BLACKWOOD, Henry, brother to the subject of the preceding article, and his senior by some years, was educated under nearly similar circumstances, and, in 1551, taught philosophy in the university of Paris. Having afterwards applied himself to the study of medicine, he rose to be dean of that faculty at Paris, an office of the very highest dignity which could then be reached by a member of the medical profession. He appears to have been one of the earliest modern physicians who gave a sanction to the practice of letting blood. He published various treatises on medicine, and also upon philosophy, of which a list is preserved in Mackenzie's Lives of Scots Writers. He acted at one time as physician to the Duke of Longueville, with a salary of two hundred pistoles. At another time, when the plague prevailed at Paris, he remained in the city, and exerted himself so zealously in the cure of his numerous patients, as to gain universal applause. He died, in 1613 or 1614, at a very advanced age.
BLACKWOOD, William, an eminent publisher, and originator of the magazine which bears his name, was born in Edinburgh, November 20, 1776, of parents who, though in humble circumstances, bore a respectable character, and were able to give this and their other children an excellent elementary education. At the age of fourteen, he commenced an apprenticeship with Messrs Bell and Bradfute, booksellers in his native city, with whom he continued six years. During this time, he stored his mind with a large fund of miscellaneous reading, which was of great service to him in after life. It is probable that he at the same time manifested no common talents for business, as, soon after the expiration of his apprenticeship, [1797,] he was selected by Messrs J. Mundell and Company, then carrying on an extensive publishing business in the Scottish capital, to take the charge of a branch of their concern which they had resolved to establish in Glasgow. Mr Blackwood acted as the Glasgow agent of Mundell and Company for a year, during which time he improved greatly as a man of business. Thrown in a great measure upon his own resources, he here acquired habits of decision, such as are rarely formed at so early an age, and which were afterwards of the greatest importance to him. Having also occasion to write frequently to his constituents, he formed a style for commercial correspondence, the excellence of which was a subject of frequent remark in his later years.
At the end of the year, when the business he had conducted at Glasgow was given up, Mr Blackwood returned to Messrs Bell and Bradfute, with whom he continued about a year longer. He then (1800) entered into partnership with Mr Robert Ross, a bookseller of some standing, who also acted as an auctioneer of books. Not long after, finding the line of business pursued by Mr Ross uncongenial to his taste, he retired from the partnership, and, proceeding to London, placed himself, for improvement in the antiquarian department of his trade, under Mr Cuthill. Returning once more to Edinburgh in 1804, he set up on his own account in a shop in South Bridge street, where for several years he confined his attention almost exclusively to the department just alluded to, in which he was allowed to have no rival of superior intelligence in Scotland. The catalogue of old books which he published in 1812, being the first of the kind in which the books were classified, and which referred to a stock of uncommon richness and variety, continues till the present day to be a standard authority for the prices of old books. At this period of his career, Mr Blackwood became agent for several of the first London publishing houses, and also began to publish extensively for himself. In 1816, having resolved to throw a larger share of his energies into the latter department of business, he sold off his stock of old books, and removed to a shop in the New Town, soon to become one of the most memorable localities connected with modern literary history.
