Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/268

232 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. chair, where for some seven or eight years he drew 500 a year. His unrivalled facility in dashing off slashing articles upon any subject, quickly raised his income to eighteen or nineteen hundred ; but his ever-increasing habits of intemperance rendered regu- larity of work impossible, Together with Lockhart and other writers, he planned a London monthly rival to Blackwood) and in 1829 an East India merchant of the name of Fraser was found willing to make the necessary advances, and Fraser s Magazine was started. An editor was kept to correct the proofs, and to go to prison, as occasion might require ; but Maginn contributed a large proportion of the first three numbers, and was virtually the manager. Hogg, who, as Wilson said, had made a perfect stye of every magazine in the kingdom, was invited up to town. Its rollicking tone, untempered by any genuine humour, was wo fully overdone, and smacked of the reeking laughter of the pothouse. Maginn, having no one to direct his shafts, attacked every one right and left, and selected a series of literary and political butts for continuous practice, among whom were Professor Wilson, Tom Campbell, and Lord Ellesmere, who were insulted in the most audacious manner ; and language and criticism like this gave constant rise to cudgellings, law-suits, and duels. Maginn, however, had plenty of courage was as reckless with his pistol as his pen. Captain Berkeley having called at the office, seen Fraser, and horsewhipped him for a libel, was challenged by the writer of it Maginn who, sobered down for the moment, stood his fire for three rounds with the utmost nonchalance. In spite of the humour of Thackeray and the philosophy of Carlyle, lately admitted to its pages, Fraser's Magazine was