and I hope
you will continue to favor us with your communications, and
you may depend upon being liberally treated. I do not wish
to say much about terms, as I have a perfect horror at the
manufacturing system of gentlemen who _do_ articles for
periodicals at so much per sheet. I feel confident that you
are none of these, but one who, like the friends who have
supported my Magazine, writes upon subjects which he takes
an interest in, and therefore handles them _con amore_. It
is this system of _piece-work_ which has made most
periodicals such commonplace affairs; and it is by keeping
free of it that 'Maga' will preserve her name and fame.

"Meantime, I am perfectly sensible that the laborer is
worthy of his hire, and that no gentleman need refuse the
remuneration he is entitled to. It gives me great pleasure,
therefore, to send an _honorarium_ to all my contributors. I
may also mention to you that this varies from seven to ten
guineas, or perhaps more, per sheet, according to the nature
of the articles.

"By way of _arles_, (_Anglice_, earnest,) I annex a draft on
Mr. Cadell for five guineas to account.

"With regard to your name, you will do just as you feel most
convenient and agreeable. All I shall say is, that whatever
is confided to me I keep sacredly to myself.

"I am, Sir,

"Your most obedient servant,

"W. BLACKWOOD."

"Five guineas!" said I to myself,--twenty-five dollars cash, for a paper
I had flung off at a single sitting, and which at home would have been
thought well paid for with a "Much obliged," or, at most, with a
five-dollar bill,--even the great "North American Review" then paying,
where it paid at all, only a dollar a page in "that day of small
things"; and to work I went forthwith, preparing another article upon
another American subject, determined to be in season, and not allow the
blaze I had lighted up to go out for want of kindling-stuff. The
article, I may say here, created quite a sensation, and was copied into
the Continental journals and papers, and even reappeared in the great
"European Review," then just established at London, Paris, and Vienna,
under the editorship of Alexander Walker, a Scotchman, who began his
literary career by undertaking to supply the deficiencie