Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

RECEPTION OF MAGINN. 385
long letters for several years, and whose correspon-
dence in return—
"your lively and friendly letters"
—he looked for with so much pleasant anticipation.
Were it not that Maginn had already formed the
resolution to throw himself into literary life in London,
we might imagine that this visit determined him to
do so, for never was reception of a new combatant
more hearty and joyous. The household in Salisbury
Koad was overflowing with children, some of whom
had already reached the most appreciative age of
youth, and the charm of his Irish gaiety and freedom
seems to have taken instant possession of the family.
His letters afterwards are always rounded by a message
to the young people,—"compliments to Mrs
Blackwood, and love to all the other fellows—male
and female," he says. In one of these early letters,
written some months after leaving Edinburgh, is the
following note, which, remembering the gentle and
genial personage alluded to, the kind " Major " ^ of
later days, most benign of all the brethren, we copy
with pleasure :
—
W. Maginn to W. Blackwood.
January, '22.
Will you let me put in a word connected with my profession ?
Educate our namesake Will — he is the making of a clever
fellow. I don't mean to disparage your elder sods, but I suppose
you have disposed of them already. But let Will show
his face in a University.
The advice was given too late, for the second Wil-
liam Blackwood was already devoted to the service
of his country in another way. A kind friend (it was
^ Major William Blackwood, third son of the publisher, who came into
the business in 1849, after many years' service in the Indian army.
VOL. I. 2 B