My dear Sir,—As in duty bound I send you the first complete copy I have got of the Magazine. I also beg you will do me the favor to accept of the enclosed. It is unnecessary for me to say how much and how deeply I am indebted to you, and I shall only add that by the success of the Magazine (for which I shall be wholly indebted to you) I hope to be able to offer you something more worthy of your acceptance.—I am, dear Sir,
Yours very truly, W. Blackwood”[98]
[98] Mrs. Oliphant: Annals of a Publishing House, V. i, p. 127
Mrs. Oliphant draws a pretty picture, which reveals better perhaps than some more erudite account, the mental state of William Blackwood the night before “Maga” was offered to the world. “He went into his house, where all the children ... rushed out with clamor and glee to meet their father, who, for once in his excitement, took no notice of them, but walked straight to the drawing room, where his wife, not excitable, sat in her household place, busy no doubt for her fine family; and coming into the warm glow of the light, threw down the precious Magazine at her feet. ‘There is that that will give you what is your due—what I always wished you to have’, he said, with the half-sobbing laugh of the great crisis. She gave him a characteristic word, half-satirical, as was her way, not outwardly moved.... Sometimes he called her a wet blanket when she thus damped his ardor,—but not, I think, that night.”[99]
[99] Same
It might easily be guessed that after the sudden bursting into glory of the October number, the same high level would be difficult to sustain. But although subsequent numbers boast no Chaldee to convulse or enrage the town, the popularity of “Maga” seems never again to lag. The November number begins properly enough. The afore-mentioned apology and explanation of the Chaldee introduced it to the watchful waiters, impatient to ascertain what a second issue would bring forth. The first long article, nine and a half pages, “On the Pulpit Eloquence of Scotland”[100], very thoughtful, very serious, very earnest, in tone, thanks God that Scotland has been blessed with the heavenly visitation of her well loved preacher, Dr. Chalmers, and extols and praises and appreciates the man, “like an angel in a dream”. The second article continues the learned discussion “On the Optical Properties of Mother-of-Pearl”[101]. The third is John Wilson’s famous review of Byron’s “Lament of Tasso”[102], wherein says he “There is one Poem in which he (Byron) has almost wholly laid aside all remembrance of the darker and stormier passions; in which the tone of his spirit and his voice at once is changed, and where he who seemed to care only for agonies, and remorse, and despair, and death, and insanity, in all their most appalling forms, shews that he has a heart that can feed on the purest sympathies of our nature, and deliver itself up to the sorrows, the sadness and the melancholy of humbler souls.”[103]
[100] Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, V. ii, p. 131
[101] Ibid., V. ii, p. 140
[102] Ibid., V. ii, p. 142
[103] Ibid., V. ii, p. 143