"I am very sorry that there was not room for your spirited and amusing sketches in this number; but they will appear in our next.
"You are exactly the correspondent that we want, and I hope you will continue to favor us with your communications, and you may depend upon being liberally treated. I do not wish to say much about terms, as I have a perfect horror at the manufacturing system of gentlemen who do articles for periodicals at so much per sheet. I feel confident that you are none of these, but one who, like the friends who have supported my Magazine, writes upon subjects which he takes an interest in, and therefore handles them con amore. It is this system of piece-work which has made most periodicals such commonplace affairs; and it is by keeping free of it that 'Maga' will preserve her name and fame.
"Meantime, I am perfectly sensible that the laborer is worthy of his hire, and that no gentleman need refuse the remuneration he is entitled to. It gives me great pleasure, therefore, to send an honorarium to all my contributors. I may also mention to you that this varies from seven to ten guineas, or perhaps more, per sheet, according to the nature of the articles.
"By way of arles, (Anglicé, earnest,) I annex a draft on Mr. Cadell for five guineas to account.
"With regard to your name, you will do just as you feel most convenient and agreeable. All I shall say is, that whatever is confided to me I keep sacredly to myself.
"I am, Sir,
"Your most obedient servant,
"W. Blackwood."
"Five guineas!" said I to myself,—twenty-five dollars cash, for a paper I had flung off at a single sitting, and which at home would have been thought well paid for with a "Much obliged," or, at most, with a five-dollar bill,—even the great "North American Review" then paying, where it paid at all, only a dollar a page in "that day of small things"; and to work I went forthwith, preparing another article upon another American subject, determined to be in season, and not allow the blaze I had lighted up to go out for want of kindling-stuff. The article, I may say here, created quite a sensation, and was copied into the Continental journals and papers, and even reappeared in the great "European Review," then just established at London, Paris, and Vienna, under the editorship of Alexander Walker, a Scotchman, who began his literary career by undertaking to supply the deficiencies of D'Alembert, while he wrote me about a jeux d'esprit, with all seriousness.
One curious little incident occurs to me here in connection with the signature I had adopted. Perhaps the Spiritualists may be able to account for it. Having finished my second article, and folded it up, and directed it, as before, to the "Editor," and being about to affix the seal,—for wafers were not used by decent people in England, and self-sealing envelopes were unheard of in that day,—I went below, where I heard voices in conversation that I knew, to borrow a seal, not wishing to use mine, which not only bore an eagle's head for a crest, but my initials and the striped shield of my country.
There were present Humphreys, the engraver,—Lady Lilicraft, one of Washington Irving's lay figures, and the cast-off chère amie of an English lordling,—Peter Powell, of whom a word or two hereafter,—Chester Harding,—and the celebrated John Dunn Hunter, whose portrait Harding had just under way.