Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/260

224 224 WILLIAM BLA CKWO OD. the Shepherd. But enough of the Nodes ; are they not still familiar volumes upon the tables of all who read ? This year (1826), in which Blackwood was at the height of his success, was fatal, as we have before seen, to Constable ; and with his failure disappeared for ever that rival to Maga, Constable's Edinburgh Monthly Magazine. In being thus minute in the history of the maga- zine, we can scarcely be said to be neglecting the history of its proprietor, for their careers were inex- tricably bound up together, and Blackwood looked upon it as a father might upon a darling son. In the exulting vanity of his success, he was induced, about 1825, to print for private circulation, an alphabetical list of contributors, and sent Wilson a proof, who, by way of remonstrance, dashed in the names of such celebrities as Omai the Otaheitan, and Pius VII., with the names of some of the most egregious fools and mountebanks he had ever met with, and returned it to the printer, who duly furnished Blackwood with a revise ; and the absurd incongruity of the names showed him the incautious impropriety of which he had been guilty. Two impressions only were reserved, one for Blackwood and one for the pro- fessor. As an editor, the punctuality and alacrity with which he acknowledged the communications of his contributors was wonderful ; " and," says the " Old Contributor," " along with the mail coach copy of the magazine, or by an early post after its publication, came a letter to each contributor, full of shrewd hints for his future guidance, and often, not merely suggest- ing the subject for a future paper, but indicating with