Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

506 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
Manchester, and several of the Yorkshire journals. This I did,
and shall now have an opportunity of accomplishing regularly.
If you will have the trouble to have ten or a dozen Magazines
addressed to various newspapers which I will point out, I will
engage that you shall be quoted largely every month by upwards
of twenty of the best Provincials. This will be of great
service in making ' Maga ' known. I shall of course give her
an extended notice myself every month, and profit by every
possible opportunity of mentioning her in other ways. In
order to further my views in respect to Newspaper Quotations,
you must have one or two brief articles in each number. If
this were the case, at least ten papers would copy voluntarily
from the twenty I shall have in training ; but unless you give
them something perfect in itself of a reasonable length for
quotation, there will be no chance of our accomplishing our
aim. I could command twelve papers within sixty miles of
this place, all well circulated. Turn this over in your mind.
I am preparing a notice of some length for the ' Intelligencer,'
which I shall have extracted as often as I can.
In respect to this, Watts adds in another letter
It is much to be wished that our friend Christopher would
give us an article composed of short light pieces, for the pur-
pose of inducing newspaper quotation, something after the
manner of D 'Israeli, classed under a general head. You would
find your account in this.
The idea of Christopher the perverse lending himself
to any such trade transaction is incredible, and
we cannot but feel that Blackwood himself, unaccustomed
to these modes of business, must have
grown very tired of the continual suggestion. I
cannot find, indeed, that he took any notice of those
persistent and often repeated solicitations. He writes
in his usual large manner of thanks for articles sent
by Watts, and the news that were always welcome
to him ; but the bait of the twenty newspapers all
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