WILLIAM BLACK WOOD.

It is with the profoundest regret that we record the death of William Blackwood, for more than thirty years the editor of this Magazine. To contributors and readers alike his death brings with it a consciousness of personal loss. How great that loss is to friends and contributors can be measured by them alone. Yet so closely bound up were his character and energies with the Magazine, which was in effect a clear expression of his tastes and preferences, that he seemed familiar to many who had never been privileged to count him among their friends or even to exchange a word with him.

Born at Lucknow in 1836, the son of a soldier, and the grandson of the founder of the publishing house, William Blackwood was educated to fill his destined place. After a sojourn at the University of Edinburgh, he spent some years at the Sorbonne and at Heidelberg, and when, in 1857, he joined the house of Blackwood, he had some knowledge of three literatures. Five years later his partnership was announced in a characteristic letter written by John Blackwood to Mrs Oliphant. "Address your proof to Willie, here," he wrote. "I have made him a partner in the old House this week, and I hope he will keep the colours flying when his aged Uncle has grown unfit for work." In 1879 John Blackwood died, and thenceforth William Blackwood was head of the business and editor of the Magazine. How valiantly he "kept the colours flying" is within the knowledge of us all.

He came to the editorial chair in an inauspicious moment. A parliamentary compulsion to read and write had sensibly lowered the standard of literary appreciation. He was faced by the new and unforeseen competition of popular magazines which flattered the eye as well as beguiled the mind of their readers. In 1878 John Blackwood, in a retrospect, vaunted with perfect justice the supremacy of his Magazine. "The Magazine began in 1817," he wrote, "and has held its own at the head of the field ever since. Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, when at the highest wave of their popularity, all started or were employed to start periodicals, but they never touched Blackwood.'" To strive with rivals who aim at an equal height of achievement is an honourable enterprise. It is a less satisfaction to combat ad

versaries of a lower ambition, and it is characteristic of William Blackwood that he made no concession to the shifting of popular taste. He upheld the dignified traditions of his house, he preserved unchanged the ancient policy, and it is the greatest of his triumphs that he leaves the Magazine as full of life and vigour as it was on the day when John Blackwood wrote his retrospect. Between the old and the new there is but one difference: while in John Blackwood's time all articles were anonymous, William Blackwood encouraged signing contributors. But he did not make this an occasion for trafficking in names. He did not pursue with feverish haste the idol of the moment, and it still remained the good fortune of the Magazine to make reputations, not to buy them ready-made.

The qualities of a good editor were innate in William Blackwood, and experience had vastly improved them. He was animated always by a consistent purpose. There is a continuity in the Magazine which you will hardly match in periodic literature. Alone of its kind, Blackwood' has always had a policy, guided in the path of uniformity by its skilful editor. From the principles of a sound Toryism William Blackwood never wavered. He was fierce in attack, as he was staunch in support, and he never countenanced a strange opinion or encouraged a wayward fad from a love of novelty or extravagance. And as his purpose was consistent, so it was sustained by an intellectual honesty and courage, which are rare in the world. He had no fear of speaking what he

believed to be the truth. He was no lover of half measures and twisted counsels. It was not his ambition to print merely the soft answer or the amiable reproof. His policy, in brief, was a fighting policy; his intention, in which he never failed, was to see expressed in the pages of his Magazine the opinions upon life and letters which he believed to be just and right.

And he was a good editor, above all, because he understood better than any of his contemporaries the management of his staff. Where he found a contributor, he kept a friend. The relation of writer and editor is not always of the pleasantest. A lack of discipline on the one side, a hint of tyranny on the other, or, worse still, a reciprocal inhumanity, may make the position irksome, even untenable. We believe that none ever wrote an article for 'Blackwood' without willingly coming under the sway of its editor. There was never an unnecessary obtrusion of business. To write was an office of friendship, generously rewarded; an obligation was felt and acknowledged on

either side; the friendship remained firmly knit. In thus seeking a personal knowledge of his writers, William Blackwood was but following an honoured custom of his house. His uncle and predecessor eloquently explained his theory of publishing at the Scott Centenary Banquet. "Much was said," he declared, "of quarrels between authors and publishers, but he was happy to say that they were not within his knowledge; on the contrary, he could tell a very different tale. Authors had been his dearest friends and companions all the days of his life." These happy words might have been repeated with perfect truth by William Blackwood, and this truth helps us to understand the conspicuous success of his editorship.

Having made his contributors his friends, he put complete trust in them. He did not ask them to do that which did not fall within their scope. Though fertile in suggestion, he knew them to be the best judges of their own possibilities, and he always turned a ready ear to any project they might form. When he approved their work, he was most generous in appreciation. The letters which he wrote at the end of every month to his collaborators were masterpieces of their kind. He delighted to give his views concerning the current number and to invite the views of others. By this means he strengthened existing intimacies, and created a feeling of loyal co-operation which never died. And though, like the wise editor that he was, he refrained from writing himself, he saw with absolute clarity what kind of paper was suitable to his Magazine, he was a shrewd judge of literary worth, and he left his impress upon every number that was issued under his auspices.

This impress was various, like his mind. Though he entered the publishing house early in life, he was always a man of diverse interests. An intrepid sportsman, he rode to hounds for many years. He was passionately devoted to golf and cricket. A soldier's son, he had served in the Mid-Lothian Yeomanry Cavalry, and was a member of the Royal Company of Archers. Lucknow was his birthplace, and it was to India, where so many Blackwoods have found their career, that he turned always with enthusiasm. There is not one of these interests that was not conspicuous in his Magazine. The articles on sport have won the general admiration of sportsmen. No soldier need fear lest he should there find his affairs handled without sympathy and understanding. And surely there is no magazine that has painted more vividly the hardships and triumphs of Indian service than 'Blackwood,' and none that

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has been rewarded by a wider enthusiasm in the East and in the dominions oversea.

For more than half a century William Blackwood's life had been spent among men of letters. He had counted among his friends George Eliot and Kinglake, Lever and the first Lord Lytton, Aytoun and Sir Theodore Martin the accomplished authors of Bon Gaultier,' Mrs Oliphant and Charles Reade, Laurence Oliphant and Anthony Trollope. Though he outlived many of his friends, his mind never lost its freshness, the keen edge of his sympathy was never dulled. The interest and curiosity of his mind were unabated to the end, and none who was fortunate enough to enjoy his companionship will forget his quick humour and genial appreciation. He was of those whom, even in ill-health, age does not touch, and we shall always remember with satisfaction that he died while yet in harness, and was not asked to put off in his lifetime the cherished burden of his duties. The success of his editorship, his keen sense of literary merit, his eager appreciation, his resolve to respect always the highest standard, these are known to his friends and his readers alike. His friends alone are permitted to prize the memory of his loyalty, his sincerity, his warm affection, his scrupulous sense of honour in life, letters, and politics.

And as we look back upon his career, it seems as though the success which he achieved was due not merely to his own good qualities, but to his reverence for tradition. He was a member of no mean house-the house of Blackwood. He was alertly conscious of the example which his forefathers had set. By birth and training he was fitted for the work which he was called to perform. He spoke with the voice of those who had gone before. The spirit of his ancestors breathed within him. To us he was a cherished friend whose sympathy and converse we know not how to over-praise. To himself he may have appeared sometimes a chapter in the history of his house. There are some businesses which enjoy the rights and responsibilities of ancient lineage. Blackwood's is one of these. To a Blackwood a Blackwood always succeeds, and, as William Blackwood nobly maintained the heritage of the past, so it is in the assurance of a reverenced tradition that our sure hope of the future resides.

INDEX TO VOL. CXCII.