Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

470 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
After an answer, evidently somewhat discouraging,
Gait writes deprecating the thought of having wished
Blackwood to undertake " any advance or responsi-
bility for the work," which, it would appear, judging
by analogy and experience, had been the publisher's
first thought. "I have already anticipated you in
one respect," he writes, " in having matter for four
of the numbers at least nearly ready, and consider-
ably above a dozen subjects, the chief incidents in
the history of the world, for Mr Martin to choose
from. The work will be curious, as a picture is not
wanted; the drawing and engraving on steel go to-
gether. By this means a step in art will be saved."
How this curious plan ended, I am unable to say.
The idea of " subjects from the history of the world "
which Mr Martin was to choose from, throws a melan-
choly gleam of ridicule on this new and great thing
which the worn-out man of letters and the heroic or
mock-heroic painter, whose tremendous efforts were so
much beyond the methods of practicable or poetic art,
thus plotted together. Gait had come to the point,
unhappily attained so often and by so many of us in
the declining days of life, when invention fails as well
as popularity and success, and when he was ready to
turn his hand to any subject, however completely
out of his way, which promised a little occupation
and revenue. He had never been a sublime figure
at his best, but we cannot look at him in his failing
days without a certain reverence and deeply compassionate
respect. He and Hogg are the only members
of the early Blackwood band who came to this too
common conclusion. They both wrote their auto-
biographies, but Gait always under a better inspira-