Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

34 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
severe, and which recent Scots romancists have en-
deavoured to raise once more to popularity and the
honours of the picturesque. No romance, however,
was in the work of the new historian, which it is
said was suggested by his own careful researches into
the early history of the Scots Church, undertaken
rather by way of clearing up the many schisms and
divisions in his own primitive branch than with
any greater aim. It was the first attempt to pre-
sent Knox in the light of a statesman as well as a
divine, and to estimate justly (if too favourably) his
real influence upon Scotland. It was an important
publication to be the first of the new publisher's
undertakings, but it was one worthy of the zeal
and enthusiasm with which he threw himself into
literature. His eagerness to secure distinction for
the authors with whom he was connected comes very
clearly out in a correspondence which I find between
Mr Blackwood and Dr Lee, afterwards Principal of
Edinburgh University, but then occupying the same
position in St Andrews, on the subject of an honorary
degree for Mr M'Crie, which seemed to Blackwood the
most flattering reward that could be obtained for the
still young author,—who was not, however, it appears,
of the same opinion, for there is an amusing letter
of oflended dignity from M'Crie, refusing the honour
to which he had no right, in the true spirit of the
Anti-Burgher.
The first of the band which was so soon' to surround
Blackwood and carry him into the greater tides of
life, appears among the earliest of his connections.
" The Ettrick boar," he writes to Murray in September
1814, " unfortunately left Edinburgh the day I ar-