Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

100 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
to allow his fine fancy of a Magazine, as powerful and
as vivacious as the ' Edinburgh Review/ and in every-
thing strongly opposed to that great Liberal organ,
to sink into insignificance, or to put up with the
meek and mild miscellany of which he now found
himself the publisher. By the month of July he
had discovered that he had enough of Mr Pringle and
Mr Cleghorn, or at least of the latter, and when the
third number was ready he gave the three months'
notice which was necessary, according to the agree-
ment, for breaking the partnership. For this there
were many very evident reasons. In the first place,
Blackwood was and always remained a high Tory,
holding the ' Edinburgh Beview ' and all its works in
abhorrence ;
whereas the publication issued under the
cover of his name found nothing more expedient than
to fill its first number with a panegyric on Francis
Horner, one of Jeffrey's most pragmatical lieutenants,
and to applaud the wisdom and skill of that periodical
; and, secondly, the publication altogether was
a weak and washy production, little likely to do
either publisher or writers much credit. There was
no doubt another reason, not apparent, which was
quite as effectual as either of these.
Like the other publishers of the age, it had been
Blackwood's desire from the beginning to make his
place of business a centre of literary society, a sort
of literary club where men of letters might find a
meeting - place. Murray in London employed the
drawing-rooms of his house, which was in those
days over the shop—an honest word, which nobody
shirked— for this purpose. But Blackwood's house
was at some distance, and the large rooms at Princes