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
Gewge Stmt.1 WILLTAM BLACKWOOD. 141
Letters,?? &c. At what precise period Professor
Wilson came into personal communication with
old William Blackwood is not quite known, but he
had been for some time an anonymous contributor,
under the initial N. His last papers, Nos. g and
10 of ? Dies Boreales,? were written, we believe,
in the autumn of 1852. William Blackwood himself
never wrote more thah two or three articles for
the earlier numbers, but the whole management
and arrangement devolved upon him at No. 17
-
First there is, as usual, a spacious place set apzrt
for retail business, and a numerous detachment of
young clerks and apprentices, to whose management
that important department of the concern is
entrusted. Then you have an elegant oval saloon,
lighted from the roof, where various groups of
loungers and literary diktfanti are engaged at, or
criticising amongst themselves, the publications
just amved by that day?s coach from London. In
such critical colloquies the voice of the bookseller
THE SALOON IN MESSRS. BLACKWOODS? ESTABLISHMENT.
Princes Street, and he executed the editorial duties
with unusual skill, tact, and vigour. He was still
there in 1823, when Leigh Hunt threatened legal
proceedings against the magazine-? a cockney
crow,? as Lockhart called it in one of his letters
to Wilson; adding, ?Who the devil czres for all
cockneydom 7 ?
His establishment in 45 Georg: Street is very
like what we find it described as having been in
? Peter?s Letters ? (Vol. 11.) :-? The length of
vista presented to one on entering the shop has a
very imposing effect, for it is carried back, room
after room, through various gradations of light and
shadow, till the eye cannot distinctly trace the
outline of any object in the farthest distance.
himself may ever and anon be heard mingling the
broad and unadulterated notes of its -4uld Reekie
music ; for, unless occupied in the recesses of the
premises with some other business, it is here he
has his usual station. He is a nimble, active-looking
man, of middle age, and moves about from one corfier
to another with great alacrity, and apparently under
the influence of high animal spirits. His complexion
is very sanguineous, but nothing can be
more intelligent, keen, and sagacious than the
expression of the whole physiognomy; above all,
the grey eyes and eyebrows, as full of locomotion
as those of Catalani. The remarks he makes are,
in general, extremely acute-much more so, indeed,
than those of any other member of the trade I
