Besides the contributors already referred to, Mr Blackwood had a surrounding of zealous friends and correspondents, who appear behind him, a crowd of eager faces like the background of an old picture, busy as a throng of bees, productive, filling up every corner. One of the numerous jokes against him in the laughing circle that was nearest to him was, that he asked every man whom he met to contribute to the Magazine; and certainly this was true enough of all men of genius or remarkable gifts who came in his way. We have seen that he received with open arms the young man who wrote to him from Cork, giving only initials, and had published his articles for some time before he had any idea who he was. This kind of mystery was delightful to the mood of the period, and added to the pleasure with which a new writer was received. And Blackwood had a number of agents and retainers about the world, especially in London, including the aforesaid anonymous young man from Cork, Dr Maginn, who were specially intrusted with a roving commission to find young men of parts who were capable of being turned into contributors: some of these agents, I have been told, received a small annual allowance for this, and were literary crimps, seizing hold of every likely young fellow who came by. Maginn drew a whole tribe around him out of Ireland, from the smaller fry who never came to much, up to Crofton Croker, already an author and a Member of Parliament; and almost every important member of the staff brought others in his train.