. "Wilson will, I hope, write some accounts of an awful scene we witnessed to-day, the execution of three men : keep him to that idea. To-morrow I trust we shall have some minutes of conversation with Cranstoun or Moncrieff. If N. does not take care I will introduce him as the High Constable's fool at some tournament. Dalyell must be the dwarf. Do not allow a day to pass without writing, and to me, for the Leopard's goings forth are irregular as well as comely. If he stays here much longer the whole family will be as much in love with him as you and I. Tony Smith hints, / suspect from authority, something about a d d attack on you (and probably some besides you) in next number of ' Maggie Eeekie.' Make use of some means to ascertain the real intentions of the 3rd beast. This letter is signed " The Scorpion"; the fumes of the explosion to which they had set light being evi- dently still in all their senses. ' Maggie Eeekie ' was the magazine of Constable. The war went on, however, with intervals for a long time, raging about the devoted head of the only responsible person in the matter. Pamphlets were written, actions brought, abuse of all descriptions poured upon Mr Blackwood. No doubt many arrows were also sent in the dark against the unseen con- tributors ; but they kept silent, except occasionally by a new sting in the Magazine, which redoubled the fury of their enemies and wore out the patience of "I don't care a farthing for talent." 159 their friends. Mr Murray had accepted, from its second beginning, a share in the responsibility, and his name had appeared upon the title-page of the Magazine. He had been an anxious and indeed tremulous spectator of the great commotion caused by No. 1 of the New Series ; but even the first threaten- ings of actions for libel were not sufficient to detach him from an enterprise in which his acute and experienced faculties showed him possibilities of both money and influence. The correspondence between Blackwood and his London coadjutor became thus more frequent, though it was always a little ir- regular and stormy. Mr Murray longed to inter- fere, to shape the Magazine after his own mind. "I don't care a farthing for talent," he says, quot- ing a London critic. The prominent feature of the Magazine should be literary and scientific news, and most of all the latter, for which your editors appear to have little estimation, and they seem not to be the least aware that this is ten times more interesting to the public than any other class of literature at present. . . . You have unfortunately too much of the Lake School, for which no in- terest is felt here. Give us foreign literature, particularly Ger- man, and let them create Tiews in all departments. It would almost seem a humorous adoption of this advice, in a very different meaning from that intended, which made Lockhart create not only news but the reporters of the said news, in the persons of Baron von Lauerwinkel, Professor Sauerteig, and others (predecessors and probably progenitors of the immor- tal Teufelsdrockh), whose serio-comic communications bewildered the reader in many succeeding numbers. Murray, however, not quite so easily frightened as 160 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Messrs Baldwin & Cradock, held on for some time, despite all these vagaries, though they irritated and vexed him ; but his irritation, as well as that of the victims, was chiefly directed against Blackwood, of whom he heard many jealous murmurs on the part of " the Trade," and whom he reproaches on one occa- sion as being trusted by none of his brother book- sellers. To this letter Blackwood made a spirited reply. " You have been misinformed on some points, and perhaps unjust on others," he says. The letter is dated 28th April 1818 : — W. Blackwood to John Murray. In the first place, I must tell you that you labour under a grievous mistake in supposing that I have excited the hostility of my brethren. The quarter you must have got such intelli- gence from might have led you to suspect its truth. Had you ever given me the smallest hint on the subject, I could have told you that on the contrary the real men of business and those worth caring for are as well disposed towards me as ever, and indeed well pleased to see me a counterpoise to Constable. You know well enough his implacable hatred of me, and his rage at seeing your review and all your books flourishing so much, and of course so many of them sold by me for you. It is not, there- fore, to be wondered at that my Magazine was a new source of vexation to him. Unfortunately for me, at the time, the Chaldee MS. gave him and his partisans something on which to ground their attacks. They, however, carried them so far that in a very short time the public saw through the selfish object; and I gained much more than I lost by it, as my friends rallied round me, and many came forward who were formerly unknown to me. As a specimen of the way they attacked me personally and some of my friends, I send you some of the scurrilous pamphlets. These tracts, though not published by Constable, were printed at his expense, and industriously circulated. I never thought of tak- ing any notice of them, nor did I ever complain of their conduct. It is not my province to vindicate everything that has been REFERS TO SCOTT. 161 published in the Magazine ; but this I will be bold to say, that there was nothing in it which is discreditable, while there may- be things which I might have wished otherwise, but over which I had no control. For the general impression with regard to the Magazine I refer you to Mr Scott, who has been my steady friend and supporter in the whole conflict or battle of the beasts. In a letter I had from him two days ago, he says, with regard to one person who is angry, " This is just as it ought to be, for jades do not wince but when they are galled." I have found it necessary to be thus minute with regard to the Magazine, as I cannot conceive any other circumstances upon which my enemies can have ventured to misrepresent my conduct to you. Of the pamphlets above referred to we have ample specimens at hand, but perhaps it is unnecessary to enter into recriminations which, not having even the guise of story, nor any wings of humour and fun like those of the Chaldee MS., but only downright abuse and accusation, would not be either entertaining or important to any man nowadays. The Chaldee MS. has kept a footing in literary history because of its skill and literary excellence, not because of its abuse, which few understand and no one cares for. Constable and Blackwood now are both judged on their merits, of which they had many. When our own age passes into history we may doubt whether it wiU have it in its power to show many men of the same class, so individual and characteristic, so interesting in their personality and picturesque in their position. The rival houses in England produced nobody likely to compete with them in this respect in the qualities that make an interesting record. Their strife has blown away like smoke, and unless we are very strait-laced indeed, it amuses us to hear of it, though VOL. I. ^ 162 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. not half so much as it amused and excited them to carry it on. But the dust may be allowed to lie without being swept up in our faces. Dust, like all other things, has its good as well as its bad qualities ; it softens the outlines and takes off the sharpness of many a hard corner. The bad sculptures in West- minster and other places, for instance, would be worse but for this softening-down. It is so in the inner as well as in the outer world. Murray, however, though he would seem to have continued uneasy about the polemics, and to have felt his personal repose endangered, was still sufficiently encouraged by the success of the Magazine, and what nowadays would be called the excellent advertise- ment procured by all its conflicts and tumults, to enter formally into partnership with Mr Blackwood in the undertaking, paying a thousand pounds for a half share — which proceeding naturally made him more critical than ever. His advice was excellent, if not very palatable. We are unaware what victory is referred to — probably the withdrawal of threatened actions on the part of Hunt or Hazlitt, the much assaulted members of the Cockney School : — John Murray to W. Blackwood. I cannot congratulate you on your victory; another such, says Pyrrhus, and we are ruined. Do as you would be done by. I will venture my existence that you are injuring your character in the opinion of every one whose good opinion is worth having. I cannot perceive your object in literally running amuck at every one ; and I would not undergo your feelings for any worldly advantage. I am sure you are wrong ; but I have not time to write moral [lectures], even if there were any chance of their provoking or meriting alteration. REMONSTBAJSrCES. 163 But, above all, take my advice and pray to God that you may live in peace with your neighbours, and believe that this freedom arises from the best wishes for your prosperity. A temporary and comparative calm vrould seem to have followed the first explosion. The young lions, perhaps a little alarmed at the immediate con- sequences of their rashness, roared more gently ; and though there was no drawing back, there was not either any new aggression. But as the year went on the old spirit of mischief began again to get the upper hand, and several articles appeared which drew from Mr Murray a very strong remonstrance, made all the stronger by his expressions of regret that he should be compromised by being the publisher of such pro- ductions. The following letter, which I find in the ' Memoirs of John Murray,' is probably the one ad- dressed to Mr Blackwood on this occasion. It is dated September 28, 1818 :— John Murray to W. Blackwood. I have delayed writing for no other reason than that I was desirous of gathering from all quarters the opinion respecting our Magazine, and you will believe how great my own regret is at finding the clamour against its personality almost universal. You must naturally be aware that all eyes are turned towards me, who am so accessible from situation and the open house I keep, when compared to the Eow, where no one goes except on positive business. I feel seriously and sensibly the operation of opinions at which I only guessed before. I have undergone most severe remonstrances from my best and most important friends, who press upon me my character with the public, in which they are naturally interested and in some degree impli- cated; that even if I were right, it is not what I think but what the public will think of me for stepping out of a line of conduct which hitherto has gained assent from all parties. 164 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Now what applies to me in this respect, from the accident of my being rather more in the public eye than either you or your friends have been as yet, applies also, as I think you will admit, no less to yourselves ; and you must be aware that what would depreciate opinion respecting me must naturally operate in a similar degree upon you. My hands are withered by it. I cannot offer the work without the dread of reproachful refusal, and as to obtaining contributions from men of character, I might as soon ask them to let me stab them in their back. This letter, perhaps, was not exactly of a kind to please Blackwood, who was not disposed to transfer his personal responsibility to any man, and to whom the assumption of Mr Murray as the principal person in the transaction, the man to whom all eyes were turned, could scarcely be very palatable. He wrote, however, with much temper and calmness, and an evident desire to keep the peace, assuring his friend that in future everything would go well, and that the passion of the beginning was now to be restrained. It is needless [he says] for you to distress yourself about what is past ; for really when you examine the matter again coolly and calmly, there is no such ground for alarm as you fear and your friends have conjured up. And as for the future I now feel perfectly at ease. Your letter has pleased and satisfied our friends. Mr "Wilson has called just now, and I have the happi- ness of enclosing a most admirable letter which they have written this morning, and which in fact leaves me almost nothing to say. The letter enclosed is as follows : — Lockhart and Wilson to John Murray. Mr Wilson and I have read your letter to Mr Blackwood with much regret, for we are well aware how much it must be against your feelings and interests as well as our own that the Magazine should expose those concerned in it to such troubles as you have now described. We are willing to take your opinion DEFENCE. 165 on the matter as decisive, and admit that something out of the common order has been done, and that something of an outcry does exist, and that, therefore, independently of all argument, it is the duty of all that some change should take place. The next thing to be considered is whether this outcry has not been somewhat exaggerated to you by your own imagina- tion — to ascertain, in short, to what extent it is truth. This may probably be best accomplished by tracing the outcry to its elements, by discovering what the combustibles have been that can have raised the fire. We know of nothing but the Chaldee MS., the verses on the Booksellers, the attacks on the Cockneys, and those on the ' Edinburgh Eeview.' Let it be granted, then, that in each and all of these indiscretion and violence have been used. But is this enough to have given a general bad name to a book wherein all these things taken together form a very, very small item of contents — where they are outbalanced by such a preponderance of good calm feeling and principle ? Our own opinion is that, notwithstanding all the outcry you have heard, and which has distressed abundantly us as well as you, were the voice of the whole town and country taken, the odium excited is neither so general nor so terrific as you apprehend. It is the nature of whatever is new to astonish. People must have time given them to come to their wits. In different parts of the country where we have been, we have found that among two great classes of our own countrymen, the religious and the ministerial people, the sensation excited by the Magazine has been decidedly a very encouraging one, although these people, and those from whom they most differ, have indeed found faults and blamed them. This applies of course to a limited circle and experience ; but perhaps your town circle and experience may also be in their way limited — i.e., you may have conversed too exclusively with literary men, who have fears, hopes, and opinions peculiar to themselves, not partaken except reflexly and weakly by the main body of English readers, in whose minds we have no doubt the general good feeling and principle of the Magazine, were that work once fairly put into their hands, must infinitely outweigh all the defects with which we admit it to be deformed. Look at the last two numbers alone and examine what it is you are afraid of. In August, with the 166 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. exception of " Hazlitt Cross-questioned " (of which anon), there is not one word to be ashamed of. In September we can per- ceive nothing that can give rational offence. The article on M'Vey is confined entirely to his literary pretensions ; and that on Playfair is, we conceive, not only merited and unanswerable, but so written as no gentleman need be ashamed to have signed it. That both of these will give offence to some friends of the parties who doubts? and what severe articles, either in your Eeview or Jefi&:ey's, do not give offence in the same manner ? Must not you have exaggerated things when you talk of wish- ing not to have published numbers containing these articles of offence alone. Take them, read them over, and say if, with the exception of Hazlitt, there is one page that might not have ap- peared in any work — in so far at least as the spirit is concerned ? I have pressed this on you, not that I think you are giving un- founded statements, but that I think you have overcharged a true outline. With respect to Hazlitt there is no doubt that your obser- vations are just. There is a seeming ferocity in the tone that must disgust many, and on reflection disgusts us. With those to whom Hazlitt is an utter stranger such an article must have seemed execrable. To those who know the truth of the worst things that can be said of him, the principal fault of the article will appear to be confined to its manner and expressions. We quite agree with you that the same thing might have been said in a different, in a very much better way ; and rest assured that of this execrable style no further specimen shall appear. How- ever, doubt not that the frenzy and wrath of Hunt, Hazlitt, &c., are the true keys to all these fierce paragraphs in the papers, and much of what has distressed you in conversation. On this part of the subject allow me to remark that, with the exception of this last article on Hazlitt, the articles on the Cockney School are little if at all more severe than those in the ' Quarterly Eeview,' and that they gave more offence to the objects of their severity only on account of their superior keen- ness — above all, that happy name which you and all the re- views are now borrowing, the Cockney School. Hazlitt and Hunt conceived that they could crush an infant work, and knew that they were powerless against the ' Quarterly.' There- "consult SCOTT." 167 fore against us did they pour their hottest phials. Give your- self no uneasiness about this, however, as if the action is brought at all, it will be brought here. But do not condescend for a moment to think of giving Hazlitt either answer or satis- faction of any kind. Let him fret on ; in the end he will do nothing. And ultimately, at the very worst, without doubt your innocence can be established, were it possible that it should be called in question. Be satisfied that if you were to show any sign of condescension or apprehension you would be taking the most effectual means for encouraging him. Henceforward nothing reprehensible shall appear. We must take care that nothing dull appears, for that were still more hurtful. We both are much obliged to you for the full manner in which you have written : at all times continue to act in the same way. The name of the Magazine was chosen without our advice, and we always disliked it. Whether the advantages or the disadvantages of alteration would predominate it is your [the pubhshers'] province to determine. We cannot help thinking that the outcry would gather strength from the confession such a measure would seem to imply ; and Mr Blackwood, we sus- pect, would feel great repugnance to seeing his own name sac- rificed, as it were, as a peace-offering. Settle this, however, among yourselves, and do nothing rashly. Let not any un- comfortable feelings, which are probably of a momentary nature, be allowed to do permanent injury to your work. Mr Wilson and I stand entirely neuter. If you think seriously of alteration, consult your most judicious friends (Scott for in- stance) ; at all events you must not throw away the number in existence, which we fear would be the case should you start a third time as No. I. At all issues consult Scott, and let him communicate with Blackwood, and to save yourself any further trouble let his decision be final. Whether Mr Murray perceived the faint suspended sting of the Scorpion through those arguments, and the reassuring statement that in any case his own "innocence" could be fully established, we cannot 168 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. tell ; but at all events he seems to have recovered his composure, and to have made no more remonstrances for the moment. We hold our breath to hear that there was ever a question of the Magazine losing the familiar name which has been a household word for so many years : but this is the only mention of such an idea that is to be found. We cannot imagine the possibility of Blackwood, who had stood like a rock against all assaults, and to whom perhaps Mr Murray's support was not so essential as was supposed in London, consenting to such a step : and Scott, we may be sure, would never have advised such an in- vasion of any man's rights. Murray, however, seems to have been satisfied. He was delighted with the Magazine for October 1818, the beginning of the second year, and there is a little bustle of activity in his next letter in respect to some contributors whom he believed he might be able to secure. Frere is mentioned, and Sir James Mackintosh, whom, how- ever, he cannot ask at the moment on account of the attacks on the ' Edinburgh Review.' We imagine that his correspondents were not particularly anxious for his help in this way. They knew their own aifairs and trusted their own men. There is rather a comical incident here in the story, which shows that our two young persons, though per- fectly capable of throwing dust in the eyes of the great London publisher, were only after all very young men still (for Wilson though over thirty was always a boy at heart), and not without a little char- acteristic silliness of their own. Amid the storm of literary missiles which flew about, a pamphlet of unusual virulence, called " Hypocrisy Unveiled and LOCKHAET AND MURRAY. 169 Calumny Detected in a. review of ' Blackwood's Edin- burgh Magazine,'" was published, in which Murray was brought in as well as the rest. It appears that both he and Blackwood took this with equanimity, and resolved to take no notice of it ; but Lockhart and Wilson both sent challenges to the anonymous writer through the publishers. This was not so fool- ish or impossible a proceeding then as it would be now, and it was not, unfortunately, Lockhart's only experience of this kind ; but it was sufficiently absurd even in those days, and especially from men who had themselves dealt blows about them on every side, besides being a complete and rash withdrawal of the veil of mystery of which both before and after they made so great a point. The matter is referred to in a letter addressed to Mr Murray by Lockhart, who begins by expressing the great pleasure given him by a letter just shown to him by Blackwood, in which Murray's satisfaction with the number for October 1818 is fully expressed. " Depend upon it, the succeed- ing ones win have more of what you like and less of what you dislike in it," he says. And he adds : — Lockhart to John Murray. I speak as if nothing had happened ; and, after all, I myself consider this vile pamphlet as nothing. Wilson has been a good deal distressed about it, however; and we have, both by writing to the Anonyme and by every other way in our power, done our best to discover the writer. We trust in God he may be diterrL My own suspicions rest on Graham (a poor creature you can know nothing about), but Master Con- stable must have furnished the information, and Master Pringle has played the scoundrel to Wilson. . . . The foolish abuse of your personal behaviour, in this pamphlet, cannot of course at all trouble you for more than a single moment. 170 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The young men forgot how eagerly Messrs Hunt and Hazlitt had endeavoured to deterrer themselves, which was foolish: but they were young, and not examples of wisdom. There is a long letter from Mr Murray, published in his memoir, on this subject, part of which I may quote. He evidently writes in much impatience and annoyance; but his advice is scarcely so virtuous in its character as usual : — John Murray to W. Blackwood. I really can recollect no parallel to the palpable absurdity of your two friends. They have actually given up themselves as the authors of the offences charged upon them, by impli- cation only, in the pamphlet. How they could possibly con- ceive that the writer of the pamphlet would be such an idiot as to quit his stronghold of concealment and allow his head to be chopped off by exposure, I am at a loss to conceive. Their only course was to have affected, and indeed to have felt, the most perfect indifference, and to have laughed at the rage which dictated so much scurrility; slyly watching to discover the author, whom, without appearing to know as such, they could have annoyed in every possible way. We think, on the whole, we prefer the way of Lockhart and Wilson, even though it was silly, to Mr Murray's method ; but he was much irritated, as was natural, and, after an indignant protest, expressed in the strongest terms, of injury on his own account, he adds, " I declare to God, that had I known what I had so incautiously engaged in, I would not have undertaken what I have done, or have suffered what I have in my feelings and character, which no man had hitherto the slightest cause for assailing : I would not have done so for any sum." But he ends off amicably enough with excellent advice as DETERMINED TO STAND EAST. 171 to the future. Both parties, indeed, console the other under the offence, which both resent hotly for themselves. " Of course it cannot trouble you for more than a single moment," say the young men. But [adds Mr Murray, with a valorous impulse], being in, I am determined to go through with you ; and, if our friends will only act with redoubled discretion, we may get the better of this check and yet gain a victory. They should by a masterly effort pluck the thing out of their minds. The only course to be taken now, is to redouble every effort for the improvement of the Magazine. Let us take public estimation by assault : by the irresistible effect of talent employed on subjects that are interesting : and, above all, I say to collect information on passing events. Our editors are totally mistaken in thinking that this consists in laborious essays. These are very good as accessories, but the flesh and blood and bones is information. That will make the public eager to get us at the end of every month. It is a curious instance of the injustice which is never more apparent than in the sweep of popular opinion, that the "laborious essays," of which Mr Murray was so contemptuous, included among others the fine criticisms and noble defence by which, more than anything else except his own merits, the fame of Wordsworth was secured. Jeffrey has been twitted to the most tedious extent with his " This will never do"; but "Wilson has got but little credit for the first worthy appreciation of the Poet of the mountains. It is a little difficult to know what was the " infor- mation " for which the public was supposed to be so eager. Fortunately in this respect it was the men of letters who were in the right, and not the anxious man of business, who probably knew his own affairs 172 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. better than he did theirs, which is a thing that even the wisest are slow to perceive. After this, however, the union was not too cordial between Edinburgh and London. A good deal of troubled correspondence went on, Mr Murray a little fretful and anxious for his own spotless reputation, while Mr Blackwood and his merry men, who were always more or less unruly, apologised or sometimes laughed a little in their sleeve, satisfied with the sweep of their own going, and not to be controlled. In January 1819, however, matters came to a crisis. Murray's name disappeared from the Magazine, and the bond was broken. I find a curious letter in the course of the same year from Mr Murray to Mr Thomas Blackwood, who would seem to have sent him a note for £1000, apparently in reply to some complaints as to the delay of business settlements, that being the exact sum which he had invested in the Magazine. Murray returned the note, with a declaration that he wanted no payment or security for payment which was not in the usual way of business, but adding a some- what querulous list of complaints against his former partner. J. Murray to TTwmas Blackwood. When your brother was in London on the occasion of my secession from his Magazine, we agreed that this circumstance was to make no alteration in the understanding on which our other transactions had been hitherto conducted. Since which he has not performed his part of a written agreement respecting the Magazine : he refused to sell one ^ of the works which I sent to him ; he has not sent his publications, or made the offer Don Juan : humorous explanation of the same afterwards given, p. 380. SECESSION OE MURRAY. 173 of them to me as heretofore, although he has received every work that I have published, in the true spirit of the under- standing in which we parted. In fact, it is he who has with- drawn his business and agency from me. I am fully sensible of the fairness of your judgment and of the correctness of your feelings ; and to these I can in safety appeal, if you will abstract yourself from other considerations and will ask this broad question. Whether that man can be wholly in the wrong, or can have entertained any bad feeling towards your brother, who has for more than ten years poured into his business all the credit and advantages of a series of the most respectable and fortunate publications that have appeared? What these advantages must have been, you may form some estimate of when I say that the agency of such a book as ' Marriage ' produces £50 in the course of a year ; and such, I think, no man of business can deny to be an object of attention. In fact, we have never had any dispute before the appearance of a Magazine which has involved every one connected with it in alternate anxiety, disgrace, and misery. From this point the fateful periodical which was to make Blackwood's name and his fortune was subject, even in the smallest share, to no stranger's control. Henceforward, anxious but indomitable, holding in his Pegasus as well as he could, sometimes permitting himself to be run away with, sometimes pulling up hard with a great effort, but always steady as a rock to his engagements, his opinions, and his friends, "William Blackwood stood alone to take all the risks and fight all the battles. And that his life was full of agitation, and the struggle a hard one, there can be no doubt. To show what he had to undergo we take up with a thrill of sympathy, which nowadays cannot but be mixed vnth amusetnent, three letters, aU by the hands most renowned in Edinburgh, and representing the elite of the literary world, the last of the former gen- 174 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. eration, more lordly, more formal, than the present, which had once held the northern capital in fee. Mr Henry Mackenzie, the Man of Feeling, the author of ' Julia de Koubign^,' a work which our grandfathers believed to be equal to Rousseau, the most perfect Man of Letters perhaps left in the land, hitherto a friend and patron of Blackwood, and consulted by him on many literary subjects, is the author of the first of these letters : — Henry Mackenzie to W. Blackwood. Hebiot Row, Tuesday, Zlst March 1818. It is with regret that Mr Mackenzie finds himself obliged to return the enclosed Magazine, which contains several good articles, but mixed with some things so offensive that he would not wish it to be found lying on his table. In taking leave of its publisher and editor he cannot avoid warning them (and he is sure " with a friendly voice ") to abstain from personal detrac- tion, which may perhaps gratify or amuse a small proportion of frivolous or ill-natured readers, but will certainly disgust that more respectable class from whose good opinion only solid and lasting reputation can be acquired. The second is from Mr Patrick Fraser-Tytler, the historian, another great local potentate, and is still more tremendous in disapproval, and splendid in pomp of virtue : — Patrick Fraser-Tytler to W. Blackwood. Peinces Stkbbt, mh March 1818. When I lately saw you I had only glanced over your last number. I have since had leisure to read some part of it, more especially your prefatory poetical Address to Correspondents, and I must say I have done so both with pain and disappointment. When you first commenced your literary journal you con- sulted me on the subject, and I told you that I thought there was an excellent opening for a periodical work of that nature, WRATH OP THE LITERARY ORACLES. 175 provided it was well conducted. Under these ideas I was by- no means unwilling now and then to send you any literary trifle that was lying by me, and altho' I never intended to become either to yours or to any other periodical a regular contributor, yet I should have been really happy to have seen your new attempt go on well. It seems, however, that to gratify the public taste, for I cannot think that these severities can be personally gratifying either to yourself or to your Editor, you are compelled to fill your pages with personal attacks, and by these means, relying upon the ill-nature of the world, to promote the sale of your journal. . . . What object you propose to yourself in giving unnecessary pain, and exposing to undeserved ridicule any set of respectable men, such as I con- ceive your fellow -booksellers to be, or to what purpose you have attacked the quiet and inofi'ensive authors who have no desire to contaminate the public morals, and no ability to vitiate the public taste, but who find an innocent amusement in writing poor works, and are already unhappy because nobody reads them, I cannot possibly understand. It may be this does increase your sale ; yet I must look upon that gain as loss which is purchased by such mercenary criticism. . . . It is on this account and for these reasons that I must request you never to apply to me for any further article in your journal ; for however unable it might be to stand beside many I have read there in point of ability, I should be ashamed to give any countenance, how trifling soever, to such gross and personal attacks as you have not scrupled to publish. You will have the goodness also to direct your clerk not to send any future number to me. Poor Mr Blackwood! Probably he did not see anything at all funny in this solemn denunciation of the " mercenary criticism," which cost him a good deal of honest money out of his pocket, and so many dignified scoldings and advices. But no doubt the young men laughed to all the echoes, and were de- lighted with the pompous disapproval of the elders, who, when they oped their mouths, felt that no dog 176 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. should bark. The cause of all this indignation was simple enough. It was a rhymed example of those Notices to Correspondents which we read now, oc- casionally with amusement, in so many papers, and which had been, from the ' Spectator's ' day, a handy medium for a little poke of fun or satire. It is not much more than doggerel, though clever doggerel, and did not even form part of the Magazine, being prefixed something in the fashion of an advertisement. To take it seriously seems the most amusing circum- stance of all. But we cannot think it was amusing to Blackwood, whatever the young lions might think. Still more hard upon him was the following, the first of these great cannonadings, and from his own par- ticular creation as a successful author, Dr M'Crie. It is dated January 5, 1818 : — Br Thomas M'Crie to W. Blackwood. I find it necessary to explain myself to you on a subject to which you have repeatedly adverted of late in conversation, my continuing to contribute to your Magazine. This I would have done sooner, but I wished to deliberate before deciding ; . and even after coming to a resolution I felt unpleasant in com- municating it. You will readily anticipate from this what I am about to say, that I do not feel myself at liberty to be considered as a contributor to the work. My determination does not turn upon the Chaldee Manuscript, which has made so much noise. You know that I disapproved it, and are in possession of my reasons. But I looked, and still look, upon it as a single fault, which there was no reason to fear should be repeated. ... My objections rest on the papers relating to religion which have made their appearance of late. It is evident to me from these that it is the design of the con- ductors to make religion a subject of discussion; and the sentiments brought forward and the feelings recommended are so utterly repugnant to mine, that I choose neither to implicate DISCUSSIONS OF RELIGION. IW myself in a tacit approbation of them by contributing to the work in which they hold so prominent . a place, nor to involve myself in a dispute by contradicting them in the manner in which otherwise I would think it my duty to do. This was almost the unkindest cut of all ; for the opinions of the Magazine were always strictly ortho- dox, and Wilson and Lockhart were both of the mind to make up for a little profanity in secular affairs by the profoundest reverence in things sacred. Indeed, the lawsuit which presently brought a little more excitement into the affairs of the Magazine (which never had been wanting in. animation) was founded on an assault upon Professor John Leslie, Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, for various offences against religious teaching, and chiefly for his description of the language in which the Bible was written as " the poorest and rudest in the world." This certainly "did not in Csesar seem" irreligious; but it would appear that Dr M'Crie objected to any discussions of religion, even from the safer side, in the pages of a Magazine. This combination of missiles rushing through the air at Blackwood's head from quarters so different gives a very clear idea of what our excellent founder had to suffer. It was a little hard to be hectored on the subject with the severe questions, "What do you propose to yourself?" and that chiefly for the sins of others. But he stood fast, with a steady firmness, and never flinched, always able to defend himself, yet saying no more than was necessary, paying his money heroically, and biding his time. While thus quoting the assailants, let us add a quite unexpected and flattering note of applause from VOL. I. M 178 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. a very different quarter. It has the stamp of the Institut de France, Academic royale des Sciences, with the head of Pallas in full splendour : — Paris, Ic dnqfivrier 1818. Le Secretaire perpituel de I'AcacUmie. MoNSiEUE, — L'Acad^mie royale des Sciences a regu les cahiers d'Octobre et de JsTovembre de votre ' Blackwood's Magazine ' que vous avez eu la bont4 de lui envoyer et qui lui ont iti remis de votre part, par M. Biot k son retour d'Angleterre. Votre nom ^tait d^jk bien connu de I'lnstitut, par I'Ency- clop^die de M. Brewster qui a enrich^ sa Biblioth^que. Le succfes m^rit^ de votre journal des articles curieux et piquans dont il est compost sont faits pour interesser les litterateurs de toutes les nations qui ne seront pas arrStds par la n^cessit^ de se familiariser avee un idiome moins gdndralement r^pandu : cette difficult^ mSme sera un attrait de plus qui doit vous assurer un grand nombre de lecteurs par I'occasion qu'elle les fournise de se livr^s h, une ^tude, h, laquelle ils n'auraient peut-^tre song6 d'eux-mSmes. Eecevez done, monsieur, les remerciemens que TAcad^mie me charge de vous faire en son nom, et en celui de tout I'lnstitut de France. — J'ai I'honneur d'etre, avec la plus haute considera- tion, monsieur, votre tres humble et ob^issant serviteur, Delambee. Let us hope that Mr Blackwood found balm from the blows of his friends in this foreign testimonial. Was the " idiome moins gdn^ralement repandu " the Scots accent — the Doric, as it was fondly called, which all those Scots writers half- proudly, half- shamefacedly, pled guilty to? The Leslie trial was not till the year 1822, and was the last of those events. It was so much more innocent than the Dalyell business that the article THE LESLIE TRIAL. 179 on which it was founded contained no personal mockery like that poured on the head of the latter unfortunate person. " Going out of his path to recommend an impious work," casting " an ignorant sarcasm on the language of the Bible," being " an object of suspicion to those who hold the Scriptures in honour," — these were the libels upon which the action was brought. Also that the sufferer had been called an Enfant perdu (triumphantly proved from the French dictionary to mean only Skirmisher). The injured person claimed £5000 damages for his wounded repu- tation. The jury gave him £100. Such a case could not, we imagine, stand for a moment nowadays, or else Biblical critics must have lost many a chance of salving their injured feelings. But small as the damages were, the defence in such a case is never uncostly ; and this substantial loss was added to the many other troubles of the Magazine during the first stormy ten years of its life. This is now the mythic period, the heroic age of its history. The rights and the wrongs, once so fiercely contend- ing, have died away into silence. Youth plays the same or very similar pranks around us at the present time in many papers and magazines ; but we miss the boyish laughter, the redeeming element of fun, which was in so much of it. The young critics of ' Blackwood,' in the exuberance of their mischievous fancy, had not the portentous gravity which is so general now. CHAPTEE V. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART. HIS UNIQUE PERSONALITY — EARLY FRIENDSHIP WITH WILSON — STUDIES IN GERMANY ON FUNDS FURNISHED BY BLACKWOOD — MAKES THE ACQUAIN- TANCE OP GOETHE — HIS EXERTIONS ON BEHALF OP THE MAGAZINE — " THE SCORPION WHICH DBLIGHTETH TO STING THE FACES OF MEN " — A VERY PROTEUS OF LITERARY CAPACITY — HIS SHARE IN THE ' NOCTES ' — FIRST MEETING WITH SCOTT — AT ABBOTSFORD — ' PBTER's LETTERS TO HIS KINSFOLK '—THE SCOTT-CHRISTIE DUEL — ACCEPTS THE EDITORSHIP OF THE 'quarterly REVIEW' — LETTERS AND CONTRIBUTIONS FROM LONDON — COLLABORATES WITH MAGINN — LAST LETTER AND CONTRI- BUTION TO MAGA. Among the younger men who gathered about Mr Blackwood — first on the South Bridge, and after- wards in his more aristocratic quarters in Princes Street — there was none more remarkable than John Gibson Lockhart, of whom and of whose doings the reader already knows so much. There are many of his letters in the Blackwood collection, but amid all the packets of them which are before me scarcely one has a date. They are written on " Friday morning," or on the 20th, say, of some month, sometimes named " October," " January," sometimes not ; the year never. The subjects of them are almost invariably articles in the Magazine, but even these indicated with such a flying hand, things already half talked over by word TWO REMARKABLE MEN. 181 of mouth, that it would require the minutest research to identify exactly what they are about. This pro- duces a wealth, yet at the same time a poverty — or rather, a sense of wealth in the midst of actual poverty — which is exceedingly tantalising to the biographer. He seems to be told so much, yet knows so little ; learning a great deal of the man, but very little about him ; a glimpse at his inner self, but nothing at all of the outside. We shall do our best to put before the reader this very active member of the brotherhood — the one whose exertions had the greatest influence upon the new Magazine, the most romantic and pic- turesque figure among them, notwithstanding the Jove-like presence of WUson, who was not by any means so unusual a type, in his big, magnificent fair- ness and size, as the darker, slimmer figure standing by him — all energy and darting wit on one side, all kindness and tender domestic feeling on the other ; fastidious, keen, refined, yet quite capable of picking up the coarsest missile, and flinging it with a sudden impulse hotter and swifter than anything the ruddy Berserker was capable of. Men like Wilson are to be found everywhere in Scotland, if seldom with his en- dowment of genius. Men like Lockhart are very rare anywhere.-^ He was born in 1794, and -was consequently just twenty-three when ' Blackwood's Magazine ' began its career, — the most irresponsible age, not yet free of the traditions of boyhood, yet formally endued with the 1 Though some advantage has been taken in revision, this sketch was written before the author had an opportunity of seeing the much longer and more elaborate work upon Lockhart of Mr Andrew Lang : whose book, so far as its subject himself goes, is admirable, though its tone in re- spect to the Magazine is naturally to us very objectionable. 182 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. independence of the man. He was, we may premise, ten years younger than Wilson, whom we class with him as if they were of the same age : but Wilson was always a boy, which was not Lockhart's case. He was the son of a much-respected Scotch minister hold- ing at that time a charge in Glasgow. His father was of the class called squarson in England — half laird, half minister — though he did not succeed to the laird- ship till the end of his life, — a class not so much repre- sented in the Church of Scotland nowadays as at that time : and the son was thus a Lockhart of a well-known family, " come of kent folk," — an advantage always of the greatest importance both to a man's character and his fortune. He was educated at Glasgow University, and went thereafter, as so many of the best scholars of Glasgow do, by means of the Snell Scholarship, to Balliol, Oxford, which was not then, perhaps, so dis- tinguished a college as it is now. But the Snell scholar has almost always been distinguished, and every generation of them has produced notable mem- bers, to the embellishment of their second home of learning, and the great honour and glory of the first. There is a curious story told in this beginning of his career, which is highly characteristic of him and of his after-ways. On some occasion, unidentified, he sent in to his tutor an exercise, apparently in Hebrew, to the confusion but great admiration of the tutor, who carried this learned production to the Master, who presumably possessed some knowledge of that lan- guage. After some examination, and no doubt much puzzling, this recondite study turned out to be a -piece of satire aimed at the unsuspecting tutor himself, in good English, written in Hebrew characters — Hebrew THE SNELL SCHOLAR. 183 forming part of the ordinary studies in Glasgow of theological students, from whom this daring young joker had no doubt picked up a knowledge of the characters. Dons are not good people generally to joke with, but it would seem that no particular harm came of this mystification. On leaving Oxford, which he did at a very early age, he came to Edinburgh to study law, and was duly called to the bar in 1816, and began with other young men those fruitless per- ambulations of the Parliament House which have wearied out so many aspirants, and sent them off into the paths of literature and others as precarious. Here, with the instinctive forgathering of like to like, he made close friends with John Wilson, a young man only like him in the fine fantastic distinction of genius, which naturally nobody knew of in these days, and in the external circumstances of life. Wilson was of the nouveaux riches, not such a phalanx then as now. He had gone long before Lockhart's time as a gentleman-commoner to Magdalen, the most ex- pensive thing to be done, of which the Snell Scholar would no doubt be scornful. But the instincts of youth ignore such distinctions, and Wilson's university record was also brilliant. They became inseparable, the one stirring up the other to all kinds of glorious designs. Wilson was already a poet, author of the " Isle of Palms " and various other copies of verses, of which his companion probably thought nothing, and he himself not much. It is curious, however, that by right of this production Wilson continued for many years to be named at the tail of the so-caUed Lake poets as one of their school. These two young men soon acquired a daily habit 184 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. of dropping into Blackwood's establishment in Princes Street, of which one of them a few years later gave a delightful description in 'Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk':— You have an oval saloon lighted from the roof, where various groups of loungers and dilettanti are engaged in looking at or criticising among themselves the publications just arrived by that day's post from town. In such critical colloquies the voice of the bookseller may ever and anon be heard mingling the broad and unadulterated tones of its Auld Eeekie music ; for unless occupied in the recesses of his premises with some other business, it is here that he has his usual station. He is a nimble, active-looking man of middle age, and moves about from one corner to another with great alacrity, and apparently under the influence of high animal spirits. His complexion is very sanguineous, but nothing could be more iatelligent, keen, and sagacious than the expression of his whole physiognomy ; above all the grey eyes and eyebrows, as full of locomotion as those of Catalani. The young man who, when he had become a literary personage by the agency of the Magazine, wrote the above, had the best of reasons for appreciating the gen- erous publisher who began to influence his life from his very first appearance in Edinburgh. Lockhart was a linguist, an elegant accomplishment rather than a necessity of education in his day ; and knew German, then only beginning to come into favour as a storehouse of literature : and it was his eager desire to go to Germany to complete his knowledge, and with the view of translating something by way of paying his expenses. Mr Blackwood evidently from the first had believed in the youth, and it was he who furnished the funds for the journey. He lent, or it would be more true to say gave, a sum which, we THE EDITORSHIP OF ' MAGA.' 185 believe, was at least " ,£300 or perhaps more," to the young literary adventurer, for which he received a translation of Schlegel's Lectures on the History of Literature. The book seems to have done well enough, and many years later, when its author was well known, came to a second edition ; but this act of liberality and confidence must have been a powerful retaining fee. Wilson had no such bond to the publisher's ser- vice ; but he was eager for work, and ready for any adventure. They both began to help a little in the original series of the ' Edinburgh Monthly Magazine,' as edited by Pringle and Cleghorn ; and no doubt it was partly their brilliant talk and literary ambition, and eager desire to find a fit medium of expression for the opinions and ideas with which their minds were overflowing, and especially for that " criticism of life " which, whether in poetry or in prose, it is the first mission and yearning of the young writer to get into print, that sustained and inspired Mr Blackwood in his determination to take the periodical, of which he, stUl more than the young men, saw the pos- sibOities, out of the incapable hands which were con- ducting it into pure mediocrity. The question whether there was or was not an Editor, or rather a couple of Editors, to the new series, in succession to the old, is one that has been very much disputed. I do not think that the reader, after the glimpses into the Blackwood correspondence which I have been able to give, can have much doubt that the Magazine was, as I have before said, in com- mission, the committee of three occupying intermit- 186 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. tently the supreme chair — one number sometimes in one man's charge, sometimes in another's, now one judgment uppermost and now another, but the veto always in Blackwood's hands, even in the few months when the influence of Murray made itself felt, and bound down a very independent and high-spirited group of men to an unwUling and rare compliance with rule and formula which was quite against their nature. A few letters from Lockhart addressed to a " Welsh clergyman of the name of Williams," who was, I am told, the brother of Archdeacon Williams, afterwards for a number of years headmaster of the Edinburgh Academy, were printed in several numbers of the 'London Scotsman' — an extinct paper — in May 1868, and throw a great deal of light upon the situation. The first is in the usual tone employed by all the members of the triumvirate to possible contributors, frank and even eager acceptance of proposed articles from everybody supposed to possess talent or learning (especially the latter, on which the two Oxford men were strong, evidently troubled by the absence of scholarship which they found in Edinburgh on their return thither) — which enthusiasm of welcome, how- ever, did not hinder, or even modify, the relentless re- jection of such articles when not approved. Lockhart informs his Welsh friend that the articles he pro- poses are " exactly of the kind most wanted by Blackwood : for we can get enough of jokes and criticisms — to be sure far from the best in their way sometimes : but in this country-town of ours, which you are pleased to call by a fairer name than it deserves, by far the greatest rarities are information worthy of being so called and learning of any hind." LOCKH art's report OF THE MAGAZINE. 187 There is a frankness about the following description of the Magazine in question, No. I. of the new series — the number for October 1817^ which is quite unlike anything else which we have heard on the subject : — J. G. Lockhart to Bev. Mr Williams. 25 Maitland Street, Edinbdkgh, Fehrua/ry 21, 1818. The two papers you mention as having particularly pleased you are the work of two very different persons, the first, " Dandy Dinmont," being mine, and the " Depravity of Animals " — certainly one of the best pieces of grave burlesque since Swift — "Walter Scott's. W. Scott is much interested in Blackwood and his Magazine, and has communicated something to each of the last five numbers. So has old Mackenzie, the "Man of Peeling," but I must say his day has gone by ; so have Dr G. D. Clarke, Thomson the chemist, Jameson the mineralogist, D. Brewster, J. Wilson Croker (bad), so that you have at least some good names to support you, though I confess that, chiefly owing to the insertion of a rash j'eu d'esprit in the number you have seen, the chief burden since October has fallen on Wilson and myself. Wilson must have been your contemporary at Oxford: you are no stranger to his genius. I know you are a Whig, but you are not a Democratical one, therefore all good Britons must in main points agree with you. Christianity is a subject which you know none but boys and fools will make light of in print, therefore I am sure that anything John could write would of course do. But, I confess, if you like to write on politics, I hope you will write something off the line of the ' Edinburgh Eeview ' ; for admirable as it is, I think it is now a little stale — still more off the line of the blundering and bigoted pedantry of the 'Quarterly' and its crew. I am sure you loathe Croker and Southey's politics as much as myself. The truth is that no subject can come wrong to you, but I really know not what particular bent your studies have taken. If you have plunged deep into the higher philosophy, and could 188 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. write on these subjects, you would supply our greatest vacuum. If you have, as I suspect, studied British history more, and more deeply than most men, surely there could be no field more glorious than this. A little liberal classical criticism comes to us like a delightful stranger from a more happy land, and I know you can command this pleasure for us without any trouble to yourself. In the notice prefixed to No. 7 of the Magazine occur names of various articles. Such of them as have not since appeared do not exist, and may be called into being by you as well as by any other. After all we have had about Burns, a letter from you would still be most acceptable. An account of the plans for a seminary of education in Wales would be equally so, as some talk has lately been going on both here and in Liverpool in regard to educational schemes. Did I not formerly mention a paper on the probable reception Prince Charles would have met with in Wales ? N.B. — A little memoir of Colonel Johnes, with some account of his library, an account of the state of religion in your country, &c., &c. A little theology would be capital. The Scots divines are very ignorant. I hope, then, that " Cambria " will not be the only thing of yours in the next number. Blackwood publishes on the 20th here, but your parcel may be in good time if you send it off immediately on receipt of this. If you have any curiosity, I will send you an index of authors to the different numbers of the Magazine since October. We begin to hope that Hunt won't prosecute. This, perhaps, is the only letter of Lockhart's extant that can be called boyish. His eagerness to confide all the secrets of the Magazine to his Welsh friend, though so strongly against the principles of the brotherhood, his still greater eagerness to intrust him with any subject under heaven, looks more like the delight of sudden and precocious power, and a rapturous sense of his own position as the very opener of the gates of Fame and Fortune, than anything else that ever appears — at least in the aspect of him which THE OPINIONS OF " JOHN. 189 we are accustomed to. It is sad to think that the man to whom he offered so many openings — from Burns to the Welsh Seminary, which it is interesting to hear was thought of so long ago — from philosophy, classics, and the state of religion, down to an account of Colonel Johnes' library — does not make any con- tinuous appearance in the records of Blackwood : neither he nor " John," who was the future Archdeacon himself, responding as appears to this large and liberal call. The second letter of the series proves that his correspondent did something in this earlier period of ' Maga's ' career : — J. G. Zockhart to Mr Williams. 25 Maitland Street, Edikbuegh, July 8, 1818. Your letter and the packet to Mr Blackwood arrived to-day. How long they have been on their travels God only knows, for you have afBxed no date to either of them. Although the history of the Minstrel of Bruges is very amusing, I think your Triads are more so, and look better at the beginning of a series ; so they appear this month under the title of " Horse Cambricse," No. 1. Next month follows the life of your hero as No. 2, and I hope there is no fear of the series being a short one. I regret extremely that Ebony's vile sloth has caused the delay of the Magazine, but I trust it will reach you as soon as this letter, and henceforth every letter shall pass regularly to you by a few days after the 1st of each month. May none arrive to which you can say, Te fwi koi croi. I had some days ago a very good and pretty long letter from John, in which he favoured me with a narrative of the row in Winchester College, and with some bitter epithets against the propriety of attacking such a character as Mr Examiner Hunt. Even my high opinion of my friend's sagacity is insufficient to make me enter into or sympathise with any feelings of respect for such a conceited, coxcombical incendiary. But danger- ous ground. 190 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Should you visit the North in the summer, I fear you would not find much to amuse you in the way of society here ; but in the winter I imagine few places can be more abundant in good society — the best I have ever seen, because it is so thoroughly mingled — i.e., there are not enough of different sorts of people to make different circles as in London, and they all move to- gether very amicably and agreeably — Peers, Lairds, Advocates, Eeviewers, Poets, &c. It is very amusing certainly, and worth coming to taste, at all events for once. With the high men of letters here I have very slight acquaintance ; indeed I do not admire any of them much except Scott, and he is an exception to what I have said, for he has been very kind to me often, and I spend many hours every week in his house. I shall mention to you what I do not to any one here : that he has asked me to write for him the history of the ' Edinburgh Annual Eegis- ter,' the allowance for which is £500 per annum, and I have accepted his offer. This is done sub rosa, the booksellers know- ing nothing of it. I fancy his novels occupy him so much that he really could not proceed with it any longer. The years '16 and '17 are both to be done, so I have work enough on hand ; but I mean to finish both within a year, which will be £1000 in my pocket, and afterwards I think the business may be managed without very much labour. Blackwood, I rejoice to say, flourishes mightily; his sale increases vastly every month, and he is praised everywhere. The third of these letters, in some respects the most interesting of the three, throws a curious new light upon the circumstances, and discloses the short- lived arrangement which existed through a few num- bers only : — J. G. Lockhart to Mr Williams. If you have seen No. 7 of 'Blackwood's Magazine' you will have perceived that he has now got a partner in the con- cern who, it is supposed, may have it in his power vastly to improve it. Murray had a scheme, you recollect, of setting up a Magazine of his own some time ago. He printed 12,000 of the first number, but lost heart and never published. Barrow JOINT EDITORS. 191 of the Admiralty was to be the editor, but he is sadly deficient in the Literse Humaniores, and has never read anything but geography. Murray and Blackwood, however, may now do much in unison. The two bibliopoles have offered John Wilson and myself £500 a-year between us to conduct their Magazine, and to pay lis and our friends at the handsomest rate they can afford per sheet for what we write. This agreement we have made for one year, at the end of which we expect the work will be established, so as to afford better things. They at present print 6000, and expect soon to sell that number regularly. Our only object is to make the book a good one : to this you can much contribute, and I trust you will do so, and you shall be paid for your trouble. Of the last Welsh pieces you have sent, I am afraid most are too strictly antiquarian, and locally so, for the Magazine readers in their present uninitiated state. Do give us some things more in the fashion of the Tale of Ivan, more intelligible to all to begin with. Mr Merivale, author of ' Orlando in Eoncesvalles,' who was a friend of Mr Johnes, and may therefore be known to you, has agreed to write a good deal, and I think his knowledge of old French and Italian books may render him a most valuable hand. ... It strikes me that a most amusing series of papers might be given on the Fathers, translating and commenting on those rare views of society and maimers, and also those specimens of eloquence which are lost to the world in that mass of unread folios. Would you under- take this ? I suppose you have, or could easily procure, copies of the most important, and I really conceive you might furnish us with a most valuable body of entertaining as weU as instruc- tive matter. Think of this : you will perceive very soon a change, I hope much for the better, in the contents of the Magazine. Whatever you can do in the way of curious infor- mation, above all things, will be paid for handsomely and instantly, in case these should be matters of any moment in your eyes : for the longer one lives the more visible becomes the ubiquity of the reign of Diva Pecwnia. The statement in this letter of the absolute engage- ment of Lockhart and Wilson to edit the Magazine is 192 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. the sole trace existing, so far as I am aware, of any arrangement of the kind : and my instinctive idea on reading it was that it must have been a temporary plan of Murray's, who loved to do things formally and in order, and to whose ideas an editor would be as necessary for a Magazine as a handle to a door. I have ascertained since that this was precisely the fact. Murray's partnership with Blackwood lasted, however, as the reader has seen, for six months only, and this engagement produced nothing but the already quoted letter inserted in our last chapter from these two responsible (though so completely irrespon- sible) persons, whom Blackwood calls " our friends," and who ran wilder riot than ever, as far as they could, while in their temporary authority. They never got the money, I am told, thus promised — (at all events both denied strenuously in after life having ever received a penny for editorial work) — and I do not think that even for these six months they were ever free from the silent authority behind backs, who indeed permitted a great deal to their audacity, but not all. Lockhart's proposal that his correspondent should make amusing papers on the Fathers, and their rare views of society and manners, is a wonderful sug- gestion ; and the idea of the Welsh divine searching for fun and frolic in the pages of the ' Acta Sanc- torum,' of which he could easily procure copies, is more amusing and original than we fear the papers would have been. Our young man is never else- where so young, so elated, or so important as in this curious scrap of correspondence. I am sorry there is no more of it. IDLE YOUNG MEN. 193 They were idle young men, and, according to all the usual estimates, it was a rash thing to depend upon them and their flighty exertions for the success of a grave undertaking ; but Blackwood had a keen eye for character, and divined his men more justly than their fellows : besides, he had the very excep- tional gift of influencing and guiding the unruly Pegasus, which probably would not have gone soberly in harness for any other man. They treated him sometimes a little cavalierly, from that de haut en has of education and conscious genius on which the Oxford scholar, freshly issued from the mint of in- tellectual superiority, is apt to feel himself elevated, looking down upon the general world ; but they acknowledged his power with more or less cordiaHty, laughing at it sometimes and taking it as a good joke, at other times straining against the curb, but on the whole recognising the guidance with sufficiently good grace, notwithstanding their self-will and the impet- uosity of their natures. It would scarcely seem to have been suspected by others that such coadjutors were really and seriously to be trusted for steady work. " They were so constantly employed," says Mr R. P. Gillies — himself afterwards a member of the Blackwood band — in his ' Recollections of a Literary Veteran,' "in giggling and making giggle, like Cowper and Thurlow in another generation, that they seemed to have no time for work." Lockhart, besides being the greatest wit, was the caricaturist of the gay party : no one was safe from him, specially not him- self, of whom he made prim sketches, in all the stiffness of correct demeanour which veiled his wild and headlong fancy. All the Edinburgh notabilities VOL. I. N 194 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. came under the very sharp pen of the reckless artist — the judge on the bench and the preacher in the pulpit. I find, however, a pen-and-ink sketch of a head, which I suppose to be that of Mr Blackwood, among these dusty papers, not satirical at all, as like as possible to the literary portrait which has just been quoted. Lockhart was himself a handsome young fellow, dark and brilliant, a little reserved in manner, very shy ! with a winning air of half- melancholy, unobtrusive, well - mannered in society. There is something curious in the contrast between the external description thus given of him, and the reputation which he soon acquired of reckless in- difference to the feelings of others, and a bitterness of wit which was tempered by no regard for his neighbour. " The Scorpion which delighteth to sting the faces of men " was no. undeserved nickname, but seems to describe his peculiar character with con- siderable insight. Was it his own? We are dis- posed to suspect it was. .He was not a swashbuckler like Wilson, making his sword whistle round his head, and cutting men down on every side. His satire was mischievous, virulent, not so much from hate as from nature. It was as if he had a physical necessity for discharging that point of venom, which he emitted suddenly with- out warning, without passion or excitement, proceed- ing on his way gaily with perfect unconcern when the dart was flung. It is impossible to imagine anything more unlike the roaring choruses of conviviality which were supposed to distinguish Ambrose's than this reticent, sensitive, attractive, yet dangerous youth, by whose charm such a giant as Scott was immedi- A LITERARY PROTEUS. 195 ately subjugated, and who slew his victims mostly by the midnight oil, not by any blaze of gaiety, or in the accumulative fervour of social sarcasm. From him came the most of those sharp things which the victims could not forget. Wilson hacked about him, distribut- ing blows right and left, delivered sometimes for fun, though sometimes with the most extraordinary impulse of perversity, in the impetus of his career. Lockhart put in his sting in a moment, inveterate, instantaneous, with the effect of a barbed dart — yet almost, as it seemed, with the mere intention of giving point to his sentences, and no particular feeling at all. He was, like the others — like most of the notable young men in Edinburgh in their several generations — a briefless barrister, an advocate without clients. It is said that, though he could write with such force, he was incapable of public speaking, and therefore could not have succeeded as a pleader before law courts, under any circumstances. He was, as we have noted, a linguist — an accomplishment much more rare then than now, though even now it is not too common. He was capable of incursions into that dark German sphere, of which in those days the world in general knew so little, had encountered and been noticed by Goethe, and was sufficiently familiar with local colour and phraseology to report the opinions of apocryphal German professors, giving perhaps a suggestion to Thomas Carlyle, whose Teufelsdrockh was indeed of a very different order from Lockhart's Dr Ulrich Sternstare or Baron von Lauerwinkel, but who might have caught the idea from his predecessor. Lockhart was also one of the first modern translators and expositors of Spanish literature, which was a 196 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. more elegant language, and one more romantic and gentlemanlike, according to the fancy of the time. He was indeed a very Proteus of literary capacity, and could disport himself within the covers of one Magazine under half-a-dozen different characters. His wonderful powers of work have already been remarked. He idled or seemed to idle through the day, absorbed in the cheerful nothings of a young man's life in town, and probably went home late like the rest of his kind, but all the same had his sheet ready for the Magazine next morning. Nerves were happily unknown in those days. Men feared over- work as little as they feared writer's cramp, an ex- quisite malady which was almost epidemic a short while ago, but now seems happily to have died out of fashion again. After the commotion of the immediate beginning, the new periodical went on with great vigour, assert- ing by all its mouths, for the satisfaction of Mr Murray and other fastidious persons, that the "personalities" had come to an end, and that henceforward its pro- gress was to be virtuous beyond all the usual require- ments of virtue. Murray dropped off, as we have seen, perhaps with but a limited confidence in those promises, perhaps for other reasons ; but we can scarcely pretend that the personalities did cease. The Cockney School continued to be the object of un- sparing attack, and other opponents arose, natural foes of the Tory band, natural rivals for the public approval. There was a raid against the ' Scots- man,' the well-known Edinburgh paper, which then was laying the foundations of its great popularity, and which being as Whig as Blackwood was Tory, LITERARY EXPEDITIONS. 197 had violently attacked the Magazine. This, however, raised no great grievance or complaint, for in the unusual instances when " hawks " do " pike out hawks' een," the spectators are generally too thankful to see their arms turned against each other to interfere, and the newspaper was baited by the Magazine under the form of a mad bull, with lively illustrations and to the general delight. The Cockney School also replied at intervals, with much splutter of returning musketry from the ' Examiner ' and other papers devoted to that school in London, and there were renewed threats of actions from Hunt and Hazlitt, from time to time, but no further harm done. I do not know by whom the idea of a series of papers, in which the affairs of the world, the characteristics of the party, and things in general, should be treated in the imaginary talk of a number of half-:fictitious persons, was first conceived. It was, however, begun some time before the day of the ' Noetes,' whether tentatively or accidentally, by the record of a sort of literary picnic and expedition to the Kirk of Shotts, and by a further and more pro- longed excursion, in which the members of the brother- hood, after their rambles or their sport, met in a Tent, and discussed over their toddy every subject in earth and heaven. The same idea, with a difference, had already been used in a series of letters, professedly by Timothy Tickler, which was the pseudonym of one of the older men of the brotherhood, Mr Robert Sym, the uncle of John Wilson, who afterwards be- came one of the most notable figures in the ' Noetes.' I do not imagine, however, that either the letters of Timothy or his after-utterances in the ' Noetes ' were actually from his hand, though he had a small share 198 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. now and then, among the many who took part in the production of these amusing monologues or dialogues. Such light summer divertisements ended in the in- stitution of the Evenings at Ambrose's, where, inde- pendent of wind or weather, the beauties of nature or the attractions of sport, a certain merry circle were supposed to assemble, and carry on the same discus- sions, with a continuity which made of the ' Noctes ' one of the most admirable mediums for the "criticism of life " that was ever known — as well as, perhaps, the most popular and living series of periodical literary sketches ever given to the world. There are few ideas in literature more attractive than that of the ' Noctes ' — especially in that periodi- cal literature which is never so powerful as when it can manage to prolong the interest of the reader from publication to publication, giving him as it were him- self a part to play in the discussions which are there carried on. This continual commentary, putting public events and books, and all the undertakings of the period, to the test of reason or of imagination, discuss- ing the people and the things of common life for us and with us, in the freedom of literary irresponsibility yet authority: or with the light and rapid survey of a stUl easier tribunal, at which the ludicrous side of life is the favourite aspect — has a never-faUing charm. It is delightful for the writer and the reader alike, and when well done is the most effectual criticism that can be of the varied drama of existence which goes on around us, and is our chief interest. The writers of ' Blackwood's Magazine ' added a new at- traction to this lively review of life by producing themselves in their own differing individualities in THE 'NOCTES. 199 the foreground, a gay and reckless yet powerful band, wielding the flying pen in caricature of each other, in light-hearted personal sallies and attacks, in which each man had the power of instant retaliation upon his neighbour, and all went merry as marriage-bells. It was true that it was generally a Barmecide's feast at which these imaginary sittings were held, and the draughts of the giants therein recorded were the com- pletest fiction ; but as the lively manuscript passed from hand to hand, or two of the laughing critics laid their heads together over it, each man's sayings were probably more like him and true to nature than if the mirth of Ambrose's had been as noisy as they pretended it to be. The letters of Lockhart which are to be found in the overflowing repositories of Blackwood are consider- able in number, but they are extremely fragmentary and hasty in character. They give us a flying glimpse of the man in his overflowing energy and haste of youth, dashing off" advice, direction, suggestion, as fast as his fingers can move over the paper, and with all the sharpness and decision of his age and character — without, however, penetrating into the inmost soul of him, or revealing much of his profounder nature. I have not, indeed, seen any of Lockhart's letters which do this. He was not introspective, according to the favourite jargon of our time. His age had scarcely begun to indulge in such terms, or to unrobe itself before the public. His letters to Blackwood are chiefly a series of illustrations of the work of the Magazine. They are the rapid billets interchanged by men who saw each other every day, or most days, and who spoke to each other as much by allusions 200 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. understood by both as by formal statements. They show better, however, than anything else could do the position of the curious little company, writers and publisher, and the very peculiar place held by Mr Blackwood among those hot-headed and high-spirited young men, who were occasionally rebellious, some- times impertinent, now and then overbearing ; but who one and all had an almost childlike confidence in his perfect friendship and well-meaning towards them, along with an almost invariable, though often un- willing and impatient, submission to his judgment. " The man clothed in plain apparel," plain too in all his pretensions, and even in the style, not literary or aiming at effect, but always forcible, sensible, and vigorous in expression, with which he replied — kept his place among them, steadily holding to his own view in face of all petulance and resistance, though always an enthusiast for literary excellence, and lavish in appreciation and praise. These letters, as has been already said, are be- wildering to the unfortunate historian, for they are absolutely without date ; and as they were, it is to be supposed, generally deHvered by hand, or sent in a parcel of books by the coach, there is not even the aid of a postmark to help us. It is very likely that their sequence as here given is not quite accurate. But the subject is continuous, and exact chronology is of the less importance that the ' Noctes ' of which they treat began in 1822, and Lockhart's regular con- tributions ceased in 1829, thus identifying the period. They show the singular union and interchange be- tween the chief contributors, every man's hand in every other man's dish — not generally a very safe CO-OPERATION. 201 principle of procedure, but apparently answering per- fectly well in the case of this sworn brotherhood, who, so far as is visible, had no serious quarrels among themselves, not any at least that came to the notice of the world, though they went on cut- ting up and adding to each other's manuscripts, as the following notes will show. They plunge us into the midst of the ' Noctes ' without introduction or ex- planatory pause, laying the machinery of these most popular and attractive papers before us in a way which may be a surprise, and possibly a disappoint- ment, to some readers who have been brought up in the traditions of fun and joUity which have always hung about the imaginary table at Ambrose's. It would not seem that these Symposia were under any regular system at first or subjected to any editorship. When they began it was frequently Lockhart who was the author, sometimes Maginn (after the advent of that still more unruly contributor) : occasionally Hogg had, or was allowed to suppose that he had, a large share in them. Finally they fell into the hands of Wilson, and it is chiefly his portion of these admir- able exchanges of hterary criticism and comment which have been preserved and collected. To produce them required many gifts beyond these of the moralist or critic. A certain amount of creative skill and dram- atic instinct, in addition to the flow of wit and power of analysis and analogy, was necessary to one who had to keep up a keen argument single-handed, like a Japanese juggler with his balls, especially when every man who was supposed to speak was a notable man, whose thoughts and diction could both be easily identified ; or to carry out all the quips of a prolonged 202 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. jest, in which the tempers of some of the interlocutors were naturally roused, and free speaking was the rule : while, on the other hand, the number of subjects which had to be touched upon in a monthly commen- tary upon the doings of the world was very great. We are made to leap over a considerable number of early and agitated years, which, however, have already found a brief place in the record in following this in- teresting portion of the early productions of ' Maga.' The special series entitled 'Noctes,' after two or three preliminary series, as above indicated, began in 1822. I give the following illustrations of the system, if system it can be called, in extracts from many letters, all short, and written with a flying pen. They are addressed to Mr Blackwood, sometimes with books, as we have said, and by the " Blucher," the coach from Melrose to Edinburgh, sometimes by the familiar hand of the printer's devil, sometimes scrawled in " the shop." The following scrap may possibly refer to the beginning of these famous papers, and would seem to prove that it was from Blackwood's brain that the conception came : — Your idea of the 'Noctes' is most capital; but the thing must be done at leisure, and I rather think when Wilson and I are together. Meantime trust it to the Doctor, and let me have his hints. This would be the far best vehicle for discuss- ing the Periodical Press. Never having seen Gifford, I could not do him very well. I think I could do " John Bull " and Jeffrey. Get hold of Theodore's old farces, that I may steal his own puns. Hogg told me he had been writing a ' Noctes.' Let me see it when it is in type, that I may put in a few cuts at himself. This lad Came, who is he? I can't understand who or what he is. You should make him write a little book SHREDS AND PATCHES. 203 or articles on Green. He is going to Westmoreland, and I have given him a note to Wilson, whom he will amuse. The "lad Carne" had been introduced by Hogg, who brought him to Abbotsford, and also to Chiefs- wood, which was then Lockhart's home, with the free- dom of the Shepherd's usual dealings with his friends. Lockhart complains that he had not been able to write at any length, being interrupted by these visitors. He writes on a " Sunday night," when he was some- thing of an invalid, complaining of having been " con- fined one whole day, and part of another, to bed with this influenza " : — I enclose what I have been able to do. I have all but omitted Hogg, according to the Professor's request, leaving him to fill up that character as he pleases. I have said nothing that I should not like to see stand, nothing which he or you may not strike out if you please ; but don't dele merely because a thing appears unintelligible or meaningless, for I know what I am doing, and am pretty sure of my hits. Hogg's song is very good, and if Cheape sends anything, Wilson will easily interweave that also. It will cost you considerable trouble to see that this Tickler of shreds and patches appears properly. I have numbered the pages in red, and I have marked out with red marks the bits to be taken in from Maginn's MS. I cannot very well judge, but I think the two hands will scarcely be detected. You must send down the Eeview to the printers again. I can't do anything to speak of in the ' Noctes ' this month. I think Wilson's article on King Leigh quite magnifigue ! quite inimitable. He will feel the fun more than a ton of bitterness from the Doctor or me. My notion is that it should be a part of the ' Noctes ' after Maginn's part in the little bit I have sent ; then this lecture of the Professor's ; then the other little bit of mine, and the song with which ' Maga ' concludes. But if you don't like this, anyway you like. Don't mind about sending 204 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. the slips of the Chancery article. You can correct them your- self quite well. I shall therefore expect to have ' Maga ' in my next parcel. . . . The above was written with the intention of being sent on Monday, but I changed my mind, in the hope of hearing more from Maginn. However, I think it very likely the article on the ' Edinburgh ' may be thought too long as it is. The article on Hayley will do quite as well next month if you haven't room now. It is very good, however, and if you have room, by keeping out indifferent things, tant mievxc. I have corrected a word or two in Maginn's 'Noctes,' but not the article throughout. Don't think of sending me any more proofs. Correct the song yourself. Here follows a bit of gossip so entirely in the style of Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Skeggs that we are tempted to quote it, if for nothing else than to show how universal that taste is, and how little the ablest are really above the weaknesses which they pounce upon in others with the highest relish of mockery. Lord P. and Major F. are inscrutable : — The closing story is veritable, and I particularly wish it to appear, in order that Lord P. and Major F. may be obliged to tell in print, what for months past they have been talking. In fact, I heard the story from Lord P. myself, and have only altered a few circumstances for obvious reasons. The Arch- deacon he called for was not our Butterfly but another ; but I know you would like to gratify F. E. S. This enigmatical note is printed, not for the sake of the little social mystery dead and gone, from which all sense has evaporated, but as a little fossilised froth, if that might be — the sort of thing which, alas ! many of the cleverest of us love, like so many chambermaids. It is rare, however, to find in the ' Noctes ' anything of this description. "two beastly books." 205 I have run over the Doctor, and added a few pages, as you see, which will make it do very well for a continuation of Timothy — not a P.S. I really have not read the poem, but dipping here and there, it seems worthy of all that Maginn says. Send it back, if you please, by your next parcel. ' Maga ' this time will be worthy of herself. If you have spare room, I am by no means sure that you should not clap in the ' Noctes,' short as they are. The topics will lose something in another month. I would not, however, give motto, &c., but just " Noctes, No. VII. ; a fragment." I return the two beastly books of Col. Brown and Dr Poole. The Eeview in the former consists, I opine, of some hints of old Mackenzie, dressed up by the chief Blockhead, who evi- dently works in a muzzle. Old M. had been disgusted with your not inserting his affair on ' Lights and Shadows,' and your mutilations of his review of Miss Lyndsay.^ I am delighted with Cobbett, so much so that I wish you would order some of his books by your steam parcel — viz., ' English Grammar,' 3s. ; ' Tear's Eesidence in America,' 5s. ; Cobbett's Sermons, 3s 6d., to be got at 183 Fleet Street. I really would like to see these, and think the sermons in par- ticular would be famous materials for the article I propose to give you on his late writings next month. You will of course send the ' Edinburgh Eeview ' quamprimum, and anything that occurs; a stray paper or the like will always be exceedingly welcome. Leigh Hunt's new Indicator is just the old trash over again, and will die in two months, or rather wiU not live at all. Oh Lord ! if it were worth while to touch Dr Poole ! but on the whole I am decidedly of opinion that you would do him more good than harm. Jemmy Simpson's review of the Flood of Thessaly is just yours, done into Poolism and Prose. Not one idea but what is palpably and boldly stolen. What cats! P.S. — ^Don't send these reviews to the Professor — they will only annoy him if he be in a nervous state ; but judge for yourself. 1 Both works by Professor Wilson. The articles in question will be found fully discussed in the next chapter. 206 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The Professor can patch this concern as he likes. No traces of the lost packet yet? and I have had sad bother by the accident, for the same parcel contained a lot of Burns's life — which, by the bye, the Professor can puff in a page of dialogue anywhere, if he does not think it worth more. I have made a tailpiece for Cay's article which I now enclose. I have also corrected the slips of the review of Irving. I partly agree with you as to most of your suggestions, but I think there will be a better opportunity of introducing them in the 'Noctes.' As for the Laureate, I am inexorable at present. You may depend on having Timothy on the ' Edinburgh Ee- view ' and ' Liberal ' soon : therefore if Maginn or Wilson send anything on that subject let me have it. You should get G-alt to write a few paragraphs about Gill's ' Green.' ... I suppose you will now begin to print your No. Let me know what you have and what you want. I shall certainly do the Gobbett and Faux on America. We do not know in what Lockhart had been severe to Southey ; but it is well to see that his inexorable attitude did not last. Another letter teUs the excel- lent effect of the publisher's opinion on this subject. " Since you take it so much to heart," he says, " pray draw your pen through all the concluding part of the article about Southey : end it with the serious bit." The temper of the Magazine got generally smoother as time went on, and other writers came in and the brotherhood became larger. But the ' Noctes ' always remained (sometimes disastrously) a safety-valve for the heat of jest or satire or almost irrestrainable im- pulse of slaughter (not altogether, as witness the regretful giving up of Dr Poole : at the first outset Dr Poole would have been slain and laid out upon the table for demonstration without consideration of his insignificance) ; and in this lucky medium they had always each other to spend a stray jibe upon, all in THE DOUBLE NUMBER. 207 love and without malice. No one could be more ready to applaud, and with the fullest and most cordial praise, than the former Scorpion, though he was still quite willing and pleased by times to use his sting. The reference in the following is to the double number of Sept. 1829, or rather two issued together, a romantic and unusual expedient to use up superfluous material, and also (not less perhaps) to startle and dazzle the world : — Your two numbers are quite surprising. The Professor is very great indeed. So is Colonna, and so is the Essay on Wordsworth by I can't guess whom. Altogether they must make a grand sensation surely. I send a small notice, as much as in conscience I can offer you, of the St Albans Eomance. Dibdin's book has just reached me. I have forgot it, and will look into it, but do get some person who would do the thing more con amore, for example Doubleday. I don't like Dr Dibdin — a little glutton ; and would like much better to cast about for something of my own devising. Let me know whether you hear again from the Professor, and pray don't send me any more newspapers except the ' Herald.' I received your packet yesterday evening, and now send you a review of Shelley's poem, which I expect will conclude the Magazine to your satisfaction. It is really a most capital number. Blair's pieces of prose are quite exquisite, and nothing can be better than the Irish articles. The Oehlenschlaeger kept me laughing for several hours. How that demon has entered into the very core of Ambrose's ! I would have it by all means, and call it perhaps " Horse Scandicse, No. II.," not to interfere with any series of seriousness ! By the way, who wrote " Micro- sophus " ? and what is Tom Hamilton doing with himself? I am tolerably busy just now, but must and will give you a lift. Indeed both the London Magas are so good this month that even your own superexcellent number will be no more than what was needful. These people can't rival your best 208 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. things, but they have many more hands and more steady ones. I don't think Croly is used to give himself much trouble or time. He is able to do far better than he commonly does for 'Maga.' I think I may venture to promise you one way or other two sheets, but I shall not begin till I know what Maginn is likely to be at. ' Don Juan ' — these cantos are far better than the last three. Shall I say so ? I could give you a few pages on the "Northern Tales," " Heraldic Anomalies," " Clarke's Travels," " Faux and Cobbett in America," — any or all of them ; but still I desiderate a new and a true and a grasping theme. Help me to that if you can. 1. By all means if you put in the Suicide put him in entire. 2. Poke Tom Hamilton. 3. Could this Courtenay or somebody else not help you to something about the new Law Commission ? I write because you ask me to do so, but I can say nothing but that the number gives me the utmost pleasure, and that I heartily congratulate you on it. It appears to me that it con- tains all any such thing should contain : liberal and eloquent criticism, sound sensible discussions, and most boyant (sic) fun and rich humour. If people are not amused with these ' Noctes,' for instance, Man must have ceased to be the " laughing animal." Altogether admirable is the Irish article : a series of the sort Maginn points at would be of the most important service not to you only, but really to the public. The greatest beauty of a good number is that it always creates others by the stimulus it gives. I hope Maginn will attacTi Ireland seriously, now he has begun. By the middle of next month, I think you will be ripe for a real article on Spain ; so be collecting all the pamphlets on that subject, and also on Greece. Don't send me any money just now, as I have enough to bring me to town. But do send me by Tuesday's Blucher, ' Wallensteia ' : and do try to get the 'Devil's Elixir' out of Grillies's hands. Try whether he would not submit to sit down composedly and translate six or seven of the best scenes of Schiller's ' Wilhelm Tell,' ' Carlos,' or ' Bride of Messina.' If he will, I answer for the prose. MATERIALS FOE, ' NOCTES.' 209 The best puff " John Bull " could give you is to extract some- thing excellently good said on a popular subject. I would leave it to Hook. Upon the whole, I think such a Magazine stands rather above a puff of his. Nothing delighted me more than to see the way in which Hogg is treated — and next ' Noctes ' will perhaps lift him yet higher by being partly his own. F.S. — I open my letter because, on reading Alaric's packet, I see it must be sent back to you without delay. The Fonthill affair will be quite cold by the 1st of December : so you should not meddle with Alaric's views, which, however, are exceedingly laughable, and would have been very good had they come sooner. I am not sure, however, whether either the Professor or I would have liked to see you dishing poor Frisby. Jerdan won't dare to print them. As for the letter of the Goth, 'tis excellent, and will be of use in the ' Noctes ' of next number. The Suicide is really a man of talents. You should request him to write you letters on the Alaric plan as material for ' Noctes.' We quote these only half-comprehensible allusions to show how the " materials for ' Noctes ' " came in from every side. Alaric was, of course, Alaric Watts, whom we now know only as a gentle minor poet, but who was then a bustling and ever-active newspaper- man, puUing the strings of a multitude of journals, as will be apparent hereafter : there has never been any other man of literature with so alarming a name ; and thus the tribute of both Goth and Vandal was taken in by the lively commentators. Nothing was amiss that came to their net. There are some individual articles, too, long forgotten, to which the critic returns again and again with an enthusiasm of pleasiu'e. Oehlenschlaeger had kept him "laughing for hours." " On no account omit Oehlenschlaeger ; but it will need a little pruning," says another letter. In a third report the circle of its admirers is enlarged. " Sir VOL. I. o 210 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Walter Scott, Sir Humphry Davy (query, a Whig or not ?), and Mr Stewart Eose all sat bursting their sides over Oehlenschlaeger. TeU the author this," Lockhart says. The author was Maginn, and the article an imaginary review of a play very much in King Cambyses' vein, with copious extracts, which , apparently it was supposed even by these admirable authorities a good joke to mark with the Danish dramatist's name, and which called forth a great deal of absurd and witty discussion from various imaginary German critics, principally by Lockhart's hand. Pro- fessor Aytoun did the same thing afterwards in ' Firmilian ' with great effect, but his supposed author was as fictitious as the tragedy, which proves a cer- tain amelioration in literary morals. Maginn had not joined the band till the year 1821, but plunged at once into the very heart of all its devices, as will hereafter be seen. That Mr Blackwood, however, did not invariably receive these triumphant ' Noctes ' without criticism is apparent from the following letter : — W. Blackwood to J. G. Lockhart. Vlth August 1824. . . . Inclosed you have the slips of the 'Noctes,' which are most lively and amusing. There is one part, however, which I hope you will consider again, the introduction of Crafty and me. Anything, whether praise or ridicule of me as an individual in my own Magazine, will always appear out of place, and though I care, as you know, as little for these things as any one, yet it has always been very unpleasant to me to have myself individually brought forward. On the other hand, I can see no good effect it would have for my Magazine to be the channel through which the praises of the Crafty should be poured in such copious streams. It is not that this worthy and JAMES SCOTT. 211 the Whig gang at his hack tried for years to blast and ruin me, and every one they supposed connected with me, that I object to the butter you have given him, but it is because I hate all appearance of hunting liberality and praising of opponents, which is so much the cant of the day. There is not a man who knows anything at all about these matters, who would not laugh and sneer at such a piece of gratuitous blarney. Crafty himself would most likely consider it a sort of quiz, or if he did take it as serious, his vanity is so monstrous that he would ' not think it came within 100 miles of his splendid merits. It might perhaps please Sir Walter and James Ballantyne, who must feel such a deep interest in C.'s concerns, but James would think that he too ought to have had a mite. I fear you will not be pleased at the view I have taken of this matter, but I am sure if you will consider this matter coolly you will not blame me. Your friend Mr Cay read it, and it struck him exactly as it did me. He seems, however, to have taken vs^ith perfect good - humour a broad sketch of himself, asking a contribution from every new interlocutor, in a sub- sequent number. One of Lockhart's most persistent jests was the creation of an absurd but amusing individual, under the name of the Odontist, in the' very accurately depicted person of a well - known dentist in Glasgow, Mr James Scott, whose rotund figure lent itself to ridicule. Into his mouth some of the merriest sets of verses, songs sung by the imaginary travellers in the Tent, and best jokes were put. To judge from what Mrs Gordon says in her life of her father, Professor WHson, the Odontist took his reputation in very good part, and was not disinchned to pose as one of the contributors to ' Blackwood,' and to accept the dinners and fame thrust upon him in this understanding. I have, however, found a couple of letters from this iU-used 212 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. individual, in which his feelings are expressed less amiably. Except for the quite unpardonable use made of his name and personal characteristics, it does not seem that there was much to find fault with in the part he was made to play. The letters are scarcely those of an educated man, and certainly do not give poor Mr Scott any claim to the amusing qualities so forcibly thrust upon him in the pages of ' Blackwood ' : — James Scott to W. Blackwood. 23rd August 1822. I have returned the book you sent me. I looked over it, and I am quite astonished at you for allowing so much freedom with my person — especially one who has wished you well. It shall be at your peril if you publish any more low vulgar stuff concerning me and my name, either directly or indirectly. Every person is disgusted. How would you like it if I were to sit down and write a deal of stuff about you, Mr Gait, or Mr Wilson ? Your immediately suppressing these objectionable articles where I am alluded to, and indemnifying me for the damages done to me by holding me up to ridicule in a false and uncalled- for manner, must immediately take place. Otherways I shall take other steps to stop such malignant proceedings without delay. Two days later we find a letter to Mr Gait, who evidently was supposed by Mr Scott to be the author of the outrage : — James Scott to John Gait. 25iA August 1822. If you had seen the impropriety of holding any one up to ridicule — under whatsoever denomination it may be ranked — Jockular, Ironical, or Quizzical, over the table, when well timed, great latitude may be given. But to vend Jocks for money must certainly appear more against the person, so presumptious, THE ODONTIST. 213 and whatever one may carelessly think, the Public will view it in no other light. Certainly a man must be callous indeed to put up with such freedoms, to say no more of it, for this cannot be allowed. I earnestly beg you not to delay a serious survey of the consequences to yourself, as well as to me and my friends who are exceedingly hurt. Surely strangers think me a poor silly chap, and I am afraid others think so likewise, otherways this trouble might have been spared. Ungrateful Odontist ! Lockhart had just put his own delightful "Lament for Captain Paton" into his mouth, and filled him with merry talk. He was like the Shepherd, who never forgave (yet was always for- giving) the brotherhood for attributing all their most poetical ideas to him. But as we hear no more of Scott's remonstrances, perhaps he was finally per- suaded, as Mrs Gordon says, to accept all the fine things put into his mouth. This personage was the supposed author of the merry and vigorous verses irl which fifty rhymes are found for the cheerful name of Blackwood which con- cludes every stanza. " Our celebrated Jurist long ago," says this poet, " coined twenty rhymes in praise of Mr Packwood," but he pledges himself to a worthier name, and a more " sounding stanza." III. Long ruled a Tyrant Fiend the Northern sky, Impious and cruel, ■whom no hand attack would ; Till pitying heaven a stern Avenger, high And bold, upreared in thee, illustrious Blackwood ! IV. No cautious war thy hand would deign to wage. At once thy spunck the fortress storm and sack would, With sheer close thrust the tyrant to engage, Alone might suit the energy of Blackwood. 214 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. At first high-seated in his old pavilion, Fain scorn the unwonted foe the fiendish quack would, And pass for pride before the subject Million, The fear that made him shun the wrath of Blackwood. VI. But soon, I knew, thou'dst strip the thin disguise ; I knew — not long so crouse the Tyrant crack would, Exposed in batter'd plight to vassal eyes, All bleeding from the vulture beak of Blackwood. VII. The coxcombries of their blaspheming cant, Full soon I knew to earth he hew and hack would, And on the ruins of the unrighteous plant The godly trophies of the march of Blackwood. VIII. I knew thy thumps to queU. the vauntings priggish. Of pert and impious upstarts find the knack would, And paleness mantle every visage whiggish, At the bare echo of the name of Blackwood. I knew the weight of thy o'ermastering digs. Soon teach the pompous swells to shout alack ! would, I knew they soon, (these infidels and Whigs), Not blue and yellow look, but blue and black would. I knew thou wouldst run Leslie such a rig, That he no more, like some fierce Don Cossack, would Against the tongue of Moses shake his wig, Cow'd into reverence by the rod of Blackwood. XI. I knew thou'dst find a whip for such a pig, I knew fuU soon he stop his impious clack would, And be constrained to dye his whitening wig. By chemic tricks disguising dread of Blackwood. LINES " IN PRAISE OE BLACKWOOD." 215 XXXI. There are some utter idiots, and I know it, These most the merest halderdash attract would ; These, Burns of Paisley prize ahove the Poet, And Baldwin's .John above the James of Blackwood. XXXII. There is no arguing with folks like these ; Even from a martyr's patience it subtract would, To think within our gracious King's four seas Men can exist blind to the worth of Blackwood. XXXIII. When wits revile him — 'tis mere fudge — no less : Even Jeffrey, were he fairly on the rack, would Make a clean breast, I doubt not, and confess He has in private a penchant for Blackwood. xxxiv. A man like him, (who doubts f) it hugely tickle, To hear the slang of his own low Whig pack would, He knows that he himself has been a Pickle, And must excuse the Eandom Shots of Blackwood. XXXV. I think of manhood if he had a particle He instantly his nonsense all retract would, And set about a clever leading article. To be inserted (if approved) by Blackwood. xxxvi. Envy they say's a rotten tooth — that tooth From Jeffrey's jaw, with joy, myself extract would, Then like the Eagle he'd renew his youth. Breathing the " EUangowan air " of Blackwood. xxxvii. Yet if he did so, one cannot deny That Leslie grunt like some demoniac would ; That's probably the reason Prank's so shy To quit the old Eeview and write for Blackwood. 216 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. In the meantime Lockhart's own youthful life had come to rapid development while all these " Jocks " and labours were going on. In May 1818, while the air was still full of the dust and commotion roused by the establishment of the Magazine, our young man met Scott at an Edinburgh dinner-party, and was presented to him. " He received me," as we are told in the ' Life of Scott,' " with a cordiality which I had not been prepared to expect from one filling a station so exalted. This, however," he adds, " is the same story that every individual who ever met him under similar circumstances has to tell." The young man had the good luck, when the ladies retired, to find himself next to Scott, and the still greater good for- tune to find a subject which interested him — i.e., a recent visit paid to Goethe at Weimar, to his account of which Scott listened with great interest, asking many questions about the man whom he said he had considered as his Master in his youth. He ended by inviting the happy youth to Abbotsford, which was about the finest thing that could happen to a young man of letters in those days. It is well known to what further developments that visit led, and advan- tages which were mutual : for Scott secured for him- self the most admirable son, champion, and companion when he admitted Lockhart into his family. He was married to Sophia Scott in 1820, and from that date his name was never dissociated from that of her father. No more fortunate and happy relationship was ever formed. Scott's own sons have left but Httle record behind them. They fell back into the common crowd, as we believe it is usual for a race to do after it has come to a climax by producing one of the greatest of THE CRAFTY AND THE SCORPION MEET. 217 men : and, what also seems usual — obeying a law more subtle still than the fondly cherished theory of develop- ment — perished in the direct line, leaving no children to carry on his name. But Lockhart was the son of his heart, his confidant and faithfuUest friend through all the troubles that followed, and his children were the only heirs of Abbotsford and their great forebear's glory. Lockhart's letters are seldom without an allu- sion to Scott after they became thus closely connected. Here is one of a later date which shows the position in which he stood to the great Magician of the age, when his " crowned estate began to pine in that reverse of doom." Blackwood had recently attained civic honours, whence the title : — Abbotsford, 27iA May. My dear Baillie, — ^You have indeed much reason to be cockahoop, for your present number is a glorious one through- out, and contains one passage (that on the Bloody hand row) worth alone twenty volumes of ordinary wit. It is the very finest thing I think he ^ ever wrote. I propose being in Edin- burgh for two or three days next week, but can't exactly fix a day, as I should not like to leave Sir W. S. on one of those dull days that now chequer his existence. On the whole, how- ever, he is mending, and I hope to see him pretty well restored before the summer is over. From the same place he writes in 1825 of a visit of Constable, the (supposed) deathless enemy of the brotherhood. " Here is Constable and his hopeful, both as smooth as silk," he says. "I suppose the bargain is being ratified touching the next novel. The Crafty says there is a favourable review of Hogg's Jacobite songs in the forthcoming number of the ' Blue and Yellow.' " It may seem a curious fate 1 Professor Wilson in 'Maga,' June 1831. 218 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. that thus brought "the Scorpion" and "the Crafty" together under one roof, and that so imposing a roof as that of Abbotsford, where all quarrels were bound to be forgotten : but it is still more curious that Lockhart should be now working for that rival publisher in the intervals of the ' Noctes ' and other Blackwood productions, and had even, as has been seen, essayed to give the Crafty a large meed of praise in the very pages in which he had been insulted. Here is a touch of experience and wisdom which showed how happiness and the society of Scott had mellowed the mind and softened the tongue of the Scorpion : — I have to acknowledge your kindness in sending the ' Quar- terly Eeview ' and Magazine,^ both of which are in their kinds most excellent. Maginn is easily detected, and is as brilliant as ever. . . . Mrs Ogle is exquisite, but I am sorry to say I think altogether unfair. You may have a right to quiz Jeffrey (but his own name were better than a vulgar edition of it), but nobody has a right to meddle with the private amusements of a private lady. How would Mr Gait like to have an account in a Magazine of a little frolic played off in her family by a female of his acquaintance ? I have had time and opportunity to reflect on such things, and out of friendship for you and regard for him I would suggest a hint on this subject. After all, the story is inferior to that with W. C. Being introduced to him at a tea- party, she took him all to herself, discussed all her family affairs, and concluded by prevailing on the cynical bitter fellow to avow that he would not think the change of name an in- superable difi&culty to his marrying her sole daughter and heiress, the lass with the bit land. You have also some capital political articles, one of them as good as possible. Coleridge is evidently mad and unintel- ligible, but I venture to say you will never repent giving him sixteen pages a- month. There will always be thoughts and ^ February 1821. PETERS LETTERS. 219 expressions of the most inimitable beauty — quite enough to interest all men of letters. Sir W. S. is in very high feather. I have read two volumes of the ' Pirate/ which is quite charming — as fresh and lively as ever. The first independent publication (after the trans- lation of Schlegel) by which Lockhart made himself known — though always under the shelter of the Anonymous, a veil which of course was easily pene- trable by those whose opinion was of any importance — was the lively piece of contemporary history known as ' Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk.' We find the first sketch of it in the following communication : — I saw James Ballantyne yesterday, and sounded him a little about Dr Morris. He seems to say he would stake all his credit on the Doctor's success. Scott also writes in great terms touch- ing the Doctor. On the whole, I do think that the writing of the book might be soon accomplished, and would be singularly pleasant in the doing. 3 volumes 12mo, size of 'Waverley.' 1st vol., Edinburgh town described. [Here follows a detailed account of contents, including sketches of the most notable persons in Edinburgh, Scotch Education, Scotch Church, &c., the 2nd volume taking Glasgow for its subject.] Vol. 3rd to be written chiefly by Wilson, and to contain accounts of the Doctor's tours into the Highlands, Tweeddale, and along the Clyde. All this to be done immediately, currente calamo, on smooth paper. What do you think on't ? I think it would do much in every way, and reflect much credit if successful on your Magazine. Let me, therefore, hear what you say. There could be little doubt what Mr Blackwood would say. His eager mind leapt at every feasible literary project, and no doubt he spurred on the writer with all the force of sympathy and encourage- ment. It was a book entirely concerned with what 220 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. we have already called the criticism of life (with apologies to the representatives of Mr Matthew Arnold), which was a kind of thing highly popular at the time, as it is now in a different fashion. It was probably in 1817 that the idea was formed; but it was not tm two years later that the work was pub- lished, though the bewildering network of advertise- ments woven about it, and the other frolic circum- stances of its origin, go far to make even a proved date doubtful to the bewildered reader. A review professedly of a first edition appeared in the Maga- zine in the numbers for February and March 1819, which it was part of the mystification to represent as being from no less a hand than that of Scott ; but in fact there was no first edition at all, the first actual publication being called the 2nd edition. The reason for this, unless it were, like so many other things, " for fun," we are completely unable to divine. There are a few indications, however, that it did not pass through the press without various skirmishes between author and publisher, in which the former did not always come out victorious. The following scrap is dated, with concise but not very instruc- tive brevity, " 5 o'clock," which implies a running controversy over the items of the publication hour by hour, as the printer's boy ran to and fro : — I have altered all you alluded to except the little bit about Ballantyne, who, you must see, has taken more trouble than usual with me, and well deserves a compliment. He has really served the book by many of his suggestions. I think the vignette will be a glorious Jmis indeed. And here is a characteristic little outburst : — I give you permission to alter as you please all about your- A2^ AUTHOR AT BAY. 221 self; but I tell you honestly you have utterly sickened me with your eternal expostulations. Change, but don't speak to me again. If any other person mentioned had been allowed only one 50th of your remarks, the book would have been at the 2nd volume at Doomsday ! After this " Peter " begins to be a familiar figure, entering into the midst of the continual talk about the Magazine and the manner of its concoction : — I enclose the rest of the ' Noctes.' The Professor may add what he likes. We have of late had so much of Hogg's talk that I have made him say little this time ; but if Wilson pleases he can stuff out the porker with some of his own pud- dings. You must take Cay into your counsels (or somebody) anent the musical concerns. The airs I have given to Peter are what I heard to be popular at the time, and if you choose to give the music, with some of his Italian rhapsodies, you can find it in any shop. And if you have any thorough Italian scholar to go over the proofs of Peter's lingo and improve it, so much the better. I find that the fool who abuses us in the 'Athenaeum' is Charles Knight alias " Crito." The attack was begun, tho', by one Forbes, whom you wot of. I leave these folk scatheless for the present. It need not be added after these curious statistics that ' Peter ' was a very successful publication, though its revelations of Edinburgh are not M^ithout traces of the mischievous inclination by vsrhich Lockhart was distinguished. Murray for one found offence in it, and made its indiscretion recoil on the Magazine, which was scarcely just ; but in the meantime Blackwood and his band had become names to conjure by withal, as will be seen from the following letter of Lockhart's : — I am, of course, highly gratified with all your accounts both of ' Peter ' and of ' Maga.' As for the poor Tories here, their views are of course entirely selfish. Sym had a visit from 222 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Crawford Tait t'other day,^ who evidently came in the view of sounding Timotheus, placed on high amid the sounding choir, touching the possibility of procuring the effectual aid of your friends to a weekly anti-' Scotsman ' paper. The Sage scorned the idea in the shape it came in, justly thinking that any pro- posal (even a more feasible one than this) should have been brought forward through some very different sort of channel. Sym had his gun and bayonet standing in the corner of the room, and every way kept up the character of the Tickler. I have seen a great deal of Mr EUis, the Irish barrister, and been much pleased. He went with me to Eoslyn yesterday, and left Edinburgh this morning per smack. He seems to have been delighted with everything here, and threatens another visit by Xmas, which I hope he will perform. Much ought to be done and thought in regard to Ireland. This familiar sentiment has been perennial, as everybody knows, in England and Scotland for a multitude of years : at the moment indicated the agitation for Catholic emancipation was going on — a question very different, however, from those that move us now. Lockhart wrote, I think, all his novels in this period of his life. They were much above the average as novels, and full of talent, but not of genius ; and they made little difference in his reputation or in his career. The first was ' Valerius,' the scene of which was laid in the first century. It was followed by 'Adam Blair' and later by 'Matthew Wald,' both studies, and very sombre ones, of Scotland in his own day : between which came a novel full of university experiences, called ' Reginald Dalton, a Story of Ox- ford Life.' We hear, however, very little of them in these letters; and though moderately successful, 1 Robert Sym, already referred to, called in the Magazine Timothy Tickler. APPLAUSE AND SUCCESS. 223 they cannot be said to have given their author any- distinct standing-ground as a writer of fiction. Gait, with much less power, was infinitely more popular. Lockhart's chief Scottish story, ' Adam Blair,' was not of the kailyard by any means, but a strange and terrible study of passion. There is a curious refer- ence in one of his notes to his own timidity in respect to original composition, and want of confidence in his genius, which are scarcely sentiments we should have expected from Lockhart. " I am so subject to being disheartened, that I suspect I shall never do anything without the Famu- lus Typographicus to help me on. I have therefore some thoughts of sending you a little bit of the novel immediately, to try that way. But the truth is, I scarcely have the courage." Some time later he con- tinues : "I send you the manuscript of the com- mencement. Have it copied and set up in common novel style by James Ballantyne, and if I like it sufficiently when I see it printed, I will go on speedily — at present I want courage." A correspondence between an author and publisher, even when so fragmentary as this, would scarcely be complete without a discussion about money, and ac- cordingly it is no surprise to find some letters in which this subject is taken up with all the warmth and baffled helplessness of a man fighting in the dark — a mood perhaps characteristic of an author's frame of mind in every such discussion. There is something, I cannot tell why, which is exasperating beyond measure in the constantly recurring contrast between literary applause and substantial success. A man finds himself praised on all sides, even perhaps with a 224 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. kind of enthusiasm by the hps of his publisher him- self : he is told (but this not generally by the lips of the publisher) that his book is read everywhere, and that the opinion of the general public coincides with that of his literary friends. To be a little elated, to hold his head in the air, and to expect wealth and distinction to foUow, are very natural things ; but it must be allowed that in a great many instances they do not follow to any great extent, and the author stands bewildered, hearing perhaps (as happens in some cases) that the publisher has even lost by this successful publication of his. What does it mean ? It was in this puzzled and wrathful attitude of mind that Lockhart wrote as follows : — J. Gr. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. I have to acknowledge the receipt of £40 for my contributions to the May and June numbers of the Magazine. I have also, since you have thought fit so minutely to allude to other matters, looked over the whole of the last six numbers, and find that you are quite correct in regard to the number of pages my pen has furnished. I find also that all my articles during these months amount to sixteen ^ in number, and that of these exactly eight contain, and eight do not contain, extracts. Now, I have no hesitation in telling you most distinctly two separate and distinct things : my first, that I think I have been during the last year by far the most efficient of your contributors, and that I consider the reviews of new books furnished by me in that time quite equal, taken altogether, to any equal number of articles you have had, they being equally interesting, and there being fewer people who could furnish the like. (Indeed 1 The articles in the earlier Magazines were generally short, or at least many were short, with one of greater importance now and then. Later practice changed this, and for a long time there were no more than seven or eight articles altogether in one number, all more or less of importance, and the rate of payment was doubled or more than doubled. THE FAST FRIEND OF ' MAGA.' 225 you have not had a good reviewer of literary works but myself and Wilson, in our separate styles, for the Doctor has scarcely tried.) Secondly, I do think that a person who does so much for your book ought to make more by doing so; and that, having entire confidence in your general liberality and the most perfect reliance on your kindly feelings to me personally, I am therefore under the necessity of considering ' Maga ' as by no means in a flourishing condition. What I can in justice to myself do for ' Maga ' shall be done, because I am your fast friend and hers ; but I cannot go so far as to think it probable, with this Shakespeare on my hands, that I shall be able to do so much for some time to come as I have recently been in the custom of doing. I earnestly hope, therefore, since the Professor appears to be in such an indolent if not indifferent key, you will be enabled to get Maginn to do more — a great deal more — for you this summer than hitherto he has done. Do persuade him to give you more of his mind, and his beautiful scholarship. I shall perhaps say something more as to all this soon. These were the happy days when Magazine writers were not as plentiful as blackberries, and when a writer could address his publisher in this way with- out receiving a polite answer next morning in the words of King Henry when he heard of the slaughter of Percy at Chevy Chase — " I have a hundred captains in England As good as ever was he." No man is indispensable, the proverb says : and cer- tainly nowadays no man is so indispensable to a peri- odical as Lockhart believed himself to be, and to some extent was. He followed up this letter, presumably, for still we have no dates to guide us, with the fol- lowing, which evidently refers to some very special and carefully written article : — I think you will not accuse me of any impropriety when I VOL. I. P 226 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. say that the enclosed Essay i has cost me a great deal of time and thought, and that if it be printed in the Magazine I shall consider myself entitled to be paid for it upon quite a different footing than from usual articles. I am of opinion that such a view of such a subject would at this particular time attract great notice even in the highest quarters ; and really that important practical results might follow. It is possible that all this is sanguine nonsense in me ; but, however, I beg you to read my paper and state your feeling. Mr Blackwood's reply was full of enthusiastic praise of the article ; but his letter does not seem to have been at all satisfactory to his correspondent. Lockhart replied briefly, explaining that he had not originally designed the article in question for the Magazine, and requesting its return : a communica- tion which called forth the following reply : — W. Blackwood to J. G. Lockhart. ISth June 1825. I am quite aware that the article you were so good as to send me was the result of knowledge and experience which few pos- sessed, and that therefore anything I could offer in the shape of money was not adequate to its intrinsic worth. I felt proud in receiving the article, as a mark of friendship to myself as well as of the deep interest you continued to take in my Magazine, and I trusted that by means of it and others the work would receive such an impulse that I should very soon have it in my power to show you substantially that I was not insensible of what you had done for me. I certainly did look forward with some confidence to being able to pay all your articles in future at a higher rate than it had hitherto been in my power to do. To pay you, as I have already said, I could not; but I flattered myself that, independent of the interest you take in my Magazine, its very success would prompt you to write articles when you did not feel inclined to do anything 1 Probably an Essay on Universities. A LIBERAL LETTER. 227 else, and on the other hand I could have the satisfaction of offering you more and more liberal remuneration. This has all along been my first and most earnest wish, and if my means have not yet equalled my wishes, I am sure you will give me credit for its not being my fault. I hope you will excuse me for saying so much in explanation of the views and feelings under which I acted. Had I known, however, that you had sat down to this article with other views than sending it to me for the Magazine, I would have begged of you to tell me what these views were, and to the very utmost of my powers I would have endeavoured to promote them. And had I likewise known that it had been the labour of some weeks, but that you thought the Magazine the fit channel for giving your sentiments to the public (and I still flatter myself it is the best), I should have requested the favour, instead of naming any sum myself, that you would frankly tell me what I could send you for it, taking all circumstances into consideration. This is my earnest desire now, and I hope you will do me this favour. My most ardent desire is that you should continue to give your powerful aid to my Magazine, but I never dreamt that you were to devote any portion even of your leisure time to it, without being paid liberally. It would give me the deepest pain if you did not feel satisfied on this head. In future there- fore, if agreeable to you, I would wish very much that you would send me a note from time to time for £20, £30, or £50, just as you yourself thought right ; or if you preferred it, that you would say a quarterly or annual sum you would draw, leaving it entirely to yourself to send such contributions as your leisure or inclinations prompted you to write : then at the end of the year you would also notify to me any additional sums, if you found you had done more than you had laid your account with. I have written this letter with great pain in one sense. I dislike so much any dissensions when mere money is concerned. I have written it, however, with the deepest anxiety that you may be satisfied as to my feelings and conduct. I cannot say a fiftieth part of what I feel on this matter, so deeply interest- ing to me. All I shall further say is, that if I did not feel from the bottom of my heart that I had acted all along in a 228 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. way deserving of your friendship, I should feel myself most unworthy of it. If we did not know to the contrary, we could almost imagine there was a certain irony in the tone of this extraordinarily liberal letter, and in the sudden granting thus at a word of any or every claim the startled author might bring forth. Perhaps it was this sentiment which made Lockhart answer it in a way more consistent with such a hypothesis than with the real effusion with which it was vrritten : — It is not necessary that you and I should at this time of day write long letters on the subject of your Magazine. I perfectly appreciate your warm feelings to me personally, and I am sure you will never have any good reason to suspect me of not desiring to see you and all your concerns prosper. As to bargaining with you or with anybody about money in this style, it is out of the question. I put a paper in your hands, and asked what you would think it worth for your Magazine. We, it appears, thought differently as to that matter. I can see nothing here but what happens every day in the world. You will return me the paper, and the whole affair is as if it had never been. I told you plainly I was not thinking of the thing as an ordinary contribution to the Magazine. It was a solitary effort, and, as hinted, my original intention was some- thing in the nature of a volume on Universities in general, an intention to which, when leisure serves, I may recur. I think the enclosed paper very admirable indeed, and that it will have a powerful effect. P.S. — Allow me to beg that this may be the last of a corre- spondence which, knowing you as I do, I am sure must be equally painful to us both. Think anything you please, except that there is or has been the least touch of unkindness in my feelings. Nothing is more remote from my thoughts. Indeed, the tone of your letter is only a great deal too generous towards me personally. Blackwood answered on the 16th June as follows : — A PUBLISHER ON HIS DIGNITY. 229 Since you desire it, I lose not a moment in returning your MS. I do hope, however, it is only for the present. You know- better than I can tell you that this article is of the highest im- portance to me. Mortified as I certainly would be were it not to appear in the Magazine, I do not wish to press upon you to send me this article unless you yourself are perfectly satisfied with regard to doing so. I have no wish to recur to anything that has already passed ; but while I know you hate bargaining about the price of this or anything else, I hope you know me sufficiently to believe that it is not the consideration of any sum whatever which would tempt me to act in the smallest way differently from what you would expect from me. Saying this, I leave the matter entirely to your own good feelings. I am unable to say what was the precise occasion of the letter which follows : probably it was after the un- happy affair of the duel in which Mr John Scott, the editor of the ' London Magazine,' met his death. The great shock of this fatal event, and the depression into which Lockhart fell, would seem to have given him the greatest distaste for his previous work, and everything connected with it : from whence no doubt arose the report that he was about to withdraw from the Magazine altogether. W. Blackwood to J. G. Lockhart. Setting my own wishes and interests entirely out of the question, I regret, on your own account, that you should feel such a disinclination to do anything for the Magazine. Either by yourself or your friends it has been given out that you had dropped all connection with it. These reports I never listened to, and I could not bear to notice them to you ; for, if you did not see the matter in the same point of view as I did, anything I had to say would be apt to appear to you as merely proceeding from selfish views of my own. My lips therefore have been sealed, and whatever I have felt or suffered I have kept to myself. Now, however, that you have introduced the subject yourself, I cannot help saying a few words with regard to it. 230 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. You will, I am sure, do me the justice to believe that, had it been in my power to prevent it, never should you have had one uneasy or unpleasant feeling from anything connected with the Magazine. Whatever could tend to your honour or advan- tage has always been my first and most anxious wish, and to attain this I never have, and never could have, considered any sacrifice as too great. Had I for one moment believed that it would be either for your honour or advantage to cut all connection with the Magazine, you may rest assured I would have been the very first person to tell you so. My strong and decided conviction, on the contrary, has been that you owed it to yourself to stand forward in a manly way, so as to show that the attacks of the miscreants who slandered you so foully and so falsely were of no avail, and only recoiled on themselves. Their sole object was to induce you and others to abandon the Magazine, and any quailing was giving them a triumph. From the disagreeable occurrence which has been so annoying to you personally, it is not to be wondered at that you should have felt sore and unhappy. For months, therefore, I have said little, but left the matter entirely to your own feelings. If, however, you had given me your wonted confidence, I would have told you what my impressions were, and that they were no friends of yours who circulated reports of your having abandoned the Magazine : for were this true it would be an acknowledgment that the personal attacks upon you were well founded, and you were therefore forced to give way to public opinion. The Magazine supported with talent and spirit, I have always believed, would do honour to all acquainted with it, and put to shame all those who attempted to run it down. As to any claims of my own upon you, these I have never mentioned and never will. Only this I will say, that if you knew a thousand part of the miseries I have endured — and much of them on your account — you would have felt more for me than you appeared to do for many months past, when I seemed to be left in a state of desertion by those from whom I expected different things. It is most painful and distressing to me even to allude to any of these things, but I try to assure you that if I did not think it would be highly creditable to you to give your aid THE JOHN SCOTT TRAGEDY. 231 to the Magazine, and receive a most liberal remuneration for your contributions, I should be the last person in the world to have expected one line from you. The last letter on this subject is the folio vising. The matter had evidently grovpn more and more serious as it went on : — J. Q. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. I do not think any good end is likely to be served by a correspondence on these subjects — concerning points of which it is evident enough our opinions are very widely different. There are also some expressions in your letter which give me pain, and I should be sorry to have disagreeable feeling increased by any repetition of the like. I am not aware of having been at all the reverse of open in regard to the Magazine. On the con- trary, I think at least eighteen months ago I told you very dis- tinctly that I was resolved periodical literature should never occupy any serious part of my attention. The longer I live I am the more steadily impressed with the utter worthlessness of that sort of thing. I have already had too much share in it ; but I see neither the necessity nor the propriety of my having more connection with the periodical press than any given indi- vidual — unless I please. There are always enough of young people to write for Magazines, if they be paid. At the same time, I never have made or expressed any resolution not to write in your Magazine. I intend to send you from time to time anything that occurs to me, and I shall be happy if what I send proves acceptable. I have shown Mr Wilson your let- ter and this answer, and I am happy to say he approves of the light in which I have viewed the subject. — Believe me, very sincerely yours, J. Gr. Lockhaet. "Was this note, so solemnly signed (the others only bear initials), intended for the moment to be the last ? This is what we do not know ; but if so, the intention was speedily abandoned. The " disagreeable occur- rence " referred to in Mr Blackwood's letter was with- 232 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. out doubt, as we have indicated, the bitter and painful controversy with Mr John Scott, ^ the editor of the 'London Magazine,' which, after many discussions, sending of embassages on both sides, and publication of opposing " Statements," was suddenly turned into unexpected tragedy. The ridicule with which public sentiment had already begun to treat the practice of duelling, and the particular jest supposed to be in- volved in a projected duel between two men whose weapon was the pen and not the sword, were abruptly changed into horror and dismay by the death of Scott, not even by the hand of the man he had assailed, but by that of Lockhart's friend and intended second, Mr Christie, who had been forced into the field after the first challenge had been insultingly refused. It is im- possible to treat a matter lightly which ends in this way, otherwise the exaggerated abuse of Scott, and mock heroics of both parties, would be both ludicrous and ofiensive. To call a man a professional scandal- monger, a mercenary dealer in calumny and false- hood, because of even the worst of the attacks upon the Cockney School, was of course excessive and absurd. Whereas, on the other side, Lockhart's resentment of attacks upon himself, who had made so many light- hearted attacks upon others, and never hesitated to give forth a scathing word, was equally ridiculous. The elaborate accounts given by both parties of the discussions that preceded the duel might have afforded an admirable subject for Lockhart's own power of stinging banter. He would have held both sides up 1 The reader will find this miserable story much more fully treated in Mr Andrew Lang's ' Life of Lockhart,' along with other incidents of his THE MYSTIC THREE. 233 to the laughter of the world had the case not been his own — which was a very weak point with the wits of the period. They loved to goad and sting their neigh- bours, often into outbursts of fury ; but they could not bear any touch upon themselves. Nothing could be more ludicrous than to describe the gay band of young authors as " miscreants whose outrages in print have for the last four years desolated private society in Edinburgh, interrupted the course of friendship, and ruined the harmony of social inter- course," unless it was the solemn but out-of-date state- liness of the warlike response, the medieval formality of the counter-check quarrelsome, and all the rest. But the laughter is hushed when this antiquated farce ends in the sacrifice of a man's life, especially when an entirely innocent person is brought in to take the vicarious weight of such a quarrel upon him. The whole matter was looked upon with distress and pain, but also at first with something of that fictitious admiration of an " afiair of honour " which still lin- gered in men's minds, in the circle in Edinburgh. The reader is in a position to know how true to fact (if also at the same time a little untrue in sentiment) was the denial finally extracted from Lockhart of being editor or part editor of ' Blackwood's Magazine.' It was perfectly true, in so far that he was in no point of view the last authority, and that he never was a salaried editor deriving payment for his work as such, except for the very brief period of Murray's influence (if then), when his position was little more than nomi- nal ; but that he was one of the mystic Three who presided over everything in the Magazine cannot be doubted. Mr Blackwood preserved his Veto and his 234 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. opinion, and was perfectly dans son droit in saying that he had no editor. The Veiled Tribunal was much more interesting than that institution of a responsible editor and a mere business publisher, which was more common ; but we may allow that it was difficult for the ordinary public to understand how the system worked. I have thought that the record of this long and close connection would not be complete without some notice of the storms which now and then would pass across the skies, terrible, but luckily temporary. In August of the same year in which that alarming hurricane occurred, we find all tribulations blown away, and the usual atmosphere of confidential friendship and co- operation completely restored : — /. G. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. Dublin, 14 Aijigust 1825. I daresay you think I have been wrong in not writing sooner. The fact is, I have been kept eternally on the move, and have never had a pen in my hand except to do a sort of journal in the shape of letters to my wife — which you shall if you please have a reading of when the series is complete. I have seen and heard much worthy of remembrance; but am now thor- oughly homesick, and happy to say that the day after to-morrow we sleep on Welsh ground if we escape the dangers of the steam voyage. I have found almost every person in society here pro-Catholic, and yet have been in company with but two Catholic gentlemen so far as I know — and the result of my whole observation is, that Dr Maginn speaks the exact truth as to this matter in his Literary Sketch, which, by the way, I never got hold of till yes- terday, when, on returning from a fortnight's ramble about Killarney, I stumbled unexpectedly on an old acquaintance in the shape of Mr Curry, and from him got No. 103 of ' Maga' — and an excellent number I think it is. I assure you the High Church here swear by you, but of these DISBAELIS MISSION. 235 we have, accidentally I suppose, met but few. The provost of the College here and Dr Brinkley the Astronomer both told me your articles on the Catholic question were the only things worthy of being perused. ' Maga ' I have never yet met with, in consequence of many unfortunate accidents. This expedition vpas taken, as the reader vpill recol- lect, in attendance upon Scott, when Sir Walter received the unanimous homage of his admirers in Ireland. The party returned by Wales, and on their way north visited various hospitable houses in the Lake country, and among others Wilson's at Elleray. There are some notes connected with that last visit which I reserve to elucidate an incident in the Pro- fessor's life. In the autumn of 1825, soon after his return from the Irish expedition, a curious embassy from London and the great house of Murray arrived at Chiefswood, where Lockhart was then staying, in the striking person of young Benjamin Disraeli, with various great projects and proposals in his hands. His chief object was to induce Lockhart to accept the editorship of a new daily paper which Murray had set his heart on establishing, and, in default of that, the ' Quarterly Review,' then wavering in uncertain hands after the death of Gifford. Lockhart's account of the matter to Blackwood would seem to have been in answer to some question addressed to him. There is no date upon the note in which he allows that it is " most true that Murray is about to have a daily paper, and that, I think, under most triumphant auspices, and it is also true that I was asked to be the conductor. But I declined this at once, and it was on that that the oifer of the Review was made and accepted. Of 236 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. course as to contributing to his paper I shall most likely do so, as I believe all his adherents mean to do, but anything more or even much of this would be quite out of the question." There is no note of any feeling on the part of Blackwood of disappointment and dismay in the loss of so important a contributor, though it can scarcely be supposed that it was agree- able news to him. The only comment we find on the event is in the graceful and cordial note of farewell which the publisher addressed to Lockhart on his final departure : — W. Blackwood to J. G. Lockhart. iiK November 1825. Deeply as I must ever regret your leaving Edinburgh, and seriously as I must ever feel your loss, yet I cannot but rejoice that you have now a field for exertion worthy of yourself. It is impossible for me to express how much I despise and feel a contempt for the poor pluckless animals here, whose business it was to hold out objects to you that would have made it worth while for you to remain among all the friends who will feel your loss so much. But all's for the best, and it is need- less to regret what cannot be helped. Though it is thus very clearly evident that there was no breach of the old bonds, there is no doubt that Lockhart had been since his marriage drawn much into the circle of Scott, and withdrawn from the con- stant communications of former days. His removal to London would seem, however, to have warmed his heart both to his old familiar companions and to the frolicsome labours of his youth. The great catastrophe which gave so melancholy a close to the noble life of Scott took place shortly after, indeed was threatening before Lockhart's removal, and the first letter from London is full of the thrill and agitation of that great LOCKHART AND THE 'QUARTERLY.' 237 event, augmented perhaps by a sense of the less warm atmosphere of understanding and sympathy which was around him in his new sphere : — J. G. LocWiart to W. Blackwood. 25 Pall Mall, StA February 1826. I called on Cadell when the alarm was at its height, and was rejoiced to be set at ease as to you. Thank God you have escaped being dragged into the whirlpool with your Leviathan neighbours. I have lost much money by him and others, and have been wounded to the very soul with the far greater distresses of Sir Walter Scott. I am sure you will excuse long letters at such a time from your always most truly, J. G. Lockhaet. I expect to have in my first No. a review of Mr Bell's book on Italy, and also of the ' Subaltern.' Pray forward me early copies of anything you have, and remember me most affection- ately to all the Divan. God bless you ! Lockhart's heart was full, with the chill of novelty and separation from his friends just when he wanted sympathy most, and this burst of home-sickness and unusual utterance touches the reader all the more from so self - contained a man. Did he miss, one wonders, the periodical hazards of the Magazine, the exciting reign of the irregular, the panics as to whether the Professor would be ready, prolonged al- most to the eve of the publishing day ? One cannot but feel that the respectable business-like level of the ' Quarterly ' must have palled upon him now and then, and that he felt the sudden cutting off of the fun and frolic, even if, to a man sobered by early experience, those too had previously begun to pall. Notwith- standing aU the sins of which these companions had been guilty, and all their devious ways, we are con- scious of a sympathetic enlivenment when we find the 238 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. correct editor of the stately ' Quarterly ' stealing off with delight to " make a ' Noctes.' " It suggests a Aveariness with the new circumstances, in which there is an almost tragic touch : — J. G. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. Brighton, Augt. 8, '26. Dr Maginn paid me a visit here about four weeks ago, and promised to come back soon for the purpose principally of making a 'Noctes.' But since then I have neither seen nor heard anything of him, nor indeed do I know where he is or what he is doing at this moment, though I think I can still trace his pen occasionally in 'The New Times and Eip,' and thence conclude he has made some partnership with Mudford. I am writing him to-day, and as soon as we can meet depend upon a packet. His account of the "Westmoreland election is most rich, and I am on many accounts sorry the Professor was not there to help in and enjoy the triumph. Lord Lowther is rather displeased about his non-appearance, which, no doubt through some blunder, he thought he was to depend upon. I hope Lord L. tipped the Doctor decently ; but he said nothing to me on that delicate topic, except, indeed, that there had been a discovery of some seventy years' old Eum, of which he (the Doctor) had been invited to take away some dozens for London consumption. "Wordsworth and Maginn (!) wrote, verse about, a song of Betty Martin, &c., which I thought no great shakes for all the illustrious copartnery. I wish some of you would tell me what old Crafty is doing. "When one sees the firm on title-pages, just as of yore, one begins to doubt the fact of a failure after all. My little boy improves so much here that we shall scarcely leave the place while he can bathe in the sea. To us it has no other recommendation, as we know nobody here except poor William Eose, who is in a very invaUd and unconversable condition. The Tiger, as you have perhaps heard, is going shortly to Canada to hunt bears and other fellow - creatures. This will be a relief to the Professor's imagination, though to me, I assure you, it is a sorrow. What a contrast this melancholy seclusion at the THE TIGER. 239 so-called gay watering-place to the happy company and communion of Chiefswood, with Edinburgh and all the brethren so close at hand ! The Tiger was a certain Dr Dunlop,^ a great hunter and traveller, whose literary manners and morals the society of Maginn and his wild band did not improve. During the autumn Mr Blackwood was able to send to the exile news of his beloved home and friends : — W. Blackwood to J. G. Lockhart. Edin., 23 Awgt. 1826. About three weeks ago I spent a few days at Chiefswood with our excellent friend Capt. Hamilton. It is a delightful spot, and I wonder how you could leave it. I was a good deal with Sir Walter, who is really in excellent health and spirits. That old tiresome pedant Dr J. had been staying some days with Sir Walter, to the great annoyance of poor Terry, and every one who happened to be there. When you see Terry he wUl give you some droll sketches of the Doctor. At last, to the relief of every one, he took his departure in Sir Walter's carriage, and when stepping in he made a great many fawning speeches as to his regret if he took away the carriage when Sir Walter might be wanting it, to which the Baronet replied in his good-humoured way that "his horses could not be better employed than in carrying Dr J. on his journey." This Peter Poundtext swallowed of course as a great compliment, while Terry and the ladies could with the greatest difficulty contain themselves. The following letters will show how difficult Lock- hart found it to cut himself free from his old habits of work and his first love : — J. G. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. 28 March '26, 25 Pall Mall. Having a private hand [this was in the days of heavy 1 Dr Dunlop was a surgeon in the East India Company's service, and was of great renown as a shooter of what is now called big game. 240 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. postage] I make up a small packet of notes for members of your Divan. I was delighted with " Cottages " and the " Naval Sketch-Book." They show that our friend is in his best spirits as well as power ; and if that be so, all is right. You will perhaps say I am infected with the chill air of the Metropolis. But I wish, in spite of that, to say a single word on a very delicate subject. Attack Political Economy as much as you like, but don't permit this Eobertson to go on attacking so savagely the motives of Canning, &c. "Why should you and Wilson suffer — in yourselves, perhaps — very probably (in his case extremAy probably) in your families, for the sake of allowing a person of this kind to insult such a man as Canning ? Depend on it, my dear Professor, this is worth a thought for you. If you make the Magazine by such papers as the " Cottages," you will be blamed or lauded for its politics, as the case may be. What I wish to see particularly avoided is any allusion to Canning personally ; and I know he feels that personally, and avenges it so also. You will at least take this in good part. The next reflects Lockhart's own circumstances, projects, and surroundings in a very interesting way : — J. G. Zockhart to W. Blackwood. 25 Pall Mall, Nov. 16, 1826. I lose no time in expressing the delight with which I have read the demolition of MacCuUoch. Need I say how anxious I shall be to know what effect is produced on Jeffrey ? Sir W. Scott is quite in raptures with it; so is Croker, to whom I talked yesterday morning anent it ; and so must be every one. I have already had the satisfaction of showing it to one or two Whigs, and, that they all might see it, I have left my copy on the table of the Athenaeum, "with Mr Blackwood's compli- ments." I hope this was right. We are going to live on Wimbledon Common for this winter. Johnny will not do in London. This is inconvenient in some respects; but it will add to my leisure, which already has begun to hang heavy on my hands. I do not think it is quite A EOMANCE OF CONVERSATION. 241 right or fair in me to assist in the Magazine while I have the Eeview on my hands, and I have a feeling on the subject that I can't well express ; but I do not understand Murray having any suspicion that I was not doing whatever I did in the periodical line for the ' Quarterly.' Besides, your political tone must not be mine. I think it is wrong in all points of view, and particularly in the personal style in which Canning has been attacked in a work to which Wilson is an avowed contributor of the first importance. Others may point the dart ; so it is. But who gives the shaft its wings ? But for Wilson's wit, how few would read E.'s declamations, however clever ! But now to my business. The same feeling which withholds me from publishing essays in ' Maga,' or a kindred one, pre- vents my wishing to have anything whatever to do with Murray out of his Eeview. We could not meet on fair terms. Old friends who had perfect confidence in each other, as I hope is the case with us, might no doubt do so; but verbum sat. to you. I have enough to manage without quarrels already. I have in short a couple of post 8vos (peut-itre 3) to dispose of — i.e., shall have by the end of the year. The plan is this : I make an English lord (something like Dudley and Ward) take a place like Mar Lodge for the autumn. He briags down in his train the usual appendages of these great establish- ments — a character not unlike Coleridge for one, a sort of Croker for another, a Sogers for a third, perhaps a little of Hook, &c. I bring these Southerners into close communica- tion with a set of your Northern lights — disguises of Scott, Jeffrey, and so forth; make them discuss the differences be- tween England and Scotland in various points of manners, feelings, education, &c., &c., and illustrate their respective views with tales, all of them founded on fact, some comic, some tragic. I think to call the book 'Diversions of say G-lenmar,' a little romance of conversation. Tell me frankly what you think of all this. I have certainly no ambition to make one of Colburn's authors, but I am well aware that you may be far from anxious to publish much at present, and may have your hands full. I expect that you will VOL. I. Q 242 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. sacredly keep what I have said to yourself in the meantime. I do not even except the Professor for this once. We have been, as you guess, in a horrible hubbub. Sir Walter will be in Edinburgh in about ten days. We dined at Croker's ^yesterday — ^ party to meet the Unknown, the Speaker and Theodore Hook. These three sweet lads are always together. The Doctor, poor fellow, has of late done one very good paper for me, but what he spends his time in God only knows. I never saw a man grow more inferior to himself in a short time than he has to the O'Doherty of former days. Newspaper scribbling has totally destroyed a style that was always too light and hasty. There is now little whalebone indeed remaining. J. G. Lochhart to W. Blackwood. Sept. i, '28. The Professor on Sir Humphry was capitally good, but I think (I am no angler) unjustifiably severe, particularly con- sidering the circumstances of the book being written by a great man after two strokes of palsy, in miserable dejection of spirits and in health hopelessly shattered ; but all this WUson knew not, and I take it he hates Sir H. Davy for some private reason or no reason, as I daresay I should have done, had I not hap- pened to see a good deal of him. . . . However, Sir Walter is to review Sir H. in the ' Quarterly,' so the Baronet will have it with the hair as well as against it. 'Tis now said the Speaker goes to the Admiralty with a peer- age; but no one is in town, and indeed I seldom go on the Stones, even when I am here. Next week I am going to Chelsea to see Gleig for two or three days. He has some sermons, some novels, and some histories all at press in London at this moment, how much more in Edinburgh you can tell. Colburn has given £750 for his novel, 3 vols., ' Chelsea Pen- sioners,' at least the Sub says so. I beg my love to Wilson, Cay, &c., &c., if any such people be now about the old haunts. I fear I shall not even get down this autumn; but as Johnny has rallied, we are really and seriously planning to be at Chiefswood all next summer, which I think must stop my hair getting grey so fast as it at present seems to be doing." MAKING A 'NOCTES.' 243 1829. The Doctor and I have dined again at the Salopian, and made out the plan, which shall be filled up fitly and sent off by mail on Thursday next. I hope this will do. We are to give you our " Mr Theodore " as an interlocutor and improvisatore. But wait until Southey's new book has been properly puffed in the 'Quarterly,' and then for a grand 'Noctes' indeed. I mean to call up the shade of George Buchanan and introduce him to Hogg, who (Hogg) shall enlighten George, after the fashion of the Laureate enlightening Sir Thomas More, as to the history of the last two or three centuries, and the present state of politics and literature. I think Hogg explaining the steam-engine to Buchanan will answer. I expect at your hands efficient support of the Family Library, which if it turn out well may be a valuable property to me. I think I told you I have the third of it. We have now put the Napoleon to press again, having sold all the 6500 printed originally of the first vol. and all but 200 of the second. " You have, indeed, gloriously performed your promise," says Mr Blackwood in reply, " and the ' Noctes ' has even gone beyond what I expected. I am so glad, too, that the Doctor has again made an exertion, and done what is worthy of himself. The whole wiU make no little sensation." In this case it seems also that the labourers were satisfied with their reward. J. Q. LocTchart to W. Blackwood. June 5, 1829. Pardon for not answering sooner and acknowledging your enclosure, which the Doctor and I halved, and swore was munificent. Your No. is a good one. Do you want another ' Noctes ' ? If so, speak, and we shall have another dinner at the Salopian — that's all. Here is Gait, as large as life and as pompous as ever, full of title-pages and unwritten books, the ' Tyger,' the ' Squaws,' and, I am sorry to add, his own personal troubles, which are neither few nor trivial. 244 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. From these last it would appear that the editor of the ' Quarterly ' did not consider such compositions as those which he prepared in escapades at the Salopian along with Maginn to be any real infringe- ment of his rule against publishing " Essays in the Magazine." No doubt the delightful rush and im- pulse " to make a ' Noctes/ " recalling so much of the joys of youth, and the wild and flying inspiration of the past, was an exception, as it evidently was a delight to him amid the studied decorum and state- liness of Pall Mall. And that his youthful spirit was still but little modified (while always exaggerated by his coadjutor) will appear from the following letter, so sympathetic and regretful, yet resolute, with which the presiding genius in Edinburgh received one of these dashing efiusions. It was written in the year 1827, though I am not able to give the precise date. It ought, therefore, to precede some of the above letters, but will, I think, be better understood by coming here. Lockhart continued to send ' Noctes,' or contributions to the ' Noctes,' for many years. W. Blackwood to J. G. Lockhart. I have not been so happy for a long while as I was last Sunday when Cay called at my house and gave me the article you had been so good as to send me for ' Maga.' The moment he left me I sat down and literally devoured it. I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed the admirable way in which you show up the Cockney historical romance — the satire is so keen, and the sketches are so graphic. Forthwith, though it was Sunday evening, Alexander and I began to copy it, and before we went to bed we got nearly half through our task. Next day, however, when- 1 considered the whole more closely than it was possible for me to do under my first excitement, I began to think with agony whether or not others would see A MANUSCRIPT RETURNED. 245 the thing in the same point of view as I did. The fools and the malicious are so much more common in this world than their opposites, that there appeared to me not a little risk of the paper being either mistaken or misrepresented. It struck me that the stupid would take some of the sketches literatim, and consider it an unwarrantable liberty to represent Lord Melville in a kilt ; but this mattered not much, as they would be soon enlightened, and, as your friend the Secretary has it, stirred up with a long pole. What weighed with me was the use a certain gang might make of the article, and the annoyance it might be to Sir "Walter Scott. And if you will consider the matter calmly, I think you will see I had some ground for my fears on this head. The object of your satire is clearly to ridicule the Cockney jumble of Brambletye Hall, and in this you are most successful. But when one reflects that this creature is a mere imitator of Sir Walter, and that any travestie is so much more applicable to an original than to a mere copy, for all readers are much more familiar with the Waverley romances than with this Brambletye trash, surely there is some reason to fear that such satire would be applied and caught up with delight by the whole press gang as appearing in my Magazine. Among other delectable quizzes that might have been quoted and commented on with this view, nothing could have been more apposite than your most droll sketch of the Duke of Wellington's Address to Napoleon's stucco figure as an inimitable counterpart tcF Cromwell before the picture of Charles I. This and some other things I am pretty sure Sir Walter would not have liked, and as I never could have revealed to him or to any one who was the quizzer, he would have thought it odd of me to allow such a thing to appear in ' Maga.' It was with a very heavy heart, therefore, that I at last re- solved to give the MS. back to Mr Cay. In this I have acted solely on my own judgment, for there is no one that I could venture to consult on such a matter. You will probably think I have decided wrong, and that it is from mere timorousness that I have not ventured to insert the article. I can only say that I have stated exactly what influenced me, and that the loss of such an article I feel to be a very severe one. 246 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The correspondence, however, now seems to be interrupted by many such differences of opinion, but we add such extracts from it as may serve to show Lockhart's continuous feehngs to his old home and friends among the changed circumstances of his career : — J. Q. Lochliart to W. Blackwood. ZOth January 1830. These double numbers are capital. The Professor, since he is thus alive and kicking, ought to be ashamed of himself for not attending to my letter denouncing him about Sotheby's MS. The old man is a gentleman, and is entitled either to receive his manuscript back instantly (it is the only copy) or a promise that it is to be printed in the next number of ' Maga ' — for which purpose I understand Wilson to have solicited it. Some attention to the common laws of politeness would do no harm. Nothing more on this subject from me. By the bye, Murray has had a grand affair. The Master of the Mint, Harris, told the Duke yesterday that the last article in the ' Quarterly,' just published, had produced a panic among the Jews, and sunk Stocks 2 per cent. The Dictator sent for Croker and Barrow to the Cabinet Council and rowed them. They sent for Murray and rowed him, and then up came the Emperor to row me. I took it all very cool : he had been con- sulted quite at leisure beforehand. God knows how this may end — I care not. J. G. Zockhart to W. JBlaclcwood. December 28, 1830. I was asked to deliver a message to you, and I agreed to do so — not doubting in the least what your answer would be, and never having dropped a hint that I doubted it. You and I have seen too much of the outs in the character of ins to be easily seduced by such persons. I have for the ' Q. E.' resisted giving the smallest pledge to any Minister (except indeed to the Duke of Wellington on his first coining in), and nothing shall ever induce me to put faith in any Minister's professions again. We are fighting the same battle, though in somewhat SAD PREVISIONS. 247 different methods, perhaps : and if, as I think it likely, the Grey Eeform Bill will ere long compel us both to be apparently acting in concert with Peel and the Duke of W., I am sure we shall both think the alliance is Ukely to be one of brief endur- ance. The great Eadical blunder of the Currency, &c., will remain. From all I can gather, there is a very angry feud going on between the Grey section of the Cabinet and the Althorp one. Sir H. Parnell and his set mean to declare themselves forthwith in opposition in consequence of the Irish jobs, and this Deanery given so disgracefully to the Premier's brother. Lord Althorp is a fat outspoken grazier, and can't help babbling everything. He has let out that they mean to give no compensation to the lords of the English rotten boroughs (all of which are to be disfranchised by the bill), or the existing country voters in Scotland, who are to enjoy the franchise henceforth, it seems, in common with any owner of £10 annual rent in land or house. These propositions will unite all the Scotch gentry and most of the English boroughmongers against the Government, and we shall see the issue. Thus we are brought to the brink of a crisis by the act of the idtra Tories in turning out the Duke. Of this there can be no doubt : he feels it, and they, I believe, repent it almost to a man. They did not foresee the terrible risks of this reform as a Cabinet proposition. They gratified their just resentment at the deep hazard of everything. Such is my view of the case, such is Southey's, such is Sadler's, such is Lord Chandos's. We are among the breakers; let us see how much we can save. It is well sometimes to see the dismal prognostica- tions with which even wise men of that period regard the changes under which even the oldest among us have grown up, in complete unconsciousness of any shipwreck. We too in our turn are often tempted to indulge in the vaticinations of alarm and woe, which it is an encouragement to the general mind to believe may turn out quite as excessive. Lockhart was again busy with a ' Noctes ' as late 248 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. as Sept. 2, 1831. He seems to have learned in London the important art of dating his letters, and writes at that date from Chiefswood, where he was partly enjoying his holiday and partly waiting upon the darkened days of his illustrious neighbour and father-in-law — not well himself and full of appre- hensions : — J. G. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. Sir W. S. seems to have fixed on quitting Scotland for Naples about the first of October, and I suppose we shall be taking wing for London about the same time. The six or eight months dur- ing which we shall be absent from the glen here — what may they not bring forth ? Who can guess or dream ? I give all anticipation to the winds. Let me know if the ' Noctes ' is liked. By-and-by you shall have another, but not till I have seen London again, I think. In his next letter there is much banter of Hogg, from some of whose verses Lockhart with the edi- torial impulse docks eight lines, in which some unpleasant reference had evidently been made to a local potentate : — Hogg is mad to insult such a family, so near, and who have been on occasions kind to him, and in case of need would be ready to uphold him. You didn't know who was meant,^ I am sure. The poem has much of good and much of abomin- able, like most of the pig's. I have never heard of Wilson except once in a letter from Hamilton. It is capital to hear Wordsworth on him — only inferior to the Poet on himself, though in rather a different vein. Don't let Hogg dream I would have anything to do with his edition of Novels. Even if there were nothing else, I have not time for such a thing. It is quite impossible. "None but himself could be his editor." ^ The ScottB of Harden were the family referred to. SCOTT AND HOGG. 249 "Perhaps my last of Chiefswood," he adds sadly at the end of this letter, which is dated 22nd September 1831. It is at least the last of the Blackwood letters dated from that spot so full of memories, the joyful little house which " the Sheriff" had been wont to rouse from its morning quiet by the happy barks and gambols of his careering dogs, and his own kind shout of good morrow. Now the light was darkened, and the cheerful visitor came no more. And here is the brief and dignified record of what might have been a bitter quarrel. Something had been said in the ' Quarterly ' concerning Hogg which had seemed to Wilson and Blackwood a censure upon the Professor and the Magazine ; while Wilson on his side had given utterance, in the casual incidental way in which he often dehvered the most savage blows, to some unpardonable strictures upon Scott, specially ungracious at the moment. Lockhart makes his own apology and explanation very generously, while in- dicating the much harsher offence on the other side : — I can't let your letter go without expressing my concern that what was said in the ' Q. E.' should have given either you or the Professor any real uneasiness. I was working at the time for Hogg with the wigs of the Eoyal Society of Literature, and finding the dramatic ^ character in my way at every turn, wrote that sentence simply, and merely in reference to his interests, and without the least wish to escape from any share of the blame. I described Hogg as I saw him a few days before I left Scotland in October, at Altrive, wet, weary, and melancholy. Before the review appeared he, to be sure, had contrived to 1 No doubt the introduction of the Shepherd in the 'Noctes,' where so many things were put into his mouth which, as he bitterly complains, he never said, though at the same time it covered him with robes of poetic glory to which he had as little right. 250 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. make my statement look absurd enough by the reprint of his songs. After that I am dumb. As to Sir W. S., I shall just tell you one fact. Aristophanes Mitchell, one of ' Maga's ' staunchest admirers, wrote to me that he had given up taking her in, and would never again look at her, solely in consequence of what appeared in one of the ' Noctes ' about Sir Walter, whom he never saw. If a stranger feels like this, what must friends have done. There is no need to tell me that my friend meant no harm. I know him too well even to have dreamt of that. But rashness may, and sometimes does, produce serious mischief between friends, and I dreaded the effect in the present broken condition of Sir W.'s health and spirits. And now let there be no angry recol- lection between us. I am sure nothing of the kind will ever be done again in ' Maga ' ; and I tried, in as far as she was concerned, to make up for my little skit by a compliment to the ' Noctes ' in the next number of the ' Quarterly.' Here, however, is a bit of denunciation in the old slashing tone, aimed at a perfectly legitimate opponent and leader of the opposite side ; against whom — since the days when it was little more than a youthful hicker, and every long -armed lad threw the most stinging ball he could carry from the Blackwood side to all others — it had been the most natural thing in the world to volley every projectile that came to hand. But Lord Brougham was, throughout his career, one of the men whom nobody loved, and every harsh thing seemed natural when said of him — a painful but prob- ably never quite undeserved fate. The occasion was the introduction of the Reform Bill : — J. G. Zockhart to W. Blackwood. Oct. 8, 1831. Brougham's speech was four hours long: the greater part dull, cold, heavy, and tautologous to a wonder: insolent to intolerability in the placarding of characters on all persons he ABBOTSFORD WITHOUT A SHILLING. 251 had or found occasion to mention, false to his party, and basely crawling to the Duke of Wellington — the whole a piece of treason under a splash of bravado. The impostor knelt at the end. Lord Wynford's speech was very excellent, the most logical on the whole. Lord Lyndhurst was worse used by the Whigs than any speaker ever was by any party in my presence. The effort of the Archbishop was grand, and indeed the whole scene was most noble and satisfactory. Not a soul in the streets ; and, to-day, everything as dull as possible. The Ministerialists, in the Commons, will move on Monday or Tuesday an address to the King, on the part of Lord Grey. At the same moment Lord Harrowby will be opening his views of what a reform should be in the Lords. This last is good news. We will conclude these quotations by a very in- teresting letter in respect to the immediate arrange- ments, and commotion of the public mind after the death of Sir Walter Scott. It is by no means the end of the correspondence, though we find little more preserved of the portion addressed to William Blackwood, except some affecting letters written very shortly before his death, which shall be quoted in their time. The friendship was continued with the sons, and lasted as long as Lockhart lived. It was his hand that prepared the two pages of stately and sorrowful record which were devoted to its founder in the pages of 'Maga,' and he remained always the faithful friend and helper, when aid was necessary, of the name which had so greatly influenced his youth. J. G. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. London, 3rd Novemher 1832. I have been and continue to be daily and hourly occupied with the affairs of the late Sir W. Scott, and can hardly 252 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. command time even for a short note at this moment. My Magazine has arrived safe, which I fear all have not done, and the No. is very good — especially Charlemagne — the Eab- bins — the working of the hill in Scotland, and the abuse of Colman, which refreshed me. I am afraid you must give me another month's law — I promise a ' Noctes ' for Xmas — let Wilson keep up the ball till then. I know not what is to be the upshot of all these subscriptions. The folk here say it is a joke to be rearing monuments in various places, while, if the Major should die to-morrow, Charles would inherit Abbotsford at the lest without a shilling to keep it up. They are for getting Walter to sell them his liferent, and take the whole back as a gift, with the obligation and entail, house, land, and library, in terms of his father's designation — and but for the fear of interfering with our dealings with the creditors they would ere now have done something publicly. They meet next Friday, at Bridgewater House, the Marquis of Stafford in the chair, in the hope of having by that time exact information as to the extent of the claims of those creditors who object to the Executors' proposal — and I share the hopes that such infor- mation may then be at their command. Sir Coutts Trotter, Croker, &c., &c., are sanguine enough, and believe that £50,000, a fair price for Abbotsford, will be easily raised. I think they are wild in these views ; but as my brother-in-law has no objec- tion to their proceedings (which he considers as moved entirely by the wish to make Abbotsford a lasting monument of his father's name and taste), and as, however the result may fall short of their hopes, it must pro tanto relieve him — I have nothing to do but to wait in patience. If the Edinburgh people did well, they would put a statue where Castle Street cuts Princes Street, with the Castle-rock for a background; or they would make a huge Homeric Cairrb on Arthur's Seat — a land and sea mark — and throw the rest, if anything, of their funds into the hands of the Bridgewater House Com- mittee. But whether it is possible for them to do this now, I don't know. I consider it as disgusting to be putting Scott on a par with Dugald Stewart, Playfair, and so forth in the temple line. Meantime this is private to you and the Professor, until affairs have progressed a little further. As the literary RELEASED FROM SERVICE. 253 property is tied up until, inter alia, the encumbrances of £10,000 on the estate of Abbotsford, £5000 on the Library, are paid off, to release the Major of these would of course be ad- vancing the time when the other children may expect to profit at all by the sale of the works. Sir W.'s will has an article expressly leaving the direction of publication to Cadell ! Many letters passed, and there was much and con- stant communication between the younger Blackwoods and their father's old friend in after-years, which will be referred to from time to time. But we may take from these after-days a little note addressed to John Blackwood, which rounds off this story with an affect- ing touch of old kindness. It was written at the very end of Lockhart's life in the year 1853 : — Dear B., — If you think the enclosed worth a page any time, they are at the service of ' Maga,' from her very old servant, now released from all service, J. Gr. L. That gay and careless yet powerful service had lasted, with intermissions, for more than thirty-five years, the length of a generation. The Blackwood of old was dead, and most of the cheerful companions : the lively, brilliant, restless spirit was broken with sorrow and trouble. Not very many months after he was indeed to be wholly relieved from all service. It is with a tender remembrance of Lockhart that we thus close the record, by his last affectionate expres- sion of feeling to the old ' Maga ' of the days that were no more. CHAPTEE YI. CHRISTOPHER NORTH. A DESCENDANT OP MONTROSE — ELECTION TO THE MOEAL PHILOSOPHY CHAIB — FIKST CONNECTION WITH ' MAGA ' — AN ATTACK ON COLERIDGE — CHARLES Lloyd's unfortunate poem— -a publisher's injured APEECTIONS — A SENSITIVE CRITIC — ONSLAUGHT ON THE " MAN OP peeling" — THE ETHICS OP REVIEWING' — LEIGH HUNt'S THREATENED LIBEL — THE PUBLISHER VISITS ELLERAY — WORDSWORTH ASSAULTED IN THE ' NOCTES ' — AN INDIGNANT " JACKASS "• — THE GIANT UNNERVED — AN AMPLE APOLOGY POB A BAD JOKE — AN AUTHOR'S GOOD RESOLU- TIONS — SENTIMENTAL PASSAGES BETWEEN THE PROFESSOR AND THE PUBLISHER — "not EDITOR BUT FRIEND" — MORE SENTIMENT MRS HBMANS — THOMAS AIED — RECOLLECTIONS OP A VISIT TO THE PROFESSOR. It is doubtful which of the two young men, whose eager co-operation and dehghted seizure upon an in- strument as new as it was effective with which to move the world gave Blackwood's project immediate force and energy, was the more important to that great undertaking and to himself It is evident, however, that at the first start it was Lockhart who was more immediately prominent, though Wilson soon became the chief influence and more constant worker, — at once the prop and the plague, as will be seen, of Magazine and publisher. Though he was the very impersonation of irregularity, careless prodigality of strength, and want of system, he had the great CARELESS YOUTH. 255 advantage of remaining on the spot and continuing in the same circle of adherents and friends, and was thus a more prevailing presence than his more exact and less accidental comrade and coadjutor. They were both, when they began the work of life, as little systematic, as careless of all rule, as can be conceived. It was the joy and glory of youth in those days to win its honours and attain its effects with almost an affectation of idleness and indifference to any serious motive. I do not know whether there was so much more force of impulse and energy in the generation that this was the expression of a natural tendency or the sign of their special stage of develop- ment. I am free to confess that to account for it in this way seems to me the mere jargon of science applied to matters with which it has little to do. And we may admit that there is still a prejudice in the youthful mind in favour of prizes lightly won, and of the young hero who never seems to work, yet gaily gains the reward of work by some dazzling impossi- bility which delights his companions. Alas ! I fear that it is now his stupid companions, the comrades of his pleasures, who are delighted ; and that virtuous youth, to which the labour is the great thing, and the reward more or less professedly indifferent if not given as the recompense of struggle and effort, is of quite another way of thinking. But in those days there was no perpetual and ever- repeated ordeal of examinations, and perhaps there was a certain advantage in the fact that brilliant natural faculties sometimes won the day over that perseverance and steadfast plodding which is our re- formed ideal nowadays. Wilson was one of the most 256 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. marked examples of that beginning -of- the -century method. Everybody saw him at play. He was the most vigorous athlete, the most reckless wanderer, ever ready for frolic or fight — and rarely or never was he seen at work : nevertheless he was publicly compli- mented when he left Oxford, and perhaps during the course of his literary life there was no one more brilliant or more appreciated or more productive, though those who knew him best were continually provoked by what appeared his carelessness and in- dolence, and were convinced, even at the height of labours which were never believed in, because it was his whim to undervalue them, that any excuse was sufficient to induce him to shirk work and cast duty aside. In everything he had to do, he did more than other men. When his companions took a decorous ramble by coach or carriage, he tramped with his knapsack, burying himself in Border valleys or among the Highland glens. He sought adventure everywhere by flood or field. He idled, talked, jested, wasted his time, did everything but work ; yet somehow seldom, in his early life at least, failed in the great demands made upon him, and produced a whole literature of that criticism of life which we have remarked as the grand characteristic of his compositions and those of his friend — not a literature, perhaps, which has lasted, or is likely to last except in brilliant fragments, but one which inspired and delighted his age, and made his generation acquainted with a larger view and widened conception of things intellectual and moral, a scorn of the poor and paltry, a generous appreciation of the neglected. The ' Noctes ' of Blackwood, which finally fell into his hands after the joint manipulation THE 'NOCTES AMBEOSIAN^.' 257 of several others, was a storeroom of wisdom and of wit, of sport and earnest, of the gravest discussions and the gayest commentaries, and had a large, unacknowledged, perhaps uncomprehended, share in the mental training of our fathers. It is a little humbling to reflect that these fathers, whom we inevitably feel less wise than ourselves, often knew a great deal more than we do, and had read more — ^just as we are conscious that we have a better acquaintance with the hterature of our own country than the latest generation, which prides itself on reading nothing. We do not hesitate to say that the nation's power of expressing itself, its faculty of judging between the bad and good, or the not-so-bad and good-enough, were considerably affected by the lively dialogue, the fine criticism, and beautiful descriptions, of that famous literary commentary on contemporary life. John Wilson was born in IT'S 5, the son of a wealthy manufacturer in Paisley, though not without gentle blood on his mother's side. We are told by his daughter, Mrs Gordon, that the blood of the gallant and noble Montrose was in his veins, — a potent ele- ment, delightful to contemplate, though he never made any boast of it so far as we are aware — a singular, nay, almost an unkindly omission, for such an ancestor as Montrose was a thing which it was a duty to brag of He was a son of wealth, trained in luxury, one of the ostentatiously superior class of gentleman- commoners, no longer existing — at Magdalen College, Oxford, and set out in life as the possessor of a com- fortable fortune. But the favourites of heaven gener- ally manage early to shake off by hook or by crook that unnecessary appendage. He lost his money in VOL. I. R 258 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. 1815, and on that event gave up his idle and enjoy- able life of love, poetry, and athletic amusement in the Lake Country, and came to Edinburgh, already a married man, with young children to provide for, to work for his living, not very well knowing how. He was called to the Scottish bar, but there was so little meaning in that ceremonial in his case that he is said, when he found by chance a brief on his table, to have contemplated it with whimsical alarm, wondering what the devil he was to do with it ! He soon found something, however, to do with his leisure, or rather with that mysterious and inappreciable portion of his time in which he did his work. It must be added that there never seems to have been anything like poverty, or the usual struggle for life common to ruined men, in his experience at this early period. He came to Edinburgh, not to any restricted exist- ence, but to his mother's ample and comfortable house ; and was evidently able to wait without any great strain until occupation and income came. In 1817, as has been already told, he and Lockhart — by that time his inseparable friend and companion, much younger in years but always more mature in soul — flung themselves into the creation of ' Blackwood's Magazine,' in which both found the most congenial work, and the opportunity for which both were un- consciously waiting. Its first effect was certainly anything but a conciliatory one upon the temper of the town or its authorities, and it is with a sense of courage almost as reckless as if the bailies of Edin- burgh had been so many Oxford bargees (extinct as adversaries, and known no more to the less muscular PROrESSOKSHIP. 259 undergraduate nowadays), that we find Wilson, only- three years after he had set the Forth aflame, pre- senting himself for the suffrages of these said bailies as a candidate for the Professorship of Moral Philo- sophy in the University — the appointment to which, as to most of the other chairs, by some curious arrange- ment descending from the days when Edinburgh bur- gesses were a very important part of every movement, the civic authorities held in their hands. This fact made every such selection more or less a matter of poKtics, the Whigs carrying their candidate when Whiggery was in the ascendant, the Tories theirs when their day came round. There could not, however, be a more triumphant answer to the complaints and remonstrances of Mr Murray of Albemarle Street and others, as to the personalities which were to ruin the Magazine, than the success of Wilson on this occasion. Perhaps the Southern wit will say that it required a joke as wild and riotous as that of the Chaldee Manuscript to penetrate the Scottish understanding : at all events, it is clear that it was taken in no such ill part as the outer world imagined. No doubt there was much opposition to Wilson's candidature, but that was chiefly on personal, and, indeed, on religious, grounds, — many accusations of profanity quite unproved, and some of reckless living, having been brought against him. Scott himself took an active part in the canvass, writing to the Lord Provost in defence of Wilson's character, and sparing no pains to bring the contest to a successful issue. But it did come to a successful issue ; and at the very moment when. 260 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. according to the London journalist, the " outrages " of the "miscreants" of Blackwood had "desolated society in Edinburgh," one of them was elected to a chair in "The College," that time-honoured institu- tion which holds so important a part in the life of the metropolis of Scotland. No doubt it will be said that every influence except the most legitimate one of fitness for the post was brought to bear on the election, and that it was chiefly a Tory triumph. But, at the same time, Wilson's testimonials were unanswerable. They were lyrical, a series of effusions, in which high - flying Oxford sang the praises of a kind of being unknown to it in any other specimen, — a Norse-god of heroic genius as well as person, with coruscations of northern lights about him which dazzled all sober eyes. And Scott upheld his standard with a vigorous and thoroughgoing support, pledging himself for the young man's character, powers, religious opinions, domestic amiability, with a force which left no man a word to say. Wilson's religious opinions were, like those of all his class — especially, perhaps, on the Tory side — chiefly distinguished by a reverential respect for doctrines, observances, and, within certain limits, of clergymen, which very often involved a desire to hear no more about them than was necessary, but which held doubt or criticism on such subjects ungentlemanly and in the worst taste, and infidelity as a greater offence against all the principles of society than even vice. It is difficult in the present day to understand the junction of this profound and con- stantly expressed reverence with a profane wit which stuck at nothing : as it is also difficult to understand AMBROSES A FICTION. 261 the ease and simplicity of the admission to his wife of " I fear I did not go to bed sober," with the facts of a life of great domestic regularity and propriety ; but it was not so difficult in those days, when men's peccadilloes were regarded with an indulgent eye so long as their principles were sound and their demean- our what it ought to be. We remember that, among the grave objections made to Wilson during the con- test, the singing of a certain song in the lingering and diminished party which carried on its revels into the small hours after some public dinner, from which the sober seniors had gone home hours before, was dis- cussed before the respectable bailies, making their hair stand on end. It is needless to add that the immense potations of Ambrose's were at all times fictitious : this will be already apparent from the fact, which the reader has seen, that the famous ' Noctes ' came from the study at Chiefswood, in the supreme silence of the country, as often, at least at first, as from any jovial centre where they might have been otherwise inspired. We labour under the same difficulty in respect to Wilson's correspondence with Mr Blackwood as we have already experienced in that of Lockhart — a complete absence of dates, reducing us in many cases to the difficult process of putting together a number of scraps, not so much for any importance in themselves, as to illustrate — which is our chief object — the nature of the intercourse between him and Blackwood. There are, however, at the beginning of the correspondence a few letters which we can place in their proper position, and which show how early the connection was formed, with what enthusiasm on one side and eager response 262 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. on the other. The first I find was written in the dark days of Pringle and Cleghorn, before the real ' Maga ' had begun. It is addressed to Wilson at a Highland address, while he was absent on one of his many- sporting expeditions, and is dated — Edinbttegh, 2nd August 1817. W. Blackwood to J. Wilson. Allow me to offer you my warmest thanks and congratula- tions for your most interesting packet. I got it safe by this day's coach. Mr and Mrs Eobert [Wilson ?] called just as I opened it. They are equally with me in raptures with your articles and the beautiful little poems. How striking you have made the Highland Glen ! and what a delightful and new turn you give to the hackneyed wish which all express on being pleased with a particular spot ! The widowed mother is most affecting ; but what delights me most in your poetry is the heart- felt glow of religious and moral feeling with which you enrich it. The Sonnet is uncommonly good, but does not affect me like the other two. I hope you will . pardon me for indulging so much ultra crepidam. I have only had time to read the two Keviews very hurriedly. They are capital, and, so far as I can judge from a hasty glance, to the full as interesting as your former ones. I can give them no higher praise. I hope you have by this time received the letter I wrote on Saturday last, and the parcel which I forwarded to you by same post, addressed to you at Captain Harden's. The parcel contained Lord Byron's ' Lament of Tasso ' ; Frere's ' Prospectus,' &c. ; Coleridge's ' Leaves ' and his ' Biographia Literaria.' After what I have now received from you, you must think me a very importunate person to be asking more. I hope, however, you will have occasional moments of leisure which you will gratify all your friends by filling up as you have done already. To speak more selfishly, as it may be considered, it will be of the last importance to me that you go on to assist me, as with- out your help I do not expect to make No. 6 good for anything, WILSONS KNAPSACK. 263 and this would be perfectly ruinous to me. I have now posi- tively determined to go on with a Magazine, were it on no other account than that these fellows, the Crafty and his new and most honourable allies, are triumphing over my sinking before them. But laying this wholly out of the question, I am now urged to go on by all my friends, and promised every kind of support. I would give anything almost to have you here just now to consult with, and to tell you a number of things which I have casually learnt lately with regard to the manner in which P. and Cleghorn have behaved in the busi- ness. ... I have no doubt they will be besieging you for your assistance. I need not say how much I would regret your going over to the enemy's camp. I will not attempt to urge you to favour me with your support. All I shall say is, that I feel indebted to you for what you have already done more than I can express, and that I flatter myself you will find my publication to the full as respectable as the other. I hope, when you come to know, you will be fully satisfied of this. This letter found Wilson about the trout -streams in his holiday, tramping in the wet over moss and heather, carrying at one time, apparently in his knap- sack, on his Herculean shoulders, " about a dozen heavy books." This was in preparation for the first number of the new issue. It gives a curious glimpse into the manner in which articles could be composed in these robust days : — John Wilson to W. Blackwood. I received the packet addressed to me at Captain Harden's on my arrival at Braemar, and found much amusement there- from on two rainy days which I was obliged to pass there. It contained Coleridge's Life and poems, Frere's poem, and the ' Lament of Tasso.' I carried them and my other books with me to Grantown on the Spey, where a calamity, if I may use such a word, befell me. I had written an account of Coleridge's 264 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Life and a review of the ' Lament,' which I crammed into my pocket; and during my ascent to the top of Cairngorm they must have fallen out, for on returning to Grantown at night they were gone and irretrievably lost. This was certainly pro- voking, especially as it will be out of my power to do anything till I return to Edinburgh. I found my luggage insupportably heavy, and therefore packed up all my books, amounting to more than a dozen heavy volumes, and sent them off to Edinburgh. I am now able to walk with some comfort, which before was not the case. I expect to be in Edinburgh by the 4th or 5th of September. What it may be in my power to do for your sixth number shall be done, and if I have three or four days in Edinburgh I can do something. But tumbled about as I am now, I have no heart to do anything — especially after losing the two best articles I had written, and which I can never rewrite. I will, notwithstanding, try to say a few words on the 'Lament,' and, if possible, make a leading article of Coleridge : only you will see how difi&cult it is for me to promise. Erere's verses are most facetious and entertaining, but of their meaning I have no comprehension. I know not whether they are politically, theologically, or poetically critical : if you have a key tell me. Eor your next number get Thomas Gray's Life by Graham, which is really very good. No doubt Senex will give you something. My brother James should bestir himself, so that, with the addition of some little scientific matter from Brewster or his friends, something odd from Eiddell, &c., &c., why may not a tolerable number be made out ? I will, if possible, give you " Coleridge," " Defence of Wordsworth," "Account of Marlow's Edward II.," "Lament of Tasso," another short review of "Mrs Spence," and "Supposed Con- tents of M'Cormick." I think you are right in going on with a Magazine. With respect to myself, you know that I am not to be depended upon. But if you do go on, I shall now and then, when the spirit compels, lend a hand. You should have in No. 6 an account of Kemble's leaving the stage, some critique on him, which J. Ballantyne could do, and Campbell's verses. With such calm did the young man contemplate the AETICLE ON COLERIDGE. 265 work which was to bring him the chief successes of his life. But the Chaldee Manuscript had not as yet been thought of, and it was that wild onslaught which excited the brotherhood and woke them to full exer- cise of their powers. We should have been glad not to have the assurance thus conveyed that the article on Coleridge — a very much greater offence against public morality and humanity — was Wilson's doing. Perhaps the lost article, which dropped out of his careless pocket on the slopes of Cairngorm, was written in a better spirit, and the loss of it lent bitterness to the after- writing. Anyhow, the offence of the Chaldee Manuscript was as nothing in comparison to this re- view, with which, we are sad to say, ' Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine ' began. In the years immediately following there is little correspondence, presumably because of the close per- sonal intercourse between author and publisher. The following letter was evidently written in the interest of one of the feebler members of that Lake School which Wilson alternately assailed and caressed. The reader wUl probably feel that it carries sympathy for one friend too courageously to the debit of another : — John Wilson to W. Blackwood. I enclose for your perusal a letter from Mr Lloyd. I feel so extremely for him, knowing his character and all the circum- stances of his life, that I would not for any consideration give him pain, which might produce fatal effects upon him. When I first wrote to him about his Tragedy I stated posi- tively that it would be inserted at ten guineas per sheet, as I did not doubt it would be worth it. You see what his feeling about it is. With respect to the Tragedy or Drama I have not read it ; but it cannot, heavy as it may be, but be exceedingly 266 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. clever in many respects— that is certain. And therefore it may not, on the whole, injure the Magazine, indeed it may benefit it, although few read' it. I feel myself, therefore, as you will see, olliged, by the strongest motives, to request that it may be published in the Magazine. I have no doubt that otherwise Mr L. would be affected mentally and miserably. Of course it cannot go into this number ; but part of it next, and so on till it is finished. It will take four numbers of about eight pages each, as I conceive. I wish, therefore, that you would send Mr L. an order for twenty guineas, being one-half, and permission to draw upon you for the rest at six months : or perhaps the twenty guineas will do at present without the other. I shall write to him by this day's post, and if you agree with me on the necessity of this, I can enclose the order for £21 in my letter. I see no way of avoiding this. I cannot lend him money without inserting the Tragedy. That would make him worse than anything. This would seem a curious argument nowadays for inserting so solemn a matter as a tragedy in a perio- dical ; but men's hearts were softer, and their ways less rigid, perhaps less conventional, in the beginning of the century. The Lloyd referred to was, no doubt, Charles Lloyd, one of the brotherhood of the Lakes, an unlucky mortal astray among the band of the Immortals, and paying dearly for that privilege. Mr Blackwood's reply to this, addressed to the unfortunate author, is decisive enough. " The gentleman who at present conducts this department" is a very trans- parent mystery, seeing that what influence Wilson had was chiefly in the region of poetry. W. Blackwood to G. Lloyd, London. Eddj., 10 Oct. 1820. He [Mr Wilson] has requested me as a favour done to him- self to send you twenty guineas for your Tragedy, which it seems to me, if inserted in the Magazine, will occupy about two CHAELES LLOYD. 267 sheets. Mr Wilson has informed me that he had ventured to tell you that such was the rate at which communications to the work were paid. The gentleman, however, who at present conducts this department of the Magazine follows his own ideas and his own selection of articles, and not even a request of Mr Wilson's, much as we are beholden to him, will induce him to swerve from his arrangement. I may mention, how- ever, that your Drama seems to him not to be well adapted for a periodical work, and that its interest is more for the meta- physical than general reader, and that even that interest is likely to be impaired by the necessary publication of the Drama piecemeal. To show you, however, how much I am disposed to act liber- ally towards any literary man, and more particularly towards any friend of Mr Wilson's, I now send you an order on Cadell & Davies for twenty guineas, and should the Tragedy be ultimately deemed, with all its merits, not adapted to the peculiar nature of the Magazine, the MS. will be returned to you, and I hope you will favour us at some other time with such communica- tions as may supply its place. The poem was eventually returned to the author " in a coach parcel." It is seldom, hov^ever, that the boundless faith which the writers had in their publisher is checked in this summary way. He was very ready in general to receive their recommendations, and though the rate of remuneration at this period cannot be said to be high, invariably eager to secure a new contributor with ready cheques and cordial welcome. The perfect intimacy of persons in close and daily communication with each other, and the fact that in most cases the Magazine and its articles are the pre- vailing subject of these flying scraps of letters, detract considerably from the interest of the correspondence ; but we cannot better show how warm and constant 268 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. the intercourse was, and what were the vicissitudes to which it was subject, than by quoting the following broken fragment, without beginning or end, in which there is a moan of injured affection not at all of the kind which has been supposed to be possible between author and publisher. Grub Street never knew any- such relationship .as this of which Mr Blackwood sadly records the momentary breach, but which it is evident was only the rent of a moment, immediately brought together again : — W. Blackwood to Professor Wilson. May U, 1821. I had just come from my solitary meal at Ambrose's, when the pleasure of your short letter — short as it is — raised my spirits. It is not the not receiving articles that has depressed me, but it has been the feeling of being, as it were, left to myself, and no one caring for me. 21st May. I had written the above this day se'nnight, and intended to have said something more, but I felt it too much for me, and put it into my pocket, where it has lain ever since. How to account for your conduct I know not, and you mistake my feelings if you suppose that it is the not receiving your and Mr Lockhart's promised support to the Magazine that has vexed me. What I feel hurt at is, that after devoting my every thought and energy to whatever I conceived would be gratifying or useful to you, and never for a moment thinking of myself, you should act with this kind of indifference, so completely foreign to your usual warm-heartedness. My con- fidence in your friendship is the only thing that has borne me up in many difficulties, and feeling strongly that I have ever deserved it, I need not say how painful it is to me. This letter balances, with its note of sentiment, the many wails of wounded friendship which came from Wilson's capacious bosom in after-days. . THE MAN OF FEELING. 269 In 1822 there was published Wilson's first work in prose, ' The Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life,' a work exceedingly popular at the time, though per- haps giving too sentimental and superlative a view of peasant life in Scotland or anywhere else. There are several highly amusing letters upon this pubH- cation and the criticisms it called forth, which we may quote as highly characteristic of the man. No tyro could have been more anxious, more excited, than he who had dealt death and wounds round him with so much gaiete du cceur. He expected a review from Lockhart, which he writes from the country to say he did not wish to see before it was published. "I wish to swallow it in one lump. You have no idea how sweet flattery is in the country. My appe- tite for it even in a town is steady, if not voracious : here, I verily believe I could bolt anything." It does not seem, however, that his hopes of flattery were satisfied. The book was given for review to Henry Mackenzie, the now very old head and patron of literature in Edinburgh, the Man of Feeling, long since reconciled to the Magazine, and whose approval was supposed to be the highest gratification to which any writer could aspire. Mr Blackwood thanks the old gentleman effusively for his review of Gait ; but Wilson evidently was very far from being of this opinion, and his reply to Mackenzie's criticism is so tremendous in its wrath, and it is so seldom that an author's remonstrance is made visible to the public, that though the letter is somewhat long, we venture to give it entire. It is dated "Kelso, Friday." The date was probably sometime in May 1822, and begins by an announcement that he has "read over the 270 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. sheets of ' Maga ' with the greatest pleasure," and that the number will be " most lively and amusing." John Wilson to W. Blackwood. I consider old M. to be the greatest nuisance that ever in- fested any Magazine. His review of Gait's ' Annals ' was poor and worthless : that of ' Adam Blair ' still worse : and this of ' Lights and Shadows ' the most despicable and foolish of all. His remarks on ' Adam Blair ' did the book no good, but much harm with dull stupid people, and this wretched article cannot fail to do the same to a greater degree. I cannot express my disgust with it. He damns the book at once by comparing it with Gessner : for he draws a most degrading character (falsely, I presume) of that writer, and then says that my book is "a close imitation of it." Gessner's ' Idylls ' are syrupy, it seems, and only fit for young sentimentalists who have never looked into the mirror of nature ; and of him I am said to be a close imitator. The Colonel himself could not have told a baser lie, although from baser motives — those of the old dotard being simply self-conceit and sheer incapacity. Whatever he may bring himself to say afterwards, this is his idea of the book published to the world, that it is on the whole a syrupy dish for young sentimentalists, — the very thing which might be said by some malignant Idiot. Of Gessner I never read one syllable — nor indeed ever saw a volume of his even lying on the table. But from what I have heard of him I believe, first, that he has great merit ; secondly, that he is unlike in all points to me, J. W. What he says about ' Idylls ' shows ignorance ; and his non- acquaintance with the origin of the term blue-stocking is al- together incomprehensible. In short, all this is a dull, vile falsehood, and one that cannot fail of being got by heart by thousands, and of injuring the book. The next paragraph is on the whole worse. "Eural images are always pleasing" is a clever way of talking of the scenery in the volume — shepherds are "Arcadian," the Lights and Shadows are not Scottish, it seems. And then his own attempts at description in this para- graph, what miserable drivelling ! In the third paragraph it is said that the morality is pure, it seems, but still something A CRITIC CRITICISED. 271 wrong with it. What he says of the minister's widow is most execrable, — " never indulges it beyond civility and attention to her friends "!!! ! Oh Moses! The Covenanter's marriage -day nearly happened ; that is, a young man betrothed to a young woman was dragged out of his concealment in her father's house and shot by soldiers. It is not German, but intensely Scottish. The circumstances of the soldiers are misstated by Mackenzie. In sixth paragraph he says the scenery, though professedly Scots, is not always true to this profession of its locality. I say it is. Where is it not ? It seems " some passages " are an exception to this condemnation. That is lucky. In par- agraph seventh he indulges in a lie, and it is a lie that ought to be pointed out to the old critic. He says, "We are sorry that the concluding stroke of the author's pencil should have spoiled this solemn picture." That is the picture of a wild, furious, snow - stormy night. And then he quotes a passage about diamonds and dew - drops. Now, would you believe it, the said passage of the milliner is not there at all. It occurs at the top of page 116, and is the finishing stroke to a description of youth, beauty, and happiness. Indeed' had it been otherwise I must have lost my senses. I request you to read the passages 115 and 116 in the snow-storm, and you wiU see that the old captious body has been playing a trick to make a criticism. The passage as I have written it is beyond the literary power of any milliner's girl, and the old dotard should be told that he has grossly and falsely misquoted it, for a despicable purpose. He then says that this passage of the milliner is copied and spoiled from Thomson; for he cannot swear that the snow-storm in general is. Now, I lay my ears nothing like it can be in Thomson. Nor is there, except the snow, and even that is very different, one single point of resemblance, but all points of utter dissimilitude, between my child saved from death and his farmer family wrapt up in a greatcoat. This is foolish and false and dis- gusting. Lastly, my abhorrence of " lace and embroideries " is as great and far greater than ever his was. In short, the whole article is loathsome, and gives me and Mrs W. the utmost disgust. It is sickening to see it in the Magazine, and utterly destroys the pleasure which Mr L.'s article would 272 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. otherwise give 3xie. It is not, as you well know, that I can possibly be such an ass as to dislike criticism. But this is mere drivelling falsehood and misrepresentation — calculated to injure the book, I declare, even in my own eyes, and to do it the greatest injury with the public. It is the most sickening dose of mawkish misrepresentation I ever read. The article which filled Wilson (and Mrs W.) with such disgust and resentment never appeared in the Magazine — probably it was only in proof that he read it : and this angry remonstrance caused its being re- placed by a laudatory review in June 1822. It is edifying, however, to perceive how little the critic liked the methods which he himself used so freely. The murmurs of the passing storm echo still, though much softened and mingled with the usual business of the Magazine, in the following letter. Old M. is forgotten ; the usual circle comes into sight again ; and the matter discussed is a critical letter '^ on Mr Blackwood's books in general, attributed to that great authority Mr Croker, with interpolations from the ubiquitous Maginn, by this time mixed up with everything that was going on : — John Wilson to W. Blackwood. Kelso, Wednesday. You must have observed that I am excessively sore and silly on the subject of ' Lights and Shadows.' I do not wish it cut up or greatly sneered at in your Magazine. Probably I shall have quite enough of that in good time elsewhere. I do not object, however, to a nice little eulogistic touch of censure now and then, but I must always do these with my own hand. As to the Doctor's addition, I object to it, first, that it is most brutal ; secondly, stupidish ; and thirdly, quite unlike in style and sentiment to Croker's letter. These are three good reasons. 1 In 'Maga,' July 1822. THE ETHICS OF REVIEWING. 273 and let the Doctor know them. Croker praises the 'Lights and Shadows,' it is true ; but it is because he likes the book rather: he abuses 'Pen Owen/ partly because he thinks it deserves abuse, and partly for other reasons which you know : and he abuses G-alt because he hates and also despises him. Mr L. has no business to get a calumniator to abuse my works, and tell him so from me, let the consequences be what they will. Firstly, Croker's letter ought for the joke's sake to be printed just as it is, and I do not think seriously he would like to see it interpolated. It certainly is his. I do not know whether my letter to Philomag is at all good. The Doctor or Mr L. may improve it by sharp and ingenious touches if they will. But let them not meddle with 'Lights and Shadows' at their peril. The propriety of damning all your own books is, I think, questionable. Were I in Gait's situation I should be extremely sulky. But he is 400 miles off, and his books sell, therefore you may abuse his books with impunity to him or yourself. I am only 40 miles off, and my books don't sell. That makes the difference. I have done but a short article on G-reen. But more in another number. Observe how it is printed. The note is almost as long as the article, and it is to run along in line on each page. I will send a page or two on Henry White, and with extracts four or five on Bowles. My articles are in general far too long. You have Doubleday, and may use it or not as you think proper. I will probably send something else. Lady Blessington's book is very, very poor stuff indeed — quite inferior to the other, which was bad enough. . . . Dr Maginn is one of the cleverest men now living: but he writes best when most original. I do not so well like his imitations of others in ' Maga.' His " Hexameters," his " Chevy Chase " (in Latin verse), his "Irish Melodies," &c., are better than can be. His " TSte-^-t^te," &c., were not so happy. Tell him so from me. I hope everything good about the trial. Hope will manage the case with power and propriety. Dr Maginn and Mr L., if assistance can be given, are equal to anything required. Most anxious shall I be to hear from you about it. This number must on no account be a middling one, and TOL. I. S 274 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. remember to do with my articles anything you choose ex- cept abuse the writer of them, who is excessively thin- skinned. All the Magazines of last month except your own are worthless. I could write a page or two rather funny on Hogg's Eo- mance, but will not, if Mr L. is doing it or to do it. Though averse to being cut up myself, I like to abuse my friends. But this I would do with good-humour. In the course of the year 1823 a new danger of an action for libel seems to have threatened the Magazine on the part of Leigh Hunt, whose former menace of the same kind seems to have come to nothing. The assaults upon the Cockney School had been going on briskly from time to time, both sides being warmly engaged. The special exasperation which occasioned this renewed threat it is scarcely worth while to record, for indeed it is difficult for an uninstructed person to draw the line between the abuse which is actionable and that which keeps outside the range of law. Hunt's intention had been communicated as before by the London agent — in this case Messrs Cadell & Davies, who, like their predecessors, were much troubled by the idea of being made parties in a libel case. John Wilson to W. Blackvjood. If this business of Hunt's annoys you, I am exceedingly sorry, especially as it is an article of mine. Mr Cadell has long wished, I think, to get quit of the Magazine, but that you know best. Hunt's insolence is intolerable. The accursed scoundrel has a thousand times called you a Blackguard by name [in the ' Liberal ' newspaper], and myself and Mr L. the same by impli- cation, as all who write in your Magazine. I wish not to get into contact with such a scoundrel, for it might possibly lead to DEFIANCE OF ALL COCKNEYS. 275 the loss of my chair ; but damn the Cockney if he shall crow over me ! I do not know what answer you wrote about the author's name ; but if, on consulting only two or three of my most judicious friends, Mr L. and you think I should give my name without being in any predicament, do so by all means. I saw the passage in the ' Liberal.' But independently of that I am entitled to call him blackguard at all times, and I never shall conceal being the writer if my friends think it would not be exposing myself to a degrading squabble. As it is, I leave it to Mr L. and yourself. If anybody asks me my answer, Yes, to be sure. ... In my opinion he has no action and will fail. Why does he not bring one against you ? He dare not ; and that will be obvious to a jury if he bring one. I shall expect to hear progress. Meanwhile let not my name be withheld, if by giving it you and your best friends think good can be done. A second letter follows to a similar effect : — John Wilson to W. Blackwood. It appears to me that I might write a letter to Mr Cadell telling him I was ready to give my name on being asked it by Hunt himself or on being informed that he wanted my name for his own satisfaction. But that I dislike libel actions, either as Prosecutor or Defender, I have no sort of objection (an action excepted) to give my name, — quite the reverse, I assure you, and neither Cockney nor any one else shall ever intimidate me either by a blow (!!!!!) or a bluster. If the knave really asks my name, he shall have it without an hour's delay. I am most happy in the thought of seeing you at EUeray, and on the whole it is better to take no step till you come up, when either I shall write to Mr Cadell or you be empowered to let Hunt know that the Name is at his service: Perhaps that is the best way, as I wish to write no unnecessary letters. Consult with Mr L. before you leave Edinburgh, and ask him from me (with thanks for his letters) to write such a letter from me to Cadell as you think judicious, which bring 276 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. with you here. The publicity alone of any affair with this miscreant annoys me, for I value him at a single kick. Would the Tiger ^ be at my service if wanted ? I am most happy to hear good accounts of ' Dalton/ and do not fear that it will succeed as it deserves, and that the author will be ere long a Eival — to any man. Mr Blackwood did go to EUeray on his way to London, and his impression of the place and of his visit are contained in a letter to his wife, dated, alas ! only Thursday morning, six o'clock, in which the half- apologetic tone of a man conscious of idling away valuable time is amusingly apparent :— W. Blackwood to Mrs Blackwood. When you see where this is dated from, you will, I fear, be saying I have been too long here ; but I think if you were here with me you would say. What a pity it is we could not stay longer at such a delightful place, and with such delightful friends ! I anxiously hope you have been continuing to improve, and have been able to be in the garden to enjoy the fine weather. I also trust that the children have been all well, and doing everything you could wish — particularly Alec and Eobert, upon whom I depend so much for making you happy during my absence. You laugh, I know, when I write you that such and such a one was happy to see me. Well, I have just the same to say with regard to Mr and Mrs Wilson : they were kind as friends could be. I never saw the Professor looking better: he was clean shaved, which he had not been for some days, and quite in spirits at seeing me. Elleray is one of the most delightful places ever I saw. It commands a view of the whole Lake of Windermere, which is about thirteen miles long. It stands upon the face of a hUl, and the grounds are very fine and well laid out. After dinner we walked about, admiring the whole of the very striking situation and surrounding scenery. I had 1 As a second, we presume. See p. 239. ELLERAY. 277 resolved upon coining back to Kendal yesterday morning, so as to catch the mail, but the Professor and Mrs W. insisted so much upon my staying another day, that I was at last obliged to yield : you will say I would not require much pressing, but I do assure you I wanted above all things to get on, I am so anxious to be in London and then to get back to you all again. After breakfast yesterday morning the Professor and I walked to Bowness, about a mile and a half, where his boat The Endeavour, lies. You never saw such a boat — it is beauti- ful. We got on board before twelve, and sailed about on the lake till near four o'clock. It was quite delightful. The Pro- fessor would have been sadly mortified if I had gone away without sailing in his boat, which is quite the boast of all the Lakes. Tell Alex, to tell Mr Lockhart that the Professor is in great spirits about the Magazine and everything else : he is to write to him to-day or to-morrow. I have just breakfasted at Kendal, and the coach is waiting. The alarm of Hunt's action, which the Professor was prepared to meet so manfully, seems to have passed over without result ; but now another shadow appeared on his path, a much more serious incident of a similar kind, and one which overwhelmed WUson with horror and dismay : the utmost weight of poetic justice seemed about to overtake and almost crush the reck- less performer of so many hasty and unconsidered acts. The ' Noctes ' was perhaps the most dangerous medium which could have been invented for men of impulses so rash and utterances so free. And in one of these lively dialogues it so happened that reference was made to two persons in the usual slashing way. One of these was a certain hot-headed Irish squire called Martin, who had made himself remarkable by some eccentric appearances at the London police courts. 278 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The other was "Wordsworth. Martin was called a jackass, which probably he was ; but Wordsworth Why and for what reason the poet was assailed nobody could tell. He was, or had been, Wilson's friend, though there had recently been some unexplained coolness between them ; but this was how, apparently in cold blood, or excited by nothing stronger than the rush of imaginary conversation. North, always pleased to startle and stir up, awoke the echoes with this much-discussed name : — North. Wordsworth often writes like an idiot: and never more so than when he wrote of Milton, " My soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." For it dwelt in tumult and mischief and rebellion. Wordsworth is in all things the reverse of Milton: a good man and a bad poet. Tickler. What ! That Wordsworth whom ' Maga ' cries up as the Prince of Poets. North. Be it so : I must humour the fancies of some of my friends. But had that man been a great poet he would have produced a deep and lasting impression on the mind of Eng- land; whereas his verses are becoming less and less known every day, and he is in good truth already one of the illustrious obscure. Tickler. I never thought him more than a very ordinary man — with some imagination certainly, but with no grasp of under- standing, and apparently little acquainted with the history of his kind. My God ! to compare such a writer with Scott and Byron ! North. And yet with his creed what might not a great poet have done. . . . What, pray, has he made out of this true and philosophical creed ? A few ballads, pretty at the best, two or three moral fables, some natural description of scenery, and half-a-dozen variations of common distress or happiness. Not one single character has he created, not one incident — not one tragical catastrophe. He has thrown no light on man's estate THE EXCURSION. 279 here below ; and Crabbe with all his defects stands immeasur- ably above Wordsworth as the Poet of the Poor. Tickler. Good. And yet the youngsters in that absurd Magazine of yours set him up to the stars as their idol, and kiss his very feet as if the toes were of gold. North. Well, well ; let them have their own way a while. I confess that the ' Excursion ' is the worst poem of any character in the English language. . . . And then how ludicrously he overrates his own powers. This we all do ; but Wordsworth's pride is like that of a straw-crowned king of Bedlam. For example, he indited some silly lines to a hedge-sparrow's nest with five eggs, and years after in a fit of exultation told the world in another poem equally childish that the Address to the Sparrow was " one strain that will not die." ^ One of the amazing things in this most extra- ordinary and unprovoked assault was, that Wilson himself was the first of the " youngsters " who had "set up to the stars" the poet whom he thus fell upon with so much apparent rancour : and that no comprehensible reason had ever been suggested for the sudden change of sentiment. " Scott's poetry puzzles me," he says in the same astounding chapter ; " it is often very bad. Except when his martial soul is up, he is but a tame and feeble writer." One cannot but surmise that his capacious yet wayward brain was temporarily "possessed," and that he did not know what he was saying. The moment, too, was a most extraordinary one for such an utterance. Immediately before he concocted this article we have a glimpse of him in one of Lockhart's notes describing the return journey from Ireland in attendance upon Scott. They landed in Wales, and afterwards proceeded to the 1 ' Maga,' September 1825. 280 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Lake Country, where their proceedings are reported as follows : — J. G. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. Chiefswood, August 26, 1825. I came home last night in safety after a long and certainly a very pleasing journey. The last week we spent at the Lakes, when Sir W. Scott and I were two nights with the Professor at EUeray, and afterwards at Storrs, where Mr Canning is, at Wordsworth's, Southey's, and lastly Lowther Castle. The Pro- fessor was in his glory, with champagne, regattas, carronades, &c., at discretion. I am happy to tell you he went with us to Eydal Mount, and as if to make up for the absence or abstin- ence of seven years, ate up at our breakfast a whole jar of Miramichi herrings, two of which were at first produced as a great honne houche by the Stamp-master. It would seem by this that his onslaught upon Wordsworth was immediately preceded by a visit of reconciliation and renewed friendship. All this, however, might have passed under the shield of ' Maga,' and might have been set down to some other of the wild brotherhood, who exchanged names and individualities so often, had not, sur ces entrefaites, a terrible event occurred. Mr Martin, called a jackass in the same article, resented that description, as was not unnatural, and threatened an action, demanding with much clamour the name of the writer. The reader wiU not be surprised that when this demand reached Wilson in his leisure at EUeray, it should have come upon him like a thunder- clap. Mr Blackwood, as usual, had to bear the brunt, and stands out in the long correspondence that fol- lows, arguing, soothing, apologising in letter after letter, evading Martin's demand, yet holding out what hopes he could that it might be granted, while the true AN AGONISING ALAHM. 281 criminal writhed and moaned out of sight behind. The following letter shows Wilson's state of mind : — John Wilson to W. Blackwood. This is the third prosecution threatened against articles of mine within three summers ; and it is really time, both on my own account and yours, that the little I write for the Magazine should be less. Of the distress of mind such things cause me, it would be vain to speak. But let that be a topic for another day. An Irish Jackass he is assuredly, and an action will prove him one. I really do not know what advice to give. To give my name in this case is impossible. Had not my feelings been necessarily, owing to other things in the 'Noctes,' of the most agonising kind, I should have come forward instantly, as I did before in Hunt's case; but as it was, death to my honour and happiness would have been the instant consequence, owing to several circumstances which I will communicate when I see you. One distressing thing after another occurs to me. About a week ago a shocking accident happened on the lake. A boat was upset, and a fine youth, a friend of ours, drowned ; and my boys' tutor got ashore with difficulty. He had violated my orders in being there at all, and it was twenty to one that he had taken John and Blair with him ! This event has caused great misery to many here, and Mrs Wilson has been for two days almost distracted. Here the pathetic mixture of troubles within and without, remorse of mind and illness of body, and the incident of the half-drowned tutor, adding another dis- traction with exasperating perversity, bring in a half- comic element : but the next is tragedy indeed, and shows an almost despairing collapse of every faculty : — John Wilson to W. Blackwood. I would fain write you a long letter ; but long or short, of this be assured, that it is most kind, as every word uttered by me to you has ever been and ever will be. For I am your 282 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. friend, as you are mine. That is sufficient ; nor will it ever be otherwise. When I last wrote I was in a state of great anguish and misery of mind, and have been ever since, though called upon to be present in the company of many strangers and acquaintances. To-day only I got your packet, it having lain at a farmhouse at some distance for at least two days. On reading your enclosures I was seized with a trembling and shivering fit, and was deadly sick for some hours. I am some- what better, but in my bed, whence I now write. All this may be needless, but it is the case, and I am absolutely an object of any true friend's commiseration. To own that article is for a thousand reasons impossible. It would involve me in lies ab- horrent to my nature. I would rather die this evening. Eemem- ber how with Hunt I was most willing to come forward ; here it is death to do so. I am absolutely not in my right mind to-night. I wish well to all mankind, and am incapable of dishonour. This avowal would be fatal to my character, my peace, to exist- ence. Say nothing to me that could add to my present misery. All you have done seems on the whole right. With Mr Lockhart within a day's journey, how could it be otherwise, and your own excellent sense ? Write to me instantly, and tell me what I can do in this business— as to writing another ' Noctes ' about it, or anything else. Were I to go to London it would be to throw myself into the Thames. All this may, but will not, I hope, be unintel- ligible to you. Lying or dishonour are to me death. I am wholly incapable just now of giving advice, but I am able to do what you wish in the affair, on which some light will prob- ably be thrown from London by this time. In itself it is contemptible as to Martin, but in other points shocking to me. If I must avow myself, I will not survive it. Act in it with that proviso, as you and Mr L. and others choose, and you cannot go wrong far or at all. I would come to Edinburgh, but am unable from distraction of mind. I shall be there on the 25th of October. Meanwhile will instantly answer your letter, and do whatever you wish as to any article about it. There is, no doubt, something of the exaggeration of an excitable mind in this, but Wilson's horror and COLLAPSE OF WILSON. 283 anguish were not without just foundation. To be obliged to acknowledge himself as the harsh and un- kindly critic not only of Wordsworth, whose bread he had recently eaten, but of Scott, his tried and trusty friend, whose support had been of such importance to him in more than one crisis of his life, was indeed a prospect which the boldest might find it difficult to face. And one' can scarcely wonder that Wilson, so little bold morally, should be in despair — -helpless and without resource in an emergency of this kind, though ready and delighted to face any physical danger, and withal a really affectionate and loving human creature, genuinely remorseful for the evil, though unfortunately not perceiving it till after its committal. In the endless correspondence that fol- lowed, we have many illustrations of what would have been the whimsical, if it had not been the very dis- agreeable, position of Blackwood — something like that of a mother standing in front of and shielding a very naughty child, endeavouring with every argument to prove that he did not mean it, that it was only his fun, &c., &c., while all the friends gathered round, making a circle to shield the culprit. Maginn, who had been hastily appealed to, to calm his countryman, did all but take the guilt upon himself in the im- pulsive generosity which redeemed many qualities less praiseworthy ; and Lockhart came instantly for- ward, with indignant disapproval indeed, but every desire to help, as the following letter will show : — J. G. Lockhart to W. Blackwood. I can't but write to say how truly I am grieved to find you again annoyed with this disgusting sort of business, which, as 284 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. you say, I thought had all been well over. One thing I must say: when, after seeing Wordsworth and "Wilson together in such a friendly style, I came down here and found on my table that 'Noctes,' I could not understand Wilson's having been able to act as I had just been seeing him do. However, this is nothing to the matter, altho' I confess it gives me more pain than any merely pecuniary punishment he ever can undergo for the squib about Martin. I suspected that blockhead would be up, from what he said the other day about Black and the ' Morning Chronicle.' Bold man is he to dare both the Whig and the Tory press, if he persists. His action, if brought in London, would not be worth thinking of comparatively; but the Jury Court is another business. I trust the Professor will write some good-humoured thing sufficient to settle the madman's vanity. If he does not, I will try what I can do upon again hearing from you, and seeing what he says. Meantime by all means have Maginn's opinion. If the worst come to the worst, I think the man who neglects one of the largest and most dreary estates of miserable Ireland, where scarcely a man has clothes to cover his nakedness, and keeps up a roar about cruelty to Horses and Bullocks in the London Police Courts, will not be likely to come very well off if properly buckled to, even before a jury of Adamites. It is a great thing for you that the ' Morning Chronicle ' is in the same scrape. I am sadly afraid from what appeared in yesterday's 'New Times ' that you are to have more trouble about Martin. If I can do anything, I am at your command ; but really the Pro- fessor ought to attend to his own business. Maginn's behaviour is most generous. Sorry indeed should I be to see him placing me under such an obligation, and I trust Wilson will take a proper view of the case. I myself would not, coiLte, que coUte, allow this ; and besides, it will be of no use. One thing is obvious, that no disgrace can come to you or the Magazine from the business — the idiocy of Martin being so notorious. Wilson cannot suffer you to have any loss in your purse. Therefore don't, after doing your best, permit this thing to worry or annoy your mind. He would never get heavy damages most certainly. APOLOGY. 285 I shall be very anxious to hear the result of your letter, which has been skilfully done — much improved in your hands. The Mag. is a very good number. ' Mansie ' and the ' Noctes ' highly diverting, and the political articles of real excellence, and a cursed deal too much of poetry such as every human being can write and nobody ever will read, — of that you may be assured. September 18, 1825. The Professor really seems to act on such occasions as if he were mad. I am sure you must have remonstrated against that ' Noctes,' and it is too bad to fly out thus, altho' forewarned in so many ways. But we understand these failures of one of the best-hearted men ever God put breath into. The end of this story, so far as I can make out, was the pubhcation in the next number of the Magazine of a letter called " Midsummer Madness and Mr Martin," in which the hand of Lockhart seems dis- cernible. " ' Why, this is very midsummer madness,' says the Lady Olivia," he begins : — Letter of Phillipus — Blackwood's Mag., Oct. 1825. The midsummer moon, Mr North, seems to have poured her brightest beams upon Ambrose's Athens during the last of your 'Noctes CcEnseque' — I cannot on this particular occasion add ' Deum.' Now that the air has been chastened with a few night- frosts, and the leaves begin to assume the sober livery of autumn, I am in hopes that you will not cast your eye over the pages in which that " colloquy divine " is embalmed without some feeling of regret — I had almost said of shame. If I were in your place I know full surely what my own sensations would be. At all events, permit me to expect that at the fag-end of September you will listen quietly to what a staunch friend of ' Maga ' and of the Good Cause thinks it incumbent on him to say. , . , That the opinions expressed in the last of the ' Noctes Am- brosianse ' in regard to Mr Wordsworth are really the opinions of Mr North, I cannot for a moment believe — in the face of the long and triumphant battle which ' Maga ' has fought in defence 286 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. of that gentleman's character and genius. As little, I would fain take upon me to decide, does the sober intellect of the sage Christopher sanction the wild and cruel rhapsody of which my worthy friend the member for Galway is made the subject by those jovial interlocutors. The jocular depreciation of Words- worth will, I daresay, be understood well enough by those who, from long experience, know that the Poet of the Lakes has no admirer in the world half so efficient as yourself: they will perceive at once that you were all in your lunes when such things were said, or supposed to be said. But I do not re- member that Mr Martin's name was ever before introduced in your pages, and am the more concerned that it should have been introduced for the first time in this manner ; because, sir, it happens to be the fact that at this moment the character of that most humane and generous individual is rendered system- atically and seriously the butt of the malevolent wit, if wit it can be called, of a portion of the periodical press with which in general no one seems to hold less in common than the person I have the honour of addressing. The nonsense which you have permitted yourself to set forth for mere nonsense sake is cherished and applauded, as solemnly thought and deliberately said, by creatures who for once enjoy the satisfaction of finding a name that really does carry weight and authority with it on their side, their own paltry side. An account and panegyric of Martin follows. He was the first man to introduce into Parliament a bill for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals : and he did not confine his philanthropical exertions to carrying this measure, but himself stayed in London, through all the trying progress of the autumn, scorn- ing the delights of grouse and other sport in order to watch over the execution of its regulations, bringing unfortunate drovers to justice, and then with delight- ful Irish inconsistency begging them off again, and pledging himself that they would never do it again — from whence his constant appearance at the police A BAD JOKE. 287 courts, and consequent exposure to all the jibes of the Press. Never was a more complete amende made in words, and Christopher was not spared by his stern apologist. Wilson himself put the best face upon it, and added a note. Our friend [he said] has evidently taken a very serious view of what was not, nor was ever meant to be, anything but a joke. "We take it, not very many of our readers are so far behindhand as to be in any danger of misunderstanding matters of this kind. Above all, we are very sure the kind and merry spirit of Mr Martin is far above being moved, in the way our cor- respondent seems to suspect, by anything in the shape of a joke, even if it were a bad one. It is somewhat difficult to understand the nature of such a joke. And how Wilson, even at the very- height of reckless utterance, could have indulged in jesting of the kind, nobody has ever been able to ex- plain. We can but give him the advantage of Lock- hart's generous description, " one of the best-hearted men ever God put breath into," and forgive him for its sake. What better testimonial could a friend give ? And it is without suspicion, as said to a third party, and mingled with both blame and regret. There was, however, a great deal of trouble even after this, and I have no doubt the publisher's pocket again suffered ; but it is to be hoped that in the end the "kind and merry spirit of Mr Martin," was satisfied. The eulogy which he had received in the pages of ' Maga ' was certainly much more extensive and important than the offence. In returning to the ordinary course of affairs after this exciting episode, we may place here a proof that, after all, notwithstanding the periodical risks to which 288 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. he exposed both pubHsher and pubhcation, Wilson was indeed the mainspring of the Magazine, and the chief upholder of all that was most precious to the ambition, and important in the career, of the friend whose fidelity to him was never shaken, whatever might occur, and who never lost an occasion of cele- brating his good deeds. The following letter has all the greater weight as coming immediately after the Martin episode : and it reveals in a most engaging manner the close connection between the two men, and the deep and warm feeling in Mr Blackwood's heart, ready to forget the peccadilloes which he had so often to pardon and condone : — W. Blackwood to J. Wilson. Edinbttbqh, 11th Dec. 1825. I have sent Mrs Wilson the Magazine, and I trust she will be as much delighted with it as I am, and that is saying a great deal. How deeply I am indebted to you, it is quite impossible for me to express. Anxious and restless as I always am at all times, I was more especially so just now ; but I felt it cruel, as you were so unwell, even to wish you to make an exertion: still I could not help my wishes, and nobly and most effectively have you gone beyond them. Great as the advantages must be to me at such a moment to publish such a number, it is not on this account that I feel so happy ; but it is from the delight I always have had, and always will have, in seeing you doing what no one else can attempt but yourself. So much is this feeling, as it were, a part of my nature, that by a sort of momentary mental delusion I think of your articles as if I had been capable of producing them myself: sure I am I could not feel more proud of them if I had been capable of producing them. You will excuse all this, which I could not help saying to you in the fulness of my heart. And you will also, I hope, pardon me for saying that the Magazine is now going on so well I trust I will every day have WILSONS POWERS OP WORK. 289 it more in my power to make it worth your while to give your powerful aid to it, and that it will be every day more and more creditable to every one connected with it. The last of the dis- agreeables (and I trust it will be the last) that concerned Mar- tin's business is now settled, as you will see by the enclosed letter from Cadell. This I take upon myself, and I hope you will consider our Magazine accounts for 1825 as closed. I hope and flatter myself that I shall have the pleasure of sending you some good round scores early in 1826. On the other hand, to counterbalance the warm sentiment of the pubHsher, Wilson, though constantly disappointing and wearying out his almost boundless patience, now and then had fine impulses of work, and placed himself within the safeguard of rules and promises, most heartily undertaken, though doomed to be broken. These alternations of extreme virtue and a devotion almost too complete, with breakings down nearly as notable, occur in amusing succession all through the record — ^by no means, however, so amusing to Blackwood as to us. J. Wilson to W. Blcoclcwood. See if the printers have anything ready. / want an impulse much to get on. But I intend to write for the Mag. every day till dinner — and then my other affairs — till Tuesday, which will, I hope, bring a long article to a close. It has not yet assumed much shape. If the number contains any Critique, pray let me see it. I send now the last of the leading article. I must stop till I know how long it is; perhaps it is long enough. . . . Had I attempted to put in all the matter I have, the whole would have been ruined. Tell me this evening how many pages remain for me after Oroly and Mr Hay's poem of three pages, which being lively should go in by itself — I think after Croly, if my article will not be much shortened thereby. VOL. I. T 290 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. I have read over the article twice with great attention. I hope you will leave out everything I have scored. Two or three things not unobjectionable I have allowed to remain, for they cannot be struck out without hurting something that re- mains. The article will read well as it now stands. But I would on no account call it No. V., for that looks like poverty. The Doctor ought to follow ; he is a better writer than Croly. We are thus brought once again to the machinery of the Magazine after Wilson had become the chief adviser, and the first excitement of the beginning was over : though, indeed, as the reader has seen, there was no one so good as he in keeping that excitement alive. The scraps of criticism are few, for these were no doubt sent flying from one to another round the table in the saloon, where all the brotherhood, soon thinned by removal and change, still met continually, and were thus exhausted and never got into print : but here and there comes a word of interest mingled with all the discussions of articles done, or doing, or, alas ! at the last moment found not capable of being done. Here, for example, is a curious scrap. Gait's books, ' The Provost ' and ' Sir Andrew Wylie,' were, as will be seen hereafter, specially revised and superintended by Mr Blackwood himself, and therefore extremely interesting to him : — I hear ' The Provost ' is doing excellently. ' Nigel ' has amused me much. It is beyond all his works, lively, spirited, dramatic, new — and after all not a Work. ' Sir Andrew Wylie,' I have heard, assisted the author in the character of King James. This will probably cause the reader to look with more respect on the history of ' Sir Andrew Wylie,' LIBERAL SENTIMENTS. 291 which has lately been reprinted by the Messrs Black- wood in a very attractive new edition, and is, in many respects, a most amusing book. There are, in fact, certain analogies between its shrewd simplicity and astuteness and the wonderful picture of gentle King Jamie, which a little later came from the greater artist's hand. One can imagine Scott's laugh and cordial statement of the suggestion he had found in the cunning and the fun of the humble hero — a sug- gestion no doubt overstated in his large and generous way. The few words which head the following letter are liberal for the time and place in which they were written. Silvio Pellico has been tamed down into a book for the schoolroom, a first lesson in lucid Italian, without the difficulties either of the archaic or the too modern ; but in those days he was a rebel, a revolu- tionary — such a being as a High Tory, under what- ever difference of foreign circumstances he might exist, could scarcely forgive : — I like Pellico : he is a Liberal : but an Italian need not be a slave to the aristocracies. The book is a very interesting one. I should like to see no politics in the December number, if possible. I have not done anything, rior has it been joossiUe. I have not even an introductory lecture for Tuesday ; but I vfish to arrange for next week, and then I shall begin to arrange the Spenser. The Anthology will end the Magazine. I have most of the materials for it ready ; and if it is of any consequence, can send to the printers eight or ten or twelve pages to be putting into type on Monday. I shall also do a Morning Monologue, what I wrote of the other day being useless. These are my three articles : Byron, Pellico (?), Barrington, will make six — all good and light and amusing ; and three or four more as good or better, and also light and amusing, would make a lively 292 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. number. But I am prosing needlessly. Spenser cannot be less than thirty pages — ten of extracts,^ and twenty of my own writing. The printers have a Spenser, and thus no delay will occur when they get my manuscript. Till Tuesday morning I shall occupy myself with my class ; after that I shall work for 'Maga.' Six articles seem a liberal allowance from one hand, but we wonder whether they all came to port in peace ; for if they did, there must have been halcyon times in Princes Street, where so often the publisher's ofl&ce was occupied by troubled men, emissaries from the printer added to the already excited staff, gnashing their teeth, probably using improper language, worn to the last thread of their patience before the lagging manuscript came. The poor little printer's devil, who had to cool his heels for hours in the hall in Wilson's house at Ann Street, came in sometimes, it appears, for blame, as will be seen in the solemnity of the following appeal. " I shall be up at three," says the culpable Professor — but have done nothing. I remember to-morrow. I hope to be able to begin fairly this evening. I have tried, but fallen through everything. I request you to call John, the bearer of this, and your boy into the back -shop. John denies keeping him above five minutes; and he himself declared to me in John's presence that it certainly was not a quarter of an hour. I told him you had yourself told me that he said he was detained three-quar- ters of an hour, and he declared he had not said so, and must have been misunderstood. I wish you, then, to ascertain from the parties how this was — that the boy may never again have 1 There seems to have been a rule that extracts, which often were long, should not count for remuneration— at least, at the same rate. Wilson was unmerciful in this respect, and occasionally sent articles which were made up of quotations. printer's devils. 293 to wait one minute. My belief is, from his own avowal, that he was not kept ten minutes, or rather not five. One does not hear, unfortunately, what the result was of the examination in the back-shop ; but without further evidence, and without any blame to John, we feel inclined to give our vote in favour of the boy. The following must have been written in a gayer mood : — Do your orders to all the devils on no account to call at any time on me without giving me an opportunity of confabulating with their demonships. The system of giving in parcels and flying off without an answer has again begun, and is too much by far for my temper. The imp whom I caught last night in the act of evanishment promised to haunt me this morning at seven, but I smell no brimstone. Nevertheless " by the pricking of my thumbs" I feel his approach, and here he is. Set up the accompanying MSS. immediately. The Professor's proceedings evolved in the minds of the Blackwood family in general a distrust of literary punctuality which has scarcely died out in the third generation. The now much diminished band who fought under the banner of John Blackwood will remember the twinkle in his eye with which, quite irrespective of fact, he would suggest to his contrib- utors to " remember that this was a short month," while at the same time prepared to meet any delay with a laugh and a ready excuse for the guilty writer, which must also have been a development from the much-tried patience of his father. I myself remember in the sixties to have been in the condition of Wilson, having " done nothing," on the 20th of the month, to the next number of a story then running in the 294 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Magazine : the said Magazine being due in London by the 1st of the next month. But these were still heroic days. The correspondence of Wilson continues always in the same tone, explaining with the plausible ampli- tude of a habitual sinner the reason of his delays, or with the simplicity of a defaulter at school forestalling the expected reproof, or with almost a whimper, like a woman wounded, in fond or indignant woe, declaring that he cannot bear the changed look or disapproving word. Our excellent founder had to support all these varieties of treatment as he might, sometimes pacing his office in the fret and fume of wrathful impatience, almost au bout, fearing for a breakdown altogether of the all-important Magazine ; sometimes meeting with all his sober strength the petulant protest of the man who would not endure reproach ; sometimes melting in answer to an agonised complaint of changed looks or tones which the tender culprit could not bear. It was amusing to hear in the many descriptions and anecdotes of that lifelong connection, which I have heard from Miss Isabella Blackwood, the thriU still existing of the tone of family wrath, resentment, af- fection, and enthusiasm for that intolerable and beloved Professor, who kept the father of the house in con- tinual commotion, sometimes all delight and admira- tion, sometimes half wild with indignation and impatience. The publisher's daughter could not, to her last days, laugh at the amusing, exasperating, continued struggle, though her listeners did so at the whimsical record. The reader will be able to form an idea of it from the following letters. The reference in the first is to an article which he had been asked to revise and improve : — THE PUBLISHER "BASELY CRUEL." 295 The lad had better call as late to-night as possible — say eleven — as I have done nothing to Abion — after flinging aside as much as would make a good many pages, written on various points, all inapplicable, I fear, and useless. It is true that I willingly enough agreed to add what I could to the Abion article, and it is true that in saying so I said a very foolish thing : for I knew that I was saying what is rarely possible to be done — at least by me. I do not believe you yourself know what is wanted to his article, but merely have a vague idea that it might be much better. No doubt it will or may be a disappointment that I have not done that, whatever it may be ; but there is no blame on my part, for the simple truth is that I cannot, and there is an end of it. Perhaps it would be better to leave me 24 pages at the beginning, and make Abion to follow. I shall also say here, mildly but firmly, that in future, in case of any disappointment arising to you from any delay on my part, you must not speak in the manner you sometimes choose to assume towards me, as for instance on Friday. You may mean a thing, nay, you may think it, all right ; but / do not, and as my manner is always courteous to all men, I cannot at all like yours on such occa- sions : and whether I am reasonable or unreasonable, I repeat, in the most friendly temper of mind, that you must consider what I now write, and not suffer me to leave your shop with the feeling that you have become basely cruel. There is no use in your saying a single word to me on the subject. I do not believe you will take any blame to yourself for your manner, but that you will think me in the wrong. Be it so : but I am getting older every day, and such things are offensive to me in a degree, perhaps more than should be. We have neither of us any reason to doubt the other's esteem ; but as I know that I am entitled always to politeness, I wish you to consider what I now say, for whether I am right or wrong I feel as I say, and I have made up my mind to stay away at all times when I feel your manners to be unpleasant. Finally this particular business seems to have ended well enough, for we hear in another note that the 296 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. " corrected slips " of the Abion have been gone over and sent to Mr St Barbe, presumably the author of the same. But the feeling of injury continues : — No man is more unwilling to give or take offence from trifles than I am ; and no man more disposed to allow to a friend the same privilege of finding fault with me as I with him in trifles. But it either is a merit or demerit in me, to dislike any symptom of displeasure shown towards me unnecessarily, or at a time when it can do no good, and when I am endeavouring to do what I can. I lose many more hours and days in trying to fix on what to write, and to bring my mind into capacity to write, than in writing. All this is painfully known to myself, but cannot be so well known to you. For three days have I sat like an idiot with slips before me, and scribbling childish non- sense without success or hope of reward, and ended in disap- pointing you not unjustly. It may be unreasonable to do so and yet expect you to be not displeased, for it certainly must be annoying ; but it adds to my own annoyance to have added to my consciousness of imbecility your expression of annoyance also. You cannot imagine the hundredth part of the lets and hindrances that besiege my mind about articles ; and they often assail me at the very juncture when their operation is worst for all parties. That is a fact ; but so far from any good being done by your letting me see your annoyance, the evil is mag- nified thereby a hundredfold. It amounts, in short, to utter extinction of all form whatever, as you must frequently have seen. So no more about it. I shall begin to-day if possible with . If not, with what- ever else I can do, that we may get on. P.S. — I think, on the whole, that you had better let the number be finished without saying a word about my letters; and after that I shall certainly, as I ought, read kindly what- ever you may say, or, what will be better, show by a good article or two that there is no need of anything being said. Be indeed a good boy and never do it again. Such are the curious remonstrances, complaints, and excuses, THE professor's RESOLUTIONS. 297 with tears in the big blue eyes, and a tremulous com- motion in the big 'Her9ules frame, when his publisher W£fe angry with him ! There are so many of these emotional protests and confessions that it is difficult to choose from among them. Here is another of a more practical tone. It is dated from EUeray, the cottage on Windermere, to which Wilson still escaped when he could, in that delightful recess of the entire summer which makes a chair in a Scottish university the most heavenly of official situations : — I had wished and intended to write you a very long letter, but shall not. Suffice it to say that it was more for my own interest than yours that I should have written many articles during the summer. When a man is not able to attend to his own interests he is not able to attend to those of another. I would not have come here had I not intended to write a good deal. This being the case, no blame attaches to me, for mind and body, the former through the latter, incapacitated me from doing almost anything. I wish therefore not a word to he said further between us on any account on this matter. I am at this moment scarcely able from nervousness to write these few lines. I shall arrive at your house by coach or mail on Tuesday first, , if there is a place ; if not, on Wednesday. I hope that change of scene and the journey may do me good. I have material ready, and next day I will set to work on anything I can do, so as to ensure a good number. I suppose that four or five days will be at my service, and if I can get into good spirits, I will work stoutly for these days. I will return with ' Maga ' in my pocket. No doubt he was the soul of the family circle while he was there, and filled the house with jest and laugh- ter. The following note, without any name, refers to some such visit : — Professor W. came to town on Monday last week, and stayed at Newington till the Thursday, when he went back again to 298 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Innerleithen, where he and his family had been for the last four weeks. "WhUe in our house he began and finished the conclud- ing article in this No. of 'Maga/ the review of Mopre's ' Epicurean.' He had disappointed me sadly in not sending me articles he had promised, and I had also been disappointed by Mr Eobinson, so that I was in a most miserable state with re- gard to this number till the Prof, came to town. I had a terrible hurry and skurry to get ready in time. The whole number was printed and published in eight or ten days. Our next view of the Professor is after some im- portant correspondence as to ways and means, in the shape of a triumphantly reformed character, anticipating nothing in the future but duty and glory, perfect trust and co-operation, and boundless and successful work : — I am extremely glad that I explained myself at some length in my letter, because it has been the cause of your most friendly and flattering letter. I am extremely glad that I alluded to a belief in my mind that you had often overpaid me a guinea page. If I know anything of myself, it is that I am not too money-fond. Better for me it had been, if long ago I had been more so. But your answer has prevented the possibility of my fearing that you could ever think so. My contributions to ' Maga ' shall be regular and vigorous. I see, as you say, that I may make 600 guineas a-year, and I will do so. You shall always, if I am in health at all, have as much of mine as you wish — and never a single page more. With fourteen numbers in the year perhaps I may earn considerably more than 600 ! but not one line of mine shall ever go into 'Maga' that you do not prefer for her interests to any other contributor. Mutual bene- fit is the spirit of our understanding. Meanwhile think of things to be done during the winter. I have thought of a good many — and if a bad number appears during the next year, Deo volente, I shall wonder at my own imbecility. I send a ' Noctes ' and a [name illegible]. Both seem very long; but let both be put up immediately. The first I can NERVOUSNESS. 299 easily if necessary cut down into two with some additions, and the other likewise has some passages which, if too long, will go into some other literary article. A good literary article shall be in every number. For the love of God no chill slow ' Noctes ' ; for few, if anybody, liked them, and many hated them. That was my fault, or rather my misfortune. It would be vain to hope that such a beatific state of afi'airs could last. Wilson, it is evident, retired to the country, as many have done, with a certainty that in the leisure and quiet he could do wonderful things ; but the open air, and the summer, and the hundred inducements to idle and to wander, were too many for him, and winter and the long evenings seemed then the only hope. But by times everything failed, and in- dolence, or dilatoriness, or " nervousness," not then as now so tremendous an agency in men's lives, got the better of him once more. Things came now and then to such a dreadful pitch that a Magazine appeared without him — that is, without anything from his hand. He writes in startled admiration and wonder of this strange fact, not without a faint tone of injury, though quite aware it is his own fault. " Let the Doctor [Maginn] do all kinds of clever things for 'Maga' this time," he says; "there should be a new, striking, delightful, and conclusive preface, which M. and L. can do very well without W." Another cry of compunction follows : — John Wilson to W. Blmkwood. I have passed several very unhappy days in the thought of acting badly towards you and the Magazine. I declare it to be utterly impossible for me to write either on Dalton or a ' Noctes.' Here have I sat for two hours in vain, unable to write a sylla- ble. If it were otherwise, you know that I would strain every nerve to do it. It seems silly and unaccountable, but it is 300 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. absolutely true ; I do not believe I could do it to save my life. I have lost as many hours in not doing anything as I might have done the articles in. I feel it impossible — out of my power — and I have done all I could to do them. I therefore shall go home. For misery it is to sit here impotent. You must just put Wrest in place of the 'Koctes/ — and either Beddoes or anything else that is tolerable in place of Dal ton. There is no use in saying more : absolute incapacity prevents me, and for five hundred pounds I could not do what I wished to do most earnestly and truly. Here follows an exchange of compliments in respect to money, that fruitful source of misunderstandings, in which all is amiable, honourable, and magnanimous. The letter is endorsed by Mr Blackwood, "Received 14th December 1826, in answer to my note telling him I had been disappointed of Robinson's [a political writer] article, begging of him to do something, and enclosing him a draft on the Royal Bank for £50." John Wilson to W. Blackwood. I return the order, for although to all men with families, &c., money is most desirable, yet under present circumstances I cannot accept this order. It is returned, however, merely from a feeling ; and no thought of your being wrong in send- ing it. Sending money to me can never be wrong — it must always be extremely right and pleasant, but just now I cannot but return it. I am distressed, too, about Eobinson; and yet, perhaps, although such articles are necessary at times, and frequently, they are not necessary always. All last night was I forced to lose in an idiotic Inquest, with that accident on "Windermere — and am this moment up, having been wearied to death. I must evidently do something at this pinch, and perhaps four or five pleasant articles without much pretence may do. I dine out at six, but shall begin to something in a quarter of an hour. FOOLISH TO RETUBN MONEY. 301 The courteous publisher replied in the same strain of high politeness and lofty feeling : — W. Blackwood to J. Wilson. Saturday, Dec. 1826. Since you think it best (and your wishes will always be my rule) to return me the draft, I hope you will with the same frankness draw on me from time to time. My anxious wish is that the Magazine should really be an object worth your attend- ing to, both as respects remuneration, respectability, and general influence. It is no doubt annoying that ^Robinson has not been able to do his article at this particular moment, but if you can find leisure to do what you intend, the number will be much more popular, and the cessation from politics for one month will have no bad effect. Perhaps, however, you may land upon something political connected with literature. I cannot help still thinking that if Croly's critique upon Sheridan's Dramas were altered and shortened, and a spirited view given of Moore's life in your own admirable way, it would be a most delightful article. But I do not wish to suggest anything except what wholly strikes yourself. Another time, however, the Professor was less coy. " I keep the twenty guineas," he says, "as it is foolish to return money. But it would be a little Jewish or so to consider my articles worth forty guineas, and, therefore, I will give you a good sheet or two for your next, if required, gratis. Money is an excellent stimulant to all virtuous actions." Robinson appears from time to time, sometimes applauded, sometimes much the reverse. Here is an instance of the difficulties which all contributors had to pass through : — The beginning of E is beastly. He is quite mad on one Idea. But possibly what he says about the Poor Laws may be 302 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. good: and if so and not long, I would perhaps clip off the beginning and insert it. He must submit, as / and others are willing to do occasionally, to reason, and your and the Maga- zine's interests. As soon as I get the whole of the ' Noctes ' I will finish it off. I have got all except what was sent last night and this morning. I think it will be good, but it must be interspersed with touches here and there. It will be thirty-two pages. The following is interesting, as bearing upon the vexed question, so often discussed since, of the editor- ship. Wilson gives no uncertain sound on this subject ; and the faint grudge as to the profit of the post, which Blackwood did not choose to depute to any one, gives point to the disclaimer. It was an opportunity of giving the publisher a friendly prick in passing. John Wilson to W. Blackwood. Last night I received a letter from Dr Philpotts, of the kindest nature, but saying that he had been told yesterday that I was the editor of " that invaluable Magazine." I must answer his letter this evening, and in alluding to that part of it do not wish to say anything that may seem to contradict anything in your letter to him if you have written to him, and if from any expression in your letter he uses that expression to me. I am not editor of that invaluable Magazine either in responsibility or in annual income, which ought to be to the " editor — namely, Mr Blackwood — at the rate of other periodi- cals, from £500 to £1500 per annum. But I am always most willing to assist and give my advice to the said editor, and to write articles, and good ones occasionally when I can, at the rate of sixteen guineas per sheet — good payment to a first-rate contributor. I am always ready, too, to avow publicly or privately my connection with ' Maga,' or to say to Dr Philpotts or any other man that I am in your confidence and you in NOT EDITOR BUT FRIEND. 303 mine on the subject of ' Maga.' If I were to say to the doctor, " I am not editor, and you are misinformed," I should be saying the truth, but might seem, perhaps, to him to contradict your letter, if it be from that he speaks. If I were to say " I am editor," or acquiesce virtually in his remark, I would be taking credit to myself for what I do not deserve, and defrauding you of the merit of capacity and spirit in the conduct thereof. If, therefore, you have not written to the doctor at all, I shall, without disavowing anything, tell him I am not editor but a friend of yours, always ready to give advice and an opinion when requested, and a chief writer in ' Maga.' If you have written to him anything from which he draws the conclusion aforesaid, it would be well I should know its import, that you and I should not to such a man appear to be saying two different things. This matter, however, which seems to be taken up in so amiable a manner, must, it would appear, have given rise to one more of the frequently recurring and tragical breaches between Wilson and the much- enduring head of affairs in Princes Street. There are several voluminous letters on the subject, in which our child of genius goes further even than before in his wounded feelings, and complains, for many pages, of a manner, an air, a look of distance and indifference, which he could not bear : — I beg leave to say there was something by no means agree- able to me in the style of your manner yesterday in respect to Mr Philpotts and his pamphlet. Notwithstanding that, how- ever, I overlooked it, and to-day sent a few lines for you to send to him, which I read to you. You did not thank me for these, either by word or manner, but merely said rather drily that you had intended to say the same yourself. Now, I prefer writing this to saying it. I have to-day shown you all kindness and disposition to kindness, in spite of the displeasure I felt. But if ever again you assume any shade of the same manner, however slight, you may depend on this, as surely as that you 304 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. and I are alive, that I will confine myself henceforth solely and exclusively to the occasional writing of articles, and leave everything else entirely to yourself. Neither am I going to argue on this subject, or to say that you are wrong in assuming such a manner. But I merely say that I will not endure any of it, even the very least ; and it is to me most offensive. With respect to not sending as usual a copy of the Magazine ■down to me, which, from your manner, seemed connected with the same cause or some cause to me unknown, it is purely laughable and absurd, and to me, of course, who have seen the sheets till I may well be tired of them, a matter of utter in- difference. Why this occurred to you now and not before, I do not know ; but the caution or reserve, or whatever else it may be, is utterly ludicrous. An answer, expressing surprise at so sudden an onslaught on such visionary cause, seems to have been sent, and this is the reply : — Perhaps it is unnecessary to say anything more on this sub- ject, especially as of all men I most dislike and have the least turn for letter-writing that can seem to be of a querulous character ; yet to prevent any present or future misconception I shall say a few words. I do not see why you should have been so utterly confounded by my letter, for my displeasure — I will say anger — on Friday was obvious enough, and, therefore, that I should after- wards say so to you seems to be nothing unexpected or extra- ordinary. I did not conceal my displeasure, which was reason- able and just ; and I am sure you did not conceal yours, and therefore my letter need not have at all surprised you, whether you agreed or disagreed with its contents. I say my anger was perfectly reasonable and just, for I could not comprehend then, nor do I now, what you meant or wished to be done in the matter of Philpotts. You offended me by insisting on the word promise; and when I denied all promise, told me I must have forgotten: which was not the case, memory having nothing to do with it. There neither has nor UNGRACIOUS AND UNCIVIL. 305 could have been any promise. I offered to review the pamphlet, but not surely in the face of sense or reason, and I gave you the day before, Thursday, my impressions on one point of diffi- culty, in which you perfectly agreed with me. I told you if that difficulty could be removed or got over in any way, the article should be written, and yet in the midst of all this, which you felt as much to be a difficulty as I did, and acquiesced in all I said about it, you kept looking dissatisfied, and saying something or other which was to me unintelligible. There was. nothing further for me to say or do. I explained clearly a certain difficulty which you clearly saw, and for you to write to Philpotts telling him that I thought so or felt so at present, but would write to him by-and-by, was said by me from the very beginning. In such a case to call by the name of promise, and to seem to think that promise violated or rejected by me, what was merely a proposal to do that which might be useful to the Magazine, but which had turned out to be the reverse (till the difficulty was removed), did annoy me very much and justly ; for allow me to say there was something exceedingly disagreeable in your whole manner, and what I will not on any future occasion endure. . . . It is true that I curbed but did not conceal my displeasure. I spoke to you about the Magazine, and I wrote the paragraph to Philpotts. There was no reason why I should not. But I take credit rather than otherwise for that; because, having determined to tell you my mind, I felt no inclination to be unkind or indifferent about the Magazine or any other matter. That you consciously or positively intended any slight or insult to me in the matter of the latter I did not and do not say ; but I did and do say that your manner was not only ungracious but uncivil, and I question if any man was ever called back ten times unceremoniously from the street and given a letter to read, and then allowed to depart, with such perfect nonchalance and indifference. As for the stoppage of the Magazine, I said in my letter to you that the occurrence of that measure at present, and in connection with what had occurred, seemed to arise possibly from that cause ; whether it did or not is best known to your- self. I believe it did not exactly, as you withheld it from Mr VOL. I. U 306 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Cay; but from a certain feeling of dissatisfaction. . . . Prom whatever cause proceeding, the circumstance of not sending the Magazine to me as you used to do, both with alacrity and pleasure, continues to appear to me in a ludicrous light, for I do not understand it. "When you mentioned your intention there was the same dryness and distance in your manner to which you have alluded: in short, there was nothing but a slight sneer of contempt, so slight, it would appear, that it had escaped your notice, so that you interpreted literally words, the true meaning of which I did not think could be mistaken. That I could approve of any such absurd or un- necessary measure was not possible. Some reason or other there must be for the alteration ; and I must conjecture that it is merely that there may be in the world one General Oracle without any exception. To be done once and for ever, I repeat that I was offended because not treated in the only way I ought to be, and offended the more because I never did once in the whole of my life treat you with the slightest approach to annoyance, and because in an intercourse which is not merely one of business but of voluntary acts of kindness, also of advice, always cheerfully offered when wanted, I cannot, I will not, I ought not to stomach anything of the sort, whether intentional or uninten- tional. I was not treated in the way I like, that is the short and the long of the matter, and there must be no repetition of it. As to anything vexing you, if it be anything serious, I can only say that I am truly sorry for it, and hope that it is gone by. Let there be no further mention or allusion to this subject if you please, nor shall you ever perceive the slightest effect on my behaviour or feelings towards you from what is in one sense a mere nothing, but in another a something to be avoided. Perhaps this letter was rather too long to quote ; but it affords a curious view of the emotional and childlike character of the man, so big, so strong, so almost riotous in his personality, — the jovial if some- MANAGING THE PROFESSOR. 307 times crusty Christopher, the hero of Ambrose's in fun and frolic and poetry ; in real life an athlete who carried everything before him, as in literature he was one of the most daring of Free -Lances, — yet here wellnigh weeping over the dry tone, the distant air, the unkind manner of his publisher, proclaiming to heaven and earth — or at least to the saloon and the back -shop — the wrongs of his wounded soul; but writing himself into good-humour again, and a quite inconsequent prayer that nothing more might be said nor any allusion made to the subject. That all the floods of sentiment and indignation poured at intervals — if that unfortunate man of many toils and cares happened to look preoccupied, or the new number of the Magazine was not sent out hot from the press — upon his devoted head, should have driven Blackwood almost off his sober balance occasionally, would only have been natural. But probably because of these tragic and comic fluctuations, and the wonderful charm yet exasperation which lies in never knowing what the object of your thoughts will do next, the relationship of the publisher to his most potent and really indefatigable contributor was always as attrac- tive as it was faithful and true. It was said that nobody but Mr Blackwood could manage the Pro- fessor ; but the ofiice was not a sinecure. It was one that required constant attention, watchfulness, and a great patience. I regret that the letters written in answer to these are not to be found ; but perhaps it is really more expressive of Blackwood's attitude that he should here say nothing in reply to such objurga- tions and complaints. The accuser has it all his own way ; but in his flurry gives a great advantage to the 308 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. silent partner, whose steadiness of character and man- ful composure seem to be emphasised by the silence. And it is no small testimony to both to say that, though these whimsical outbursts were repeated a hundred times, and though even Blackwood's temper — not a meek one — did sometimes when " much enforced give forth a hasty spark," yet that the steady affection and esteem with which they each regarded the other sustained no damage. The following letter is an ex- pression of Mr Blackwood's sincerest feelings on this subject : — All I shall say is that you have been the Genius and the Living Spirit which has animated the work, and whatever success it has had I owe most unquestionably to you in the first and chief place. I can most conscientiously declare that, wholly independent of the success of the work (to which your articles were always sure to contribute), I have felt a happiness in receiving your communications which to me was far beyond any considerations of personal advantage, and I had always more pleasure in paying you 100 gus. than any one else 50. The times are fertile in subjects, and your feeling and fancy are inexhaustible. I have much to say but I refrain. All I shall add is that there is nothing in this life I am so proud of as your friendship, and I hope and pray to God that it may continue while life lasts and with our children's children. Professor Wilson lived to see three of Blackwood's sons in rotation assume the reins. He continued to kick sometimes now and then against the sway of the younger spirits ; but he stood by them loyally through every change. And he was himself a sort of tutelary deity to the Blackwood house. His bust and portrait still stand leonine, with flowing mane, presiding over everything that goes on, as he did in his fine and care- less person both in youth and age. MRS HEMAJS^S. 309 I may add here two letters of advice, both on poet- ical subjects ; the first treating of the poetry of Mrs Hemans, then in her youth, and applauded to all the echoes in public, though not so enthusiastically in the freedom of private life : — Professor Wilson to W. Blackwood. I really do not know how I can advise you respecting Mrs H. It seems a case on which you alone can decide — to wit, whether her contributions are or are not worth the money. My opinion, on the whole, is as follows : She is the best of our female writers of what is called Poetry. Her verses are often beautiful, always melodious, but — I think they should either be all accepted or all declined. For none of them that I have read are unworthy of a place in that department of a Magazine, as verses go — and she is a popular enough writer, entitled, I think, to that right. It would be offensive to her to have them returned ; and I scarcely think any of them should be rejected. Are they then worth the money ? Confound me if I know ! To me they are not. But, I believe, to many readers they give much pleasure. They make an agreeable break, and they are generally pleasant reading. Besides, she was, I presume, flat- tered by their reception, and perhaps might feel hurt by being cut off, as well as injured by the loss of the coin. I am rather disposed to think you should go on with her ; but I will con- verse with you about it, as it certainly is a point rather per- plexing. It is surprising that she is not run out entirely, and dry as a whistle. Poetry is certainly a drug — but hers don't seem to disgust. I conclude my unsatisfactory epistle. The second of these letters concerns a poem of Mr Aird, of whom Wilson thought more highly than of Mrs Hemans, though we doubt whether his high opinion has been confirmed. It is somewhat startling to think of the publication of a long and serious poem as a serial, much as that method of publication has developed since then. 310 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. John Wilson to W. Blackwood. 27 Oct. 1831. To prevent any misunderstanding about Mr Aird's poem, I will mention what passed between him and me about it and the Magazine. I said to him that in my opinion a Magazine was little the better or the worse for short copies of verses good or bad, and that a new feature in a magazine and a good feature would be the occasional introduction of a long poem, three or four times a-year. I think it would. Some months ago I read his poem and thought it possessed great power, as all his poems do : also much beauty. A few days ago Mr Aird reminded me of what I said about long poems for the Magazine, and told me he had shown it to you, with a view of its being inserted if you liked it. I told him he had done right. With regard to prose contri- butions I told Mr Aird that I generally agreed with your judgment, so much so that I never thought of giving an opinion about them, except when asked to do so in a doubtful case ; but that in poetry it was different: for that I held that no one could judge perfectly well of poetry but those who could write it: this is my opinion. I told him, therefore, that in cases of poetry, I considered myself to be a better judge than you, and that I had no objection to advise poetry to be inserted in the Magazine, even if it should not appear to you so good as it appeared to me, which I would not do in the case of prose. I said this to him. I told him so in the belief that you might object to his poem on account of its peculiarities or other causes, more than I should do, although I did not doubt that you would appreciate its merits. This is the cast and substance of our conversation, and I added that I would on the first opportunity speak to you about the poem. With regard to that poem or any other which Mr Aird will write, it will have strongly marked upon it certain peculiarities, and the question will be simply this, whether they are such as to exclude it or not from insertion in the Magazine. In my opinion the merits are far greater than the defects : MR AIRDS POEM. 311 and that a twenty-page poem, if showing power and genius, would be better in the Magazine than many a prose paper even of average ability or interest. That is to say, now and then. To get long poems faultless, or free from great and many faults, is not easy. " The Jewess of the Cave " is not of the number. Still Mr Aird's poem may have in your eyes, looking at it with a view to all I have said, greater faults than in mine, and such faults as may make you decide, however re- luctantly, against its admission. And if so, then I think you will be justified in not inserting it, notwithstanding my vote on the other side. Probably you may be of the opinion that long poems would not benefit the Magazine, however talented, unless such as would on the whole defy criticism, and be uni- versally or very generally popular. To me it appears that such long poems would be seldom if ever got, and that, therefore, the idea of inserting long poems in the Magazine (as a new feature — now and then) will have to be relinquished, unless such are inserted whose merits overbalance their defects, how- ever numerous and strong these may be. This is a long story ; but I have troubled you with it, that you may exactly understand my views in general. Consider these, and then judge from a careful perusal for yourself whether or not Mr Aird's poem fulfils the provisions of the new Act. F.S. — This letter reminds me of De Quincey. The letter does very much resemble De Quincey : much more than it resembles Wilson, in its elabor- ate balance of arguments and complete inconclusive- ness. It is a curious question, and we can imagine Blackwood, who never had written any poetry, to have been somewhat confused by it, though prob- ably he settled such matters summarily on the simpler issue, whether he liked a poem or not. The negotiation about the publication of Wilson's 312 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. own collected poems, though of considerably earlier date, may be added. These poems have faded very much out of the popular memory, yet they had some reputation in their day. J. Wilson to W. Blackwood. 26th April 1824. With respect to my poems, I prefer writing a few lines to you, as I dislike conversations about money, although very fond of money itself. My wishes are as follows, and my reasons for my wish are as follows : — I wish you to take the copyright for two hundred and fifty guineas. You spoke of two hundred guineas, and in case of another edition a hundred more. It does not seem, therefore, that what I ask is anything much beyond your proposal. The reason why I wish to sell you the copyright just now ia neither more nor less than that I want money. For I ought to have had four hundred guineas from you had I done my duty in writing 'The Foresters' or any other volume — over this, a proposal for a new book, there would be no difificulty in settling at once; but really as to my poems I know not what may be their value to you, or whether what I now ask may be at all advisable for you to give. But the value of a thing is what it will bring the proprietor, and I could have considerably more than the two hundred and fifty guineas for the said copyright if I chose to be a Dealer, but that, of course, is not likely to happen. I wish the poems to be published by you, and to belong to you, and I have mentioned the terms. The same day, this letter having evidently been answered at once, the Professor explains what seems the enigmatical character of a part of what had been said in it : — Your acceptance of the terms proposed is prompt and friendly, and shall be considered such. The offer I allude to was as A HANDSOME INDUCEMENT. 313 follows : I was carelessly speaking of the worthlessness in the market of poetry such as mine, half in jest, half in earnest, and next morning a gentleman, who had been of the company, offered me four hundred guineas for the copyright of all my poems. I never thought of taking it, as I felt at the time it was meant as a handsome inducement for me to give that gentleman something else; neither did I then mention it to you, for, if I had, I thought it might either put you under the necessity of offering the same, which would have been unjust, or at least my speaking of having rejected an offer on your account, which would also not have been agreeable. Things for me are much better as they are, and I hope, too, that neither will you suffer in any respect by your ready acquiescence in my proposal. We have already remarked upon the extraordinary- irregularities and delays that made the intercourse between the publisher and writer all through their long connection a constant succession of risks and alarms. There are sheaves of notes like the follow- ing in the correspondence : — However painful to myself, and I fear also to you, I am obliged to give up the attempt to do a 'Noctes.' I have tried as earnestly as I could, and I cannot. If I could I would, on all accounts, my own as well as yours. I have sat up three nights tUl 3 o'clock and done nothing but utter heavy nonsense, which I have thrown into the fire; a bad 'Noctes' would do more harm than any one thing else. My mind has been incapable of doing what it was my most anxious wish to do ; and that being the case truly, it must be put up with, and nothing said on the subject, except a hope that it will be other- wise next month, and any heaviness of this number redeemed then. It will pain me to see you annoyed at this. I will do what I can : nobody can do more. For more than two months I have not had more than two entire days of anything like peace of mind. I cannot write 314 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. more on a subject so distressing. But till a fortnight or rather more, one hour's rest of mind or body has been rare to me. Mrs W.'s life was long in imminent danger, and her health is yet precarious. As for my own, I have suffered a great deal more than any one knows. But for the present no more. Two weeks ago I was beginning to get easy again, and began to do some- thing ; but John, my boy, was suddenly taken dangerously ill, and fainted so often that the medical men did not know what to make of it. If this, and more than this by far, does not excuse a man for being incapacitated for writing, what in God's name does ? As to my friendship, you have it as before ; but I have not read a book or written a word, except lately three or four letters, since I came here. God only knows all I have suffered, and if you have been angry your anger has been misplaced. Many of these notes are marked, being without date, with that of their reception by the publisher, written with an exasperated pencil, in all the elo- quence of a protest and appeal to heaven and earth, like the following: "Received at 10 o'clock at night, Dec. 9." The day of publication was the 20th in those days, and the Professor had not yet put pen to paper : — Tell Eobert to call on me to-morrow on his way to the shop, and let me see exactly how things are. Everything has conspired to make me useless ; but I think things have been as bad before, and I shall furnish the articles manfully yet. The Homer (when done) may go in anywhere, and thus no time be lost. This very night am I obliged to go out, else my daughter Margaret must stay at home from a party : I forgot it. Curse me if I do not get them done right, in spite of all the demons in Dulness' halls. We fear that Blackwood, though very soft-hearted towards the maidens and their merry-makings, having BEHIND THE SCENES. 315 two of his own, would not be very indulgent towards Miss Margaret and her party, on that occasion at least. These scraps of hasty letters take us behind the scenes, and let us see how hard it was to keep all in working order : and how doubly hard to drive a winged steed in the vehicle which is to carry your eggs to market, over all the rough roads and harsh macadam of the half-made ways. It is much steadier driving nowadays, when the teams are so much tamer, and the roads crushed smooth by endless merchan- dise. And yet perhaps it was a different rate of going, with all its risks and continual danger of upsetting, in the old heroic days. It is not necessary here to enter into the details of Wilson's private history, which have already formed the subject of a biography — well and modestly done, so far as he was concerned, though with many mistakes in regard to other people — by his daughter ; nor of his legend — the myth and tradition of Christopher North — his crutch, his convivialities, the symposia in which he was the chief figure, which originated in the earliest days of the Magazine, and continued so long. He lived to be an old man — one of the landmarks of the faithful city which has a knack of turning its favourites into demigods. A Norse demigod, not a Greek, was Wilson, with his yellow locks hanging about his great shoulders. It is one of the recollec- tions of my early days to have been taken to see him — a young writer, much abashed with so novel a character — when he was near the end of his life. My companion and patron was Dr Moir, the gentle "Delta" of Blackwood, the well -beloved physician, 316 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. whom everybody delighted to honour. Professor Wilson came to us, large, and loosely clad, with noiseless large footsteps such as some big men have the gift of: his hair thin, which had been so abun- dant, and dimmed out of its fine colour, but still picturesquely falling about his ears, making a back- ground for his still ruddy countenance. My friend said something, perhaps a little conventionally, about my modest achievement in literature, and that I must be warned against overwork. " No need of that," said Christopher; "so long as she is young and happy work wiU do her no harm." I have great difficulty in realising that the little person who gazed reverentially upon that majestic old figure, as upon one of the fore- fathers, judges, and lawgivers among men, had any connection with myself; but the picture remains very clear upon the mind, as though of yesterday — the two men, both transfigured in a pair of young eyes, the large old poet like a tower, and opposite to him the keen Scots professional man, clean shaved and closely shorn, genial and kind, with the glimmer of gentle poetry in him, which all the kind brethren swore by, though it was but a modest taper. Wilson by that time had almost ceased to work, yet not long before had published a belated series called ' Chris- topher under Canvas,' in which there were many fine pieces of poetical criticism, like diamonds among the rinsings of the mine : but the world had outgrown him by that time. CHAPTEE VII. THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD. AN INHEKENT VANITY — A KIND PATRONESS — " A PEEQUBNT GUEST AT HIS grace's table" — AN UNCOMPROMISING CRITIC — "THE TENT" — JAMIE LAIDLAW'S PRATER FOR COW WAT — AT ABBOTSEORD — LAIDLAW, HOGG, AND SCOTT — A UNIQUE USB TO MAKE OP A PUBLISHER — WRITING FOR ANOTHER MAGAZINE — A PRINTER'S FINE PEELINGS — THE MYSTERT OP THE PIPTY POUNDS — QUARRELS AND RECONCILIATION — 'MAGa' BECOMES A SERIOUS PERIODICAL A SHEPHERD WITHOUT ANY GUILE — A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS — DELTA " FEMININE PRIBBLE-PRABBLB " THE SHEPHERD'S HOME — MRS HOGG. It would be impossible in any record of ' Blackwood ' to leave out the Shepherd, who, whatever he might be in himself, was one of the most characteristic figures in the group which brought it into being — as he also takes a very definite place, in his often rude and rustic individuality, in that which surrounds Scott. This is immortality enough, one would think, for such a man, and extreme and extraordinary pro- motion ; but the Shepherd would not have thought so, who held his head as high as any, and thought himself badly treated, and was apt to babble about envy and injury, when the first place was not open to him. In his mature age Wilson (and indeed Lockhart too, and the other hands which worked at first on the ' Noctes ') 318 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. gave him a fictitious importance in that brilliant re- cord, putting the most beautiful speeches into his mouth, though sometimes, it must be added, holding him up on the keen spear of ridicule for the amuse- ment of the world. But he gained much more than he lost, and the Shepherd is perhaps the personage who best survives through the mists which have closed over that laughing company, half fictitious, half genuine, a truly characteristic and individual figure, with his head often among the stars, though his feet are the devious heavy feet of a son of the soU. His appearances amid the mass of papers which have been collected respecting the origin and early history of the Magazine are manifold : in letters innumerable, but rendered of little use from the fact that they are very often about money, and the shifts and scrapes of his not very fortunate career ; in songs, all, I presume, published at the time, but sunk into deepest oblivion now ; in scraps of proofs, of manuscripts, — a chiffonier's heap of rubbish, in which survive a few relics which retain a likeness of the man. There is no want of in- formation respecting James Hogg, for he himself pub- lished an Autobiography, the quite naive and simple vanity of which is more remarkable than the facts narrated. " I must apprise you," he says in a prefatorv note addressed to Scott, " that whenever I have occa- sion to speak of myself and my performances, I find it impossible to divest myself of an inherent vanity." The confession is made very complacently, as from one who knows and feels that he has occasion to be vainj and it is fully carried out in the pages that follow. He had scarcely begun to rhyme when " I told my friend, the Eev. James Nichol, that I had an inward hogg's thought of excelling burns. 319 consciousness that I should yet live to be compared with Burns ; and though I might never equal him in some things, I thought I might excel him in others." The friend " reprobated the idea " ; but yet, when Hogg's first poem was made known to the world, the assumption did not perhaps seem so audacious, for there are passages in ' The Queen's Wake ' which are of a delicate and visionary beauty, such as Burns never attempted. The poem of " Bonnie Kilmeny," for instance, in my own case one of the objects of a child's adoration, has still to my ear an exquisite sweetness and purity, a feeling which I think most readers must share. Mr Blackwood's first connection with the Shepherd was, as we have seen, on the occasion of the failure of the publisher, an Edinburgh man, unknown except locally, who published ' The Queen's Wake.' Blackwood had acted as trustee in the bankruptcy of Goldie, and did his best to secure the amount of his just remuneration to Hogg, who seems even at that period to have already been an acquaintance at least, and who was also known to Constable, to whom he took his first volume. He himself reports a conversation of his with Constable on the subject, which shows something of the mingled familiarity and rudeness for which the Shepherd was afterwards distinguished. Constable very naturally asked to see the manuscript which he was requested to publish. " What skill have you about the merits of a book ? " asked Hogg. " It may be so, Hogg," said he ; " but I know as well how to sell a book as any man, which should be some concern of yours ; and I know how to buy one, too ! " Hogg, on the whole, made not a bad thing of ' The 320 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Queen's Wake.' The particulars I have unfortunately mislaid : but so far as my. recollection serves me, the sum realised was £240 : which, indeed, as the profits on a small book of poetry, — well known as a generally unsaleable article, and which was his first introduc- tion to the world, — was comparatively a large sum, and would, we think, dazzle a provincial poet now; but the age was one which, in the flush of a poetic re- vival, read much poetry, and, what is perhaps of more importance, bought it. Even at this beginning of his career Hogg was not a young man. " I was forty," he says, "before I wrote 'The Queen's Wake' ;" and he had already had sharp experience of life, having been a farm-servant, a shepherd, and a small farmer, one after the other. At the time his first poem was written he was a resident in Edinburgh ; but soon after he was presented by the Duke of Buccleuch, in memory of the Duchess, who had died a short time before, with " the small farm of Altrive Lake, in the wilds of Yarrow." The Duchess had wished to give the poet a house, and this was the manner in which her husband carried out her wish. " In the letter he said, ' The rent shall be nominal ' ; but it has not even been nominal, for such a thing as rent has never once been mentioned." There was never a more pretty mode of patronage, nor a more touching way of paying regard to the wishes of the dead. This gift enabled the Shepherd to resume the mode of life that was natural to him, and one of the first letters we find gives a very pleasant picture of the household and habits of the farmer-poet, to whom his poetry was not only a crown but a solid foundation, meaning at this period of life prosperity and honour. THE TWELFTH ON ETTRICK. 321 as well as admission to a class of society quite inacces- sible to any other man of his degree. " I was a fre- quent guest at his Grace's table," he says, " and as he placed me always next him on his right hand, I en- joyed a great deal of his conversation." Hogg's posi- tion at the Duke's right hand may perhaps require authentication ; but he had unquestionably a still higher advancement, being received familiarly and kindly into his most intimate circle by Scott ; and in the young group of the Blackwood men he was at first an important figure. The following letter is dated from his little farmhouse among the hills, August 12, 1816, before as yet the great, enterprise of the Maga- zine had been taken up : — Jaynes Sogg to W. Blackwood. You may think me ungrateful in not writing to you as I promised, especially when you have been so mindful of me ; but once you see how barren my letter is, you will think different. There is not an article here that can have any interest to a citizen ; for though there are a number of blackcocks, muirf owl, &c., on our hills, there are such a crew of idle fellows (mostly from Ediaburgh, I daresay) broke loose on them to-day, that it seems to a peaceful listener at a distance like me as if the Trench were arrived at the Forest. Yet all this, and everything I have it in my power to mention, you know must take place of course. In fact, the people of Edinburgh should always write to their friends in the country, and never expect any answer. For my part, I know that all the letters I ever received from the country while I was there were most insipid, nor can it other- wise be. "We converse only with the elements, and our concerns are of the most trivial and simple nature. For my part, I feel myself so much at home here, and so much in the plain rustic state in which I spent my early years, that I have even forgot to think or muse at all, and my thoughts seem as vacant as the wilderness around me. I even wonder at some of my own past VOL. I. X 322 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. ideas. I have neither written nor corrected a line since I left Edinburgh, and as I never intend returning to it for any length of time, I think I may safely predict without the spirit of prophecy that you have seen the best, and most likely all, of my productions that you ever will see. They have gained me but little fame and far less profit ; and certainly the most graceful way of giving up the contest is to retire indignant into my native glens, and consort with the rustic friends of my early youth. This is no rhodomontade, my dear sir, but the genuine sentiments of my heart at this time. Do not, however, neglect to favour me still with a reading of all new works in my own way. I will return the ' Melodies,' but I will keep this and the future Nos. of the ' Eeview,' and you or Murray may debit me with it as cheap as you like. The ' Melodies ' bear a few striking touches of a master's hand, but there are some of them feeble, and I think they must be Lady B.'s. She is not equal to Moore for Melodies. I am still harassed with visitors, most of them what you Edinburgh people would call great skemps ; but there have been a few here whom I was truly glad to see, among whom I may mention Wilson, and Ballantyne^ in Kelso, whom you know I very much admire : but though the weather was delightful, and though he testified the highest delight with the scenery of our lakes, he was not at all in his usual spirits. Pray let me hear from you on every emergency, if it were but two or three lines ; the oftener the better. We have no post nor any carrier from this, and I neither know how nor when I am to get this letter carried. Query, Am I to get any new editions betwixt this and the N'ew Year ? Is ' The Thistle and the Eose ' abandoned for ever ? The works that followed were scarcely so successful as ' The Queen's Wake,' and Hogg's letters are chiefly- occupied by the announcement of ineffective volumes and negotiations for their publication. He was intro- duced to Mr Murray by Blackwood, and apparently raised an interest in the mind of that gentleman — who took a share with Mr Blackwood in several of his 1 The Ballantynes began business in Kelso. Hogg's prose works. 323 books, and was kind to the Shepherd, sending him books (' Emma,' for instance, which Murray considered likely to be a pleasing and profitable present to the Shepherd), and showing him much of the indulgent and good-humoured patronage which Hogg met with everywhere. Hogg himself was familiar and easy in his communication with all ; and even the great Murray did not daunt the outspoken poet. But Blackwood was his chief dependence and closest friend. Here is a proposal, however, of a kind which we may be sure the publisher, who took so con- scientious a view of his own responsibility, did not accept : — My ' Cottage Winter Nights ' is ready for the press : if you are for them, tell me. The conditions, of course, shall be of your own making for the first edition ; but, as I want money particularly, I will give you the copyright for £63, 7s. per volume of 300 pages. The work consists of the Eural and Traditional Tales of Scotland. They are simple, carelessly and ..Aadly written, but said to be very interesting. " The Bridal of I Balwood," which you read, is the longest tale ; not the best, but d fair specimen. I tell you the honest truth, which you may depend on ; but, to prevent you from plaguing me with altera- tions, you shall not see them till printed. Write me minutely about all these things. It is a great pity but that my poetry should have been published in three small neat volumes before this review had appeared. What the devil can be the risk in publishing 100 copies of the first vol., and 500 of each of the other two ? It would seem from the following letters, which were written in the summer of 1817, that at the period already described, when Blackwood was in the utmost trouble about the early series of the Magazine, and the two unsuccessful editors, Pringle and Cleg- 324 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, horn, Hogg was one of those to whom he appealed for help and sympathy, though, in the light of after- events, he seems an unlikely adviser. But at that period the Shepherd — the author of 'The Queen's "Wake,' who had not yet committed himself to any of the futilities of his after-life, but was considered to have a fine career before him — had perhaps more weight than at any after-period. The freedom and boldness of his opinions are amusing : he had at least no doubt in his own mind as to his qualifications as a literary adviser : — Altbive Lake, August 12, 1817. My hay-harvest is but just commenced, and is this year large in proportion to the hands I have to work it. Next month the Highland cattle come, so that I cannot get to Edinburgh at present without incurring a loss, for which my literary labours, if they are as usual, would but ill remunerate me. I am greatly concerned about your Magazine ; but I have some dependence on your spirit not to let it drop or relax till your literary friends gather again about you. Wilson's papers, though not perfect, have a masterly cast about them : a little custom would make him the best periodical writer of the age, — keep hold of him. I regret much that you have told me so little of your plan: if the name is to change, who is to be the editor, &c. For myself, I am doing nothing save working at hay, fishing, &c. Save two or three Hebrew Melodies, I have not written a line since I left Edinburgh. I cannot leave the country just now. Crafty always affirms that, of all classes ever he had to do with, the literary men are the worst and most ungrateful. I am very sorry to see this so often verified. The next, which gives a lively picture of his own wellbeing, must have been written not very long after, though it is without date : — I take the half of my last sheet of paper to write you a few lines, and implore of you not to insist on my coming to town hogg's home. 325 just yet. Believe me, you do not know what you ask. It is cruel in the extreme. Can I leave my fine house, my grey- hounds, my curling-stones, my silver punch-bowl and mug, my country friends, my sister, and my sweetheart, to come and plunge into general dissipation ? And, worst of all, can I leave Home, a house made by my own hand, and the most snug and comfortable that ever perhaps was made, to be a lodger in the house of another, my own ingle-cheek, dish, and night-gown, with my parents [waiting] assiduously on me — only to be a pest to others or to [pay] horridly for lodgings and keep the same establishment at home. I know it is all kindness and affection in you ; but they are misdirected, for every one who ■wishes me to spend my life happUy would wish me to spend it at home. Besides, I cannot take any hand in managing the publication, or pushing the sale of my own works. If delicacy even permitted it, I am the worst hand in the world to do such a thing. Further than the proofs, I can do nothing. You are right. The Magazine is a most excellent one. I never was so much diverted with anything as with the expedition to the Kirk of Shotts. The next letter shows the very different regime which was now in operation, to which Hogg's advice was quite unnecessary, and himself sometimes treated with but scant courtesy, which, however, in the early days of the Magazine, and beginning of the wild pranks of the ' Noctes,' he had the discretion to take in very good part. It begins with an apology for not writing before a visit of Mr Blackwood's to London : — James Hogg to W. Blackwood. Altbivb, Octobtr 29, 1819. I had nothing to write about that you did not know before. I knew you would make such arrangements with Murray about the "Works, and Jacobite Eelics, as you judged best for me ; for though I am of late beginning to have some inward feelings of your remissness as a publisher, I have never had one of your truth and affection as a friend. I wrote a long letter to Wilson 326 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. on the subject of "The Tent"; though not a communication, it might be called a letter of localities, which he might have availed himself of. To my great regret that letter was lost. But really I had been so much mortified by the refusal of all my pieces that I cannot bear to think of writing for the Maga- zine now. And though I always praise it above all other periodical works, and wish it with all my heart every success, yet would I rather sit down and write for the shabbiest work in the kingdom, where everything I write is received. Indeed, I have always felt that to whatever I gave my desired ad- hesion, I might have disgraced myself, but my name now should not be a disgrace to any literary work. I think that all my friends, without exception, think that the editors have dealt cavalierly with me in "The Tent" verses, and that their versification is meant to injure my literary character throughout. I have judged as impartially of the thing as I can, and I do not see it. I think it is excellent sport, and very good-natured sport besides. I might pretend to be angry — I could easily do that — but the truth is I am not. I do not see that the contrast between such an ignorant, blundering, good-natured fellow and his poetry can have anything but a good effect. I only wish the quiz on my worthy friend Dr Eussell had been left out, as I am universally blamed for it here, and it is likely to cherish a good deal of ill-will among friends that were formerly so happy together. The Shepherd did not always continue so good- natured. He complains somewhere, and one must feel with very good reason, of having ballads and verses of all kinds which he had never seen put into his mouth ; and this indeed was hard, even if the verses — as possibly was the case — were better than his own. One little criticism creeps in even into the above good-natured letter: "With all their cleverness and carelessness of composition (which has generally, I think, a good grace), I cannot help feeling that the two last numbers are too egoistical, which never has a A HIGHLY-EESPECTED SHEPHERD. 327 good grace." This is very well said, though perhaps Hogg himself, the most egoistical of writers, was not the man to say it. The following letter, addressed to Mr Blackwood, but the beginning of which has been changed from " Dear Sir " into " Dear Christopher," as if intended for publication, though it has no appearance of having gone through any printer's hands, may be quoted as a good specimen of Hogg in prose, in one of the rustic stories of which he afterwards printed so many, and which are now absolutely forgotten. It will show what was the realism of that early day in comparison with the present much-prevailing Literature of the Kailyard, as it has been aptly called. , Hogg has nothing ornamental or sentimental in his unvarnished tale : — I enclose you a very curious letter from a cousin-german of my own to his son, who still remains in this country. . . . The writer [Laidlaw] was a highly respected shepherd, and as suc- cessful as most men in the same degree of life ; but for a number of years bygone he talked and read about America till he grew perfectly unhappy ; and at last, when approaching his sixtieth year, actually set off to seek a temporary home and a grave in the New World: but some of his sons had formed attachments at home, and refused to accompany him. He was always a singular and highly amusing character, cherishing every antiquated and exploded idea in science, religion, and politics. He never was at any school, and what scraps of education he had obtained had been picked up by himself. Ifothing excited his indignation more than the theory of the earth whirling round on its axis and journeying round the sun : he had many strong logical arguments against it, and nailed them all with Scripture. When he first began to hear tell of North America, about twenty years ago, he would not believe that Fife was not it ! and thought he saw it from the 328 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Castlehill of Edinburgh. I remember, and always will, a night that I had with him about nineteen years ago. He and one Walter Bryden, better known by the appellation of Cow Wat, along with James Hogg, the celebrated Ettrick tailor, and my- self, were together in a little change-house one evening. After the whisky had begun to operate, Laidlaw and Cow Wat went to loggerheads about [free] will, on which their tenets of belief totally differed. The dispute was carried on with such acrimony on both sides that Wat had several times heaved his great cudgel, and threatened to knock his opponent down. Laidlaw, perceiving that the tailor and I were convulsed with laughter, joined us for some time with all his heart ; but all at once he began to look grave, and the tear stood in his eye. " Ay, ye may laugh," said he ; " great gommerals ! it's weel kent ye are just twae that laugh at everything that's good. You have mair need to pray for the puir auld heretick than laugh at him, when you see he's on the braid way that leads to destruction. I'm really sorry for the puir auld scoondrel, and troth I think we sude join and pray for him. For my part I sal lend my mite." With that he laid off his old slouched hat, and kneeled down on the floor, leaning forward on a chair, where he prayed a long prayer for Cow Wat, as he familiarly termed him, when repre- senting his forlorn case to his Maker. I do not know what I would give now to have a copy of that prayer. It was so cut- ting that before the end Wat rose up, foaming with rage, heaved his stick, and cried, "I tell ye, gie ower, Jamie Laidlaw; I winna be prayed for that gate." If there were different places and degrees of punishment, he said, as the auld hoary reprobate maintained — that was to say, three or four hells — then he prayed that poor Cow Wat might be preferred to the easiest ane. We couldna expect nae better a place for sic a man, and indeed we would be ashamed to ask it. But, on the ither hand, continued he, if it be true that the object of our petitions cheated James Cunningham and Sandy o' Bowershope out of from twa to three hunder pounds o' lamb-siller, why we can hardly ask such a situation for him ; and if it be further true that he left his ain wife, Nanny Stothart, and took up with another (whom he named, name and surname), really we have not the face to ask any mitigation for him at a'. AN INDIGNANT AUTHOR. 329 The tailor and I, and another — I forget who it was, but I think it was probably Adie o' Aberloch — were obliged to hold Wat by main force upon his chair till the prayer was finished. Whether this letter and the other which it enclosed shared the fate of all the " pieces " which were so remorselessly refused by the authorities of the Maga- zine, we cannot tell ; but we find presently that Hogg had been transferring his works to another publisher without Mr Blackwood's knowledge, a practice which seems not to have been unusual with him. It would seem that Blackwood had remonstrated, and the Shepherd rephes as follows. The manner in which, in defending himself against that just wrath, he sud- denly introduces a hot blast of his own grievances, is clumsUy skilful in its use of a well-known artifice : — James Hogg to W. Blackwood. I do not know how to answer your letter : it has put me in my ill-humour. I see no right you nor the nearest friend has to interfere with my bargains with other men. It is a maxim with the trade to monopolise every author whom they once publish a book for, and that no other man may take a share on any conditions. If you do not remember the transaction of refusing to take 'The Mountain Bard' into the proposals for the small edition of my works, I do, which is quite sufficient for my purpose. I pressed the works on Boyd, so that he is blameless, and intend to give him, or rather the Company, more, as soon as I have them at command. I never doubted either your honour or your friendship, but friendship will not sell my editions. Oliver & Boyd have sold 1500 copies of my tales in five months, and have already given me a letter for the price of the next edition. One cannot help making comparisons in their own mind. If you are really my friend, will you not allow me this, that if Oliver & Boyd sell more of ' The Mountain Bard ' in one year than you and your London friends do of 'The 330 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Queen's Wake ' in seven, will you not allow that I do right in letting them have such editions as suit their sale ? I am almost rueing the day that I ever saw you. I have had letters, newspapers, and magazines poured in upon me from every part of the country. No one has any right to publish aught in my name without consulting me. I cannot be embroiled with the public in this way, and far less right have others to intermeddle thus publicly with what liberties I think proper to allow my friends. It is confoundedly hard that I should be made a tennis-ball between contending parties. If you can find out by the write or otherwise who the shabby scoundrel is that writes the enclosed, pray return it to him in a blank cover. Eemember, never more mention to me my bargain with any others. I will bargain with whom I please and when I please, and for you to tell me your mind on such a subject was any- thing but friendly, especially a work which you never had any connection with, and never wished any. But, alas ! the Shepherd's high-handed loftiness of tone soon breaks down in an urgent plea in respect to a fifty pounds which, whether it is due to him or not, as an advance upon future work, or on account of profits reckoned upon with much more confidence by author than by publisher, is at least very much wanted. Blackwood was on the eve of a journey to London, and "if you go away I may be left in the lurch, having no other certain resource." It would appear to have been Murray who ought to have paid this fifty pounds, and there is repeated discussion whether Mr Scott should be asked to write to him, or Mr Blackwood to speak to him, which the latter declines to do. "I dare not let you away without making sure of the cash," says Hogg. This fifty pounds, or another, is always cropping up to pull the Shepherd's spirits down, or to make him feel UNTHRIFTY SCOTS. 331 with greater bitterness the want of confidence shown in his gifts and in his power to please the pubHc. For he was no thrifty Scot, unfortunately for himself, any more than Burns was, or, on a larger argument, Scott himself, the leader and head of his generation. It is curious, indeed, how little this supposed national characteristic appears in the greatest of Scotsmen, though we should not attempt to place Hogg in that category. The Shepherd was always in sore need of that fifty pounds. Here, however, is a sketch in the first year of the Magazine, in a letter dated from Abbotsford, of a happier record. At that moment he was no neglected contributor, but, to his own consciousness, putting a powerful shoulder to the wheel, in cheerful confidence of being no insignificant member of the team. We think he had some hand in the suggestion of Will Laidlaw as one of the regular staff. And the glimpse he affords us of that homely workman, and of the kind master's hand which trimmed up and put in order the monthly Chronicle supplied by Laidlaw, is attractive and delightful : — Along with Scott's and Laidlaw's contributions to your miscellany, I also enclose my mite, a little Hebrew melody, which was written for a London work, but not yet published. Perhaps I may get my tale finished likewise before I leave this, which I will forward ; but now when I see so much good original matter here I am not anxious. I actually pop'd in on Mr Scott on Saturday in the very act of toiling for you, uncompanionable being that you are, taking up all the poets and men of genius in the country peddling at your small hard- wares ! I have spoken to Laidlaw and Scott, both separately and together, about the detail business of the Magazine. The former is perfectly willing to do either way, but thinks that 332 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. with a little attention on your part in forwarding papers, fixed instructions, &c., he might do it well enough, and he appears to me to be taking a good deal of pains to that. If the Eegister is defective, I will scarcely think it his blame. Scott spoke with so much impatience of it that I did not think meet to dwell on the subject. My own opinion is, since an arrangement between you is understood to exist, it should stand as it is for a season or a volume: at least it looks so unstable to propose alterations by the time things are well begun. If Scott sees the least symptom of your neglect of Laidlaw, I find he is off at a tangent at once ; and it is not only that the want of his support would injure your work, but what his name would effect in your opponent's: policy is requisite even with the greatest heroes. Now that Laidlaw has furnished one anecdote of the shepherd's dog, mine will follow better next month. Go on with my Tales, so that I may not say you will not publish anything. If any sheets require to be sent to me, send them under cover to the Duke of Buccleuch. The reader will see by reference to a previous chapter how little need there was for Hogg's supposed menagement, and how simply Scott himself treated the difficulty of Laidlaw as to the monthly Register. The anecdote of the shepherd's dog referred to, and which has been already noted in these pages, is a piece of admirable composition, bearing very clear marks of the master's hand. In a postscript to this letter Hogg adds : — I spoke to Scott of our plan of an octavo edition of the works. He is decided on the plan, and thinks it should be put about immediately. He wishes for one copy of his pros- pectus before he writes the new advertisement, which please forward to him by next coach, reminding him shortly of the purpose for which it is sent, or he may forget it among so many concerns. A BENIGN SHADOW. 333 This refers to a subscription edition of Hogg's works, which had been projected some time before. It had been originally intended to be printed in two volumes, but Murray strongly advised one as more saleable. The printed prospectus for the original scheme had therefore to be changed on this sug- gestion, and I have the amended prospectus, half printed, supplemented with a further advertisement in Scott's handwriting, pressing the Shepherd's claims. Thus, writing an article for one humble friend, draw- ing out the prospectus of another, cordial with both as a brother, we see Scott's benign shadow behind these two rustic writers, backing up both. Both of them liked to surround him with a halo of the un- approachable : Hogg finding him impatient, ready to start off at a tangent ; Laidlaw professing himself afraid to bring some point of detail under his notice — while he, unconscious, and much the most ready to understand of all, gently brushes these cobwebs away. Scott appears constantly as the adviser and helper of the Shepherd, sometimes giving him advice that is not palatable, sometimes backing him up with the most friendly steadfastness. There is mention in another letter of a book, " a romance," which Hogg desires to publish anonymously : — James Hogg to W. Blackwood. And if you did not really consider it an object to you, I would rather have it in some respectable company's hands in London. I not only think that you make your general publishing a very subordinate consideration, but I do not like to have all my ventures, however small, in one hand. I was down on a long visit at Fleurs, Kelso, Abbotsford, &c., and saw a good deal of Scott. I told him of my work and 334 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. of my plan, but he did not approve of it. He asked if you had dealt honourably by me ? I said always like a brother ; but I feared that you were so much engaged with your mis- cellany that you were careless as a publisher. This he would not 'admit of. A man's own interest, he said, would improve that: and finally said, if my work was an object to you, as my friend you should have it ; if not, he would assist me in making any bargain. I do not suspect you, my dear friend, in that sense. I know that ' The Brownie ' should have gone through more editions than either two or three. I have been assured of it again and again by gentlemen that had no inter- ested motive in saying so, and who know better than either you or me. One gentleman told me that from the interest with which it was first read in London he considered it would have sold as well as any novel ever published; but that the work appeared to all men to have been suppressed, and was never yet to be had in a shop in England. I beg you will not mention this work to any one living, as I mean to send it to press in a different handwriting, and positively to deny it. But as I never met with anything but candour and truth from you, I am resolved not to do anything underhand. I wish you would publish the Jacobite Songs, and really let folk hear a little of the works you are going to publish and have published, if it were only on the cover of a Magazine. It will not do merely to get them printed and make Lesley bring them up in large bales to the shop. Mine are carefully kept out of all your lists. But enough of reflection : a dull author, I am aware, always blames his publisher. I have looked over the Magazine, which is a very commonplace one. A second letter on the same subject shows still more fully the confidence of Hogg in the good-nature of the publisher whom he wishes to deprive of the advantage of producing his book, but who magnanimously takes in hand to procure another bookseller for him : — As the carrier has missed a week, I have time to add a few words more to those enclosed. There is really scarce a praetic- A NEW PUBLISHEK. 335 ability of correspondence with any part of the world from this place, and to me it has no other fault whatever. I really would like better that my book were published in London, because my bookseller and stile are so well known that I may as well put my name to it as publish it with you. I do not know about the transaction. I myself will never try to do it, and I take it very kind in you offering your experi- enced hand, though it is only of a piece with all your doings formerly. It is, however, somewhat ticklish. Should I trust it solely to Mr Scott, it would be conducted through the medium of Ballantyne, and would likely fall into hands I should not like, most probably Hurst & Eobinson. I might as well give up all previous connections and publish it at home. With Murray and Cadell or Davies I should be iii the same scrape as with yourself. I really think, then, that you should try your hand with Longman & Co., and if you cannot arrange matters, we shall try what can be done some other way. Be sure you keep them in the dark : I would not even tell them the name, but merely that it is a Eomance or Tale of Chivalry, in two volumes, descriptive of the characters of the English and Scots Borderers in ancient times. I re- member of having a letter once from Longman & Co., wherein they stated one-sixth to be their proportion of the author's profits, but that, indeed, was on a small edition. However, I leave this entirely to yourself. If you think proper to do this, the sooner you begin the correspondence the better, as I would like to have everything ready for throwing it off in the spring when I am in town. This perhaps is a unique instance of the employ- ment of one publisher to arrange terms with another for the publication of a book. The book in question was probably one called ' The Three Perils of Man,' published by Messrs Longman, apparently in 1822. " Lord preserve us ! what a medley I made of it ! for I never in my life rewrote a page of prose," says Hogg in his Autobiography ; " and being impatient to get hold of some of Messrs Longman's money or 336 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. their bills, which were the same, I dashed on, and mixed up with what might have been one of the best historical tales our country ever produced such a mass of diablerie as retarded the main story, and rendered the whole perfectly ludicrous." Blackwood, it is clear, was well out of the undertaking, but it was not wholly unprofitable to the Shepherd, who received " one hun- dred and fifty pounds for the edition of one thousand copies as soon as it was put to the press." Another work, entitled ' The Three Perils of Woman,' seems to have had a similar measure of success. All this press and eagerness of publication was intended to install Hogg in the new and larger farm of Mount Benger, which eventually ruined him, so far as a man in his position, with so little need for keeping up appearances, and so buoyant a spirit, could be ruined. He had the same object in his volume of Jacobite Relics, which was undertaken by Messrs Blackwood and Murray, and about which he writes a great many letters. Here is another char- acteristic grumble. It is evidently written on the occasion of one of Mr Murray's visits to Scotland, when he was at Abbotsford, and engaged with a greater than Hogg. The Shepherd never was able to see any reason why he himself and his concerns should not be always interesting : — James Hogg to W. Blackwood. I was vexed that I got so little cracking with Murray. Scott and he had so many people to crack about, whom nobody knows ought about but themselves, that they monopolised the whole conversation. Tell me seriously, is the sale of my Tales really sticked, that neither of you will mention them, either by writing BEGINNING TO FEEL A COLD SIDE. 337 or word of mouth? There is surely no impropriety in my making this inquiry. Poor Hogg by this time, however, had grown into a general sense of injury with all the world. The free use made of his name in all the jests of the Magazine was quite enough to inflame a man of his temper, feeling himself at a disadvantage, even through the tough armour of his self- conceit. He threw forth freely complaints, criticisms, and threats. On one occasion he desires that various articles he had sent should be returned to him : — I have been quizzed too much by your chaps already ; I will not so easily take again. I am writing for another Magazine, with all my birr, and intend having most excellent sport with it, as the editors will not understand what one sentence of my celebrated allegories mean till they bring the whole terror of Edinburgh aristocracy upon them. For the soul that is in your body mention this to no man living. You have quite forgot to send me a newspaper. I care not though they lie two or three days in the shop. A Saturday paper is soon enough to me by Wednesday's post, or a Wednesday paper by the Saturday one. There are some very able papers in the last Magazine, but I do not think the selection likely to add much to its popularity. On another occasion : — This last number is not near so interesting as the former : there is too much of pompous fine writing in it, at least at- tempts at it. Such papers as that declamatory one on the state of parties are not the kind of political papers that will stand the test. But enough of that which is not agreeable : no wonder that I begin to feel a cold side to a work which holds such an avowed one to me. An amusing little quarrel seems to have taken place about Hogg in the summer of 1821, which, as it shows something of the publisher's attitude, and is in itself VOL. I. Y 338 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. a curious little passage of arms, may be given here, Hogg's Autobiography, a work very offensive to many persons, and open to the severest criticism, had been commented on very freely, and certainly with no deli- cacy of treatment, in the Magazine. James Ballantyne was at the time the printer employed by Blackwood. And here is his protest against the coarse and un- lovely fun of the article. We imagine it would startle the publishers of to-day, almost as much as Balaam was startled by an unlooked-for remonstrance, did there proceed from any printing-office charged with their work an indignant appeal like this : — James Ballantyne to W. Blackwood. Do you really mean to insert that most clever but most indecently scurrilous attack upon Hogg ? For my own part, I do not stand up for Hogg's conduct ; but such language as is applied to him appears to me absolutely unwarrantable, and in your Magazine peculiarly and shockingly offensive. You will do as you think best certainly ; but I must at once say that if it goes in I must withdraw, in all subsequent numbers, from the concern. How much I shall regret this on many accounts I need not say; but I cannot allow such an article to appear with even my implied approbation attached to it. It is hard, you may think, that an editor should be fettered by his printer ; but I cannot help this. The printer must not be made to encounter what he considers to be disgrace. Mr Blackwood immediately replied as follows : — W. Blackwood to James Ballantyne, The article on Hogg is to be very much altered indeed, else you may depend upon it that / could not allow it to appear. But really of this you must permit me to be judge, for, dis- agreeable and unpleasant as it would be for us to part, I cannot submit to be told what / must not insert in the Magazine. My character and interest are at stake, and you may depend upon A PRETTY QUARREL. 339 it that nothing will appear in the Magazine but what it will be both for my credit and interest to publish, and, of course, for you to print. While I feel myself obliged to say this, I beg to assure you that nothing will give me greater pleasure than to receive any remarks from you at all times. As a friend, I will value them, as you know that no man is more open to reason than I am ; but as your favourite Bard says, " Not upon compulsion, Hal." All I shall add is, that I hope we shall never have two words of difference upon this or any other subject that will be un- pleasant to either of us. But Signer Aldiborontiphoscophornio could not let well alone : — James Ballardyne to W. Blachwood. Surely, my dear sir, I never could say or hint that you were not the sole and irresponsible judge of what is to be inserted in your own Magazine ? Certain it is, at least, that I had no in- tention to convey any such absurd meaning, and I hereby dis- claim it as strongly as possible. All that I meant to say was — and surely the earlier and the more explicitly it was said the better — that I regarded the article on Hogg, as it at present stands, as of such a nature that if it were published in its present shape I could not continue to be the printer. This, you are aware, is only exerting in my own case that power of judging and deciding which every man of independence must exert in order to secure the continuance of his independence. I assure you, my dear sir, I am far too well aware of the value of your employment and confidence hastily or rashly to forfeit it ; and I think nothing is more likely than that in most cases that regard the feelings of honourable minds we shall agree ; and I truly rejoice that great alterations are to be made in the article, x ou will allow that it needs them. This ill-judged attempt to have the last word, and show his superiority, brought down the following thunderbolt upon Ballantyne's head. It is dashed off 340 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. in a hurry, the hrouillon, according to Blackwoodian custom, hot and strong, being written upon the back of the culprit's letter: — W. Blackwood to J. Ballantyne. All that I have to say in answer to your note, which I have this moment read, is that if your former letter meant anything, it certainly meant that you were to be the judge of what it was fitting for you to print. And while I think it is right and proper for every man to reject or retain any employment that may be offered to him, it quite revolts against all my feelings to be placed in such an alternative as you so positively announce to me in your letter. What I would have reckoned both kind and proper of you at any time was to tell me when any article struck you as objectionable, both on your account and my own ; and if you then found me unreasonable, or thought at any rate I was so, and that you would be injured even by printing such a thing, though no way responsible as publisher, you could then act as you thought best. But really, in the first instance, to tell me plump that you must decline, &c., does not appear to me like what I should have expected from you. However, nothing more need be said. Ballantyne seems to have conquered any desire he may have had to reply, and everything went on as before : but the little exhibition of character on both sides — the one, conscious of being no common printer, a little showy and explanatory, bent on flourishing his flag, the other decisive in cutting it down — affords an amusing episode. It is referred to in a letter from Blackwood to Hogg further on. The article in question was published, with a note appended from Christopher North, to the effect that it was all a joke, and possibly written by the Shepherd himself — which, we presume, was intended to be conciliatory. But fortunately it is not at all necessary to enter into so THE FIFTY POUNDS. 341 unattractive a subject. It adds, however, a fine variety to the too common situation to see behind the wild wits in the foreground and the clown of genius red and resentful in his clumsy exasperation — the plain man behind holding the reins, not without a strain and effort, and rather glad upon occasion to let loose his own provoked feelings upon any chance objector who came in his way. We have said there was always a £50 which on some account or other Hogg was convinced that either Mr Blackwood or Mr Murray owed him, and which he was bent on extracting from the former, either directly or by a letter to be written by him to Murray. The transaction had been repeated so often, now on one ground, now on another, that the reader by degrees comes to think of it as a sort of floating property upon which the Shepherd could always calculate, which he called in from time to time, yet could always go back upon, finding it perennially available. We have little doubt that this had grown to be Hogg's own view. And he was always in want of £50. He was so con- stantly in want of it, and so many chances had occurred, softenings on the part of Blackwood, im- pulses of careless generosity on the part of Murray, to procure it for him, that he went on asking for it with a degree of innocency that obliterated the real facts of the case altogether. But a publisher's temper and nerves were not invulnerable any more than those of other men ; and whether it was that the claim was less warranted than usual, or that Blackwood was completely tired out by its repetition, it is evident that he was moved to make a stand against it from time to time. Hogg's letters are the most curious 342 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. medley of entreaty, remonstrance, and abuse, the latter predominating even when he had a favour to ask. We need not go more closely into the corre- spondence, which on this particular subject is volu- minous : discussing in detail the ground upon which the claim is founded, the desirability, if not of pay- ing it forthwith, at least of writing to somebody who must pay it : along with that perennial grievance of the author who cannot understand how it is that his books do not pay, and is convinced that some wicked- ness of the publisher, false accounts, or indolence in pushing, or a small edition instead of a larger one, or utter indifference to the success of a given book altogether, is the cause of it. Mr Blackwood's replies to a great many of these troublesome demands become at last very decided though still friendly. Hogg, it will be seen, was very critical concerning other publi- cations which were more fortunate than his own : — W. Blackwood to James Hogg. \Uh May 1821. It is very odd, indeed, that Mr Murray has paid no attention to your letters. I would be very happy if it were in my power, but I regret that at present it is not, for as to interfering in any way with Mr Murray, it is a thing that I could not think of doing. It would also be very indelicate in me to apply to Sir Walter Scott, who, if he were to do you the favour to make any advance on Mr Murray's account, would most certainly expect you to apply to him direct yourself and not through another. At the same time, you cannot say that Mr Murray is due you more than the £50 on account of 'The Queen's Wake,' for it depends upon the copies sold what may be due for 'The Brownie.' ... If Sir Walter would write to him, I am sure he would not refuse to settle. I think you might draw a bill upon Mr Murray for ' The Queen's Wake,' and send it through a banker, writing him at the same time that you have done so. This Hogg's criticism. 343 he would surely honour, and it would not trouble Sir Walter — a thing concerning which there can be no dispute or objection. It is with regard to ' The Brownie ' that you require Sir Walter's assistance. As to giving you any assistance myself I am very sorry I cannot, for just now I have fully as much to do as I can well manage. You know I never in my life before refused you any money you ever asked from me, and therefore I hope you will excuse me for once. I am surprised at your having such a very humble opinion of the ' Parish Annals,' but I am happy to tell you that it is very differently estimated by Mr Henry Mackenzie, Sir Walter Scott, Professor Wilson, Mr Lockhart, and fifty others, who are all loud in its praises. I am also happy to say that you are mistaken as to its sale, for in three or four days there were nearly 500 copies sold in London, and I have already sold here nearly 400 copies. In short, I have seldom published a more popular or valuable book. I do not understand what you allude to when you say I let men of real genius slip through my fingers. I should be much obliged to you if you would tell me what you mean. Mrs B. desires me to say that she thinks you are improvident in giving the young Christian two names, for you may perhaps, like us, run out of laddies' names. She begs to be remembered kindly to Mrs Hogg. This note, uneasily severe, redeemed by the amus- ing touch of family kindness at the end, shows the struggle with very natural resentment which was going on in Blackwood's breast. In the next his sentiments are more distinct and precise : — W. Blackwood to James Hogg. June 6, 1821. Yesterday I received yours of the 2nd. As you say you had mislaid my letter, I conclude that you have forgotten its con- tents, else you would not have said that I wrote " snapping at 344 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, you." I wrote to you simply and fairly that I consider it would be most indelicate of me to apply to Sir Walter, who, if he were inclined to do you a favour, would naturally expect you should apply for it yourself. I think so still, and so will any one who knows anything of the world or of common - sense. As to interfering with Mr Murray, I have told you all along it is a thing which I cannot do. . . . You should write to Sir Walter Scott, and if he would have the goodness to apply to Mr Murray for you, I have no doubt that he would get the accounts of 'The Brownie' closed with me, and whatever balance was due to you would be immediately paid. I must tell you frankly you need not have made such a supposition as that I had resolved to withdraw from you my confidence and friendship. I have never made any professions to you, either in words or by writing, but what you have had the most substantial evidence of their truth and sincerity. You never in your life asked anything from me but what I instantly granted, if in my power. You thought others could be of more use to you ; and though I might have expected a little consider- ation for my feelings, if not for what I had done for you, yet you know this made no alteration in my conduct towards you; and I settled all our transactions as if nothing of the kind had occurred, and in a way which you were satisfied was highly liberal. It is most painful to me to allude to any of these things, and I never wish to think of them ; but you force me to do so, by your seeming to expect that I should again make you advances of money. This I really cannot afford to do, and I hope you will be satisfied that in present circumstances you should not expect it. According to your desire I called last night at Mr Grieve's, but found, most unfortunately, that he had gone to the country. I was very sorry for this, as I have never heard a syllable from him with regard to the bond of credit. I am as willing as ever to be security for the sum you proposed, provided, as I told you, that Mr Grieve approves of it, and sees that it is really to be useful to you. The bond of credit referred, as the Scottish reader will perceive, to the standing credit with his banker, 'the brownie. 345 which, when guaranteed by solvent persons, it is the system of the Scottish banks to give. It is also the traditionary means by which in many a story, and alas ! in many iocidents in real life, the unfortunate surety is ruined; but it still ranks in Scotland, we believe, as a service which a man can reasonably ask of his friends. Blackwood was surety to the Bank for James BaUantyne, and also for Hogg, and probably many more. The quarrel went on in a way which is almost de rigueur between author and publisher — Hogg assert- ing that ' The Brownie ' (' Brownie of Bodsbeck,' a collection of tales published by Blackwood and Murray which had not been successful — but this the author was naturally unwiQiag to believe) was to appear in an edition of 2000 ; Blackwood calmly proving by enclosure of the printer's account that it was nothing of the kind : Hogg insisting that by means of this mistake he had written imperatively to Mr Murray, and been " too precipitate" ; Blackwood replying that the mistake was entirely his own. It is a great misfortune to you [adds the publisherj that you allow your imagination to run away with your memory, and then, after allowing your mind to dwell on your own fancies, you positively assert them as truths. I am glad I have it in my power to put you right in a way you cannot dispute ; but it is the first time I have been under the neces- sity of bringing forward a printer's account to substantiate any of my statements, either with authors or with any of my correspondents. The correspondence after this becomes involved with other persons — a banker in Galashiels, who was to have retained in his hands a bill which was to be 346 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. applied in payment of another bill, — an involved negotiation, of which it is as difficult as wholly un- necessary to follow through the weary evolution, — and who advised Hogg that Mr Blackwood was " making a great deal of unnecessary fuss," an intimation which Mr Blackwood naturally resented. Hogg's utter con- fusion of mind, as he endeavours to thread his way through the convolutions of a series of transactions quite beyond his capacity, is half pathetic and half laughable : — James Hogg to W. Blackwood. I said I knew nothing about the routine of such business as how far an agent was entitlSd to give up any security he had received ; but I begged that at all events he would satisfy you in the meantime until I could see you. Mr Craig, though a most honourable and disinterested man, is noted for a sort of stubborn perverseness when in the least crossed ; and what may make him more cautious, perhaps, he has advanced me money for the other two-thirds of the bill on his own acceptances. I had lifted all my money and paid it away for stock (so we term live stock), so that I could not relieve your bill, else I should have done it this day ; for after you had given me your name so frankly to let me get the immediate use of that which was my own, you may guess how grieved I was at all this anger and jealousy, which was perfectly preposterous, for what effect has a letter on a bill ? Poor Shepherd ! what, indeed, had any of his ex- planations or complaints to do with that remorseless course of affairs which ordains that a man who has promised to pay should do so, whatever arguments, even of the most convincing character, he should be able to produce against it. This piteous letter, how- ever, did have the effect on the bill which was so GLORIOUS SPORT. 347 improbable ; for Mr Blackwood, in a very long and impatient letter, in which he announces that "it is from your total ignorance of business that you think I have made any fuss about this bill," ends by giving it up in despair. " I hope," he says, " from this ex- planation that you wUl see the thing in its proper point of view. All I have to add on this matter is that you need give yourself no further trouble about this bill in the meantime. I hope the money will be of use to you." One more letter follows. It begins sternly : — W. Blackwood to James Hogg. SiE, — You are so utterly ignorant of business that it is quite unnecessary for me to attempt to show you how completely you have misunderstood everything. ... As to the very ludicrous affair of a prosecution I say nothing. The very idea of such a thing certainly does " astonish " me, as it will every one who may happen to hear of it. Thus the connection which had been so long and so kind would seem to have come to an end. So at first sight of these letters the writer believed : and so it did — for half a year, — at the end of which time Hogg appears again unconquerable, with something which he thinks " either of two friends whom you know" could make "glorious sport" out of; and which he sends to his dear Ebony, some one else whose name is undecipherable having "positively refused to take it on the score of sheer terror." Mr Blackwood's letter in reply, we are glad to say, goes back to " Dear Hogg," and the old terms of friendship, though he is not tempted by the " glorious sport " : — 348 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. W. Blackwood to James Hogg. ^ 2ith May 1822. On coming home four days ago I was glad to see your letter and article. I regret that we cannot make use of it, from its having been previously offered to your friend. Besides, we have had quite enough of Jeffrey and the ' Edinburgh Eeview' lately. Your idea is an excellent one, and many parts of the article are very happily executed. Had it been put into certain hands some months ago, nothing could have answered better. Along with ' Maga ' I send Mrs Hogg ' Lights and Shadows/ 'The Provost,' and 'Gillespie's Sermons.' The literary connection, however, was not quite so easy to renew as the kindnesses. Hogg had not out- grown the age of glorious sport, when to bait an unfortunate victim and pursue him about the world for the laughter of the reader was the inspiration of the moment; but the Magazine, not any longer a dashing and reckless adventurer, but a very important undertaking, meaning both fame and fortune, had out- grown it. The Shepherd desired to return to the days of the Chaldee Manuscript; but these days were as completely over as if a hundred years had elapsed. His appearance with his new satire, and his softened tone, both of criticism and of friendship, make the following letter interesting : — Altrivb Lake, Jime 14, 1822. I have revised and rewritten " John Paterson's Mare," which I send you for publication in the M., as No. I. of an allegorical history of our miscellaneous literature. I cannot conceive, even with its previous faults, why your editors rejected it, for I am sure that a more harmless good-natured allegory was never written. It is, besides, quite unintelligible without a key, which should never be given. I think it will be next to the Chaldee in popularity, as it is fully as injurious. You are at A MORE AMIABLE MOOD. 349 liberty to alter any of the names you do not like : your own, for instance, I took merely because oak was a black wood, which may be construed differently. I think very highly of both the books you have sent me, but far most highly of ' Lights and Shadows,' in which there is a great deal of very powerful effect, purity, and sentiment, and fine writing, but with very little of real nature as it exists in the walks of Scottish life. The feelings and language of the author are those of romance: still it is a fine and beautiful work. I send you the accompanying article merely as a token that I have forgiven all that is past, and that I wish aU bygones to be bygones between us for ever. I cannot bear to live on terms of utter estrangement with a man from whom I ex- perienced so many repeated kindnesses and obligations. There is no man so apt to err in judgment as I am, but I trust none of my friends shall find my heart wrong. Mr Blackwood's reply pointed out very decidedly the particular points of difference to which we have referred — the advancement of the Magazine in serious- Tiess and sobriety, and the stationary character of the belated contributor, to whom there was no triumph higher than that of the Chaldee Manuscript. The publisher writes, with mingled consideration and superiority : — W. Blackwood to James Sogg. Edinbubqh, 18*^ June 1822. I have read "John Paterson's Mare," and I have laughed very heartily at many parts of it. I feel much obliged to you for sending it. I should be happy if you found it agreeable to you to give your aid to ' Maga,' as I am sure it would be both pleasant and advantageous to you. I am sorry, however, that " John Paterson's Mare " cannot be accepted of. On this you will probably fall into a great passion ; but I cannot help it, as I am convinced such an article could do neither yourself nor me any credit. In the first place, the whole affair about Pringle and Cleghorn is entirely forgotten, and it would be 350 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. like slaughtering the long ago dead and buried. In the nexi place, Constable has long been away from business and in bac health: and being your publisher, it would neither be gooc taste nor good feeling in you to attack him or any of his con- cerns. Your worst enemy could not desire a fitter occasion foi running you down than your publishing what would be cried out upon as a vile personal attack, &c., &c. For as to no kej being given, that is sheer nonsense, as there are plenty ol people who could at once give a key and proclaim you to be the author. Could anybody mistake Cobby, as you call him ? I have thus given you my opinion very frankly, and I hope when you consider the matter coolly you will agree with me, But if not, I cannot help it, for the Magazine is now too serious a concern to be trifled with. It has got quite above attacks and malignities, and I shall take good care never again to give them any handle for saying that they were entitled to speak of it as they once did. The distinction between the man who profits by experience, and him who does not, could not be better shown. Hogg seems to have been sufficiently well advised not again to lose his temper, notwithstanding the plainness of speech with which he is addressed. During the years that follow his letters continue dropping in from time to time, often bearing signs of the persistent failure which accompanied all his efforts — sometimes confident as of old. There is a "Shepherd's Calendar" of which he sends number after number. ^ "I suppose it will meet the same fate as all my late attempts to serve you," says the unfortunate author ; " but if it should, I shall not regard it at all. These trifles may come to be ol value some time, with a little brushing up. I am sorry I have done so little to liquidate the debt, which I believe falls due next month. I will, however, come 1 The series began in 'Maga' of April 1827. A DEAR EENT AND TWO FLITTINGS. 351 in and talk about it in some shape." One's heart aches, and yet one can barely resist a smile at the unconscious revelation. The debt is there, a very real fact ; but the poor debtor is capable of nothing but to " come in and talk about it." The dusty annals of a publisher's office, the waste heap of yellow manu- scripts, letters, memoranda of the many times in which a despairing writer — to whom yet it was so easy to persuade himself that the talk would be' effec- tual, or the next contribution redeem everything — came in to discuss his own circumstances with that arbiter of fate, are full of such memorials. And Hogg is always Hogg, whatever happens. " I have been much to blame in writing so little," he says, though, alas ! in fact the little was too much ; " but I am the most easily discouraged being alive — whereas blowing me up ^ will make me do anything." If you but knew the confusion I have been in since I saw you [he says in another letter], you would pity me rather than be angry with me. The making up a dear rent from nothing: the confusion of two Sittings (that of my parents-in-law from the distance of sixty miles to this), their distress since then, the changing of servants, wedding, washings, and sheep-shearings, cattle-shows, fairs, sales, funerals, with all the [cares] of an extensive arable and sheep farm at this season, so that the truth is, if the loss of all my friends had depended on my com- posing or even correcting three pages, I could not have retained them, — not that I could not have found time for such a trifle, but I could not have forced my mind into a frame for its execution. At another time Hogg expresses himself grateful for some bantering notices of his publications in the ' Noctes ' : — 1 In the sense of praising him. 352 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. James Hogg to W. Blackwood. I am not only not angry, but highly satisfied and pleased, had forgot to mention to you that I was afraid, terrified, f( high praise in 'Maga,' because, our connection considered, would have been taken for puffing — a thing of all things ths I detest, and one that, I think, has ought but a good effect, j good-humoured thing like this was just what I wanted. . . I think the article is Wilson's, as indeed I do every clever aui every bitter thing in all the Magas of the kingdom. I have strange indefinable sensation with regard to him, made up o a mixture of terror, admiration, and jealousy — ^just such a sen timent as one deil might be supposed to have for another. At another time our Shepherd is so much himsel again that he anxiously begs Mr Blackwood to givt " a new round of advertisement " to one of his works (apparently ' Queen Hynde,' which " we must try and get Sir W. Scott to review in the ' Quarterly ' "), pre- fixing "a short note from some favourable review." He adds : — If you want a splendid characteristic one, I shall give you -one from Dr Burton's new work : " Modern times can furnish no example of native and exalted genius more truly astonishing than the Ettrick Shepherd. His pages are like the constella- tions of Taurus and Cerberus, which seem to have usurped beyond their proportion of stars. His beauties are so thickly strewed almost on every page, it would be difficult to say where such an amazing collection of highly poetical conceptions can be found." — Burton's 'Bardiad,' p. 118. This or any better thing you may know of would not cost much additional, and would give the works a little stimulus among a certain class ere the reading season again begins. To this wonderful recommendation (which Mr Blackwood, alas ! did not accept, acknowledging restraints of good taste which did not occur to the THE shepherd's FAMILIARITY. 353 Shepherd) Hogg adds a note in respect to the recep- tion of Mr Rees, one of the Longman firm — " Longman, Eees, & Co., Hurst, Orme, & Brown, our fathers in the Eow," — who apparently was then visiting Edinburgh : — James Sogg to W. Blackwood. Although in the throng of my harvests, as well as of the moor sports, I will be in town again next week if possibly I can, or the next again at all events. But should I miss Mr Eees [whom he had previously desired to meet, "though merely to shake hands with him, and bring him in for a bottle of whisky made into toddy at Ambrose's "], tell him that I am going to publish two small works about Martinmas, 7s. 6d. each, ' The Shepherd's Calendar ' and ' Some Passages in the Lives of Eminent Men,' and he must send the paper for both on the instant you and he agree about what share you are to have. His house and I never stand on any conditions, having an understood rule between us, which we subsequently alter or not as occasion requires. The reader will remember that a few pages back the long-suffering Blackwood was employed, and good- humouredly consented to act, as intermediary between the Shepherd and the house of Longman, so that this free-and-easy reference to " his house and I " must have been an exceedingly good joke to the always kind and good-humoured man, open to a good joke in aU circumstances, to whom it was addressed. Another very characteristic piece of reproach, not ill-natured, but very Shepherdish, follows. We have got by this time to the year 1826. The farm of Mount Benger, which never succeeded, was hanging very heavily upon Hogg, and his ventures in literature were uni- formly unsuccessful : — VOL. I. z 354 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. James Hogg to W. Blackwood. MoTJNT Bbnqeb, March 19, 1826. I would send you plenty of things' to 'Maga/ provided the; ■were either inserted or returned, which they never are. Wors encouragement cannot be than that. I was chagrined that th Forest dialogue I sent was not inserted in the ' Noctes,' not fo any intrinsic merit that it had, for it had none, but that it gavi a truth, a locality to Ambrose's, which, without such a nativi touch, that ideal meeting never can possess. I sent a compleb ' Noctes ' once, which of course I never saw again — " The Byroi Letters," " The Cameronian in Love," and I know not how man] things that might be of value to me, though not to you. Yoi will allow that these considerations are sufficient to deter m( from writing, which otherwise I would do every month, for ] well know it never will be otherwise with Mr North. I woulc not have forgot the renewing of the promissory note, for I hac a stamp ready, though only for a hundred pounds, which I meani to send this week ; for, God help me ! I am far from being in i condition to be able to do more. I think it is high time yoi were beginning some publication of mine to liquidate all or pari of my debt ; and I think the whole of my short Scottish Tales should be published in numbers, one every month, with the Magazine to be packed with it, and as part of the first No. sent gratis to some of your principal readers. We should not refer to these details of debt, and his own very easy suggestions for getting rid of it, had not Hogg's affairs been very open to the world, and often before stated by himself and others ; so that there is no betrayal of his private affairs in the whim- sical arrangements which, now that there is no longei any sting of pain in them, are both amusing and char- acteristic, and wUl convey a thrill of sympathy and fellow-feeling to many a bosom. So many in aU the generations know what it is to be thus involved, thai the possibility of seeing a little fun in the matter, and all the transparent, piteous, laughable ways of getting A BEASTLY ' NOCTES.' 355 rid of it, is a kind of advantage in its way. Not Hogg alone has been unable to understand why " ' Queen Hynde ' should stick still," or any other book in the same position, or has been disposed to believe that it is only an inconceivable caprice of the publisher that makes his receipts for one work so much less than his receipts for another. " I cannot believe that she does not deserve notice, and think some expedient should be fallen on to draw notice to her," says poor Hogg ; neither can he understand why Mr Blackwood should reject Dr Burton's remark on the poem because it is too flattering. " I have sought out several others, but none that pleases me so well," he adds, with de- lightful naivete. We writers have the best of reasons for being tender with the amazing simplicities of those who have gone before us. The following is one of many grumbling letters, in which a not unnatural fury against his more successful competitors breaks in : — James Hogg to W. Blackwood. MouMT Benqer, March 28, '28. At your desire I send you an article for the 'Agricultural Journal ' and a poetical epistle for the Magazine, though I know as usual it will only be giving the carrier the trouble of bringing them out again ; and as you are the only man who ever does me this honour, the oftener you do it the better, but I want to establish this fact to your own conviction that our friendship shall not fail on my part. I am exceedingly disgusted with the last beastly ' Noctes,' and as it is manifest that the old business of mocking and ridicule is again beginning, I have been earnestly advised by several of my best and dearest friends to let you hear from me in a way to which I have a great aversion. But if I do, believe me, it shall be free of all malice, and merely to clear my character of senti- 356 WILLIAM BLACK WOOB. ments and actions which I detest, and which have proved highl; detrimental to me. I care nothing about More. Tweedie has not been half s severe upon him as me. I consider him the most monotonou and the least original of all poets, bating his harmony of num bers, which is delightful. As to his great goodness of heart dispute that : do you remember showing me a letter of his ad vising you to have nothing to do with a MS. publication of mine for that I was incapable of producing any work that would g( down with the public? Mr A. A. Watts has written to mi thrice respecting a parcel he sent to me to the care of Mr More but I despise the fellow so much I would not even inquire wha became of it. An author so much kept down by unfavourabk criticism as the Shepherd, and so cruelly played witt by all the wits, may perhaps be excused for believing that no one who considered him incapable of produc- ing " any work that would go down with the public ' was to be credited with a good heart ; but this was the always kind and friendly Delta, most beloved perhaps of all the contributors, the excellent Dr Moii (generally pronounced More in these days). Hogg's opinion of himself, however, perhaps for- tunately for him, never changed. " I wish," he says on one occasion, " the writers in ' Maga ' would not borrow my incidents. Desire the author of ' Sir Frizzle Pumpkin ' to look at Bazil Lee in the ' Winter Evenings.' " " I fear," he says again, " it is needless for me to attempt anything further for ' Maga ' with- out giving up the London Magazines, which I would with great pleasure do could I please you ; but one does not like to lose his little lucubrations altogether.'' At another time he praises the " twin Magas," the double number, which on more than one occasion HOW TO COOK A BLACKCOCK. 357 Blackwood was bold enough to bring out. " They are excellent," Hogg says, " with the exception of ' La Petite Madeleine,' which to me is quite despicable. To slight your old friend for such feminine pribble- prabble ! Wilson's poem is most splendid, but I have never been able to get straight through it, and I don't think any man ever will." " Scott's agents are only interested in one author in the world," he says, with fine contempt for such a mistake. " I have," says Lockhart on another occasion, " a line from Hogg saying he has made you drop him out of the Maga- zine : that the ' Noctes ' will not be tolerable without his name, and concluding, ' The Baillie had better have given me £500 a-year' ! " Such was his idea to the end of his life. One of Mr Blackwood's numerous lesser kindnesses to the Shepherd was a gun licence, with which he supplied him every year, and which is acknowledged from time to time by a present of game from Ettrick. " Tell Miss Steuart," he writes with one of these tributes, " that the blackcock must first be parboiled, and then stewed in the hroo, to make him a real fine dish." Hogg's spirits seem to have been revived by the publication of several short articles after this, and the reception of several small cheques in consequence, which made the life of the farmer more cheerful. But unfortunately in the year 1833 another quarrel arose, which was violent, and might have been final but for the intervention of Hogg's faithful friend, Mr Orieve, who acted as mediator between the justly angry publisher and the hot-headed and foolish Shep- herd, a man to whom no teaching of experience made 358 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. any difference, and who never learned what things could be done and said, and what could not. "By the way, why do the young Blackwoods never write to me or visit me ? " he says in his answer to a letter from Mr Grieve, who had called upon him to sign a statement contradicting certain calumnious assertions he had made against the young men's father. " He is still standing out, as you see," says Mr Grieve, enclosing the letter to Mr Blackwood, "and has brought forward some new charges against you. The touch about your sons is very characteristic," adds the Shepherd's faithful friend. It is a pleasure, how- ever, to find that this storm too blew over. In a letter to Professor Wilson, written in the year of Mr Blackwood's death, we have the Shepherd's last utterance in respect to his lifelong friend. The Pro- fessor and other friends had been much occupied in patching up the breach between Hogg and the publisher : — James Hogg to Professor Wilson. I will [would] be very sorry to object to any arrangement that so kind a friend has made manifestly for my benefit. It was what I wished and proposed last year, that all bygones should be bygones, and never once more mentioned. It is the far best way of settling a difference when so many alternate kindnesses have passed between the parties. For though Mr Blackwood often hurt my literary pride, I have always con- fessed, and will confess to my dying day, that I know no man who wished me better, or was more interested in my success. It will be a great relief of mind to Mrs Hogg, whose spirit was grieved at our break : for though terrified for the ' Noctes,' she always loved the Blackwoods as well as your family — nay, loved not only as benefactors, but as sisters and brothers. These last words give us a curious glimpse of that MRS HOGG. 359 pastoral house, full of poverty, full of guests, the life of the farm fluctuating between penury and occasional profusion — sometimes porridge and sometimes grouse forming the staple of the entertainment, the whisky always flowing freely, fun and wrath, and loud re- crimination and louder jest and laughter going on continually. While the goodwife watched behind, " terrified for the ' Noctes,' " not knowing what out- bursts of poetical nonsense might be put into the mouth of Wilson's whimsical creation, who was a being of fancy for the rest of the world, but to her the image of her husband, caricatured, as she thought, or travestied, — yet heart-stricken by the quarrels, the failure of their grand and almost only resource of literature, and the loss of the friendship of the pub- lisher, who had been so patient and so kind. We are glad to leave Hogg here, in the wistful reflection from his wife's eyes, and the comfort of the recon- ciliation which was " a great relief of mind " to the struggling house. How this tender-hearted woman suffered from other evidences of the breach between her husband and his best friend is evident from the following letter : — Elteive Lake, Nov. 3. Mr Hogg is better, after a severe illness, though not quite stout. "When he was about the worst it fell to my lot to open your letter, and you may judge how much I was as- tonished at the style of it, [so different] from those of yours I had seen before. I shall make no comments on the article, which I am sorry to find has bred so serious a quarrel. As to literary disputes I have nothing to do with them, yet when anything appears prejudicial to Mr H. I am not altogether callous. However, after a visit of a few days at Abbotsford, I am happy to find all animosity completely laid aside. I grieve 360 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. for all misunderstandings between old friends, and I am resolved not to be in Edinburgh without calling upon Mrs Blackwood, to whom I beg my kindest compliments. Mrs Blackwood, we may be sure, though she did not love the poetesses, would be kindness itself to the poet's wife, who must have been still more sorely " hadden doun " by the sins of authors than she felt herself to be. CHAPTEE VIII. WILLIAM MAGINN. A BRILLIANT YOUTH — THE TYPICAL IRISHMAN — RALPH TUCKETT SCOTT — A TACILB CONTRIBUTOR— AN ANONYMOUS LIBELLER — THE LESLIE TRIAL — A REPENTANT SATIRIST OF KEATS — COMPLIMENTED BY CHRISTOPHER — THE PUBLISHER DECLINES TO "SWALLOW BLARNEY" — A CRITICISM OF 'DON JUAN' — O'DOHBRTY'S FIRST APPEARANCE IN THE SALOON — A JOYOUS RECEPTION — DISTURBANCES IN IRELAND — "LITTLE CROPTY " — IRISH DIPLOMACY — HOW THE MARTIN LIBEL WAS DROWNED IN CHAMPAGNE — COLBURN AND HIS NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE — CRITICISM OF 'MAGa' BY A CANDID FRIEND — THEODORE HOOK — AN EXPERT'S VIEWS ON PUFFING — THE PUBLISHER'S EULOGY OF MAGINN'S STYLE — CAPTAIN SHANDON— LOCKHART'S EPITAPH. Mb, Blackwood, however, was too wise a man to build his faith solely upon two supporters, even so loyal and with such almost incredible power of pro- duction as that possessed by Lockhart and Wilson : indeed the record of these early years of the Magazine is one continued strain of effort on his part to collect around him, and to secure for his undertaking, the assistance of every man of note whom he happened to come across. It is a fact which a young writer finds it very difl&cult to understand, that publishers and editors, those dreaded dispensers of literary patronage, door-keepers of the temple of fame, are often just as anxiously on the outlook for new work- 362 "WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. men as these workmen are for their favour. But Mr Blackwood left no one in doubt on that subject. It was one of what we may call the family jests current in the saloon at Princes Street that the publisher asked everybody whom he encountered to contribute to " my Magazine." Not a man who had ever strung two lines together escaped this genial invitation ; and the delightful faith which made him believe that ' Maga ' could not fail to inspire every one devoted to her service was in itself inspiring, — so much so, that many a first article enthusiastically received, appears under a name that may rarely occur again, the Founder's warm conviction that whatever was sent him must be good being combined with too much strong sense to survive the contact with practical mediocrity. When William Maginn, a man who began with all the dash and brilliancy which then were supposed to be almost inalienable from the name of an Irishman, came across Blackwood's horizon, the Magazine was firmly established, and had already become a power in the political world. The new recruit came with no introduction, and not even a name. Out of the unknown, out of Cork, a place more associated with pigs and salted provisions than with literature, there suddenly stepped this joyous, reckless figure, full of power, full of spirit and fun, and a gay and careless readiness for anything which suited the tone of the Magazine and the liking of its two literary guides. He must evidently have sent some contribution which took both publisher and writers at once by storm, and gained him the warmest and most immediate of welcomes. Before he had ceased to be R. T. S., and completely unknown, he A TRAGIC CONTRAST. 363 was deep in all their secrets, and taking up their jests, their allusions, their most local pleasantries, as one to the manner born. We are by no means proud of the part Maginn took in the Magazine, nor of him- self or the connection so speedily formed, and to place him immediately after the Great Twin Brethren who formed it is too honourable a place. But there was no one of the contributors who had for a number of years so much to do with ' Maga,' or who wore her colours with more apparent devotion : and his history, never written at any length or deserving to be so, is full of the tragic contrast — so often, alas ! to be found in the lives of self-ruined men — of brilliant and careless youth and a maturity miserable and shameful. He was turned, indeed, into Captain Shandon, a picture in some respects too good for him, by Thackeray ; and Lockhart for one had a lingering affection for him all through, and wrote him a tragico -jesting epitaph. But he has never had any justice, as who of his kind ever has ? He was not a bad man : he was full of generous and friendly impulses, wit, and sometimes wisdom : but so spoUt and hampered by other qualities that every promise ended in the mean and squalid misery of a nature fallen, fallen, fallen from its high estate. Such a man cannot have justice from the world, scarcely even pity. It is almost immoral to be sorry for him, or to remember that once he was young and an emblem of all that was joyous, delight- ful, and gay. Among so many flitting figures that come and go, there was no one who, for at least a few years, was so much in the foreground, mingling in everything that was going on, and frankly adopted into the closest 364 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. brotherhood of ' Maga's ' original leaders, as Maginn, the rollicking O'Doherty of the Magazine, the writer of half the articles and most of the verses, the bosom friend even of so serious a man as Blackwood, who welcomed him with the utmost cordiality to his house, and confided to him all its secrets. Maginn brought much Irish wit, and an extraordinary power of adapt- ing himself to the requirements of a world so different from his own : but he also brought what was more extraordinary still — the humours of his natural sphere along with him, and performed almost a greater feat than that by which Wilson and Lockhart managed to make the local feuds of Edinburgh familiar to the world, by doing single-handed almost the same thing for the literary quarrels and struggles of Dublin : though Ireland had no connection whatever with the Magazine, and the eccentricities of Trinity College, Dublin, could be interesting to the smallest possible class of readers. He had begun life as a schoolmaster in Cork, and was a man of considerable learning as well as much wit, ready as his countrymen have always been in felicitous speech, and full of the boundless fun and frolic with which they have been credited, whether justly or not, since light literature began. He was indeed one of the best specimens of the typical Irishman, the crystallised Paddy, ready to jest and sing, to speechify, to fight, to flatter, to make promises and to break them, with all the unstable charm of a being beyond rule, guided by his impulses, and following them to much enjoyment and renown for a time, but soon into ruin and dismay. He seems to have dropped into the Blackwood band in 1819 as accidentally as he did most other things, without, as E. T. S. 365 we have said, either introduction or guarantee, without even a name or local habitation, a mere collocation of initials, dating from a public news-room. The initials were not even his own, for it was to R. T. S. that Mr Blackwood wrote the many and long letters which we find in his letter-books. The correspondence begins on the 1st February 1820, with a letter signed C. North : — C. North to B. T. S., Minerva Booms, Cork. It has for a long time been my great ambition to secure an Irish Correspondent, and though I am under great obligations to one gentleman for occasional favours, I have never as yet been able to acquire anything of the kind regularly. The short things you have had the kindness to send afford sufficient proof that your talents and accomplishments are great and varied. Your ways of thinking, too, on all important subjects, seem to harmonise as well as possible with that, in the spirit of which the greater part of the Magazine always has been written. In short, there is no question you can, if you choose, be of more use to me, and it, than any one with whom we have casually become acquainted. If you should wish to establish any regular system of co-operation with us,. you have a thousand fields on which you may enter along with the friends whose assistance we already enjoy, and one great field, the condition of your own Ireland, literary and political, &c., which you have entirely to yourself to do with as you will : and you need not fear our admitting anything that would interfere with your views in regard to Ireland, were we honoured, with your aid as to that most interesting subject. In the meantime, of all the articles you allude to, even the mathematical on Leslie, there is not one that I shall not be very proud to receive quam primum. I earnestly hope they may pave the way for a more close connection with a gentle- man for whose talents, acquirements, and principles I entertain the highest respect. A postscript adds that did the unknown feel dis- 366 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. posed to intrust his name to the discretion of his correspondent, there might be means found of con- ducting their communications post free ; but that, in any case, " no matter how large the packet or what the postage may be," it would always be welcome. An amusing commentary on this is found in a note enclosed from Mr J. W. Croker a month or two later, during which time the new Irish Correspondent does not seem to have shown the desired faith in Christopher's discretion. It also throws a side-light in passing upon the curious system of franking, almost forgotten in our day, by which persons possessing any official connections were able to moderate the severity of the heavy postages of the time. Admiralty, April 25, 1820. Mr Croker has received from Edinburgh a packet addressed E. T. S., Minerva Eooms, Cork. As Mr Croker does not wish to continue to frank letters of so large a size and addressed in so extraordinary a way, he requests Mr Blackwood's corre- spondent will communicate to Mr B. some name under which his letters may be forwarded. Not even this appeal, however, succeeded in calling Maginn forth from his incognito. Curiously enough he had begun by calling himself Ralph Tuckett Scott, for what fantastic reason I know not ; then, no doubt for some further purpose of mystification, by the initials alone. To satisfy Mr Croker, whose official position enabled him to frank the packets, a matter of so much importance in these days, he selected the name of Mr James Higginson. The extraordinary felicity and facility with which Maginn took up the tone, and even the local colour. CONFUSED IDEAS. 367 of the Magazine is very curious. " You will be sur- prised when I tell you that the TSte-d,-tSte in this number is by a stranger to Edinburgh and every one in it except what he has picked up from the Magazine," Mr Blackwood says to one of his corre- spondents. It is difficult to say whether this adoption of the special interests of his new friends, or his in- troduction bodily, and with great applause, of the still more restricted local interests and gossip of Dublin, and even of the booksellers' shops and clubs of Cork, is more surprising. A little of the confusion of a stranger groping in the unknown to identify the figures stUl indistinct to him is in the follow- ing. He had taken fright lest something said in an article of his might be in any way offensive to Sir Walter Scott, and begged that it should be struck out : — B. T. S. to W. Blackwood. If I do not mistake, Mr North is connected somewhat more closely with the Ariosto of the North than he was at the time I wrote last. If I be right, albeit unknown, I wish him joy with all my heart. Apropos, we have a son of Sir Walter's here, a good-looking young Hessian enough. He is a poet, though not quite in the manner of his father. He publishes little pieces of poetry occasionally in our newspapers, well enough for such a vehicle. I shall send you some if you like, to regale his father. In answering this letter, Mr Blackwood says : — The Editor is not surprised at the mistake you have fallen into by giving his office to Mr Lockhart, who has certainly been one of our most efficient supporters. He showed your letter to Mr L., who was as much amused with it as we were. 368 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. He had heard of the verses in your Cork papers, which it seems have annoyed young Walter sadly. They are written by a corporal in the troop, whose name is William Simpson, and the initials being the same, the sin of these execrable verses is all laid to poor Walter's door. It was not for some time after that Maginn's name was known, notwithstanding that he made himself instantly remarkable as bringing Mr Blackwood into a libel case while still he had scarcely settled into his seat as one of the staff of the Magazine,^ — the article on Professor Leslie, referred to in the letter nominally from Christopher North, and one of the first of any importance contributed by him, having plunged the Magazine once more into legal difficulties. None of the previous threats of this kind had, so far as I am aware, ever been carried into court, ex- cept that of Mr J. G. Dalyell ; and the culprits in these cases were at all events well-known men, old friends and powerful supporters. R. T. S. was at the very outset of his career, and known to nobody ; but he too sheltered behind the steady personality of the publisher, without even a word of reproach from that much-tried man. So early an alarm might well have broken the newly formed bond, but there is nothing but the warmest cordiality in Mr Blackwood's first letter on the subject to the veiled prophet of Cork :— W. Blackwood to B. T. S. Edinburgh, 22nd March 1820. I look forward with pleasure to the happiness of seeing you here, and I can only say that you will meet with friends PEOFESSOR LESLIE. 369 who appreciate your talents, and will be proud to welcome you to Auld Eeekie. I was much amused to-day on meeting my old friend Leslie for the first time since your attack on him appeared. He tried to look smiling, but it was evidently a strong effort, and he asked me if we were to have another attack on him next month. I told him I rather thought not at present, but he would see the number on Saturday. I am sure he expects something, and I hope you will send us the article on the Professor's mathematical attainments. I received the Cork paper, and saw at once to whom we were indebted for the very elegant and favourable notice of the Magazine. It has been copied into most of our Edinburgh and several of the London papers. As a small return to the Printer of the paper, I would be obliged to you to desire him to insert the enclosed advertisement twice ; but not to do it until he finds that copies of this number have arrived for sale in Cork. Before the end of the year 1820, however, the criticism, so lightly thought of, by which the Magazine had harked back, though by a new hand, to the old reckless polemics of her youth, had be- come a serious matter, and all the machinery of the law was set to work by the victim, with the effect, half alarming, half exciting, to which Princes Street was not altogether unaccustomed. Mr Blackwood informs his contributor of the fact in the following letter. We must remember that the man who had thus led the Magazine and its stout-hearted Pub- lisher into renewed trouble was still, whatever guess might have been formed of his personality, no more to them than R. T. S. at the Minerva Rooms : — W. Blackwood to B. T. S. Edinbuesh, 6 Dee. 1820. You will not be a little surprised when you open this letter to find a summons (as it is called here) which was served upon VOL. I. 2 A 370 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. me on Monday night at the instance of Professor Leslie. I am not much afraid of it, for my legal advisers think it a most groundless action, and that the Professor will only render him- self more ridiculous. At the same time, one must be as well prepared as possible to make out strong and complete defences. For this purpose I hope you will without delay write me, largely and fully, everything that occurs to you that will prove or illustrate what is said in the different articles. You can do this better than any one, and the sooner you are able to write the better. What most annoys me in this vile business is, the worthy Professor has, as you will observe in the summons, raised his action also against my friend Mr Lockhart. Nothing can be more absurd than this, for Mr L. is not, and never was, my Editor. He has supported the Magazine, like other friends here ; but the Professor might just as well have charged any other of my contributors with being my Editor. Most fortu- nately, too, he has had no part whatever in any of these articles against Leslie, so that, as for him, whenever the action does come, it must instantly fall to the ground. In the meantime, however, as it may be a considerable period before the action does come on, it is most unpleasant to Mr Lockhart himself and to me, as well as to all his friends, that his name should be bandied about by these cursed Whigs in a matter in which he has no concern. Being a lawyer, too, makes the thing still more unpleasant and disagreeable. I would wish, therefore, to do anything which would at once withdraw Mr L.'s name from the process. I am sure you will feel exactly as I do, and I trust to your own honourable feelings as to the most advisable course which ought to be taken in order to show decidedly and distinctly that Mr L. is not the author of any of these articles. Another very strong reason I have for getting this at once ac- complished is, that Sir Walter Scott feels very sore at seeing Mr L.'s name mentioned in this way, as he thinks it is so hurtful to a young lawyer. You can hardly conceive the distress that this thing gives me, for the whole plot and drift of the party here is to persecute and torment any One whom they suppose friendly to me ; and if they could only by any means whatever disgust Sir Walter Scott, Mr Lockhart, Professor Wilson, and ACTION FOR LIBEL. 371 others of my friends, so as to make them tired of the Magazine, then they think they would at once ruin both me and it. To ac- complish this, there is no kind of trick or falsehood they will not have recourse to. Leslie, in this case, is a mere tool in their hands. . . . All they want is to annoy me or any of my friends. For myself I have no fears ; but I confess it unnerves me a little to think even of the possibility of this vile crew, by these continued attacks, making it unpleasant to any one of my friends to lend me his aid. I trust in God they never will obtain such a victory, and I flatter myself that these base at- tacks will in the end have the contrary effect, and only rally my friends more closely around me. I shall expect most anxiously a letter from you. Indeed, if you were nearer at hand, and the season favourable, I would offer you a visit; but at present this is out of the question. What would not I give to have the pleasure of seeing you here, for I have so much to say to you ! Dr Maginn's reply has much of the coolness of the man who, being entirely out of harm's way, and free from any possibility of even social annoyance, keeps his head, and perceives aU that is excessive in the agitation of his friend who is in the middle of the fray : — B. T. S. to W. Blackwood. Dm. 12, 1820. I am truly concerned that you should be engaged in so un- pleasant a business as the action of Prof. Leslie against you; but I am quite sure that if your Scottish courts of law be regu- lated according to the principles that actuate ours in England and Ireland, you are in no danger whatever. Every point in the summons is trivial or justifiable, and in this country the man who would undertake such an action would be the butt of ridicule from one end of the Island to the other. There are some legal friends of mine who would expose the unfortunate Plaintiff worse than if they had him grinning through a piUory. I have only received your letter of the 6 th this moment, so that 372 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. I have not time to point out what would seem to me the proper line of defence, as I am afraid you would be anxious to hear from me at once; but to-morrow I shall send you ample materials. "Why Mr Lockhart's name has been introduced I know not, and I am still less able to divine how such a thing can be an injury to him. His known connection with the Magazine has of course drawn on him many such suspicions, but they cannot hurt him. It will be besides very easy for him, I should imagine, to clear himself from being the author of these letters. How you do it in Scotland I cannot say, but here we should laugh at a charge of the kind unless the plaintiff possessed ample means of proving, not by suspicion but fact, that the defendant was hond fide connected with the alleged libel. That Sir Walter Scott — for whom, though I never saw him, I have the highest reverence, and whose feelings I should be as un- willing to hurt as those of my dearest friend — has felt angry on the occasion, I confess vexes me. He, however, must know that his son-in-law is most unwarrantably brought into the summons ; and it does not take much sagacity to see that if he can get this calumny off his shoulders (as of course he triumphantly can), it will rather be of use than disadvantage to him. But Sir W. must be aware that not a sentence I said about Leslie was untrue. How would he think of Tom Paine if he brought an action against Watson for his Apology for the Bible ? What do you wish me to do ? I do not like innuendoes : say fairly what you think would be fair, and that I shall consider of, and give you my answer openly without evasion. As for your fear of your friends deserting you on this occa- sion, or of their being scared away by such attacks as these, I do not think so ill of them. If the articles were bad and malicious, or if they so thought them, they should not have continued for a moment in connection with a work so disgraced. If they think them justifiable (as they are), it would be pitiful to leave you because angry opponents thought proper to intimi- date you by law, or abuse you through the press. Above all, fear not that your Magazine is in danger of sinking. If every known supporter you have were to quit you, you would suffer maginn's prudence. 373 the loss of men of great talents, but I trust there are within the land five hundred as good as they. There is many a man whom you know not ready to fill your places. In fine, I believe, there can be no danger if you have a rational law of libel in Scotland. Everything said about Leslie is true. I am much mistaken if he does not repent this step to the day of his death. I hope you have able advisers. To- morrow you may expect a letter from me. P.S. — As to your wishing to see me, believe me that if you were here I should be very happy to show you that I was glad to give you an Irish welcome; but I suppose that is an im- probable supposition. I could not do you much service, how- ever, in the present case. Maginn does not seem to see that his Irish wel- come was a gratification which would have done Mr Blackwood little good ; but that his true name, whether, as the newspapers say, for publication or otherwise, would have given at least a certain con- solation. It is curious that in the face of the danger, pecuniary and other, which Blackwood was thus involved in by his act, the active agent of the mischief remains discreetly behind his shield, too prudent to sign himself as anything more dis- tinct than E,. T. S. The most reckless even of gay Irishmen can be reticent when need is. Mr Blackwood's next letter on this subject informs Maginn that Lockhart's name has been withdrawn from the prosecution, Leslie's agent at the same time calling upon himself " to give up the name of the author or editor," and so save himself personally from any consequences of the action. " The whole object of this letter to me," he adds, " is merely that it may be produced in process to plead from it that my 3*74 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. refusal to give up the name of the writer aggravates the offence. For," continues the publisher with fine force, "Leslie knows me too well to believe for one moment that I would give up the name of any writer who did not himself wish to come forward." This delicate shaft, however, did not any more than the others pierce the defensive armour of E. T. S., who replied only by a long letter pointing out the foundation upon which his strictures on Leslie were grounded. As the trial itself has been already discussed,^ it is unnecessary to enter into details, and we may close our account of this vexatious matter with a letter of eighteen months later, when the trial was about to take place, and when Maginn had already revealed himself in person : — June 9, 1822 (Swnday). I just this moment have received your letter of the 3rd in- stant. As to your complaints of my not writing for ' Maga ' — believe it, it is my necessity, not my will, that hinders me ; for I am pretty busily occupied from six or seven in the morning until five in the evening, so that I have little leisure, and even this little is curtailed by a thousand things in which I have in- tertwisted myself — in general, very foolishly. Therefore it is almost impossible for me to give you, or even to think of giving you, a long or a serious article. . . . Do you really think I should be of the slightest use to you on the trial of Leslie v. B. ? If so, I shall certainly be with you. I have a little business to do in Trinity College on the 1st July, which will be over about three o'clock ; so that if you want me I can be in Edinburgh on the 3rd somewhere about one or two in the day — i.e., God willing. But I do not think I should be a pinsworth of service to you; I am sure I could suggest no point to your lawyers of which they are not already 1 See p. 179. THE DEATH OE KEATS. 375 aware. However, if you are decidedly of opinion that my being there would be any good, write 6y return of post to say so. Why I vnsh to go to London you know, but do not let that weigh with you. It would not occasion any alteration in my arrangements, for I have not made any, and I am as ready to start for Bengal as for Bandon, and as far as my personal feelings are concerned, quite indifferent for which ; so give me your opinion candidly, without delay. But the new contributor not only broke new ground, as in the onslaught upon Leslie, but took up all the previous sins of the brotherhood with the heartiest relish. Their assault upon Keats, to which undue im- portance has been given, and their incessant revUing of the " Cockney School," were seized upon and echoed with even greater and still less refined vehemence ; though, on this point at least, a certain compunction is visible when the news of the victim's death, though not "by an article," struck the satirist, still pen in hand : — B. T. S. to W. Blackwood. April 10, 1821. I have just this moment heard of poor Keats's death. We are unlucky in our butts. It would appear very cruel if any jokes now appeared on the pharmacopolical part of ' Endymion.' And indeed when I heard that the poor devil was in a consump- tion, I was something sorry that I annoyed him at all of late. If I were able I should write a dirge over him, as a kind of amende honorable ; but my Muse, I am afraid, does not run in the mournful. If you print my hymn strike out the hemistich concerning him, substituting anything you like — such as " Pale is the cheek of Leigh Hunt, the tea-drinking king of the Cockneys." I hope I am in time, for it would annoy me if it appeared that we were attacking any one who had it not in his power to reply — particularly an old enemy after his death. 376 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. Mr Blackwood, as will be seen from the following' letters, did all that was possible to draw his con- tributor from dangerous paths, and to turn his special attention to his own particular sphere, his own country, then in the throes of one of its hottest battles, that on the subject of Catholic Emancipation, which made the true state of feeling in Ireland so full of the greatest interest to every reader. W. Blackwood to B. T. S. Edinbukgh, 2ith July 1820. I still think that you and your friends could give a great deal which would interest Irishmen, while it would be entirely new to us on this side of the Channel. What can be better indeed than your last communication, " Daniel O'Eorke " ? The poem itself is excellent, and you need not for a moment think that we have enough here of such articles. I hope you will urge all your friends, and do whatever you can in this poetical way. The prose is admirable. Now nothing can be better fitted for the Magazine than spirited letters of this kind, aiid I am sure you could throw them off by the dozen. The letters we have had of the Pringle Family have been much liked. I am confident you and your friends could do something in- finitely better. I merely throw out this hint, for you are the best judge yourself, and whatever you choose to do in any way or at any time, I shall always feel deeply indebted to you for. We have had so much on Jeffrey in the Magazine that we are afraid people would not relish so much your witty article from Davenant. It is a serious mortification to us not to insert an article of yours, but we know it would be a greater one to you, if we did not use the liberty you have so kindly given us. It is a liberty, however, that we will, I am sure, very seldom be obliged to take. On Thursday I sent you a newspaper containing the account of my friend Mr Wilson's election to the Moral Philosophy Chair. This was a glorious triumph indeed. Never did the IGNORANCE REGARDING IRELAND. 377 Whig gang so exert themselves, for this chair has been their stronghold. There was no kind of falsehood, misrepresentation, and blackguardism which they had not recourse to. For the last two months we have been kept in continual fever and bustle. Thank God, it is now happily over. Mr Wilson has been a grand and most powerful supporter of the Magazine ; but he will now have so much to do for some months to come that I cannot look for much of his assistance. My other friends, however, will not be the less mindful of ' Maga.' . . . I wish I had it in my power to show you in any way how deeply I and my friends feel indebted to you. I have no wish you should give up your incognito unless you find it perfectly agreeable to do so ; but I hope you some day will, or at all events that you will point out to me how I can make you any return for all your kindnesses. It is not merely that it would give me satis- faction were you to allow me to offer you the remuneration we make to our ordinary contributors ; but the hearty goodwill with which you enter into the very spirit of ' Maga ' lays me under a weight of obligation which I cannot repay you. Have you wholly given up your intention of paying us a visit? I still hope you will make a run over. . . . W. Blackwood to B. T. S. EDnf., 20 Sep. 1820. We are sorry the critique on the Irish Peasantry did not meet your views ; but the fact is, we are utterly ignorant here as to the real state of Ireland. You may rest assured that it was from no feeling towards the publishers of the pamphlet that it was so favourably spoken of ; indeed this is the very thing I am always most jealous of, for I would rather see any publication of mine, or of any of my friends, cut to pieces in the Magazine than that there should be the slightest appearance of favour or partiality — for this is perfect destruction to ' Maga,' and would render her no better than a petty bookselling job. We are most anxious, therefore, that you should give full vent to your feelings on any subject of this kind: we care not though any article you wrote should even injure us with a portion of your population, for what we want is fair and free discussion, as we are confident this will be best in the end. Violent parti- 378 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. sans on both sides may fly off, but in the end truth and talent will prevail. You will see that our friend Christopher has addressed Oehlenschlaeger's 1 letter to Mr David Laing. He is a young bibliopole here who was in Denmark last year with Mr James Wilson (a brother of the Professor's), and saw a number of the Copenhagen libraries. And what makes the thing more complete, there happens to be just now a Mr Feldborg whom he got very intimate with at Copenhagen : his name, therefore, is inserted, as he is a very particular friend of Oehlenschlaeger's. This, however, was not thought of till nearly 1000 copies were thrown off. However, the joke of it was equally good, as Feld- borg is quite delighted with it. Christopher, you will also see, has made some alterations of names which, from local circum- stances, were necessary : I hope you will approve of them. The article is one of the most effective and amusing we have ever had in the Magazine. Christopher says it is quite astonishing how you enter so completely into the very spirit and essence of ' Maga,' just as if you had all along been seated with us at Ambrose's, where the highest of our fun was concocted. 4 W. Blackwood to B. T. S. EriN., 18«A Oct. 1820. I know Washington Irving well, and when he was here two or three years ago, he promised to me to contribute regularly. The last time I saw him in London he repeated his promises; but he said, when he looked at our " audaciously original Maga- zine," he did not think he could give anything that could appear to advantage in it. These, of course, were mere phrases ; but I do think he has perhaps been rather overestimated. He is a man of an amiable elegant mind, and what he does do is well conceived and finely polished, but I rather think he is not a person of great originality or strength. 1 This refers to the elaborate mystification already noted, the imaginary translation of a play to which the name of the Danish dramatist was appended in pure wantonness, as it seems, and the equally imaginary cor- respondence which followed, — all to be found in the pages of the Magazine, but unnecessary to' record here. GIVING THE DEVIL HIS DUE, 379 W. Blackwood to B. T. S. Edin., 23 Nov. 1820. I cannot say how much I owe you for your most effectual assistance. Your contributions have been so numerous and so valuable, in the truest sense of the word, that I trust you will allow me to return you some acknowledgment, for I cannot repay you for the kind and valuable aid you have given us. If you will not accept money, I trust you will allow me to send you books, and you would do me a singular favour if you would send me a list of those that would be acceptable to you. It is very awkward of me to ask you to do this ; but ignorant as I am of what you possess, or what you would most prize, I would not like to send you books you did not want, and I must there- fore beg of you to send me a good long list. Edin., 26«A Feb. 1821. I am not at all afraid of Tom Campbell and Master Colburn. Campbell is certainly a man of genius, and besides being a poet is an elegant prose writer. He is, however, indolent and un- certain. The two numbers that have appeared do not strike me as very wonderful : they are respectable certainly, but not over- whelming. I am much mistaken if some of our poetical critiques, and articles on the Ancient English Drama, do not show a deeper feeling of the beauties and the true spirit of poetry than even Campbell's lectures, upon which the character of 'Colburn's Magazine' so much depends. Campbell's name will do a great deal in getting clever men to write for it. Ecm., 28