1832.] The Two Professors. 515 



Do we ascribe all this to Hlackwood ? We do not, But we repeat, that 

 Blackwood's Magazine furnished the grand outline of all this, and more : 

 and that to this work is to be traced the source and spring of all the flippant 

 remark, personal allusion, and coarse invective all the reckless and " per 

 fas aut nefas" swagger which it has only put aside, now that it has dis- 

 covered the superior qualifications of its somewhile admiring imitators, 

 but, at length, worthy competitors, if not successful rivals. 



We do not think it likely that we shall have much more from Black- 

 wood's Magazine of that kind of easily spoken, but hardly believed, profes- 

 sion of sympathy with the people, and filial regard for " things as they 

 are" and " all that." It was easy, at one time, to discourse with animation 

 about " the wooden walls of old England" and to unfurl with much 

 seeming fervour 



" The flag that hrav'd a thousand years 

 The battle and the breeze," 



and to ring the changes upon the oft repeated, and at last, thank Heaven ! 

 worn out professions, by which the English people have been deceived and 

 betrayed. This after-dinner enthusiasm will go down no longer j and we 

 shall soon have an opportunity of judging how far Blackwood's Magazine 

 is sincere in its admiration of" existing institutions" and " things as they 

 are." The lick-spittle flattery and flat-faced prostration of one who could 

 consent to panegyrize a Castlereagh, is hardly the sort of thing to be 

 attended to with much respect now-a-days. 



It was, if we mistake not, Black wood's Magazine that took much credit to 

 itself in that it had exterminated what it was pleased to call" the cockney 

 school." Let us see who were the leaders of that school. The late Mr. 

 Hazlitt, Mr. Leigh Hunt, and the late Mr. Keats. We say nothing of 

 their faults and affectations, and of Mr Hunt we shall say nothing whatever. 

 May it be his way to despise the base attack sand dastardly malignity of his 

 enemies. But will Blackwood's Magazine now deny the acknowledged powers 

 of Hazlitt, and will it presume to say that Keats was not a man of genius ? 

 It is, certainly, " beautiful exceedingly," to hear Professor Wilson with a 

 grave face denounce the affectation of " the cockney school." It is true 

 that Professor Wilson did once praise Mr. Shelley in a review of " The 

 Revolt of Islam," but no less certain that he took many after opportunities 

 of sneering at him. And does the Professor, now that ten or twelve 

 years are elapsed, conceive that the Isle of Palms " is so fine a poem as 

 Alastor : " if so, God help the man's ignorance and amend his taste. The 

 world, by this time, are pretty well agreed that Shelley to Wilson is 

 " Hyperion to a Satyr j " a Satyr that, far from wonderment at the 

 phenomenon, can himself blow hot and cold with the same breath. But 

 Mr. Wilson, it must be confessed, is far better qualified to judge of and 

 appreciate the merits of Mr. Robert Montgomery ; and " the Omnipre- 

 sence of the Deity " is, in his estimation, and, we doubt not, in the opinion 

 of many of his readers, not to mention the private conviction of the 

 author, a far fairer flower than " Adonis " or " Hyperion." 



There is another worthy gentleman connected with Blackwood's Maga- 

 zine, to whose superior learning and taste that publication has been 

 much indebted. This learned Theban, in the course of his researches, has 

 made many wonderful discoveries. For instance, the world in future is 

 to take it for granted that Dr. Bentley was an aimable character, univer- 

 sally beloved by his friends, and scrupulously conscientious in his deal- 



