Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

486 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
Subaltern,' have, like his reviews and his historical
efforts, dropped out of knowledge in this changed
generation. In those days it was recognised that
such was more or less the character of periodical writ-
ing, and the honest workman was content that his
work should fulfil its temporary use, without any
struggle after continuance, such as that which now
fills contemporary bookshelves with multitudinous
volumes—baskets of fragments in which reviews and
essays, often of a very light description, are preserved
for posterity. Posterity, judging by analogy, will
have an ever- increasing stock of its own of this kind,
and will probably care little more for the collected
essays of to-day than we do for those of yesterday.
The contributors of ' Blackwood ' faced this probability
manfully, and rarely or never attempted to reproduce
their scattered work, although by this time the fashion
of longer articles had begun, and instead of the half-
dozen pages which were at first the common allowance
(as in so many cases in the present day), the robust
contributor considered a sheet of sixteen pages almost
the minimum of what was expected from him. " I
cannot pledge myself even to ' Maga ' regularly," says
Gleig. " She has my best wishes ; but—but— my
dear sir, it requires a great deal of writing to fill one
of her sheets." Nevertheless, the sheets were always
well filled and abundant—so much so that, as has been
seen, the daring expedient of a second number, pub-
lished along with the usual one, was tried on at least
two occasions with perfect success, relieving at once
the overflowing stores, and satisfying a public which,
whatever the angry critics might say of personalities,
&c., did not seem ever to have too much of ' Maga.'