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whole work has been very carefully revised from the original issue in the Magazine, whereby Wilson's peculiarities of composition and punctuation are fully preserved.

It only remains for me to tender my grateful acknowledgments, for access to and loan of books of reference, to Messrs. Harpers, Appletons, and Evans & Dickerson, publishers in New-York ;-to Messrs. Evert A. and George L. Duyckinck, for having kindly placed their valuable private library at my service;-to Mr. Philip J. Forbes, of the Society Library, for access to books, and for information;—to my good friends Messrs. Deans & Howard, (of the New-York Sunday Times,) for the use of a variety of publications, in their possession, which I had occasion to consult ;-to Dr. Robert Tomes, of NewYork, to Dr. Henry Abbott, (of the Collection of Egyptian Antiquities,) to Dr. John W. Francis, of New-York, and to Mr. William Wilson, of Poughkeepsie, for facts, anecdotes, and references.

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Let me conclude with a story and a moral :-In Ireland, during one of the agrarian insurrections of the last century, a banker in Galway, named French, was particularly disliked by the laboring classes. The Peep-o'-Day Boys, as "these sons of night" called themselves, resolved to ruin "that double-distilled villain, ould French." To do this effectually, whenever they visited the houses of the farmers and gentry, besides demanding arms and ammunition, they insisted on the surrender of such of French's bank-notes as were on hand. To show that it was not from a mere predatory motive, they used solemnly to burn the notes before the late possessors, exclaiming, as they were converted into ashes, "There—there's more ruin for ould French; we'll burn every note of his that's above ground, and not leave the villain a brass farthing." They pursued this vindictive game so successfully that, in the course of a year or two, Mr. French was some £4,000 richer-by the destruction of notes which he otherwise must have taken up and paid.

MORAL.

Most gentle public, have no hesitation in following this Peep-o'-Day example. Buy up all copies of THE NOCTES which may get into the market. Loan them not, so that others will be compelled to purchase also. If you clear away the whole of our large impression, believe that publisher and editor will submit to such “ruin,” with the exemplary patience of martyrs.

112 NASSAU STREET, NEW-YORK, July 25, 1854.

R. S. M.

HISTORY

OF

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

BY DR. SHELTON MACKENZIE.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, founder and proprietor of the Magazine which has borne his name “to the uttermost parts of the earth,” died at his house in Edinburgh, on the 16th September, 1834, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. His parents, who were in an humble station of life, placed him as apprentice with Bell & Bradfute, well known booksellers and publishers, in Edinburgh, in the latter part of the eighteenth and the earlier years of the nineteenth century. In their employment he read a great variety of books, but Scottish History and Antiquities more particularly engaged his attention. He was known to have closely studied and largely mastered these subjects, and, when he established himself in business, his accomplishments soon attracted the notice of persons whose good opinion was distinction. For many years he was content with being extensively engaged in the sale of classical and antiquarian works, and was considered one of the best informed booksellers of that class in Great Britain.

Even as late as forty years ago, what is called the New Town of Edinburgh was regarded with dislike and distrust by the Old. In the latter place, the Castle, the University, the Courts of Law, the Advocates' Library, the Signet Library, the Royal Exchange, the College of Surgeons, Heriot's and Watson's Hospitals, the principal churches, the Assembly Hall, and even the Palace of Holyrood, were distinguishing features. There, too, were the book-shops, the printing-offices, and the publishers' places of business. In the New Town, there were few shops. The gentry, it is true, had domiciles there. But the idea of any publisher moving thither would have been looked upon as the height of folly, half a century since.

Mr. Blackwood was a man of much sagacity. He saw that the rich, who are naturally purchasers of books, lived in the New Town. He sold off his large stock, chiefly consisting of old books,-moved to a large and airy suite of rooms in Prince's street, which had formerly been occupied by a notable confec

tioner, and was therefore well known to the public, and prepared to be to Edinburgh what John Murray, of Albemarle street, was among the publishers of London. The “trade" in the Old Town ominously shook their heads, and sagaciously predicted ruin. Blackwood did not mind them very much, but moved to the immortal No. 17 Prince's street, in the year 1816, and applied himself to the disposal of general literature and the business of a popular publisher. In April, 1817, he brought out No. 1 of BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURgh Magazine.

It is necessary now to go back a little. The first Number of the Edinburgh Review had appeared on the 25th October, 1802; precisely at the period when Pitt, yielding to the general desire for peace, had retired from office, in order that Addington (afterwards Lord Sidmouth) might make a treaty with France for that purpose. Then followed Pitt's return to office in 1804; the prosecution of the war with France with redoubled energy; the splendid victories on land, with which Napoleon dazzled the world; the battle of Trafalgar, where triumph was dearly purchased by the death of Nelson; the death of Pitt, in January, 1806; the succession of Fox to office, with his tenure of it lamentably abridged by death; the continued successes of Napoleon; the annexation of Spain and Portugal to the French empire; and the determination of England, carried into effect by Wellington, to rescue the Peninsula from the usurpation of France. All these occurrences intervened in the seven years between 1802 and 1809, and afforded a vast supply of materials for discussion in the Edinburgh Review. Meanwhile, that periodical was successful beyond all hope and precedent, but it inculcated the idea-which was really entertained by Jeffrey--that resistance to the far-spreading power of Napoleon was and would be useless, and that peace with France, on any terms, was the only means by which the political existence of England could possibly be preserved.

The English and Scottish Tories and Anti-Gallicans held different and (as the event has proved) wiser opinions. They determined to oppose the Edinburgh Review-whose circulation was 9,000 a number at this time, with the influence which such extensive publicity gave it. The literary criticism, which was very good, carried it into quarters where the political articles, of themselves, might have tabooed it. In February, 1809, with John Murray as its publisher, and William Gifford as its editor, the first number of the Quarterly Review came before the world. With such contributors as Scott, George Ellis, Canning, Frere, Croker, Southey, and other men of repute and intellect, the Quarterly immediately took the high stand which it has since maintained. John Ballantyne, the nominal head of Scott's publishing house, was Murray's Edinburgh agent. After some time, Blackwood was placed in that lucrative position. When Scott quarrelled with Constable, the Edinburgh publisher, in 1816, Murray and Blackwood gladly became publishers of the next of the Waverley Novels, which happened to be the first series of "Tales of My Landlord." This was immediately before Blackwood had gone to the New Town,

HISTORY OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

vii and when he was known only as an intelligent antiquarian bookseller, and agent to Murray

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Removed to the New Town, in 1816, Blackwood appears to have contemplated the idea of exalting the character of magazine literature, then fallen very low indeed. At this time he was forty years old. In Peter's Letters, (by Lockhart,) he was described as 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 can be more intelligent, keen, and sagacious, than the expression of the whole physiognomy; above all, the gray eyes and eyebrows, as full of locomotion as those of Catalani. The remarks he makes are, in general, extremely acute-much more so, indeed, than those of any member of the trade I ever heard speak upon such topics.”

Some time before this, James Hogg had conducted a weekly literary journal in Edinburgh called "The Spy." It failed, but Hogg, who was full of projects, got the idea that a monthly periodical would succeed. There was none in Edinburgh, at that time, except a miserable periodical entitled "The Scots' Magazine." Hogg spoke on the subject to the late Thomas Pringle, who, it appeared, had simultaneously entertained a similar idea. Then Blackwood was spoken to, and he, also, had not only thought of, but was actually preparing for such publication. It is evident, then, that Blackwood had not derived the idea from Hogg, as it had previously been a creation of his own mind.

Blackwood, sagacious even beyond the sagacity of "canny Scotchmen," had noted two points,-that the Edinburgh Review, with its light flying artillery of wit, personality, and sarcasm, was a more important assailant than the Quarterly, with its heavy ordnance; and that the Quarterly had a limited circulation in Scotland, wherein lay the greatest sale of the Edinburgh Review. Blackwood was a decided party-man. He belonged to the Tory side, and hated all that was Whig. From the first, he determined to make his Magazine the assailant of the Edinburgh Review and its party.

On the first of April, 1817, the first number of "BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE" was published. It was edited by Messrs. Pringle and Cleghorn, --both of whom, curiously enough, were much deformed in person. Truth to say, the words “dull and decent" would truly characterize this opening number. There were “Notices concerning the Scottish Gipsies," written by Scott, (who occasionally wrote for it until illness wholly prostrated him)—there was a story of Pastoral Life, by Hogg-there were some antiquarian articles, probably selected by Blackwood-there was some poetry-there were a few reviews—there was a monthly chronicle of events, reports on agriculture and commerce, and lists of births, deaths, and marriages.

Such a publication, though Henry Mackenzie and others speedily came into it, as contributors, was not what the times required-nor Mr. Blackwood. He

speedily felt, and lamented, its want of a distinctive character. By the time the fourth number was published, he and his editors had quarrelled: the wonder is how they ever agreed, they being bitter Whigs, while he was a decided Tory. Pringle and Cleghorn went over to Constable, the publisher, conveying with them the list of subscribers to the Magazine, which, they said, belonged to them. Constable, wroth with Blackwood for having obtained, out of his hands, the publication of the Waverley Novels, received the deserters with open arms, installing them in the Editorship of the "Scot's," henceforth, for the brief time of its future existence, to be known as "Constable's Edinburgh Magazine."

Blackwood was thrown on his own resources, which did not fail him. He undertook to be his own Editor, and so he continued, for the remaining seventeen years of his life. of his life. He looked about for assistants, and found them. There was James Hogg, whose Queen's Wake had placed him, not long before, in a station, among Scottish poets, inferior only to Robert Burns and Walter Scott. There was John Wilson, then in the spring of intellect and flush of young manhood. There was John Gibson Lockhart, eminently gifted by nature and largely improved by education. There was Robert Pierce Gillies, (afterwards the Kempferhausen of "The Noctes,") whose admirable notices of the dramatic literature of Germany and Scandinavia speedily gave the Magazine a peculiar and inimitable character. There were others, of less note,—but these were enough at the time.

In Blackwood for October, 1817, appeared an article occupying nearly eight pages, and entitled "Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript," which took the shape of a book of Holy Writ, being couched in biblical language, and divided into chapter and verse. In reality, this was a sharp and pregnant satire upon Constable, Jeffrey, Pringle, Cleghorn, and the most noted members of the Whig party in Edinburgh. There is no room to doubt that the main authorship of this literary Congreve rocket (for so it was) must be credited to James Hogg, though the wits of Maga used to sneer at the idea. His own account, published in each of his five autobiographies, (all of which appeared in William Blackwood's lifetime,) was simply this,—that he wrote the " Chaldee Manuscript," and sent to Mr. Blackwood, from Yarrow; that, on first reading it, Blackwood did not think of publishing it; that "some of the rascals to whom he showed it, after laughing at it, by their own accounts, till they were sick, persuaded him, nay almost forced him to insert it; for some of them went so far as to tell him, that if he did not admit that inimitable article they would never speak to him as long as they lived," and that they interlarded it "with a good deal of deevilry of their own," which Hogg had never thought of. Hogg saw nothing objectionable in the article, and would not have scrupled to have shown it to Constable, (therein described as "the Crafty,") nor to Pringle—who, with Cleghorn, figured in it, as one of "the Beasts." All that Hogg meant

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