“You offer 1500 guineas for the new canto of (”Don Juan“). I won’t take
it. I ask 2500 guineas for it, which you will either give or not, as
you think proper. If Mr. Moore is to have 3000 for “Lalla,” &c., if Mr.
Crabbe is to have 3000 for his prose or poetry, I ask the aforesaid
price for mine.” (“Beppo” was eventually thrown into the bargain.)
“You are an excellent fellow, _mio caro_ Murray, but there is still
a little leaven of Fleet Street about you now and then--a crumb of
the old loaf.... I have a great respect for your good and gentlemanly
qualities, and return your friendship towards me; and although I think
you are a little spoiled by ‘villanous company,’ with persons of
honour about town, authors, and fashionables, together with your ‘I
am just going to call at Carlton House, are you walking that way?’--I
say, notwithstanding ‘pictures, taste, Shakespeare, and the musical
glasses,’ you deserve the esteem of those whose esteem is worth having.”
Now, like a spoiled child, Byron wishes back all his copyrights, and
intends to suppress all that he has ever written, and Murray has to
chide him and coax him, with much disinterestedness, urging him to
labour steadily for a few years upon some work worthy of his talents,
and fit to be a true monument of his fame.
Some of Byron’s letters are in an earnest, many in a playful, mood,
most in prose, but sometimes the poet breaks into a charming doggerel
of delicious “chaff.” Here is one specimen:--
“TO MR. MURRAY.
“Strahan, Tonson, Lintot of the times,
Patron and publisher of rhymes,
For thee the bard of Pindus climbs,
My Murray.
“To thee, with hope and terror dumb,
The unfledged MS. authors come;
Thou printest all--and sellest some--
My Murray.
“Upon thy tables’ baize so green,
The last new _Quarterly_ is seen,--
But where is thy new magazine,
My Murray?
“Along thy sprucest bookshelves shine
The works thou deemest most divine,--
The ‘Art of Cookery,’ and mine,
My Murray.
“Tours, Travels, Essays, too, I wist,
And Sermons to thy mill bring grist;
And then thou hast the ‘Army List,’
My Murray.
“And Heaven forbid I should conclude
Without the ‘Board of Longitude,’
Although this narrow paper would,
My Murray!”
VENICE, March 25, 1818.
There was no end to Byron’s wit and playfulness. Sometimes Murray would
act as a mentor and adviser in more serious matters, but his advice
would be pleasantly turned off with a jest. At the time when Byron was
most calumniated, when there were cruel stories afloat about the life
he led and the opinions he held (though none so cruel as have since
been promulgated by a well-known American authoress), Murray’s soul was
comforted by the present of a Bible--a gift from the illustrious poet.
“Could this man,” he asked, “be a deist, an atheist, or worse, when he
sent Bibles about to his publishers?” Turning it over in wonderment,
however, some inquisitive member of his four-o’clock clique found a
marginal correction--“Now Barabbas was a robber,” altered into “Now
Barabbas was a _publisher_.” A cruel stab, a “palpable hit,” maybe,
at some publishers, but, as regards Murray, an uproarious joke to be
gleefully repeated to every comer. As a refutation of this playful
libel, and as the clearest and most succinct way of showing what
amounts of money Byron really did receive, we append the following
account:--
£
1807 _Hours of Idleness_
1809 _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_
1812 _Childe Harold_, I. II.[A] 600
1813 _The Gaiour_ 525
” _Bride of Abydos_ 525
1814 _Corsair_[15] 525
” _Lara_ 700
1815 _Hebrew Melodies_[16]
1816 _Childe Harold_, III. 1,575
” _Siege of Corinth_ 525
” _Parisina_ 525
” _Prisoner of Chillon_ 525
1817 _Manfred_ 315
” _Lament of Tasso_ 315
1818 _Beppo_ 525
” _Childe Harold_, IV. 2,100
1819 _Mazeppa_ 525
” _Don Juan_, I. II. 1,525
1820 _Don Juan_, III. IV. V. 1,525
” _Marino Faliero_
” _Doge of Venice_ 1,050
1821 _Sardanapalus_, _Cain_, and _Foscari_ 1,100
” _Vision of Judgment_[17]
1822 _Werner_; _Deformed Transformed_; _Heaven
and Earth_, to which were added _Hours
of Idleness_, _English Bards_, _Hints
from Horace_, &c. 3,885
Sundries 450
1822 _Don Juan_, VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI.
1823 _Age of Bronze_, _The Island_, and more
cantos of _Don Juan_
------
Total £19,340
_Life_, by Thomas Moore 4,200
------
£23,540
Murray’s kindness to Byron may be said to have displayed itself
even after his death. In 1821, Byron had given his friend Moore his
autobiography, partly as a means of justifying his character, partly to
enrich his friend. Moore, pressed as usual for money, made over the MS.
to Murray for the sum of 2000 guineas, undertaking to edit it in case
of survivorship. He subsequently intended to modify the transaction by
a clause to be inserted in the deed, by which he, Moore, should have
the option of redeeming it within three months after Byron’s death.
When Byron did die, in 1824, the MS. was given to Gifford to read, and
found to be far too gross for publication, and, spite of Moore’s wish
to modify it, Sir John Hobhouse and Mrs. Leigh insisted upon its being
destroyed. Murray offered to give it up upon repayment of the 2000
guineas; and after an unpleasant scene in Murray’s shop, the MS. was
destroyed by Wilmot Horton and Colonel Doyle, with the full consent of
Moore, who repaid Murray the sum advanced by a draft on Rogers.
No sooner had it been burnt than it was found that, through the want of
the clause above named, Moore’s interest in the MS. had entirely ceased
at Byron’s death; and though Moore, nobly and firmly, refused to
receive the money back from Byron’s friends, he chose to consider for a
time that Murray had wronged him.
He took a proposal to Longman of a “Life of Byron,” and the matter
was partially arranged, when Moore, urged on both by his feelings
and his friends, seeing Murray in the street, started after him.
“Mr. Murray, some friends of yours and mine seem to think that we
should no longer continue on these terms. I therefore proffer you
my hand, and most heartily forgive and forget all that has passed.”
Murray’s face brightened into smiles, and on parting he said, “God
bless you, sir, God bless you!” Longman agreed, upon this, that Murray
was the publisher to whom a life of Byron most properly belonged,
and Murray eventually gave £4200 for one of the most delightful and
entertaining biographies in our literature--a companion volume, in
every way, to Boswell’s “Johnson” and Lockhart’s “Scott.” Murray, in
this transaction, seems to have behaved with generous firmness. Now
that Byron was dead, the autobiography would certainly have proved
the most remunerative of all his works; and Moore himself, in his
Diary, ultimately confessed that “Murray’s conduct” had been admirable
throughout.
In this year, 1824, not only did Murray lose the services and the
friendship of his best client, Lord Byron, who died at Missolonghi on
the 19th of April, but Gifford, the able editor of the _Quarterly_,
was incapacitated for further work, and resigned his post. Mr. John
Coleridge, then a young barrister, succeeded, but though accomplished,
clever, and able, he was “scarcely strong enough for the place;”
Southey found out his incapacity for saying “no,” and under his
auspicious reign began to make the _Review_ a quarterly issue of
his own miscellaneous works. Strangely enough in the mourning coach
that followed Gifford to his grave Murray drove with the man who was
destined as an editor to rival the powers of the upbuilder of the
_Quarterly’s_ reputation--this of course was John Gibson Lockhart,
a young Edinburgh advocate, the son-in-law of Scott, and more than
that, the author of “Peter’s Letters,” of “Valerius,” of “Reginald
Dalton,” the translator of “Frederick Schlegel,” and the “Ancient
Spanish Ballads,” and the noted contributor to _Blackwood_. Moore
first heard of the arrangement down at Abbotsford, when Scott, after
dinner, hopeful of his daughter’s interests, and proud, may be, of
his son-in-law, grew confidential. “Lockhart was about to undertake
the _Quarterly_, has agreed for five years; salary £1200 a year, and
if he writes a certain number of articles it will be £1500 a year.”
In this year, though the prospects of the _Quarterly_ were ably
secured, Murray met with the only really adverse turn of fortune, to
which through a long career, and a bold one, he was ever subject. The
terrible commercial crisis which had been so long overhanging, burst
at last into a deluge of ruin--Constable’s house was swept away, the
Ballantynes were for the moment overthrown, and Scott had to give up
his lordly estates of Abbotsford, and generously work his life out
to redeem a name on which he deemed a commercial slur had been cast.
Murray, though he suffered by the panic, as all must suffer in the
time of a general epidemic, was not severely hurt. Still, looking back
now with the wisdom of wiseacres, who think we could have prophesied
easily the actual events that did occur, the time does seem a strange
one in which to start a new venture. This was nothing less than the
establishment of a new Conservative journal, which was to rival the
_Times_ as the _Quarterly_ rivalled the _Edinburgh_. According to
the current rumour, it was young Disraeli (now the wily and veteran
leader of the Conservative party) who first proposed the scheme;
and, according to current rumour still, it was under his editorship,
and with Dr. Maginn as chief foreign correspondent, that the
_Representative_ (price sevenpence daily) was started on the 26th of
January, 1826. The journal was able, well-informed, and well-written,
but the _Times_ had a monopoly, and the Conservative party were not
strong enough to support a first-rate organ of their own, and after
a brief existence of six months, the _Representative_ gave up the
struggle. Murray was wont in future days, when rash young speculators
urged the necessity of embracing some opening for a new daily paper, to
point to a ledger on his book-shelves and say grimly, “Twenty thousand
pounds lie buried there!”
The question as to who was the actual editor of the _Representative_
has never been definitely settled. Mr. Disraeli, until the last year,
never disclaimed the supposed connection, and silence was considered
as proverbially affirmative. Lockhart, too, has been put forward
as a claimant. The nearest approach to any opinion that might have
been final was given by the late James Hannay in the pages of the
_Edinburgh Courant_. “We had the best authority for what we said--nay,
the only authority--since even to Mr. Murray the question of the
_Representative’s_ editorship is not a personal one. We now add that
Mr. Disraeli’s long silence in the matter admits of an explanation
which will gratify his admirers of all parties. He hesitated to come
forward with any eagerness to make a denial, which might have been
interpreted as springing from a wish to disclaim newspaper association,
but when the story was passing into literature in such a book as the
biography of an eminent British writer, it was time to protest against
any further propagation of the story, once and for all.” But this “best
and only authority” did nothing to render the question less intricate,
for when Mr. Grant published the first instalment of his “History
of the Newspaper Press,” he thoroughly outdid Hannay, and with that
ingenuous facility of arbitrating over moot points, and that mysterious
power of catching rumours, as boys catch moths, and pinning them down
in his collection under the general label of “facts,” gave full details
of Mr. Disraeli’s connection with the _Representative_, the amount of
his salary, together with a luxurious description of the splendours of
his editorial offices! Mr. Disraeli roused at last, replied curtly that
the whole narrative was entirely imaginary, and utterly devoid of fact
or foundation in any one point. He has since then in a letter, upon
a similar question, written by his solicitor to the _Leisure Hour_,
declared that:--
“Mr. Disraeli never in his life required or received any remuneration
for anything he ever wrote, except for books bearing his name.
“Mr. Disraeli never was editor of the _Star Chamber_, or any other
newspaper, journal, review, or magazine, or anything else.”
To return, however, to legitimate book-publishing. About this time
Campbell’s old scheme of “Biographies of the Poets” was revived,
re-appearing under the title of “Specimens of the British Poets;” and
Murray was so pleased with the work that he made the stipulated sum of
£500 into double that amount. To Allen Cunningham, too, he gave £50 per
volume additional for his “Lives of the British Artists,” and made the
payment retrospective.
We could repeat five hundred anecdotes of his liberal and kindly
generosity, but our space only permits us to record another, which it
is very pleasant to read about.
It was twenty-two years since the obscure Fleet Street bookseller had
embraced the “glorious and profitable” opportunity of taking a fourth
share in “Marmion,” and since then Sir Walter Scott had achieved an
unparalleled position in the world of English letters, had written
innumerable works, and had earned unheard-of sums--and had been
completely ruined. With the aid of his creditors, Scott was now seeking
to recover all his copyrights for a final edition of his collected
works. All had been bought back save this fourth share of “Marmion.”
Lockhart was commissioned by his father-in-law to inquire on what
terms the share might be re-purchased, and this was Murray’s immediate
reply:--
“Albemarle Street, June 8th, 1829.
“MY DEAR SIR,--Mr. Lockhart has this moment communicated
your letter respecting my fourth share of the copyright of
‘Marmion.’ I have already been applied to by Messrs. Constable
and Messrs. Longman to know what sum I would sell this share
for; but so highly do I estimate the honour of being, even in
so small a degree, the publisher of the author of this poem,
that no pecuniary consideration whatever can induce me to part
with it.
“But there is a consideration of another kind, which until now
I was not aware of, which would make it painful to me if I were
to retain it longer. I mean the knowledge of its being required
by the author, into whose hands it was spontaneously resigned
in the same instant that I read his request.
“The share has been profitable to me fifty-fold beyond what
either publisher or author could have anticipated, and,
therefore, my returning it on such an occasion, you will, I
trust, do me the favour to consider in no other light than as
a mere act of grateful acknowledgment, for benefits already
received by
“My dear Sir,
“Your obliged and faithful Servant,
“JOHN MURRAY.”
This noble act, we must remember, was performed at a time when the
future was anything but bright, or at all events when the present
was dismally gloomy. “Lydia Whyte,” writes Tom Moore, “told me that
Murray was very unsuccessful of late. Besides the failure of his
_Representative_, the _Quarterly_ did not look very promising, and he
was about to give up the fine house he had taken in Whitehall, and
return to live in Albemarle-street.”
Constable had, some years previous, hit upon the idea of appealing to
a public that should be numbered, not by tens of thousands, but by
hundreds of thousands, ay, and by millions! and had just commenced his
“Miscellany.” Murray, quick to receive a good idea, started at once
into competition with his “Family Library,” Lockhart commencing the
series with a “Life of Napoleon” and the “Court and Camp of Bonaparte.”
Cunningham followed with his “Lives of the British Painters,” and
Southey revised his “Life of Nelson,” and expanded another review
article into a “Life of Wellington,” on terms equally munificent with
the other.
Cheap editions of Byron were multiplied by the score; Landor received
a thousand guineas for his “Journals of African Travel,” and Napier
another thousand for his first volume of the “History of the Peninsular
War.” If Murray neglected opportunities, he generally managed to
retrieve them. He might have had the “Bridgewater Treatises;” and he
says, “The ‘Rejected Addresses’ were offered me for ten pounds, and
I let them go by as the kite of the moment. See the result! I was
determined to pay for my neglect, and I bought the remainder of the
copyright for 150 guineas.” Murray might have added that he generously
gave the Smiths a handsome share in the ultimate profits.
Sometimes, too, he had the sagacity to buy the _failures_ as well as
the successes of other publishers. Constable produced a little “History
of England,” in one small volume, which fell still-born from the press.
Murray purchased it for a trifle, re-christened it with his usual
happiness, and as “Mrs. Markham’s History of England” the work has been
an annual source of revenue to the house, as the present Mr. Murray’s
last trade sale list would tell us.
Murray was never dazzled by the fame of his Byrons, his Moores, his
Campbells, and his Crabbes, but always recollected that “taste” is
flitting, while works that only aid the necessities of mankind are
always saleable. The “Army and Navy List” and the “Nautical Almanack”
are every whit as profitable to-day as in the first year of their
publication. Moore tells a story that shows he could still occupy his
mind as well as fill his purse with “Mrs. Rundell’s Cookery Book.”
“Called at Murray’s,” he writes in his “Diary,” for 1831: “mentioned to
him Lady Morgan’s wish to contribute something to his ‘Family Library,’
and that she has materials ready for the lives of five or six Dutch
painters. ‘Pray, isn’t Lady Morgan a very good cook?’ I answered I
didn’t know; but why did he ask? ‘Because,’ said he, ‘if she would do
something in that line--’ ‘Why, you don’t mean,’ said I, ‘that she
should write a cookery book for you?’ ‘No,’ answered John, coolly, ‘not
so much as that; but that she should re-edit mine’ (Mrs. Rundell’s, by
which he had made heaps of money). Oh, that she could have heard this
with her own ears! Here ended my negotiations for her Ladyship.”
It was not merely to Englishmen that Murray extended a helping and a
generous hand. When the first volume of the “Sketch Book,” originally
published in America, made its appearance in London, it was declined
by Murray, and Irving was about to publish it on his own account; but
after all arrangements had been made the printer failed. Lockhart had
praised the book in _Blackwood_; and Scott, seeing at once its sterling
worth, with his usual kindliness, pressed its merits upon Murray, who
gave Irving £200 for it, afterwards more than doubling the amount.
Murray’s transactions with Irving exhibit a singular phase of the
international copyright law. This is how their account stands--
£
“Sketch Book” 467
“Bracebridge Hall” 1050
“Tales of a Traveller” 1575
“Life of Columbus” 3150
“Companions of Columbus” 525
“Conquest of Grenada” 2100
“Tour on the Prairies” 400
“Abbotsford and Newstead” 400
“Legends of Spain” 100
----
Total £9767
These sums of money having been paid, Mr. Bohn reprinted the volumes in
a cheap edition. A law suit was of course the result, in which Murray’s
expenses ran up to £850, and Mr. Bohn’s were probably as heavy. The
question, however, was settled amicably, without being fought to the
bitter end, and Irving received no more money from this side the
Atlantic.
Most of the famous men with whom Murray had been connected had by this
time disappeared, many of them having shed their rays meteor-like, and
having done the duty unto which they were created in a momentary flash.
The seething excitement called into being by the throes of the first
French Revolution had subsided, and there were neither readers left
to appreciate true poetry, nor true poets remaining, with strength of
voice left in them to bring back memories in passion-laden melodies of
the troublous times they sprung from. All, on the contrary, was quiet
and easeful--a happy time for commerce, but a barren hour for art.
Murray, skilled as any pilot in watching the direction of the wind,
turned his attention to the publication of travels and expeditions--the
very books for a fireside afternoon, when the wind is howling outside,
and the snow-storm beating on the windows--and very soon Albemarle
Street was as famous for its “Travels” as it had previously been for
its “Belles-Lettres.” Among the most valuable and successful of these
were the expeditions of Mungo Park, Belzoni, Parry, Franklin, Denham,
and Clapperton.
Murray had just launched his “Classical Handbooks,” under the
editorship of his son--had just made, in trade parlance, “another great
hit” in Lady Sale’s “Journal in Afghanistan”--when an attack of general
debility and exhaustion compelled him to leave business and success
alone--and for ever. He rallied so often that no serious results were
anticipated by his family or physician; but after a very short illness
he died suddenly on the 27th June, 1843, in the fifty-sixth year of his
age, leaving three daughters and one only son. To his widow, in a will
dated only seven days before his death, he bequeathed the whole of his
estate.
A gentleman by manners and education; generous and open-handed, not for
purposes of display, often not from mere trade motives, but from a true
desire to return to genius and industry something of what he derived
from them; an excellent man of business, with more powers of work than
most men, understanding better than any how to measure the calibre
of an author’s genius, and to gauge the duration of his popularity;
skilful in timing a publication, so as to ensure a favourable
reception, and yet honestly abhorring any recourse to the low art of
puffing--such was John Murray as a publisher; the best representative
of an honourable calling, and one who by his own influence tended
not a little to make the years of his own working life the best
representative period of English literature.
Mr. John Murray, who succeeded at once to his father’s business, was
born in the year 1808, and was consequently, in 1843, admirably
fitted, by years and professional training, to take the management
of so important a concern. He was educated at the Charterhouse and
at Edinburgh University, and had had, moreover, all the advantages
that foreign travel could bestow. As early as 1831, we hear of “Mr.
John Murray, Jun.,” at Weimar, presenting Goethe with the dedication
of Byron’s “Marino Faliero,” and being received, together with that
mocking and yet reverent tribute, in a gracious, kindly manner.
Mr. Murray thoroughly followed his father’s idea, that the age had now
come for the cheap publication of useful and practical books, and in
the first year of his accession, issued the prospectus of his “Home
and Colonial Library,” which, being published at half the price of the
“Family Library,” was at least twice as successful, and was continued
for upwards of six years. During these early years Mr. Murray made one
mistake, and achieved one great success. The mistake was, however, in
common with every publisher in London, for “Eöthen” went the rounds
of the metropolitan book market, and was eventually published by a
personal friend of Mr. Kinglake’s. Mindful of his father’s precedents,
Murray soon secured the copyright. The success, on the contrary,
consisted in accepting what other publishers had refused, and issued
from Albemarle Street, Campbell’s “Lives of the Lord Chancellors” has
proved one of the most successful biographical works of the time. In
travel, biography, history, and science, the present Mr. Murray has
fully sustained the name of the old house, and it is sufficient here
to mention only the names of Hallam, Barrow, Wilkinson, Lyell, Gordon
Cumming, Layard, Murchison, and Sir Robert Peel, to see how much we owe
him.
On Lockhart’s death, in 1854, the Reverend Whitwell Elwin was selected
to fill the editorial chair of the _Quarterly_, and since that date
the political opinions of the periodical have been considerably
modified; at any rate, men of all parties have been allowed to write
conscientiously in its pages, and it is even rumoured, that before
this, its old opponent, Lord Brougham, contributed at least one article
(that on _Chesterfield_, in vol. lxxvi.).
Among the most successful library books that Mr. Murray has recently
published, we must instance those by Mr. Smiles and Dr. Livingstone,
and, more especially, those by Mr. Darwin.
Mr. Murray’s name is, however, most familiar to us now as the publisher
of the famous _Handbooks_ for travellers, the series now extending, not
only through the outer world, but embracing our English counties; these
latter, it is said, owing much to Mr. Murray’s personal editorship.
In closing our short sketch of the “House of Murray,” we cannot refrain
from re-echoing a wish that has been often uttered before, that the
present representative may find time amidst his professional labours,
to edit the letters and to write a worthy life of the great John
Murray. No book that has ever been issued from Albemarle Street could
be more popular or more welcome.
[Illustration]
_WILLIAM BLACKWOOD_:
“BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.”
We have already, in our account of Archibald Constable, shown how
deeply the brilliant writers--who for a while gave a bold literary
supremacy to the northern capital--were indebted to the daring spirit
and the generous purse of one Scottish publisher; we have here to
follow the narrative of a rival’s life--a life at outset very similar,
but soon diverging widely, and which, actuated by very different
principles, and aiming at very different results, was destined to open
the arena of literary struggle to those whom honest political feeling
had for a moment rendered dumb and inactive.
William Blackwood was born at Edinburgh, on the 20th Nov., 1776, of
parents in an humble position in life, who, however, with the honest
endeavour of most of their class in the north, contrived to give him a
very excellent elementary education. From his earliest days, William
had exhibited a strong love for books, and at the age of fourteen he
was apprenticed to Bell and Bradfute, of his native city; nor, indeed,
did his education suffer from this premature removal from school;
there is much leisure in a bookseller’s shop, even for an industrious
boy, and opportunity of more various reading than comes within the
reach of many sixth-form scholars and university undergraduates. “It
was here,” says an obituary notice, “that he had so largely stored
his mind with reading of all sorts, but more especially with Scottish
history and antiquities, that on establishing himself in business, his
accomplishments attracted the notice of persons whose good opinion
was distinction.” Before the expiry of his time, in 1797, he must
also have displayed a talent for business life, for we find that
he was immediately engaged by Messrs. Mundell & Co., then largely
employed in the book trade at Edinburgh, to take the sole management
of a branch house at Glasgow; and being thus, at the early age of
twenty years, thrown almost entirely upon his own resources, and with
his own judgment for his only guidance, he acquired that decision of
character which distinguished him throughout after-life, and which
was so instrumental in the fortunes of his house. In spite, however,
of all his efforts, the firm of Mundell & Co. did not prosper at
Glasgow--it was they, the reader may, perhaps, remember, who purchased
the “Pleasures of Hope,” for only fifty printed copies of the work,
from Campbell--and after his year’s service was over, he returned to
Edinburgh, and re-entered the employment of Bell and Bradfute, with
whom he remained for another year. In 1800, he entered into partnership
with Mr. Ross, bookseller and bookseller’s auctioneer; but the
auctioneering part of the business proved distasteful to him, and the
old book trade presented a much more suitable field for his talents.
With the energy of youth he started for London, and was initiated into
the mysteries of bibliography by Mr. Cuthell, “famous,” as Nichols
says, “for his catalogues.” Here he stayed for three years, and then,
in 1804, came back to Edinburgh and opened an old-book shop, in South
Bridge Street. For several years he almost confined his attention to
the sale of rare and curious books, more especially those relating to
the antiquities and early history of Scotland. His shop, like that
of Constable, soon became a regular literary haunt, and he speedily
acquired a reputation second to none of his own line in Edinburgh, and
in the matter of catalogues, he rivalled Cuthell, his master; that one
published in 1812 being the first in which the books were regularly
classified, and “continues,” says Mr. Chambers, “to be an authority
to the present day.” The old-book trade was at that time in its most
flourishing condition, Dibdin was firing the minds of curiosity-seekers
with a love for rare quartos and folios; Heber, and many more after
his kind, were spending the main portion of their time, and the vast
bulk of their fortunes, in the acquisition of immense libraries; and
the old-booksellers of the day were making large incomes. Blackwood’s
success by no means satisfied his ambition, but enabled him to enter
the field of publishing as a rival to Constable, who was now at the
height of his glory. As early as 1811, we find him bringing out “Kerr’s
Voyages,” a work of considerable importance and expense, and which was
shortly succeeded by Macrie’s “Life of Knox.”
Blackwood’s sojourn in London, and the credit attracted by his
enterprising book-catalogues, led the way to his being appointed agent
to several of the London booksellers, among others, to John Murray,
and to them, conjointly, the tale of the “Black Dwarf” was offered
when Scott considered it desirable to bring it out in other hands, and
with a title-page apparently by another author. Blackwood wrote to say
that, in his opinion, the unravelling of the end of the story might be
improved, and offered to pay for cancelling the proofs. Gifford, too,
to whom Murray had shown it, was of a like opinion. Scott differed most
essentially; witness his letter to 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 impudent proposal that ever
was made.”
This, of course, brought the proposal to a close for the time, though,
as Lockhart says, “Scott did both know and appreciate Blackwood better
in after times.”
Blackwood was now, from the profits of the old-book trade and the
success of his own publishing ventures, in a fair way to success, and
in 1816 he took the bold step of selling off all his old stock and
migrating to Prince’s Street. “He took possession,” says Lockhart, in
“Peter’s Letters,” “of a large and airy suite of rooms in Prince’s
Street, which had formerly been occupied by a notable confectioner, and
whose threshold was, therefore, familiar enough to all the frequenters
of this superb promenade.... Stimulated, I suppose, by the example and
success of John Murray, whose agent he is, he determined to make, if
possible, Prince’s Street to the High Street, what the other had made
Albemarle Street to the Row.” It was not without much forethought,
we may be sure, that this step was undertaken, and the speedy
establishment of the famous magazine clearly shows us what was the
chief motive to such a venturous change.
The magazine literature of the day was wofully weak. The vitality with
which Cave had endowed the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, had long since died
away. No more such “hack-writers” as Johnson and Goldsmith came forward
to enliven its pages, at the meagre payment of four guineas a sheet,
and now it only--
“Hopped its pleasant way from church to church,
And nursed its little bald biography.”
Such was the type of English periodical literature, and the Scotch
were certainly no better off. The _Scots Magazine_ stood Constable,
it is true, in good stead, but only as a nursery ground, from which
writers might be trained for transplantation to a stronger soil. Vastly
different was the condition of the rival quarterlies; but still, in
Scotland at all events, the _Edinburgh_ carried everything after its
own desire. Wit the writers had in plenty--learning, too, and the gift
of open-speaking; but to fairness, biassed as they were by party ties,
they never laid the least claim, and yet all Edinburgh was enthralled
by the opinions of the _Edinburgh Review_, for intellectual attainments
at that time commanded for their possessors the leading place in the
society of the Modern Athens, and, as the principles advocated in its
pages were decidedly opposed to those of the existing administration,
the success it indubitably had attained, the vast following it was
gathering, not only irritated but alarmed the Scotch Tory party.
Of course, the actual inventorship of the new project is a disputed
point, but the evidence seems to tell us that, however the idea of
a new Conservative organ had been talked over in literary coteries
(and what scheme has not been planned a thousand times before
execution whenever literary men meet together?), the plan had long
been entertained and spoken of by Blackwood; and, as he proceeded to
carry it into execution, the scheme may to all intents and purposes be
regarded as his own.
Two gentlemen were engaged--Pringle and Cleghorn--who had received
their training in the enemy’s camp, as editors in chief, and with the
assistance of Hogg, and the promised support of Scott and many other
men of talent, the first number of the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_
was issued on All-Fools’ Day, 1817--an ominous day for Blackwood, for
he soon discovered that the prophets he had summoned to curse, heaped
blessings on the heads of his opponents. This first number differed
but little from other periodicals of its class. Only half the space
was devoted to original matter, and the very opening pages contained a
panegyric upon Horner, then lately deceased, an _Edinburgh Reviewer_--a
Whig, and not much else. “You can’t say too much about Sydney Smith and
Brougham,” said Scott to Jeffrey; “but I will not admire your Horner.
He always puts me in mind of Obadiah’s bull, who, although, as Father
Shandy observed, he never produced a calf, went through his business
with such a grave demeanour that he always maintained his credit in
the parish.” Nor was this the worst. In No. 3 a violent defence of the
_Edinburgh_ was undertaken warmly. This was too much for Blackwood; he
gave his editors notice of a coming change, and after much chaffering
he was glad to pay £125 down, and get rid at once of them and the
magazine; and--somewhat, doubtless, to his chagrin--they immediately
returned to Constable and took charge of the _Scots Magazine_, which,
under the title of _Constable’s Edinburgh Magazine_, made a futile
effort to re-juvenate itself.
With the sixth number of the _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ had appeared
a notice stating that “this work is now discontinued, this being the
last number of it;” but in the following month, with an alteration in
the title, it arose, Phœnix-like, from the ashes, and, as _Blackwood’s
Edinburgh Magazine_, No. 7, created a sensation which has never
perhaps been equalled. There was, to commence with, a monstrous list
of all possible and impossible articles, chiefly threatened attacks
upon the _Edinburgh_, then a violent attack upon their former defence
of the _Edinburgh Reviewer’s_ onslaught upon Burns and Wordsworth;
but the great feature in No. 7 (No. 1 in reality of _Blackwood_) was
the “Translation from an Ancient Caldee Manuscript,” in which the
circumstances of the late feud, and Constable’s endeavours to repair
the fortunes of his old magazine, and the resuscitation of “Maga”--the
birth, that is, of the genuine “Maga”--are thrown into an allegorical
burlesque.
“The two beasts (the two late editors), the lamb and the bear, came
unto the man who was clothed in plain apparel, and stood in the door
of his house; and his name was as if it had been the colour of ebony
(_Blackwood_), and his number was the number of a maiden when the days
of her virginity have expired (_No. 17, Prince’s Street_), ... and they
said unto him, Give us of thy wealth, that we may eat and live, and
thou shalt enjoy the fruits of our labour for a time, times or half a
time.
“And he answered and said unto them, What will ye unto me whereunto I
may employ you?
“And they proffered unto him a Book, and they said unto him, Take thou
this, and give us a piece of money, that we may eat and drink and our
souls may live.
“And we will put words into thy Book that shall 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 to thy household, and a portion to
thy maidens.
“And the man hearkened unto their voice, and he took their Book, and he
gave them a piece of money, and they went away rejoicing in heart. And
I heard a great noise, as if it had been the noise of many chariots,
and of horsemen prancing upon their horses.
“But after many days they put no words in the Book, and the man was
astonied, and waxed wroth, and 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.
“And the man wist not what for to do; and he called together the
friends of his youth, and all those whose heart was as his heart,
and he entreated them, and they put words into the Book; and it went
abroad, and all the world wondered after the Book, and after the two
beasts that had put such amazing words into the Book.
“Then the man who was crafty in counsel and cunning in all manner of
work (_Constable_), when this man saw the Book, and beheld the things
which were in the Book, he was troubled in spirit and much cast down.
“And he hated the Book and the two beasts that put words into the Book,
for he judged according to the reports of men; nevertheless, the man
was crafty in counsel, and more cunning than his fellows.
“And he said unto the two beasts, Come ye and put your trust under the
shadow of my wings, and we will destroy the man whose name is as ebony
and his Book.
“And the two beasts gave ear unto him, and they came over to him, and
bowed down before him with their faces to the earth....
“Then was the man whose name is as ebony ‘sore dismayed,’ and appealed
to the great magician who dwelleth by the old fastness hard by the
river Jordan which is by the Border (_to Walter Scott_), 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 each man openeth his mouth and my
hand filleth it with pleasant things. (_This is more than a shrewd
guess of the authorship of the Waverley Novels._)
“Moreover, thine adversary also is of my familiars (_Constable, his
publisher_).
“Yet be thou silent, peradventure will I help thee some little.”
Chapter II. shows us Blackwood gazing despondently from his inner
chamber, when a veiled figure appears, who
“Gave unto the man in plain apparel a tablet containing the names of
those upon whom he should call; and when he called they came, and
whomsoever he asked he came....
“And the first which came was after the likeness of the beautiful
leopard, from the valley of the palm-trees, whose going forth was
comely as the greyhound, and his eyes like the lightning of fiery flame
(_Professor Wilson, author of the ‘Isle of Palms.’_)...
“There came also from a far country, the scorpion which delighteth to
sting the faces of men, that he might sting sorely the countenance of
the man which is crafty, and of the two beasts (_Lockhart_).
“Also the great wild boar from the forest of Lebanon, and he roused up
his spirit; and I saw him whetting his dreadful tusks for the battle”
(_James Hogg_).
Then come Dr. Macrie, Sir William Hamilton, Arthur Mower, “and the
hyæna that escheweth the light, and cometh forth at eventide to raise
up and gnaw the bones of the dead, and it is as a riddle unto a vain
man (_Riddell, the legal antiquarian_).
“And the beagle and the slowhound after their kind, and all the beasts
of the field, more than could be numbered, they were so many.”
In Chapter III., Constable finds that the “bear” and the “lamb” are
unprofitable servants, and he, too, calls for aid, but Jeffrey--“the
familiar spirit unto whom he had sold himself”--Leslie, and
Playfair--contributors to the _Edinburgh_--refuse to come. In Chapter
IV., Constable does get aid from Macney Napier, and others.
“And when I saw them all gathered together, I said unto myself, Of a
truth the man which is crafty hath many in his host, yet, think I,
that scarcely will these be found sufficient against them which are in
the gates of the man who is clothed in plain apparel....
“Verily the man which is crafty shall be defeated, and there shall not
escape one to tell of his overthrow.
“And while I was yet speaking, the hosts drew near, and the city was
moved; and my spirit failed within me, and I was sore afraid, and I
turned to escape away.
“And he that was like unto the messenger of a king, said unto me, Cry:
and I said, What shall I cry? for the day of vengeance is come upon all
those that ruled the nation with a rod of iron.
“And I fled into an inner chamber to hide myself, and I heard a great
tumult, but I wist not what it was.”
It is very hard for us now to duly appreciate the crushing effect of
this Caldee manuscript.
It is certainly humorous, after a fashion now so prevalent in America,
and undoubtedly witty.
Among the Edinburgh people of that time, when every man knew his
neighbour, the effect was absolutely prodigious. A yell of despairing
pain arose from one portion of the Whig party, who, if they had no
administrative power in their hands, had hitherto held a patent of all
literary ability; and from the other portion came an equally discordant
cry, which eventually culminated in a fierce accusation of blasphemy
and irreligion. Perhaps, however, the strongest test we can apply to
the power of this galling squib is the fact that every title bestowed
in its pages has “stuck” to the individual against whom it was directed.
Blackwood was alarmed at the commotion he had caused, withdrew the
obnoxious article from the second edition, suppressed it in what he
could of the first, and in the second number inserted the following
announcement:--“The editor has learnt with regret that an article in
the first edition of last number, which was intended merely as a _jeu
d’esprit_, has been construed so as to give offence to individuals
justly entitled to respect and regard; he has, on that account,
withdrawn it in the second edition, and can only add that, if what has
happened could have been anticipated, the article in question certainly
never would have appeared.” It was, however, too late, war had been
declared to the knife, and Blackwood was nothing loath to continue the
struggle.
“The conception of the Caldee MS.,” says Wilson’s son-in-law, Professor
Ferrier, “and the first thirty-seven verses of Chapter I., are to be
ascribed to the Ettrick Shepherd; the rest of the composition falls to
be divided between Professor Wilson and Mr. Lockhart, in proportions
which cannot now be determined.” Again, Mrs. Gordon tells us that this
audacious squib was composed in her grandmother’s house, 23, Queen
Street, where Wilson lived, “amid such shouts of laughter as made the
ladies in the room above send to inquire and wonder what the gentlemen
below were about;” and yet she adds, as if to protect her father from
suspicion of a share in it, that she “cannot trace to her father’s hand
any instance of unmanly attack, or one shade of real malignity.” Very
probably not; but at the same time the fun of the squib is decidedly in
Wilson’s favourite manner. “An old contributor to _Blackwood_,” who,
in 1860, furnished a most interesting and full account of Maga and
Blackwoodiana to the columns of the _Bookseller_, asserts, in reference
to Hogg’s claim, “on the best authority (that of the man who did write
it), that there is no foundation whatever for any such pretext. The
hare was started by Wilson at one of those _symposia_ which preceded
and perhaps suggested the _Noctes_. The idea was caught up with avidity
by Hogg, and some half-dozen verses were suggested by him on the
ensuing day; but we are, we believe, correct in affirming that no part
of his _ébauche_ appeared in the original or any other draft of the
article.” It is to be wished that this writer, whose article evidently
exhibits personal knowledge, and, apart from a running attack upon
Hogg, due impartiality, had, in putting forward a new version of the
story, in contradiction to those already given, been enabled to give us
the name of the writer, apparently, from the wording of the context, a
new claimant.
Not only were Blackwood’s “enemies” discomforted, but even his friends
were sore dismayed. The first number of _Blackwood_ bore the imprint
of John Murray, but the “Caldee MS.” caused him to withdraw his name,
but after passing through the hands of three different London agents,
the sixth again appeared under his countenance. This number, however,
contained some unpalatable strictures on Gifford and the _Quarterly
Reviewers_, and the Albemarle Street patronage was again withdrawn,
only to be renewed in the eleventh number; but by the time it reached
the seventeenth he washed his hands of it entirely, and in future it
appeared without the ornamental appendage of any London bookseller’s
name; the agency, distinctly one of sale only, was given to Cadell and
Davies, who found it profitable enough to occupy the greater part of
their attention. Cadell, naturally as nervous as Murray of giving, or
being in any way instrumental in giving, offence, kept a stereotyped
reply in readiness for any angry victim who rushed into his shop for
redress--“I know nothing of the contents of the magazine; I am merely
the carrier of a certain portion of its circulation to its English
readers.”
From the commencement of the new series--from the foundation that is
of _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_--Blackwood’s fortunes and even the
story of his life are inextricably bound up in the progress of the
periodical; for he did not again, once he had got rid of Pringle and
Cleghorne, entrust its charge and conduct to the care of any editor.
For a long time Wilson was supposed to occupy the editorial chair.
This supposition is treated in a letter, printed by his daughter: “Of
_Blackwood_ I am not the editor, although I believe I very generally
got both the credit and discredit of being Christopher North. I am one
of the chief writers, perhaps the chief writer, but never received one
shilling from the proprietor, except for my own compositions. Being
generally on the spot, I am always willing to give him my advice, and
to supply such articles as are most wanted, when I have leisure.” “From
an early period of its progress,” says Lockhart, speaking of Blackwood
and the magazine, “it engrossed a very large share of his time; and
though he scarcely ever wrote for its pages himself (three articles,
we believe, he did contribute), the general management and arrangement
of it, with the very extensive literary correspondence which this
involved, and the constant superintendence of the press, would have
been more than enough to occupy entirely any man but one of his
first-rate energies.”
Before we follow up the chronicle of the life of _Blackwood_ and its
proprietor, it will be necessary to take a retrospective glance at
the causes which rendered it possible to convert the snug, orthodox,
and more than slightly Whiggish _Edinburgh Monthly Magazine_ into
the slashing, defiant, jovial, dare-devil of _Blackwood’s Edinburgh
Magazine_. This change was chiefly due to the influence of two men,
Wilson and Lockhart, who, together with Hogg, had, under the old
régime, contributed all there was of wit and sparkle. With these three
writers, and the promise of further support, Blackwood had changed his
mind as to putting his ill-fated periodical to the untimely end he had
announced; and we have seen something, and shall see more, as to how
far this determination was justified by success. In the meantime, it is
essential to know a little of these two men, to whom primarily all the
success was due.
John Wilson, the great Tory champion, was descended, not from a county
family, but from a wealthy Paisley manufacturer; and, after taking all
possible prizes at Glasgow University, went to conquer fresh worlds at
Oxford, where he not only won the Newdigate prize of £50 by one of the
best prize poems extant, in fifty lines, but excelled in all sports, to
which a magnificent frame, a temper universally good, a wild exuberance
of animal spirits, and a thirsty love of adventure could contribute.
Strange tales are told of his Oxford escapades; of recess rambles
with strolling players; of wanderings, when smitten by the charms of
a gipsy-girl, for weeks together with her tribe; of sojournings as a
waiter at a country inn, to be close to one of the fair waitresses.
However, his dreams of adventure were surrendered only after having
planned an expedition to Timbuctoo, and he purchased an estate at
Windermere, to be near the Lake school of poets, with whom he soon
threw in his fortune. After the publication of the “Isle of Palms,”
and the “City of the Plague,” he joined the Scotch Bar, and in the
Parliament House struck up an acquaintance with another briefless
barrister--Lockhart, seven years younger than himself.
John Gibbon Lockhart was also educated at Glasgow University, where
gaining the “Snell” foundation, he was sent, at sixteen, to Balliol;
after taking a first-class degree he travelled on the Continent,
returning only when it was necessary to enter at Edinburgh as an
advocate. Silent in private life, he found he could not speak at all in
public; and many years afterwards, when making a speech at a farewell
dinner, given in honour of his departure to undertake the editorship of
the _Quarterly_, he broke down, as usual, and stuttered, “Gentlemen,
you know I can’t make a speech; if I could, we shouldn’t be here.”
Briefless both, and both endowed with strong literary tastes, they
became sworn friends, though Wilson, with his splendid physique, his
loose-flowing yellow hair, his deep-blue eyes, his glowing imagination,
his eloquent tongue, and his defiance of all precedent, was as opposite
a being as well could be imagined to Lockhart, who, to borrow Wilson’s
own words, had “an e’e like an eagle’s, and a sort of lauch about the
screwed-up mouth o’ him that fules ca’d nae canny, for they couldna
tholl the meaning o’t; and either set dumb-foundered, or pretended to
be engaged to sooper, and slunk out o’ the room.”
With two such men as these it was little wonder that Blackwood resolved
to continue the battle. The weapon, however, which had been so
successfully used in the onslaught upon the _Edinburgh Review_ became
in the hands of young writers flushed with victory, instruments of
aggression against those who had never offended; and, as it happened
that the writers who were most personal in their attacks upon friend
and foe alike were also the cleverest and most brilliant, Blackwood’s
position became one of difficulty. Lockhart “who stung the faces
of men”--and sometimes their hearts--cared little as to who his
shafts were directed against so long as they were sharp and biting.
Cameleon-like he appeared in a thousand different forms. Now as the
“veiled editor” himself, now the Dr. Morris of “Peter’s Letters,”
and now as Baron Lauerwinkel, stabbing his contemporaries under the
guise of a German commentator. Against all the members of the “Cockney
School,” a personal invective was habitually employed by him, at which
in these calmer days of drier criticism we can only stand aghast. He
says of Leigh Hunt, “The very concubine of so impure a wretch would be
to be pitied; but, alas, for the wife of such a husband!”--and so forth.
In the February number of _Maga_ a new contributor, Billy Maginn, made
his first bow to the public as Mr. Ensign O’Doherty. Maginn was at this
time a rollicking young Irishman of marvellous classical and literary
acquirements, who at four-and-twenty had achieved the difficult honour
of taking a degree of Doctor of Laws at Dublin, never before earned
by one so young. He had a wonderful gift of improvising in either
verse or prose, and his talents were so versatile, his reading, though
desultory, so universal, that he could immediately treat any subject,
no matter what, in a sparkling and dashing manner. When, however,
under the influence of liquor, he was perfectly unmanageable; and his
writings bore every stamp of his own character. One of his first
squibs in _Blackwood_ was a Latin version of “Chevy-chase,” which, in a
foot-note expressed more than a doubt as to the Hebraical knowledge of
Professor Leslie--an Edinburgh Reviewer who had recently been appointed
to the University Chair of Philosophy. The enraged professor summoned
the aid of the law. Blackwood accepted the challenge and inserted
another article by Maginn, which stated that the professor “did not
even know the alphabet of the tongue which he had the imprudence to
pretend to criticise,” and charged him, in addition, of stealing his
pet theories respecting heat, from an old volume of the “Philosophical
Transactions.” The damages awarded amounted to £100, but as all the
legal talent in Edinburgh was engaged in what was regarded as a party
trial, the costs were unusually heavy. Nothing scared, however,
Blackwood welcomed the writer to Edinburgh when he chose to cast off
his incognita.
The magazine was thriving now, and circulated throughout the kingdom.
Blackwood, busy as he was with its management, found time to push his
general publishing business steadily forward. The issue of Brewster’s
“Edinburgh Encyclopædia” was continued, and Lockhart’s talents were
utilized beyond the pale of _Maga_. In 1818 Schlegel’s “History of
Literature,” translated by Lockhart, was published; and in 1819
appeared Lockhart’s “Peter’s Letters to his Kinsfolk, by Dr. Peter
Morris”--a series of sketches of all things Scotch, from which we
extract an account of Blackwood and his shop:--
“First there is as usual a spacious place set apart for retail
business, and a numerous detachment of young clerks and apprentices,
to whose management this important department of the concern is
entrusted. Then you have an elegant oval saloon, lighted from the roof,
where various groups of loungers and literary dilettanti are engaged
in looking at, or criticising among themselves, the publications just
arrived by that day’s coach from town. In such critical colloquies,
the voice of the bookseller himself may ever and anon be heard
mingling the broad and unadulterated notes of its Auld Reekie’s
music; for, unless occupied in the recesses of the 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 from one corner
to another with great alacrity, and apparently under the influence of
high animal spirits. His complexion is very sanguinous, but nothing
can be more intelligent, keen, and sagacious than the expression of
the physiognomy; above all the gray eyes and eye-brows, as full of
locomotion as those of Catalani’s. The remarks he makes are in general
extremely acute--much more so indeed than any other member of the trade
I ever heard speak upon such topics. The shrewdness and decision of the
man can, however, stand in need of no testimony beyond what his own
conduct has afforded--above all in the establishment of his magazine
(the conception of which I am assured was entirely his own)--and the
subsequent energy with which he has supported it through every variety
of good and evil fortune. It would be unfair to lay upon his shoulders
any portion of the blame which any part of his book may have deserved;
but it is impossible to deny that he is well entitled to whatever merit
may be supposed to be due to the erection of a work founded in the main
upon good principles, both political and religious, in a city where a
work upon such principles must have been more wanted, and, at the same
time, more difficult than in any other with which I am acquainted.”
On leaving the shop, Dr. Peter is taken to dine at “a house in the
immediate neighbourhood, frequently alluded to in the magazine as
the great haunt of his wits.” This was Ambrose’s, mentioned in the
“Caldee MS.”--“as thou lookest to the road of Gabriel and the land of
_Ambrose_.” At this favourite tavern, at the _noctes cœnæque deum_,
was foreshadowed what was destined to be by far the most interesting
portion of the earlier series of _Blackwood_.
The first trace we can find in the magazine of these famous _réunions_
is in the number for August, 1819, where a work on military matter
is reviewed by two different critics while enjoying their evening
glasses at Ambrose’s. This was followed up next month by a paper which
occupied the whole of the number, entitled “Christopher in the Tent”--a
sketch, suppositious, of course, of a country expedition of the whole
staff--full of rollicking humour and uproarious fun, with etchings by
Lockhart and jokes by all.
In the following year, 1820, the first of Blackwood’s really classic
novels appeared in the magazine. This was the “Ayrshire Legatees,” by
John Galt; and the editor, quick to perceive talent and eager to retain
it, published in rapid succession a series of tales and sketches by the
modern Smollet.
This year, too, was an important one for both of the chief
contributors. Lockhart, whose rising merits had long since attracted
the attention of Scott, married the “Great Magician’s favourite
daughter;” and Wilson, to the terror of half Edinburgh, became a
candidate for the chair of Moral Philosophy at the University.
Curious reports were spread of half true tales of youthful adventure,
of bull-hunts by the shores of Windermere; of cock-fights in his own
drawing-room; of a thousand escapades of one kind or another; and these
were capped by a rumour that he was not very sound in either religion
or morals; and even Tory counsellors shrunk from supporting a man who
was said to be a fast liver and a free thinker. The Whigs started
an excellent rival, Sir William Hamilton, and the contest was very
keen. “I wad like to gie ye ma vote, Mr. Wulson,” said an Edinburgh
magistrate, “but I’m feared. They say ye dunna expect to be saved by
grace.” “I don’t know much about that, baillie; but if I am not saved
by grace I am sure my works won’t save me.” “That’ll do, that’ll do;
I’ll gie you my vote.” Others were of a like mind, for Wilson was a man
whom to know was to love, and the election was secured.
Immediately after the election Wilson returned to Elleray to
recruit; and here an event happened which not only shows his natural
impetuosity, but which might have been of very serious consequence,
and, as a version of the story has recently appeared in “Barham’s
Life,” it may not be altogether out of place to give the correct
version here.
Lord M----r and three Oxford friends, one of whom had just been
ordained, had started in their own coach upon a rollicking tour
homewards; their journey, even in those free-and-easy times, was marked
by a blackguardism of conduct almost unparalleled.
At York they halted for a few days--few because the inhabitants would
stand their presence no longer, and, after paying £150 for their hotel
bills, and for the Vandalism they had committed in the town, they
drove on to Windermere, and put up at the Ferry Hotel. Here they stayed
for nearly four days, disporting themselves like Yahoos. Wilson, as is
well known, was “Admiral of the Windermere Fleet,” and chanced, while
they were in the neighbourhood, to hold a regatta, giving his friends
a tea at Ullock’s Hotel, Bowness, when the amusements of the day were
over.
Hither the travelling adventurers came by water; at the landing stage,
however, one of the number, seeing a fisherman washing his nets in
the lake, crept behind him, and with a shove and a hoarse laugh sent
him into the water. Westmoreland blood is not easily cooled, and the
peasant, seizing his attacker, ducked him within an inch of his life.
Nothing daunted the other three proceeded to the hotel, and entered a
room where tea was laid out for a large party; to knock the tray over,
to pull the cloth off, to dance upon the tea-pot till it was flattened,
and the crockery till it was smashed into a thousand smithereens, was,
of course, only the work of an instant. Hearing the clatter, Mrs.
Wilson hurried downstairs, and Lord M----r, mistaking her for the
landlady, seized her by the neck, and tried to ravish a kiss. At this
critical moment the Professor entered--one blow “from the shoulder”
laid the noble lord at his feet; then, like a genuine old heathen
warrior, placing one foot upon the neck of the prostrate wretch--“if
you other two scoundrels are not out of this room in an instant, I’ll
squeeze the man’s breath out of his body.” They heard--and fled.
Wilson, in a fury of excitement, took boat to Belle Isle, and urged Mr.
Curwen to act as his friend. Mr. Curwen represented that Lord M----r
was utterly beneath contempt--that no professor of moral philosophy
had ever been engaged in a cause of honour; that all his friends had
been representing him as a quiet, orderly man--in fact, brought forward
a thousand arguments which might have been of the utmost weight to a
reasonable being--but not just at present to Wilson; he flung out of
the room, crossed the lake, and sought a gallant naval officer, Captain
Br----, who, a true Sir Lucius O’Trigger, said the matter was in good
hands, and looked up his pistols. They adjourned to Elleray to wait the
expected challenge: but on the evening of the following day, getting
tired of inaction, they set out on a drive to see why the storm did
not commence. Further search was endless. Lord M----r and his friends
had taken to their coach and fled; they could not, however, get their
horses out of the stables until they had paid an hotel bill of £120
and £20 to the landlord of Ullock’s Hotel for damages. Thus the affair
ended happily, and Wilson was able to return peaceably to Edinburgh to
fulfil his new duties.
Few men ever undertook so important a charge with so little
preparation. “But there was,” says one who listened to him, “a genius
in Wilson; there was grandeur in his conceptions, and true nobility
in the tone and spirit of his lectures. I can compare them to nothing
save the braying of the trumpet that sent a body of high-bred cavalry
against the foe. ‘Charge! and charge home!’ Wilson’s action upon the
better and more pure-minded of his pupils was pre-eminently beneficial.
His lectures deeply influenced their characters for humanity, for
unselfishness, for high and honourable resolve to fight the battle of
life; like the old Danish hero ‘to dare nobly, to will strongly, and
never to falter in the path of duty.’ Such was Wilson’s creed; and,
till 1850, when he was found stricken down in his private room, ten
minutes after the class hour, he astonished and delighted all that was
intellectual in Edinburgh by these, aptly termed, ‘volcanic lectures on
ethics.’”
Much work, however, had to be gone through before that date; his
private fortune had been lost some years back by the failure of a house
of business, and he was one of those men whom, the more work is thrown
on them the more they are able to go through with.
In 1822 appeared the first specimen of his power as a novelist in the
“Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life,” which went rapidly through
edition after edition; and in the March of this year appeared also the
first number of the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_--a curt dialogue between the
editor and Ensign O’Doherty; it was not for seventeen numbers that
Wilson, almost sorry, commenced that wonderful series that became
one of the literary wonders of the day; and for thirteen years as
Christopher North he continued to delight the world, and it is as
Christopher North, in his shooting-jacket, with gun or fishing-rod,
by the lochs or by the moors, amid the scenery which he has so
marvellously limned, and the emotions to which he has given utterance,
that he will be remembered to all time.
In 1824 we see that Carlyle gets his first pleasant encouragement
in _Maga_, and Moir’s most famous production, the “Autobiography of
Mansie Wauch,” appears. Moir--a young surgeon of only nineteen when
he first appeared in the pages of the original _Edinburgh Monthly
Magazine_--had at once attracted the attention of William Blackwood--“a
man,” says Moir’s biographer, “of rare sagacity, courage, and
persevering energy.” As “Delta,” in the pages of _Maga_, the popularity
of Moir’s softer and sweeter pieces was very great; and when “Mansie”
appeared, “there were districts,” says Aird again, “where country
clubs, waiting impatiently for the magazine, met monthly as soon as it
was issued, and had ‘Mansie’ read aloud by one of their number, amid
explosions of congregated laughter.”
Lockhart, too, had since his marriage been wielding his pen as freely
as ever. “Valerius” and “Adam Blair” had both been successful ventures
for Blackwood; and were succeeded in 1822 by the “Spanish Ballads,”
which have so much of the true ring of original poetry about them, that
Lockhart’s friends always regretted that he did not devote his time
more exclusively to the composition of some original poetical work. In
1825 the editorship of the _Quarterly_ was offered him, and Blackwood
lost one of his earliest and strongest supporters. Shortly after this
the other satirical spirit of the periodical--Billy Maginn--also moved
southward.
But Blackwood was too firmly established now to dread the loss of any
single contributor save one. The famous _Noctes_ were, in reality,
only just commencing; and there it is that the character of the
Ettrick Shepherd most shines--vicariously, however, for his popularity
is chiefly due to the piquancy and vitality with which the genius
of Wilson endowed him. Whatever is best in the national genius of
Scotland, in humour, poetry, imagination, and fervour, are poured forth
in the quaint and broad language of the Shepherd. But enough of the
_Noctes_; are they not still familiar volumes upon the tables of all
who read?
This year (1826), in which Blackwood was at the height of his success,
was fatal, as we have before seen, to Constable; and with his failure
disappeared for ever that rival to _Maga_, Constable’s _Edinburgh
Monthly Magazine_.
In being thus minute in the history of the magazine, we can scarcely
be said to be neglecting the history of its proprietor, for their
careers were inextricably bound up together, and Blackwood looked upon
it as a father might upon a darling son. In the exulting vanity of his
success, he was induced, about 1825, to print for private circulation,
an alphabetical list of contributors, and sent Wilson a proof, who,
by way of remonstrance, dashed in the names of such celebrities as
Omai the Otaheitan, and Pius VII., with the names of some of the most
egregious fools and mountebanks he had ever met with, and returned it
to the printer, who duly furnished Blackwood with a revise; and the
absurd incongruity of the names showed him the incautious impropriety
of which he had been guilty. Two impressions only were reserved, one
for Blackwood and one for the professor.
As an editor, the punctuality and alacrity with which he acknowledged
the communications of his contributors was wonderful; “and,” says the
“Old Contributor,” “along with the mail coach copy of the magazine,
or by an early post after its publication, came a letter to each
contributor, full of shrewd hints for his future guidance, and often,
not merely suggesting the subject for a future paper, but indicating
with delicate hesitation the mode in which he fancied it might be
discussed with the best advantage.... The ‘pudding’ was invariably
associated with praise. At the head or foot of the welcome missive
was a cheque for your article, the amount of which was not carved and
patted like a pound of butter, into exact weight, but measured with no
penurious hand.... He hated a cockney as Johnson hated a Scotsman, and
considered all writers on this side the border, who did not contribute
to _Maga_, as falling within this category.”
In 1827, Blackwood brought out two books, which were alike only in
achieving, each of them, a vast popularity. One was “The Youth and
Manhood of Cyril Thornton,” by Captain Hamilton, and the other “The
Course of Time,” by Pollok, a Scottish, if not a British, classic. The
_Edinburgh Encyclopædia_ was continued till its final completion in
eighteen quarto volumes, and not the least important of his publishing
successes was the reproduction of the chief distinct works of Wilson,
Lockhart, Hogg, Moir, Galt, and other writers connected with the
magazine. He also continued to the close of his career, to carry on an
extensive trade in retail bookselling.
In addition to these heavy labours, he still found opportunity during
some of the best years of his life to take a prominent part in the
affairs of the city of Edinburgh, for which he was twice a magistrate,
“and in that capacity,” says Lockhart, “distinguished himself by an
intrepid zeal in the reform of burgh management, singularly in contrast
with his avowed sentiments respecting constitutional reform.” Here he
often exhibited in the conduct of debate and the management of less
vigorous minds, a very rare degree of tact and sagacity.
To return to the magazine. After Lockhart and Maginn left Edinburgh,
the bitterly personal tone by which it had been so frequently
disfigured, was almost entirely dropped; and this negative fact, aided
by the positive one of the great popularity of the _Noctes_, raised the
circulation immensely.
In 1826, an early Elleray friend of Wilson’s, De Quincey, “the
opium-eater,” began to discourse of things German in the pages of
_Maga_; and in 1830, the “Diary of a Late Physician” was commenced.
This, one of the most successful works of modern fiction, had, Warren
tells us, “been offered successively to the conductors of three leading
magazines in London, and rejected as ‘unsuitable for their pages,’
and ‘not likely to interest the public.’... I have this morning been
referring to nearly fifty letters which he (Blackwood) wrote to me
during the publication of the first fifteen chapters of his ‘Diary.’
The perusal of them occasioned me lively emotion. All of them evidence
the remarkable tact and energy with which he conducted his magazine....
He was a man of strong intellect, of great personal sagacity, of
unrivalled energy and industry, of high and inflexible honour in every
transaction, great or small, that I ever heard of his being concerned
in.”
Contemporary with the publication of the “Diary,” was that of the
successful books “Tom Cringle’s Log” and “Sir Frizzle Pumpkin’s Nights
at Mess,” the first by Michael Scott, and the second by the Reverend
Mr. White. In May, 1832, appeared Wilson’s review of Mr. Tennyson’s
first volume; in which the affectations of Mr. Tennyson’s earlier
writings were ridiculed, but his more worthy pieces were praised in
no niggardly terms. At the moment Mr. Tennyson was irritated, but
his anger soon evaporated in some not very pungent lines to “Rusty,
Crusty Christopher,” which he has long since seen fit to suppress; and,
eventually, he exhibited a due acknowledgment of the truth of Wilson’s
criticism, by removing several pieces and altering others. “Stoddart
and Aytoun,” writes Wilson in this same review, “he of the ‘Death Wake’
and he of ‘Poland,’ are graciously regarded by old Christopher; and
their volume--presentation copies--have been placed among the essays of
those gifted youths, of whom, in riper years, much may be confidently
predicted of fair and good”--a sentence worth quoting, when it is
remembered that Aytoun afterwards married Wilson’s daughter, and in a
few years occupied his position in the pages of _Maga_ itself.
In 1833, Blackwood was still full of schemes and enterprises; he
commenced the publication of Alison’s “History of Europe.” Only the
first two volumes were published, and then not altogether successfully,
when Blackwood was stricken down by a mortal disease, a tumour in the
groin, which, in a weary illness of four months, exhausted his physical
energies, but left his temper calm and unruffled, and his intellect
vigorous to the last. He was attended by Moir--the sweet-toned “Delta”
of his magazine--who had another dying patient scarce a hundred yards
off. This was Galt, who had been personally estranged from Blackwood
by rough advice and strictures as to one of his stories. Now, however,
that they lay dying so near each to each, the old friendliness
returned, and Moir bore pleasant messages and hopeful wishes from one
bedside to another. They never met again. Galt lingered on for years,
but Blackwood died on the 10th of September, 1834, in the fifty-seventh
year of his age.
We have already given his character as described by those who knew him
best, and it were idle to add any weaker testimony.
He left a widow and a family of seven sons and two daughters, many of
them very young; and the management of the business devolved upon the
two elder, Robert and Alexander, who had for some years been associated
with their father.
Until 1845, these gentlemen were at the head of the flourishing
business, and with such a start they could not fail to succeed.
The magazine, in spite of all rivals, continued to be as great a
favourite as ever, though in a year or so after the death of the
elder Blackwood, Wilson withdrew almost entirely from its pages, and
his position was eventually occupied by his son-in-law, Professor
Aytoun. Many new contributors, without distinction of sect or party,
were added to the staff; and even Douglas Jerrold and Walter Savage
Landor--ultra-radicals, both--were made free of its pages. John
Sterling, “our new contributor,” as Wilson fondly called him, fully
retained the old reputation for deliciously sparkling poems and essays;
and Lord Lytton, in the “Poems and Ballads of Schiller,” kept alive
the cosmopolitan spirit of poetry inaugurated by Lockhart. In 1845,
Alexander Blackwood died, and was shortly afterwards followed by his
brother, when John, the third son, the present proprietor of the
business and the present editor of _Blackwood_, who was born in 1818,
succeeded. So popular had _Maga_ become in the colonies, and more
especially in the United States, that a reprint of it was regularly
published there every month. Mr. John Blackwood took counsel with the
American lawyers, obtained an American contributor, and then threatened
the Yankee publisher with all the terrors of the law, if the number
were pirated as usual--a successful step, for ever since that date a
tribute tithe has been regularly paid for the right of republication. A
branch house was started in London; the firm was also increased by the
return from India of William Blackwood, who was a major in the Indian
army.
In 1848 Lord Lytton commenced the “Caxtons,” and novel after novel from
his pen appeared in _Maga_ to be anonymously successful even to the day
of his death. For a period of twenty-five years, some of the finest
novels and life-pictures in the language have made their first way to
public favour through the medium of the magazine; and Mrs. Oliphant
and George Eliot owed their first encouragement to the discernment
of Mr. John Blackwood. That _Maga_ is still _facile princeps_ of the
monthly literature is evident enough even from a bare mention of latest
ventures, from the talent of “Earl’s Dene” and the wit of the “Battle
of Dorking.”
Alison’s “History of Europe” very soon proved its worth in the eyes of
the public; and among other more recent successes of the house we may
mention the novels of George Eliot, particularly “Middlemarsh,” which
came out in an altogether novel form.