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.