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of all the contributors, had visited Blackwood, at Edinburgh, and made intimate acquaintance with Wilson, Lockhart, Hogg, Hamilton, Gillies, and the rest of his collaborateurs. I am much disposed to attribute the first of the Noctes wholly to his pen, and I am confident that No. IV., (July, 1822,) in which Byron and Odoherty are the only speakers, could have been written by none other than "The Doctor."

The famous Greek motto, with the (very) free translation, which used to head each of the Noctes, was not introduced until No. VI. It was written by Maginn, and runs as follows:

ΧΡΗ ΔΕΝ ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΩ ΚΥΛΙΚΩΝ ΠΕΡΙΝΙΣΣΟΜΕΝΩΝ
ΗΔΕΑ ΚΩΤΙΛΛΟΝΤΑ ΚΑΘΗΜΕΝΟΝ ΟΙΝΟΠΟΤΑΖΕΙΝ.

This is a distich by wise old Phocylides,

An ancient who wrote crabbed Greek in no silly days;
Meaning, ""TIs right for Good WINEBIBBING PEOPLE,

PHOс. ap. Ath.

NOT TO LET THE JUG PACE ROUND THE BOARD LIKE A CRIPPLE;
BUT GAILY TO CHAT WHILE DISCUSSING THEIR TIPPLE."
An excellent rule of the hearty old cock 'tis—
And a very fit motto to put to our Noctes.]

C. N. ap. Ambr.

Whoever began the Noctes, or whatever pens were first employed upon them, there can be no doubt that, very speedily, Wilson's was the master-mind which pressed the individuality of genius into them. Was it wonderful, then, if they bore the marks of his authorship? Peculiar turns of expression, and particular trains of thought, such as only he indulged in, enabled his friends to trace his pen through the series, month after month, year after year. From March, 1822, until February, 1835, when the series closed, having extended to Seventy-One Numbers, no Magazine articles won more attention or favor.

Great as was their popularity in England, it was peculiarly in America that their high merit and undoubted originality received the heartiest recognition and appreciation. Nor is this wonderful, when it is considered that for one reader of Blackwood's Magazine in the old country, there cannot be less than fifty in the new. There was a strong desire among the more cultivated minds of Great Britain, to have the series collected, and I have understood that the subject was seriously discussed, by Wilson and the Messrs. Blackwood; but it was considered that, abounding in literary and political personalities, as each of the Noctes did, it would be wholly impossible to make a collective republication without such omissions as would virtually destroy the original character of the articles. It was considered that a period of five-andtwenty or thirty years must pass, before the Noctes, unmutilated, and made clear by biographical, literary, political, and general notes, could be presented, as a whole, to the British public.

On this side of the water, no such reasons for delay existed, and the repub

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lication of The Noctes Ambrosianæ took place in 1843. They formed four closely-printed volumes, and I shall only say of them, that they were distinguished by two faults, one of omission, the other of commission. In the first place, no date having been given in any instance, the reader was left wholly in the dark as to the time of each dialogue; in the second, the whole of Wilson's peculiar mode of personifying things (which he largely did, by the abundant use of capital letters in nouns) was altered, and wherever a word commenced with a capital-thus giving it a sort of brevet title on the page—it was reduced to the [lower-case] ordinary rank-and-file. It is clear that if a writer make it part of his system to have certain words commence with a particular description of letter, (as Wilson did and as Carlyle does,) it marks his style, and should be preserved. A great deficiency in the first American edition of the Noctes was the want of an Index. It will be perceived that I have remedied, in the present edition, all that is complained of. The new matter now added makes the series as complete, so far as the text is in question, as I can make it. What else I have done, in illustration, may speak for itself.

Meanwhile, though Blackwood never relinquished the actual business conduct of the Magazine, Wilson gradually became the virtual editor. As one of the Professors in Edinburgh University, he had station; and years, as they glided on, brought soberer thought. In 1826, Lockhart went to London, to conduct the Quarterly Review, and with him departed much of the personal and caustic sarcasm of Maga. The more generous impulses of Wilson became lords of the ascendant. The onslaught upon the Cockney School of Literature was laid aside, and every man of genius who chose to write for Maga could

"Claim kindred there and have his claim allowed."

It would be a long task even to enumerate all who, from that time, contributed to Blackwood. To the last, Hogg and Hamilton, Aird and Sym continued in that band. There Maginn, for over twenty years, poured out the treasures of his learning, wit, and fancy. There, some of Lockhart's most brilliant essays and poems first met the public eye. There, Thomas Doubleday, a poet then, and only a political economist now, delighted to luxuriate. There, the delicate fancy of Charles Lamb was allowed its full range. There, Caroline Bowles was ever welcome, whether in her prose "Chapters on Churchyards," or in her simple and touching lyrics. There, after many and notable failures in other departments of letters, Galt discovered that his power lay in the delineation of familiar Scottish life. There, “Delta" flooded the land with many thousand lines of unreadable "poctry," and showed, by his Autobiography of Mansie Wauch, tailor at Dalkeith," that not in sentiment but in humor was his real strength, in which, had he pleased, he might have surpassed Galt himself. There, Allan Cunningham gave "prose by a poet," in the adventures of Mark Macrobin, the Cameronian. There, De Quincey

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poured out his subtlety, which, were it less diffuse, would have been more valuable. There, Coleridge, a greatly superior mind, occasionally laid his thoughts before the public. And there, a star among them, Mrs. Hemans occasionally occupied a page or two with some noble lyric. Her" Aspiration and Despondency" was first given to the world in Blackwood.

Great political changes took place during this time ;--the brief premiership of Canning-the incapacity of Lord Goderich, his successor—the iron grasp of power by "the Duke'-the election for Clare, which sent O'Connell to Parliament-the granting of Catholic Emancipation, by a Ministry whose lives had been spent in resisting it-the consequent branding Wellington and Peel as traitors (to party)—the death of George the Fourth-the outcry for Parliamentary Reform, under his successor the contest for "the Bill"-the downfall of the Tories-the uprise of the Whigs, all of these were fruitful topics, and were discussed in the articles in Maga, as well as at the Noctes.

Among the literary papers which now appeared may be noticed the continuation of, scarcely inferior to, Swift's History of John Bull, written by Professor George Moir, also author of the beautiful series entitled "Shakspeare in Germany."

Nor should there be omitted, in this rapid enumeration, the finest nautical fictions of the age, ("Tom Cringle's Log," and the "Cruise of the Midge,") written by one whose very name-Michael Scott-was ever unknown to Mr. Blackwood. In September, 1834, "Ebony," as he loved to be called, (the Chaldee Manuscript gave him the title,) "shuffled off this mortal coil," ignorant of the identity of Michael Scott, who followed him, in the next year.

In Blackwood, after this, appeared Sir Daniel K. Sandford's admirable papers (adapted from the German of Meissner) on the Youth and Manhood of Alcibiades. There, too, after six English periodicals had peremptorily rejected them, were published Samuel Warren's "Passages from the Diary of a late Physician," which literally took the world of letters by storm, and were succeeded by the yet more attractive novel-alas! that it should be a caricature from first to last-of "Ten Thousand a Year."

So great was the catholic spirit of Maga now, that the "Men of Character of republican Douglas Jerrold appeared under the same cover with a biography of Burke, and the historical romance of "Marston," by Croly, the Tory. Macnish, the Glasgow doctor, was allowed to make his eccentric but often dull appearance as "The Modern Pythagorean." Ingoldsby (our genial friend Barham) introduced "My Cousin Nicholas" to the world. And, specially invited by Wilson, the late John Sterling contributed his delightful "Literary Lore." There, too, was the late M. J. Chapman, with his translations from the plays of Æschylus. There was William Hay, not translating, but actually transfusing the Greek Anthology into English poetry. There, Walter Savage Landor spoke out, as familiar with the illustrious of past centuries, in his

HISTORY OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

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Imaginary Conversations." There, Professor H. H. Wilson, of Oxford, gave Specimens of the Hindu Drama. There, James Ferrier (now Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of St. Andrew's) produced his eloquent and thoughtful Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness. And there, while yet a youth, William E. Aytoun (afterwards Wilson's son-in-law) gave trochaic versions of Homer, such as have not yet been surpassed.

After Blackwood's death, the Magazine came more under Wilson's surveillance than it formerly had been. He lost no time in inviting Bulwer to contribute and to this we owe some spirited translations of Schiller, and the two prose fictions ("The Caxtons," and "My Novel") which are admitted to be the best productions of the greatest living author of England. Monckton Milnes (who certainly wants common sense, or he would not have published a volume of "Poetry for the People," and charged two dollars for the book!) was allowed to spread his elegant fancies over occasional pages of Maga. Here were welcomed the lofty strains of Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, the greatest of living female poets. Here, Charles Mackay, the lyrist of humanity and progress, earnestly poured out heart-poetry. It was here that the late Bartholomew Simmons, a young Irish poet, who "died too soon," gave his exquisite lyrics to the public. And here, also, did Samuel Phillips, now the literary critic on the "Times" newspaper in London, first make a direct and successful challenge, on the universal mass of readers, in his powerful life-novel called "Caleb Stukely." Nor should I here omit to state that some of the most powerful articles, (chiefly on American politics and literature,) ever dashed off by John Neal, appeared in Maga. At a later period, here was also published the earnest poetry of Albert Pike, breathing the true spirit of old mythology, and the brilliant prose-fictions of Ruxton.

Ten years after Blackwood's death, during which the sceptre had virtually been in Wilson's hands, "the Professor" (as he was always called) gradually began to yield the power into other and younger hands. One of his oldest friends had been old Roger Aytoun, W. S. in Edinburgh.* A son of his, William Edmonstone Aytoun, had become a dear friend of Wilson's-a yet dearer of Wilson's daughter, whom he married. The elder Aytoun was a fierce little Whig: the younger, a staunch Tory; able, eloquent, witty, and laborious—which last was proven by his researchful Life of Richard the Lionhearted, in Murray's Family Library. He became a liberal contributor, in prose and verse, to Blackwood. Station he did not lack, for he was Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in his Alma Mater, the University of Edinburgh. And so, Wilson's son-in-law and intimate friend, he may be said to have glided into Wilson's place in the Magazine. Under him, old contributors became more industrious :—what Blackwood is there now, without an article *The lawyers, in Edinburgh, between the actual counsellors, who plead, and the mere attorneys, are Writers to the Signet.-M.

from Alison, the historian? Aytoun's own force has been further developed in satiric fiction-who can forget his railway novelettes, "My First Spec in the Boggleswades," and "How we got up the Glenmutchkin Railway, and how we got out of it" ?---but his Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers show his vein of poetry to be rich and original. His powers of satire are great-though, as yet, he has used them very rarely.

So, as I have said, Aytoun gradually glided into the editorship of Maga. Nor did Wilson at once retire. He commenced, and completed, a series of critical articles, in his own style, called “Specimens of the British Classics.” After this, the old man eloquent flashed out in his "Dies Boreales,”—the last of which was his latest composition.

Beyond this need the record be carried on? Wilson self-deposed, sparkling to the last, and then-a half unconsciousness between him and the grave. Aytoun, educated, as it were, into the management of Maga. Here join the Past and the Present.

To this, as fitting appendix, I subjoin The Chaldee Manuscript. The notes which I append, merely indicate the principal persons and things alluded to: at the lapse of thirty-seven years, it is impossible to do more. No doubt every sentence had its proper barb, when written:

TRANSLATION

FROM AN

ANCIENT CHALDEE MANUSCRIPT.

[The present age seems destined to witness the recovery of many admirable pieces of writing, which had been supposed to be lost for ever. The Eruditi of Milan are not the only persons who have to boast of being the instruments of these resuscitations. We have been favored with the following translation of a Chaldee MS. which is preserved in the great Library of Paris, (Salle 2d, No. 53, B. A. M. M.,) by a gentleman whose attainments in Oriental Learning are well known to the public. It is said that the celebrated Silvester de Lacy is at present occupied with a publication of the original. It will be prefaced by an Inquiry into the Age when it was written, and the name of the writer.]

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