E-text prepared by Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) THE 'BLACKWOOD' GROUP by SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS Famous·Scots·Series Published by Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier · Edinburgh and London * * * * * FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES _The following Volumes are now ready:_-- THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson. ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton. HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask. JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes. ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun. THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie. RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless. SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson. THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie. JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask. TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton. FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. Omond. THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir George Douglas. * * * * * The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, and the printing from the press of Messrs Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh. _April 1897._ * * * * * To Major-General Sir WILLIAM CROSSMAN, K.C.M.G., IN REMEMBRANCE OF HOURS IN TWO LIBRARIES. * * * * * THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. JOHN WILSON. JOHN GALT. D. M. MOIR ('DELTA'). MISS FERRIER. MICHAEL SCOTT. THOMAS HAMILTON. _Note_--The Ettrick Shepherd and John Gibson Lockhart, conspicuous by their absence from the above list of writers associated with the early days of the publishing-house of Blackwood, will receive attention in forthcoming volumes of the series. JOHN WILSON Is it too bold a thing to say that the reputation of 'Christopher North,' the man, has survived that of his works? Third in the great dynasty of Scottish literary sovereigns, he ascended the throne upon the death of Scott, reigned gloriously and held high state in the Northern Capital--whence in earlier days he had waged direst war--and at his death passed on the sceptre to Carlyle, from whom in turn it descended to Stevenson. To us of to-day, he looms on the horizon of the past, the representative of a vanished race of physical and intellectual giants,--the historic legend revealing him as before all things a good man of his inches, a prince of boon-companions and good-fellows, a wit, a hard hitter, the soul and centre of a brilliant circle, and the author of the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_. Many other works he wrote--important in their own day--but now not unjustly forgotten, or all but forgotten. But the man himself was greater than his works; he, more than they, is our enduring possession; his memory it behoves us to preserve. * * * * *