LITEKATURE. BLACKWOOD^ MAGAZINE. 17.) 



and a sort o' lauch about the screwed-up mouth o' him that fules 

 ca'ed no canny, for they couldna' thole the meaning o't." I am 

 fortunate enough to be able to give the capital likeness on page 185, 

 drawn by bis own hand, in which the satirist who spared no one, 

 has most assuredly not been nattering to himself. 



Wilson's appearance in those days is thus described in Peter's 

 Letters by Mr. Lockhart : — " In complexion he is the best specimen 

 I have ever seen of the genuine or ideal Goth. His hair is of the 

 true Sicambrian yellow ; his eyes are of the brightest, and at the 

 same time of the clearest blue, and the blood glows in his cheek 

 with as firm a fervor as it did, according to the description of 

 Jornandes, in those of the ' Bello gaudentes, prrelio ridentes Teu- 

 tones' of Attila." The black-haired Spanish-looking Oxonian, with 

 that uncanny laugh of his, was a very dangerous person to encoun- 

 ter in the field of letters. " I've sometimes thocht, Mr. North," 

 says the Shepherd, " that ye "were a wee feared for him yoursel', 

 and used rather, without kenuin 't, to draw in your horns." Sys- 

 tematic, cool, and circumspect, when he armed himself for conflict 

 it was with a fell and deadly determination. The other rushed into 

 combat rejoicingly, like the Teutons ; but even in his fiercest mood, 

 he was alive to pity, tenderness, and humor. When he impaled a 

 victim, he did it, as Walton recommends, not vindictively, but as if 

 he loved him. Lockhart, on the other hand, though susceptible of 

 deep emotions, and gifted with a most playful wit, had no scruple 

 in wounding to the very quick, and no thrill of compassion ever 

 held back his hand when he had made up his mind to strike. He 

 was certainly no coward, but he liked to fight under cover, and 

 keep himself unseen, while Wilson, even under the shield of an- 

 onymity, was rather prone to exhibit his own unmistakable per- 

 sonality. 



Such were the two principal contributors to Blacktoood when it 

 broke upon the startled gaze of Edinburgh Whigdom, like a fiery 

 comet "that with fear of change perplexes monarchs." Not with- 

 out reason did the adherents of the " Blue and Yellow" wish ill to 

 the formidable new-comer, for, apart from its undeniable oifences 

 against good feeling and taste, there was a power and life about 

 the Magazine that betokened ominously for the hitherto unchal- 

 lenged supremacy of the great Review. In spite of its errors, the 

 substantial merits of the Magazine securely established its popu- 



