Her forehead gently with his hand, and said:-- "Sorrow not thus, beloved one, for me. No living man can send me to the shades Before my time; no man of woman born, Coward or brave, can shun his destiny. But go thou home, and tend thy labors there, The web, the distaff, and command thy maids To speed the work; the cares of war pertain To all men born in Troy, and most to me." Thus spake the mighty Hector, and took up His helmet shadowed with the horse-hair plume, While homeward his beloved consort went, Oft looking back and shedding many tears. Soon was she in the spacious palace-halls Of the man-queller Hector. There she found A troop of damsels; with them all she shared Her grief, and all in his own house bewailed The living Hector, whom they thought no more To see returning from the battle-field, Escaped the rage and weapons of the Greeks. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. This active, energetic, and in every way remarkable man, who was not only the originator, proprietor, and purveyor, but the editor,--the actual and only editor,--of "Blackwood's Magazine," up to the day of his death, in 1834, has never been properly understood nor appreciated, either abroad or at home, owing to circumstances the public are unacquainted with. While exercising despotic power, in all that concerned the management of that bold and saucy and at times unprincipled work, in all that concerned the management or the contributors, and never yielding even to "Old Christopher" himself, who passed for the editor, where any serious question sprang up, he was so careful to keep out of sight himself, and to thrust that old gentleman forward, upon all occasions,--a sort of myth, at the best,--a shadowy, mysterious personage, who deceived nobody, and whom all were glad enough to take on trust, well knowing that Professor Wilson was behind the mask,--that, up to this day, William Blackwood, the little, tough, wiry Scotch bookseller, with a big heart, and a pericardium of net-work,--interwoven steel springs,--has been regarded as the publisher and proprietor only, and Professor Wilson as the editor, and one who would suffer no interference with his prerogative, and "bear no brother near the throne." To bring about this belief, Blackwood spared no expense of indirect assertion, and no outlay of incidental evidence. Never faltering in his first plan, and never foregoing an opportunity of strengthening the public delusion, what cared he for the reputation of editorship, so long as the great mystery paid? Walter Scott had already shown how profitably and safely such a game might be played, year after year, in the midst of the enemies' camp; and Blackwood was just the man to profit by such experience.