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.
As we shall not have another chance of returning to modern magazine literature, we may not inappropriately close the chapter with a short account of one or two of the most successful of the high-class publications.
It was not to be expected that the marvellous success of Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine would be allowed to pass unchallenged. The honour as well as the fortunes of the Southron publishers forbade it. In 1820, the London Magazine, a name borrowed from an old and defunct periodical, was established by Baldwin, Craddock, and Joy, under the editorship of John Scott, formerly of the Champion newspaper. Many men of talent joined the staff, but Scott’s old colleague, Wainwright, afterwards infamous as the insurance murderer, aided and abetted his chief in a series of very offensive personal articles. In two or three of them a fierce attack was made upon Sir Walter Scott, as being a mere pretender to the authorship of the Waverley Novels (which, as Scott was doing his utmost to hide his light under a bushel, was scarcely called for); and in addition to this the writers made an onslaught on all who were supposed to be connected with Blackwood or his magazine. Lockhart, with all the sensitiveness of your true satirist, called immediately for an apology, and was evaded by a demand that he should first disavow his connection with Blackwood. This was out of the question, and Mr. Christie, to whom Lockhart had entrusted negotiations, feeling that Scott was shuffling, and that he himself was being trifled with, let drop some expressions on his own account calculated to give offence. A meeting was arranged. Christie fired down the field, but Scott, not perceiving this, aimed deliberately at his opponent, but missed his mark. Christie, seeing his adversary again prepare to fire in his direction, did not a second time waste his powder, and the result was that Scott was mortally wounded.
Dreadful as was the catastrophe, and the sensation it made at the time, it tended to soften the asperities of the press, and was instrumental in bringing a better spirit to critical discussion.
After Mr. Scott’s death, the proprietorship of the London Magazine was transferred to Taylor and Hessay, the poetical publishers. The first of these gentlemen was the original proclaimer of Francis as the author of the “Letters of Junius;” the second will ever be remembered for his kindliness to John Keats. Mindful of the success of Blackwood, they retained the editorship in their own hands, and, again like him, were most liberal in their payments—a pound a page for prose, and two pounds for verse, was the honarium of ordinary contributors; Charles Lamb receiving, very fitly, two or three times that amount. It is Charles Lamb’s name that is now most intimately connected with the London Magazine, for here it was that the famous “Essays of Elia” first appeared. Among the other contributors we find many celebrated names; Hazlitt furnished all the articles upon the drama, Mr. Carlyle contributed the “Life and Writings of Schiller” to the last three volumes, and here De Quincey first published his “Confessions of an English Opium-Eater,” filled with the weirdest fancies and the loveliest word-pictures in our literature. Here, too, Tom Hood fleshed his maiden sword; and among the other writers we find the names of Keats, Landor, Hartley Coleridge, Barry Cornwall, and Bowring. Such an array of talent did not, however, avail, without steady editorial skill, to win a wide popularity, and in 1825 the publication was suspended.
We have seen that Maginn had accompanied Lockhart to the south. In 1827 the Standard newspaper was founded, and he was installed in the editorial chair, where for some seven or eight years he drew £500 a year. His unrivalled facility in dashing off slashing articles upon any subject, quickly raised his income to eighteen or nineteen hundred; but his ever-increasing habits of intemperance rendered regularity of work impossible. Together with Lockhart and other writers, he planned a London monthly rival to Blackwood, and in 1829 an East India merchant of the name of Fraser was found willing to make the necessary advances, and Fraser’s Magazine was started. An editor was kept to correct the proofs, and to go to prison, as occasion might require; but Maginn contributed a large proportion of the first three numbers, and was virtually the manager. Hogg, who, as Wilson said, had made a perfect stye of every magazine in the kingdom, was invited up to town. Its rollicking tone, untempered by any genuine humour, was wofully overdone, and smacked of the reeking laughter of the pothouse. Maginn, having no one to direct his shafts, attacked every one right and left, and selected a series of literary and political butts for continuous practice, among whom were Professor Wilson, Tom Campbell, and Lord Ellesmere, who were insulted in the most audacious manner; and language and criticism like this gave constant rise to cudgellings, law-suits, and duels. Maginn, however, had plenty of courage—was as reckless with his pistol as his pen. Captain Berkeley having called at the office, seen Fraser, and horsewhipped him for a libel, was challenged by the writer of it—Maginn—who, sobered down for the moment, stood his fire for three rounds with the utmost nonchalance. In spite of the humour of Thackeray and the philosophy of Carlyle, lately admitted to its pages, Fraser’s Magazine was commercially not successful until Maginn and Hogg were banished from the staff. When, however, it got into better hands, and led a cleanlier life, an ample field was found for its circulation.
Thackeray, whom we mentioned above, was instrumental in effecting a thorough change in periodical literature. When under his direction, the Cornhill was started, to give for a shilling all that had before been given for two shillings and sixpence, the bookselling world was incredulous of success, and the book-buying world scarcely hopeful. More than 100,000 copies of the first number were sold, and as soon as it was seen that a vastly wide-spread circulation is infinitely more valuable than a narrower sphere at a much higher rate, a crowd of other shilling magazines were produced, among which it is enough to mention Temple Bar, London Society, Macmillan’s, Belgravia, and a score of others, some of which were doubtless successful, but many more or less ephemeral. One detrimental fact has of course arisen from such a multiplicity of organs; the available talent of the day, such as it is, cannot now be concentrated. The same curse haunts the theatre; at present one “star” is as much as the greediest can expect on one stage.