Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

A FAITHFUL CONTRIBUTOE. 483
G. R. Gleig was of ScottisTi birth and parentage, at
first a soldier, who afterwards, at the end of the
Peninsular war, after Waterloo, took orders, with
hopes somewhat better founded than those of his
contemporary. The work, however, by which the
soldier - priest was best known was the military
romance of ' The Subaltern,' which still retains its
popularity, and is read even amid all the exciting
adventure-books of modern days. It was not perhaps
the sort of work which we should look for as the chief
literary distinction of a clergyman ; but he retained
the mingled character during his whole life, and ended
appropriately in the chapel of Chelsea Hospital and the
post of Chaplain-General to the Forces, which is a rare
and unusual instance of merit rewarded in the most
legitimate and ideal way. We are told, which is a
very picturesque detail, that the flag which he was
wounded in capturing, at Bladensburg, hung from the
pulpit in the Hospital chapel where he officiated ; and
he was always, at all times of his life, deeply inter-
ested in all schemes for the advantage of soldiers.
' The Subaltern ' was published in the Magazine in
1826, while William Blackwood was still at the height
of life and prosperity ;
and sixty years later Gleig was
contributing to ' Maga,' under its present conductor,
William Blackwood, the grandson of the founder.
This long faithfulness and devotion well merits a
memorial here. It has been the fate of ' Blackwood's
Magazine' to secure a genuine attachment from its
contributors more than any other literary organ
has ever had—the same sort of feeling which makes
sailors identify themselves with their ship, rejoicing
in the feats which they attribute somehow to her