140 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [Geage Street.
?( Chaldee Manuscript,? the effect of which upon
the then circle of Edinburgh society can hardly
be realised now ; but this pungent jeu d?esprit, of
which it is scarcely necessary to give any account
here, is still preserved in Volume IV. of the works
of Professor Wilson.
The sensation excited by the new magazine was
kept up by all the successive numbers, though for
some months no one was attacked; but the subjects
discussed were handled in a masterly manner,
and exhibited a variety of talent that could not fail
to influence and command the respect of all ; and
it has been said that the early defects of the magazine
are nowhere better analysed than by the hands 1 of those who did the work-the authors of ? Peter?s
In October, 1817, he brought out the first
number of that celebrated magazine which has
enrolled among its contributors the names of
Wilson, Scott, Henry Mackenzie, J. McCrie,
Brewster, De Quincey, Hamilton (the author of
? Cyril Thornton ?), Aytoun, Alison, Lockhart,
Bulwer, Warren, James Hogg, Dr. Moir, and a
host of others. This periodical had a predecessor,
l l e Edinburgir Monthly Magazine, projected in
April, 18~7, and edited by Thomas Pringle, a
able and interesting papers, contained three
calculated to create curiosity, offence, and excitement.
The first was a fierce assault on Coleridge?s
Biog7aphia Literaria, which was stigmatised as a
? most execrable ? performance, and its author ? a
miserable compound of egotism and nialignity.?
The second was a still more bitter attack on
high Hunt, who was denounced as a ?profligate
creature,? one ?( without reverence for either
God or man.? The third was the famous
highly-esteemed poet and miscellaneous writer, the
son of a farmet in Teviotdale, and this falling into
the hands of new proprietors, became the famous
Blackzeoo&s Magazine.
This was consequently No. VII. of the series,
though the first of Blackamd. (?In the previous
six numbers there had been nothing allowed to
creep in that could possibly offend the most
zealous partisan of the blue and yellow,? says airs.
Gordon, in her ?Life of Professor Wilson.? In
the first Number the Edinburgh Review had been
praised for its moderation, ability, and delicate
taste, and politics were rather eschewed ; but
Number seven ?spoke a different language, and
proclaimed a new and sterner creed,? and among
