Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847

I have marvelled a little, I confess, that a magazine of such unmitigated Toryism, and of so uncomplimentary a tone towards America, should nevertheless gain so universal a popularity in this country. I must stand to it, Godfrey—there's a touch of the magnanimous in the affection which exists among Americans for Christopher North, and all his high Tory fraternity. Seldom approving, they always enjoy his old-fashioned prejudices; and defend in Maga what, in a book of Alison's, they would relish very little. Much is said for the kind of affectionate regard with which they welcome to their firesides its monthly returns, in the fact that it is the only foreign work which American republishers have felt themselves forced, by popular feeling, to furnish in the form of a fac-simile. It is proof of the individual interest which it possesses, and of the rich associations which it has imparted even to the simplicity of its outside. Every one wants old Ebony in its own gentlemanly wear: but much as is implied in the livery of the Edinburgh Review, and many as are its admirers among the literary freethinkers of the eastern states, it is curious that no one cares twopence to see it in any other than a semi-newspaper shape, and that Reprint and Co. have never thought of reproducing it in all the splendour of its popinjay surtout. In fact, I doubt whether it will long continue in any shape at all. Its crack article is always reprinted in another form; and oracular as its pages are deemed by the clannish provincials of Boston, its general contents seldom go down with the public. The truth is, no one honestly prefers porridge to roast-beef; and in spite of a natural leaning to buff and blue, Jonathan will not be diverted from his luxurious repasts in Maga, by anything less "hot in the mouth."

I remember that, in one of those Ambrosial Noctes, some one remarked in auld-lang-syne, that Maga is a ubiquity. The Shepherd assented, for he had seen the head of Geordy alike in the hut and the hall; beaming the same by the mirrored fire-light of the manorial villa, and "by the peat-lowe frae the ingle o' the auld clay biggin." But think, my dear Godfrey, what a flow of the decalect would have gushed from that child of the Yarrow, had he beheld, with me, the pirated Maga scattered through the length and breadth of this immense republic, and devoured with equal delight by the self-congratulating native of Massachusetts Bay, and the home-sick immigrant of Oregon. Here, too, Maga is ubiquitous. If you make your summer tour through the States of New England, and stop to visit its priggish little colleges, and biggish little schools, you shall find it on many a sophister's table, and in many a schoolboy's hands; or, ten to one, as you pass the windows of the barracks where they keep their terms, you will chance to hear some full-voiced youth adding a nasal rhetoric to Maga's pages, as he retails them, through clouds of cigar-smoke, to his assembled companions. To your surprise, you will find Maga in every library and reading-room from the Independent Union Lyceum of Jeffersonville, in New Hampshire, to the Congressional lobbies at Washington. And I assure you, they not only take it in, but they read it out and out. Often, when I have wanted but a glimpse at its leader, I have found it, like The Times at a country inn, in the grasp of some sturdy monopolist, exploring it inch by inch, and only pausing at intervals, to wipe his glasses, and renew his pinch of snuff. Along the shores of the Hudson, in those snug little villas that peep forth from the thick trees and copsewood, Maga is quite as universal, but is found in more palmy estate. There—whether your retreat from the city be to the banks of Westchester, to the glens of the Highlands, or to the table-lands that underlie the Kaatskills—your welcome you value none the less that you see volumes of old numbers in the book-case, and the number of the month already laid on the table in the hall; and you think of the hot noons they will help to wile away, after the morning's sport, and before the evening drive. In homes like these, I have usually found Blackwood a favourite with the fairer portion of American society. You shall find it lurking amongst worsteds and flower-patterns, and very often preferred to the pretty work that tasks a far prettier eye: or, stepping into the verandah to see a steamer go by, you shall pick it up from a tabouret, where it lies with a pearl-knife in its uncut pages, and the breezes playing with its parted leaves—evidently the immediate relic of some startled and disappearing fair one. Going south or west, you meet it on railways, and in steamers. It is usually the companion of such travellers as are accustomed to decline the repeated attempts of fellow-passengers to engage them in conversation or political debate, and seems to afford peculiar refreshment to those who have effected a retreat from the philanthropic assaults of travelling temperance agents, and of other affectionate inquirers as to the condition of their bodies and souls. When you reach the Carolinas, where, in default of taverns, you may always venture to make yourself the guest of a planter, and will be thanked for your visit—if you would bait at noon, and turn from the road to a hospitable-looking mansion among the pines, I'll wager that a basking Negro, without a shirt, will start up, and take charge of your horse, while the master of a thousand slaves gives you one open hand, but holds in the other the ubiquitous pages, which he has been reading in the cool of his piazza. I say then, had the Shepherd been blest with such universal experiences as mine, with what a flow of metaphor and illustrative wit would he have enlarged upon the proposition—Maga is an ubiquity. Beginning with a broadside at the literary corsairs of New York, I can fancy him bursting with indignant virtue into luxurious comparisons between the rape of the Sabines, and that of the inimitable Noctes—and then between Maga bodily, and her who in the field of Enna gathering flowers, experienced a fate most gloomy; and so on till his exuberant good-humour expands at last into an apology, as he expatiates on the tempting character of the booty, and declares, that like apples of gold to frolicsome schoolboys, so beautiful Maga, to covetous Yankees, is a thing too full of relish and of beauty to be other than pardonable plunder! Maga, like Italy, ought to be less bewitching, or better defended. What would not some of Maga's cotemporaries give, nevertheless, for the compliment of being perpetually ravished by the Goths and Vandals of Letters—the merciless anti-copyright booksellers of America? Nay—they will pout at the insinuation, and stand upon the virtue which no one believes they possess. But assure them, dear Godfrey, that they are in no conceivable danger. Maga shall growl, and they shall fawn; but the republicans will not be repulsed by the honest frankness of the one nor propitiated by the hypocritical blandishments of the others. If they doubt it, just tell them what happened with me the other day, and what I vouch for as fairly exhibiting the feeling of the most intelligent Americans. I could add many other anecdotes of the same colour and character; but I tell this as creditable to them, and illustrative of Maga's footing among them:—

I was at the reading-rooms of "The Athenæum"—a literary club-house in this city, which has grown out of a small society of scholars that existed here before the Revolution—and which, I am happy to say, is always supplied with the genuine imported Magazine. A young man, whom I had often met at the rooms, and who had the Magazine in his hand, called my attention to a palpable error in an article, that reflected pretty merrily on his countrymen. "Ha!" said I, "just like old Ebony! Why don't you banish the rabid old Tory from these most democratic tables?"

"Banish Maga!" was the reply—"what would be left fit to read?"

"You surprise me! Edinburgh, Westminster—any thing that thinks better of Congress, and legislative eloquence—as you do, of course!"

"Why so? Mayn't a man be a republican, without recognising a jure divino majesty in a Congressman?"

"But Maga would make out some of your Solons prodigiously long in the ears."

"Nay—rather intolerably long in the wind, which is just the intolerable truth. Thanks to Maga for giving them the echo of their palaver! and may the first reformed Congress vote her a gold medal for the good she has done to the country!"

"She sometimes makes free with the nation itself, and some of the little peculiarities of your countrymen."

"Well, well—we are not drawn more out of proportion than the Iron Duke's nose is in Punch! Why should we not laugh like heroes, who are said to grow hale of good-humour kept up by caricatures?"

"You must allow that Maga is not always good-natured, as some of her rivals invariably are."

"There's no comparison, sir, between the sometimes irritable merriment of King Christopher, and the professional tinkling of a jester's cap-and-bells. I can't argue it,—only I like Blackwood for all its Toryism; and when Kit North is testy, I reflect that he's long had the gout! Banish Geordie Buchanan's venerable old pow—did you say? Never, Sir, never!"

Of course, I allowed the good sense of these replies, and at once explained to myself the philosophy which gave rise to them. The truth is, there is in human nature a deep sense of "the eternal fitness of things," which usually gives tone to the opinions of man, where undue prejudices do not exercise an overruling control. You know, my dear Godfrey, how unlikely it is that an American would ever care to pay you a second visit at the Hall, should he signalise his first by depreciating the character of Washington, or undervaluing the many advantages which his country really enjoys. On the same principle which would certainly betray you into marks of cool aversion towards such a guest from this side the Atlantic, the intelligent American despises in his heart the Briton, whose spirit is alien to the time-honoured institutions of his ancestors, and whose life is one long blasphemy of all that has contributed most to the glory and greatness of an empire, whose worst symptom of decay is the fungous existence of a race of such blasphemers, at once the morbid fruit of a free constitution, and its fatal and cancerous disease. Whiggery is, therefore, at a discount in the republic; and I have been surprised to hear the confession from American democrats, that if they were Englishmen, they would be far from any sympathy with those who call themselves reformers. This, perhaps, will account for it, that with all the influence of the Edinburgh Reviewers, they have never gained, in this country, any hold of the heart, even where they have controlled the head; whilst Maga, on the contrary, without bending the republican opinions of Americans, has secured no small degree of their affections, and become enshrined in their genuine regard. You may see one proof of this in the fact, that if you contract with Reprint & Co. for their republications, and will take Blackwood and The Quarterly, you can have The Edinburgh and The Westminster almost thrown into the bargain; like the lying little Mercury of Æsop's statuary, which was a mere gratuity to those who would buy a Phœbus, and Pallas-Athene. In truth, if my observation has been correct, intelligent Americans like to be republicans themselves, because such were the fathers of their country; but an Englishman in blue and yellow, they regard much as they do an Indian in shoes and stockings. He is despised, as no specimen of the noble race from which he has degenerated and dwindled into a Whig.

To return to the republished Magazine; it is not only a republication, but, as I have said, it professes to be a fac-simile. You will ask, if it is cleverly done. I must answer—not very, considered as a whole; and yet, to give the mannikin its due, the face of the thing is about as accurate as counterfeits usually are. The colour is not often right, however, and I suspect Reprint & Co. are ignorant that the colour is of any consequence. The thistle-framed portrait, nevertheless, is tolerably well copied; enough so, to deserve the greatest proportion of credit belonging to the whole, as an imitation. You look for the familiar imprint in vain. One would never know from the publisher's part of the title-page that the house of Blackwood & Sons was still in existence. Instead of the usual mark, we have that of the republishers, with an intimation that they are assisted in the sale by booksellers in Boston, Philadelphia, Charlestown, Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans, and Paris! Why they should print Paris in capitals, rather than Boston and Philadelphia, I am at a loss to conceive; but such an announcement does indeed demand some note of admiration at the vastness of the enterprise of Reprint & Co., who, to give Mr Blackwood more time to attend to the getting up of each successive number of his work, thus undertake to relieve him of any share in seeing to the supply of the Continent of Europe. In this benevolent effort to take the burthen from the proprietors of the genuine Ebony, it is fair that the French coadjutor should have his share of the honour. His name is given as Hector Bossange; and his shop, if I rightly remember, adorns the Quai Voltaire. And, now I think of it, I advise you, dear Godfrey, to skip across the Channel this summer, and alight on the capital, (where very likely they will just be getting up an emeute in honour of the Three Days), and there, in Monsieur Bossange's establishment, you will be permitted to try the merits of my description and Maga's Icon at the same time, and with no danger from officials of the Customs. So much then for the front, which is good, except the colour. Nimium ne crede colori, says Mr Reprint; and fronti nulla fides, say I.

The reverse cover has, of course, an outer and inner surface, with only the thickness of the paper between the letter-press adorning the twain. What say you, then, to the fact, that whilst the outer half is devoted to an advertisement of Mr Reprint's imitative publications, the better half contains a bold and faithful warning against such piracy! You stare, but I repeat it; whilst the one side of the leaf announces Mr Reprint's arrangements for circulating throughout the States his imitations of Blackwood, the other indignantly announces that there are "now in circulation in the United States, Spurious and Highly Pernicious Imitations." Alas for the difference between those who instruct the head, and those who only dress it! The imitations that are shamelessly commended are only those of Blackwood's Magazine; while those which Messrs Reprint feel called upon to hold up as shocking to every sense of virtue,—to head with Important Information, and to stamp with triple marks of wonder, as Fraudulent Counterfeits—are imitations of Rowland's Macassar Oil! Think of that, Godfrey! I learn from this announcement of Reprint's, that there are now in the United States men base enough to rob the immortal Rowland of his patent right, men who have doubtless established agencies in "Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans and Paris," but who, as the imitation Blackwood is circulated in just those places, will find it, by just retribution, always in their way. A bon chat, bon rat! Well, it was wise in the agents of Rowland to employ one ubiquitous imitation to stop another; but since the trade is much the same, it ought to be suggested to Reprint & Co., that they do ill to expose a fellow-craftsman. Suppose, now, the enterprising apothecaries, who do for Mr Rowland what Reprint & Co. are doing for Mr Blackwood, should print a label for every bottle of their "incomparable oil," warning the public that spurious imitations of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine are now in circulation throughout the States, which they are compelled to stamp as Fraudulent Counterfeits! Would not this be quite as Important Information as the other? Are not the public as much concerned in having the genuine article for their brain, as in having the unadulterated article for their hair? Yet, how would Reprint like to see such a Rowland for his Oliver?

Strange that the same leaf that thus brands a counterfeit,—which Reprint repudiates, hinting that respectable perfumers "sell only the genuine article,"—should within one two-hundredth part of an inch, contain the exposure of his own counterfeit, by his own pen, ink, and types: and that with the announcement of a "Travelling Agent, recently appointed to procure Subscribers in the Western States, Iowa and Wisconsin, who will prove his identity by a certificate from the Mayor of Cincinnati!" Now, it strikes me, would not a certificate from his lordship, proving the identity of the Magazine, be much more to the purpose? It is called Blackwood's Magazine; and if so, the Travelling Agent would be better certified by a commission from Mr Blackwood to be selling his property, and that would be more to the purpose still! But think, dear Godfrey, where this certified bagman goes! Iowa and Wisconsin are a thousand miles inland, where even so lately as when this reprint was begun, the Indian trail was the only post-road, and the aborigines almost the only inhabitants, and where, even at this day, the reader of Maga, holding the cream of civilisation and refinement in one hand, must keep the other in close contact with his rifle, and the rifle well loaded and cocked; for should his magazine interest him more than his safety, he might expect at any moment the pressing salutations of a cougar, or the warm embrace of a grisly bear. Or think, I pray you, of a circumstance still less improbable, which will illustrate what it is to be a bagman in Iowa. Where this "Travelling Agent" goes, he often carries his merchandise through an Indian village, and often, I'll venture to say, has Buchanan been seen in his hand, as centre to a circle of fierce-visaged Red-skins, with tomahawks in their girdles, and any thing but brotherly love in their gestures. Ah, then, the contrabandist is afraid. Among savages he first learns to wish himself engaged in any thing but an anti-copyright expedition; and produces in vain the proof of his identity, signed by the Mayor of Cincinnati.

I observe that there are similar agencies in the Southern and South-western States; so that Reprint & Co. are the monopolists of Maga, from the mouth of the St Lawrence, to the deltas of the Mississippi, and before long will doubtless have their travelling agents pushing its sale in the "halls of the Montezumas," or exchanging it for peltry at the head-waters of the Colombia. It is said in one of the newspapers of this city, that for every copy issued in Edinburgh, two copies of the reprint are published here; and though the estimate strikes me as, at least, unlikely, it is far from being incredible. I can pardon Mr Blackwood should his temper be a little ruffled, when he compares his trouble and responsibility, and limited sale, with the sans souci and universal market of Reprint & Co.; but surely, old Christopher North should smile with inward satisfaction when, not by cannon, or carnage, but as the result of a greatness thrust upon him, he finds his empire, like her Majesty's, the girdle of the earth, and his sovereignty recognised, in the world of letters, where hers can claim no subjects, and demand no homage. That crutch is now the sceptre of bookdom. Its shadow stretcheth over all lands, whether the dawn project it athwart the broad Atlantic, or the Boreal light send it overland to farthest India. Who reads not Maga? You shall find the smutched lieutenant turning over its pages by the camp-fire, after a terrible scratch with the Sikhs; and within the same twenty-four hours you may fairly surmise that some green mountain volunteer, on the wrong side of the Rio Grande, has lighted a pine-knot, and is reading one of the Marlborough articles to his mess, with extemporary paralellisms in favour of General Taylor, which the shade of the great Churchill must not venture to overhear. Swinging in his hammock, the midshipman holds Blackwood to the smoky lamp of the orlop, as he plunges and pitches around Cape Horn. Lounging in his state-room, and bound for Hong Kong, the sea-sick passenger corrects his nausea with the same spicy page, and bewitched with the flavour, forgets to sigh for Madeira, which he has passed, or to look out for St Helena, which is somewhere on his lee. It keeps the old Admiral from the deck as his keel scrapes the coral-reefs of the South Pacific; and a stale back number, from the bottom of a seaman's chest, is purchased as a prize, by him who cruises among seals, icebergs, and spermaceti whales.

"Quis jam locus, inquit, Achate,

Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris!"

Yes—who reads not Maga? The flayed Radical of Parliament—the rasped Balaamite of Congress—the spanked Cockney of an author—the jaundiced Editor of some new no-go periodical—even these must cut the leaves of each new number, if they die for it, or if their only reward be to find their own sweet selves hung up in its pages, like sham Socrates in his basket, but not looking on like live Socrates with philosophic composure. And if they whimper, who will sympathise? Like the Shepherd at Awmrose's, the testy public may now and then rebel, and rail for a season at "the cawm, cauld, clear, glitterin' cruelty in the expression of his een,"—but who can keep up a quarrel with North? Again, like the Shepherd, they relax into a broad good humour, and, before they know it, are drinking with all the honours, "Long live King Christopher!" So then, in spite of Cockneys, chartists, coxcombs, rebels, radicals, and rascally reformers, yea, and the whole alphabetical list of what is whiggish, vulgar, and vexatious,—

"Maga still sitteth on Edina's crags,

And from her throne of beauty rules the world!"

Ah! my dear Godfrey Godfrey of Godfrey Hall, in the county of Kent, Esquire,—I know what you are thinking of. You were certainly meant for trade, and 'twas a loss to the Bank of England, that you ever wore a shooting-jacket. There was ever a commercial crotchet in your head, and I am sure it now suggests the rejoinder—that to rule the world is nothing, so long as one can't rule the market. But I respectfully ask, do you go for absolute monarchy? Would you have Maga more potent than her Majesty? I grant there should be something coming to Mr Blackwood for the thousands that profit by his labours in America—but if it can't be so, let the glory suffice him, and let Sic vos non vobis be his song of patient resignation. The parallel between his case and that of the Virgilian sufferers, is perfect. Who concentrates more pungency, or collects more sweets than the busy bee? Who keeps more musical throats in time than the motherly bird? Who lends the agricultural interest greater assistance than the labouring ox; or who suffers more by the manufacturers than the fleeced lamb? Undoubtedly, the answer is,—Mr. Blackwood! Well then, I say, he must comfort himself by philosophy and Sic vos non vobis. He may, indeed, utter one word of remonstrance against literary and commercial piracy, like that first great sufferer by anti-copyright,—Mr. Virgilius Maro, of Mantua—

"Hos ego versiculos emi, tulit alter honores."

Or, in other words, I pay for every line and letter of Maga, and lo! Mr Bathyllus Reprint, of New York, carries off the sesterces! Think, Godfrey, what a charm of a life this Bathyllus must make of it! His are all the honey, and the bird's nests, the corn-bags, and the fleeces of the Ebony estates; and yet he has no trouble to see his banks furnished with bees, or to preserve game in the brake; no care to drive away crows, or to stifle the blatter of sheep. For him—to descend from the firmament of metaphor, to the plain prose of George Street and Paternoster Row—for him, Mr North inspects boxes of Balaam, with the patience of a proofreader, and deciphers pages of wit and pathos with the perseverance of a Champollion. For him, with each new moon, and punctual to the day, comes forth the Maga of the month, the fruit of incredible diligence, and the flower of admirable skill. For him the foreign purveyor of all he lives by pays down the golden honorarium, fifty guineas for the sheet, that he may have the whole for less than fifty pence. For him—the same benevolent provider takes pains to silence, by the same metallic spell, ten thousand other claims and clamours, contingent to each lunation of Maga. All things work for him! For him the steamer ploughs Atlantic surges; and for him, when she gains her port, two hundred miles of wire are put into galvanic tremor, bidding him prepare his covers, and rally his compositors. It is there that Reprint, with a grateful sense (perhaps) of all that has been done for him, and a still more gratifying sense of the very little that remains for him to do, finds himself called to bestir from a fortnight's nap, and proceed to do that little. With railway speed, and thunder step, the Express of Harnden brings to his hand almost the only emigrant original of Blackwood that ever touches these occidental shores. No prosy correspondence—no botheration manuscript—no rejectable contribution—but the choicest literary matter that the genius of the British empire can furnish, all picked, packed, and laid at his feet, in fair white printed copy, without pains and without cost! Another's all the toil—his, all the profits! In a turn or two of his hand the American market is supplied. Sure sale—no risk—all clear gains, and quick returns! I am sure Mr Bathyllus Reprint must be the happiest of men, and the most amiable of publishers; and I can conceive that few of the more legitimate craft would be able to stand upon dignity, or refuse his kind invitation to meet a little company at his board—