Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

8 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
any title could give,—the power of being able to com-
municate a novel sensation, to read a manuscript
which was a mystery, and to set a fine scene of
fiction, or a masterpiece of poetry, before their guests'
dazzled and delighted eyes.
This was the condition of " the Trade " in Edinburgh
when Archibald Constable and William Blackwood,
" friends in youth," as the son of the former con-
gratulates himself, though so much separated after-
wards, began their career—Constable being by a few
years in advance of his future rival. The first was
a country lad from Fife ; but Blackwood had the
advantage of being Edinburgh born, and keen to all
the traditions of the historic town. His father died
early, we may suppose without having had time to
make much provision for his family; but there is
never any note of early want, or indeed undue pres-
sure of any kind, in the history of the little house-
hold, three well-trained, well-dispositioned sons living
under the guardianship of their mother—which soon
turned, as they grew up into manhood, into a kind
and watchful care of her on the part of her boys, the
most fitting and beautiful development of such a relationship.
There are no details, however, of young
Blackwood's education or schools in the scanty rem
nants of family tradition. He began his apprentice-
ship at fourteen, so that there was not much time for
school-training, nor probably was it very necessary.
Such a man as he was afterwards to be educates him-
self unconsciously, by much reading, and that close
observation unawares which furnishes the mind with-
out betraying even to the possessor the origin of the
stores which gather there. He was apprenticed in