Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

472 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
publisher—appears in the following letter of inquiry,
written very near the period of Mr Blackwood's death,
and addressed to one of his sons.
John Gait to Alexander Blackwood.
Greenock, 20 August 1834.
Your letter of the 16th has not relieved my anxiety about
the state of your father, and I wish some of you, though you
may have nothing else to say, would occasionally write me how
he is. Give my best respects to him, and tell him I can
sympathise truly with him, for although my disease seems to
be descending into the legs, I feel no better, and my time is
often spent in bed. It cannot but be some consolation to him
to think that he has been the means of doing so much for the
literature and, as I think, for the best system of politicks for
the country.
To introduce after this hardworked man of letters
and official hack, whose incessant labours brought so
small a reward, the name of the Right Honourable
J. Wilson Croker, the critic who disposed so sum-
marily of his pretensions to know anything at all of
that high life which the great man and the small both
sought after so eagerly, seems a failure of respect to
the convenances, and contempt of the prejudices of
life. Croker was not, so far as I know, a contributor
to the * Magazine ' at all, but only a constant critic,
appearing very often in Mr Blackwood's correspon-
dence, and rarely with any geniality or good-humour,
though he franked letters occasionally, and never was
indisposed to give good advice. We have hitherto
heard, from persons interested in its progress, nothing
but good of the Magazine in the point of view of
brilliancy and intellectual force. Those who com-
plained, complained of personal attacks, but never of