BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2785, 31 July 1907, Page 79

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

' babyhood. These men, it need not be* said, were John Wilson and John Gibson Lockhart. In tie pages .of the Mall Magazine they are described as^ "a s»ir iof larkish. lawyers," as "young brayos,' as "virulent" writers "who smote their foes "over Blackwood's shoulder aid' -left* him to bear the brunt." This is not in the i light in which aIL Scotchmen have been | accustomed to view either the one or tifoe other. It n«ed not be denied' that LockhaTt eought, in his younger days, to live up to his simile of "the scorpion," but, as he grew from." youth into manhood his wit, if ilways caustic, lost much of its bitterness, it -was frequently toned and mellowed by a note of tender, but never maudlin, sympathy. ' As for "Wilson — Christopher North, the Christopher of the "Noctes" —he ihas been regarded, for 50 yeara, as an embodiment of the more genial, the more rollicking, the happier side- of the Scottish nature. Like Lockhart, be could nit out on ■ occasion ; like him, hie enjoyed hitting out. Bub he was generous, he was warm-hearted, and, above j all, he was humorous —the "Noctes," in« j deed, are of humour all compact. W4i«n [ William Blaekwood assumed: himself the j editorial charge of the "Magazine," and i. enlisted the services of Wflson and Lookhart, its success was immediate and pronounced. It became a power in literature and- politics, and Ms power in literature \ and politics has been madivtsined from those j early days till riow. The writer in the Pal 7 Mall Magazine gives an account -of the several Blackwoods who have filled the editorial chair since the death of William in 1834, and who w«re, respectively, his sans, Alexander, Robert, and John. The present editor, Mr William Blackwood, a nephew of Mr John Blackwood, is proving himself an able successor to hie wise and judticiouß kinsmen. A glimpse, moreover, is provided in the article of various of the contributors to the magazine in the middle portion' of its career, of De Qnincey,, Bulwer Lytton, Lever, and George Eliot, among otjbers. To-day tie , contributors are drawn from a wider circle than of old, but this widening of its basis, co to speak, is one of the secrets of the success of "Maga," of the firm hold it maintains on tibe attention of the reading' public. We in Scotland, it need scarcely be added, irrespective of politics and party are all proud of Blackwoodfe Magazine. It is one of tut institutions. So long as it lives and flourishes no one is likely to ask, "Stands Scotland where it did?"— Glasgow Weekly Citizen.

MAGAZINE^ An interesting, but also a somewhat unsatisfactory, paper on " ' Maga' and th.9 Blackwoods" appears in the June part of the Pail Mall Magazine. Its writer has made himself fairly well acquainted witih his subject, largely through the medium, of course, of the book on winch M.ns Oiiphaat was engaged at her death 10 years ago, although he has gone to several sources of information which were not available when Mrs Oliphant wrote. But while he is generally correct as regards his facts, tbe writer distinctly errs in the tone he adopts, not certainly towards the Blackwoods, but when discussing their early contributors—the men, indeed, who made the magazine, without whom it might not hare lived beyoaa a sickly and puling