to make it impossible to sever him from the band of writers who brought it forth. Other names of more note and influence than that of the Shepherd figure in the list. Sir William Hamilton, the future philosopher, was present at the uproarious sitting during which the Chaldee Manuscript was produced, and composed one of the verses so much to his own satisfaction as to fall from his chair exhausted with laughter after the exertion. Thus Edinburgh was once more the scene of one of the great events of modern literary history. All the magazines of more recent days are the followers and offspring of this periodical, so audacious in its beginning, so persistent and permanent in its influence and power. The success of the new organ of opinion was immediate. 'Four thousand of this cruelly witty magazine," writes Mrs. Grant, "are sold in a month, at which I do in wonderment abound, as a great many are sold in London, where, I should suppose, our localities could be little understood, and certainly nothing could be more local. . . . It is supported by a club of young wits, many of whom are well known to me; who, I hope, in some measure fear God, but certainly do not regard man." It is curious, however, to find that upon the vexed question of the time-the poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge, the new Magazine, though its chief contributor had been supposed to belong to the "Lake School" of poets, was in no respect more clear-sighted or more liberal than Jeffrey, their arch-enemy, had been. The assault upon Coleridge in the first number is far more fiery and furious than anything Jeffrey ever wrote; and the series of articles which followed upon Leigh Hunt and the "Cockney School" embody literary mistake as grievous as was ever committed. "I propose," says the contemptuous critic, addressing Leigh Hunt by name, "to relieve my main attack upon you by a diversion against some of your younger and less - important auxiliaries-the Keatses, the Shelleys, and the Webbes." For a magazine which shortly afterwards treated with judicial dignity the shortcomings and blunders of Jeffrey, this slip was terrible enough. In after days, however, Wilson's delicate and enthusiastic criticism did much to gain for Wordsworth the popular appreciation which was so slow to come. WILLIAM GIFFORD, born 1756; died 1826. Published The Baviad, 1794. The Mæviad, 1795. Edited The Anti-Jacobin, 1797-98. Quarterly Review, 1808 to 1824. GEORGE CANNING, born 1770; died 1827. JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE, born 1769; died 1846. Published Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. Whistlecraft (Prospectus and Specimen of our Metrical Translation of the "Birds" and FRANCIS JEFFREY, born 1773; died 1850. Editor of the Edinburgh Review from 1803 to 1829, in which innumerable critical articles were published; afterwards. collected in four vols., 1824. SYDNEY SMITH, born 1771; died 1845. Published Contributions to Edinburgh Review, from 1802. Peter Plymley's Letters, 1807. Various political pamphlets. HENRY BROUGHAM, born 1778; died 1868. Published Mathematical and Scientific Papers, 1796-1798. Inquiry into Colonial Policy, 1803. Discourses on Paley's Natural Theology, 1835. Memoirs of the Statesmen of the Reign of George 1839-1843. III., Lives of Men of Letters and Science, 1840. Political Philosophy, 1840. Analytical View of Newton's Principia, 1855. Speeches, Collected, etc. etc. His own Life and Times (incomplete), 1871. JOHN WILSON, born 1785; died 1854. Published Isle of Palms, 1812. City of the Plague, 1816. Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life, 1822. (Several of these were originally published in Black wood's Magazine.) The Trials of Margaret Lyndsay, 1823. The Foresters, 1824. The Recreations of Christopher North, 1842. He was the chief contributor to (though never editor of) Blackwood's Magazine, from 1817 almost to the end of his life. JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART, born 1794; died 1854. Published Valerius: A Roman Story, 1821. Adam Blair, 1822. Reginald Dalton, 1823. Life of Scott, 1837-38. He contributed to Blackwood's Magazine from its beginning, and became editor of the Quarterly Review in 1824. JAMES HOGG, the Ettrick Shepherd, born 1770; died 1835. Published Poems (chiefly songs), 1801. The Mountain Bard, 1807. The Forest Minstrel, 1810. The Queen's Wake, 1813. Also a great number of short poems and tales at various dates. CHAPTER III. WALTER SCOTT. WHILE the young men of the Edinburgh Review were setting out upon their bold enterprise from the neglected side of the Parliament House, and avenging their Whiggery, oddly enough, not upon its opponents, but upon the poets of their own party, another young advocate in Edinburgh belonging to the other side was slowly becoming known among his peers as possessing abilities beyond the common level, though no such brilliancy as that which flashed out, in sight of all the world, in the great Review. Walter Scott was the son of an Edinburgh Writer to the Signet, a respectable Scotch lawyer-with a traceable descent from the Scotts of Harden, and all the advantage of known and honourable connections; but he was no better off than his contemporaries, except in so far that he had a fair prospect of the rewards and encouragements then exclusively appropriated by his party in politics. He had been brought up, like all the rest, at the High School, after a dreamy and delightful childhood, chiefly spent in the country, where unconsciously he must have taken into his heart that world of rural life, with all its sights and sounds, the ewe-milkers, |