162 MEMOIK OF JOHN WILSON. 



as partner and publisher, advertised in the June number of the 

 Magazine that its publication would be discontinued at the end of 

 three months from that date. The editors, thrown adrift by this 

 coup, immediately offered their services to Messrs. Constable and 

 Co., as editors of a new series of the Scots Magazine, to appear 

 under the title of The Edinburgh Magazine; while Mr. Black- 

 wood, after some contention and correspondence, agreed to pay his 

 quondam partners £125 for their share in the copyright of the Ed- 

 inburgh Monthly Magazine.* In acquiring the copyright of the 

 Magazine, Mr. Blackwood determined to abandon its old title, and 

 give it a name combining the double advantage that it would not 

 be confounded with any other, and would at the same time help to 

 spread the reputation of the publisher. 



Accordingly in October, 1817, appeared for the first time Black- 

 wood's Edinburgh Magazine (No. VII. from commencement), and 

 it needed no advertising trumpet to let the world know that a new 

 reign (a reign of terror in its way) had begun. In the previous six 

 numbers there had been nothing allowed to creep in that could pos- 

 sibly offend the most zealous partisan of the Blue and Yellow. On 

 the contrary, the opening article of No. I. was a good-natured eulo- 

 gium on Mr. Francis Horner ; the Edinburgh Review was praised 

 for its ability, moderation, and good taste; politics were rather 

 eschewed than otherwise ; the literary notices were, with one or two 

 exceptions, elaborately commonplace and complaisant, and, in fact, 

 every thing was exemplarily careful, correct, and colorless. No.VII. 

 spoke a different language, and proclaimed a new and sterner creed. 

 Among a considerable variety of papers, most of them able and in- 

 teresting, it contained not less than three of a kind well calculated 

 to arouse curiosity and excitement, and to give deep offence to sec- 

 tions more or less extensive of the reading public. The first was a 

 most unwarrantable assault on Coleridge's Biographia Eiteraria, 

 which was adjudged to be a "most execrable" performance, and its 



* The sum they had demanded was £300, but according to the publisher's accounts, submitted 

 to the law-agent of the editors, the success of the work had not been such as to justify that es- 

 timate. The accounts showed that so far from having made profit, the publisher was nearly 

 £140 out of pocket, and that, " even if the whole impression were sold off, there would not be 

 £70 clear profit." According to this estimate, which seems to have satisfied the agent (no other 

 than the afterwards celebrated George Combe), the half share of the editors at the most would 

 have been worth £35. What the number of copies printed was I have no means of knowing; 

 it was, probably, not large, and the fact that the whole impression was not disposed of, gives some 

 ground for the belief that the publisher had reason to be dissatisfied with the management, 



