LETTER XLIV. TO THE SAME. DEAR DAVID, THE only great lounging book-shop in the New Town of Edinburgh is Mr. Blackwood's. The prejudice in favour of sticking by the Old Town was so strong among the gentlemen of the trade, that when this bookseller intimated a few years ago his purpose of removing to the New, his ruin was immediately prophesied by not a few of his sagacious brethren. He persisted, however, in bis intentions, and speedily took possession of a large and airy suite of rooms in Prince's Street, which had formerly been occupied by a notable confectioner, and whose threshhold was therefore familiar enough to all the frequenters of that superb promenade. There it was that this enterprising bibliopole hoisted his standard, and prepared at once for action. 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 HighStreet, what the other has made Albemarle Street to the Row. This shop is situated very near my hotel; so Mr. W. carried me into it almost immediately after my arrival in Edinburgh; indeed, I asked him to do so, for the noise made even in London about the Chaldee MS., and some other things in the Magazine, had given me some curiosity to see the intrepid publisher of these things, and the probable scene of their concoction. W has contributed a variety of poems, chiefly ludicrous, to the pages of the New Miscellany; so that he is of course a mighty favourite with the proprietor, and I could not have made my introduction under better auspices than his. The length of vista presented to one on entering the shop, has a very imposing effect; for it is carried back, room after room, through various gradations of light and shadow, till the eye cannot trace distinctly the outline of any object in the furthest distance. 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 that important department of the concern is intrusted. Then you have an elegant oval saloon, lighted from the roof, where various groupes of loungers and literary dilettanti are en gaged 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 music; for, unless occupied in the recesses of the premises with some other business, it is bere 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 can be more intelligent, keen, and sagacious, than the expression of the whole physiognomy; above all, the grey eyes and eye-brows as full of loco-motion as those of Catalani. The remarks he makes, are, in general, extremely acute-much more so, indeed, than those of any members 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 very unfair to lay upon his shoulders any portion of the blame which particular parts of his book may have deserved; but it is impossible to deny that be is well entitled to a large share in 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. After I had been introduced in due form, and we had stood for about a couple of minutes in this place, the bookseller drew Mr. W- aside, and a whispering conversation commenced between them, in the course of which, although I had no intention of being a listener, I could not avoid noticing that my own name was frequently mentioned. On the conclusion of it, Mr. Blackwood approached me with a look of tenfold kindness, and requested me to walk with him into the interior of his premises-all of which, he was pleased to add, he was desirous of showing to me. I of course agreed, and followed him through various turnings and windings into a very small closet, furnished with nothing but a pair of chairs and a writing-table. We had no sooner arrived in this place, which, by the way, had certainly something very mysterious in its aspect, than Mr. Blackwood began at once with these words: "Well, Dr. Morris, have you seen our last Number? Is it not perfectly glorious?-My stars! Doctor! there is nothing equal to it. We are beating the Reviews all to nothing-and, as to the other Magazines, they are such utter trash"-To this I replied shortly, that I had seen and been very much amused with the last number of his Magazine-intimating, however, by tone of voice, as well as of look, that I was by no means prepared to carry my admiration quite to the height he seemed to think reasonable and due. He observed nothing of this, however; or if he did, did not choose I should see that it was so- "Dr. Morris!" said he, "you must really be a contributor-We've a set of wild fellows about; we are much in want of a few sensible intelligent writers, like you, sir, to counterbalance them-and then what a fine field you would have in Wales-quite untouched-a perfect Potosi. But any thing you like, sir-only do contribute. It is a shame for any man that dislikes whiggery and infidelity not to assist us. Do give us an article, Doctor." Such an appeal was not easily to be resisted: so, before coming away, I promised, bona fide, to comply with his request. I should be happy to do so, indeed, were it only to please my friend W, who, although by no means a bigotted admirer of Mr. Blackwood's Magazine, is resolved to support it as far as he conveniently can,-merely and simply, because it opposes, on all occasions, what he calls the vile spirit of the Edinburgh Review. Besides, from every thing I have since seen or heard of Mr. Blackwood, I cannot but feel a most friendly disposition toward him. He has borne,, without shrinking, much shameful abuse, heaped upon him by the lower members of the political party whose great organs his Magazine has so boldly, and, in general, so justly, attacked. But the public seem to be a good deal disgusted with the treatment he has received-a pretty strong re-action has been created-so that, while one hears his name occasionally pronounced contemptuously by some paltry Whig, the better, class of the Whigs themselves mention him in very different terms, and the general conviction throughout this literary city is, that he is a clever, zealous, honest man, who has been made to answer occasionally for faults not his own, and that he possesses the essential qualities both of a bookseller and a publisher, in a degree, perhaps, not at all inferior to the most formidable of his rivals. Over and above all this, I must say, that I am fond of using my pen-witness my unconscionable epistles, David, past, present, and to come-and have long been seeking for an opportunity to try my hand in some of the periodical journals. In the present day, I look upon periodical writing as by far the most agreeable species of authorship. When a man sits down to write a history or a dissertation-to fill an octavo or quarto with Politics, Morals, Metaphysics, Theology, Physics, Physic, or Belles-Lettres, he writes only for a particular class of readers, and his book is bought only by a few of that particular class. But the happy man who is permitted to fill a sheet, or a half-sheet, of a monthly or quarterly journal with his lucubrations, is sure of coming into the hands of a vast number of persons more than he has any strict or even feasible claim upon, either from the subject-matter or execution of his work. The sharp and comical criticisms of one man are purchased by people who abhor the very name of it, because they are stitched under the same cover with ponderous masses of political economy, or foggy divinity, or statistics, or law, or algebra, more fitted for their plain or would be plain understandings; while, on the other hand, young ladies and gentlemen, who conceive the whole sum and substance of human accomplishment to consist in being able to gabble a little about new novels and poems, are compelled to become the proprietors of so many quires of lumber per quarter, in order that they may not be left in ignorance of the last merry things uttered by Mr. Jeffrey, or Mr. Southey, or Mr. Gifford, or Sir James Macintosh. It is thus-for that also should be taken into consideration-that these works pay so much better than any others; or rather that, with the exception of a few very popular poems, or novels, or sermons, (which are sold off in a week or two,) they are the only works that pay at all. One might suppose, that as all the best authors of our day are extremely willing to pocket as much as they can by their productions, the periodical works all the world over, would be filled with the very best materials that living writers could furnish; and in our country, there is no question a near approach to this has been made in the case of the two great Reviews, which, after all that has been said against them, must still be admit ted to be, in the main, the most amusing and instructive works our time produces. But even these might be vastly improved, were it not for the vanity or ambition-(according to Gall and Spurzheim, the two principles are quite the same,)—of some of our chief writers, who cannot, in spite of all their love for lucre, entirely devest themselves of the old-fashioned ideas they imbibed in their youth, about the propriety and diguity of coming out, every now and then, with large tomes produced by one brain, and bearing one name on the title-page. In time, however, there is reason to hope people may become sensible of the absurdity of such ante-diluvian notions, and consent, for their own sakes, to keep all their best things for the periodicals. Indeed, I see no reason to doubt that this will be the case long before the National Bankruptcy occurs. I, for my part, have such a horror at the idea of writing a whole book, and putting my christian and surname at the beginning of it, that I am quite sure I should never be an author while I live, were these necessary conditions to the dignity. I could not endure to bear it whispered when I might come into a room-" Dr. Morris who is Dr. Morris ?" O, 'tis the same Dr. Morris that wrote the book on so and so that was cut up so and so"--or even "that was praised so and so, in such and such a Review."-I want nerves for this. I rejoice in the privilege of writing and printing incognito-'tis the finest discovery of our age, for it was never practised to any extent in any age preceding. There is no question that the other way of doing must have its own agremens, when one happens to practise it with great success -but even so, I think the mask is better on the whole, and I think it looks as if the whole world were likely to be ere long of my opinion. I don't suppose the author of Waverley will ever think of confessing himself-were I in his place, I am sure I never should. What fine persuasive words are those which Venus makes use of in the Eneid, when she proposes to the Trojan hero to wrap his approach to the city with a copious garniture of cloud--multo nebula amictu. "Cernere ne quis te, neu quis contingere posset, There could be no resisting of such arguments, even without the additional persuasiveness of a "rosea cervix," and "ambrosia comæ divinum vertice odorem spirantes." |