LITERATURE. BLACKWOOD S MAGAZINE. 



179 



mine which should drown the other. The only feelings short of 

 ecstasy that came across us in these enraptured moments were 

 caused hy hearing the laugh and joke going on with our friends, as 

 if no such thrilling strains had been flowing. But if Syrn's eye 

 chanced to fall on them, it instantly retreated upwards again in 

 mild indignation."* 



The Shepherd himself was not the least remarkable among that 

 set of remarkable men. In spite of qualities that made it impossi- 

 ble perfectly to respect him, his original genius and good-natured 

 simplicity made him a favorite with them all, until his vanity had 

 become quite unendurable. He plumed himself immensely on being 

 the real originator of the Magazine, and of the Chaldee MS. He 

 was a very frequent contributor, but, in addition to his own genu- 

 ine compositions, he got the credit of numberless performances, 

 both in prose and verse, which he had never beheld till they ap- 

 peared under his name in the pages of the Magazine. This was a 

 part of that system of mystification practised in the management, 

 which has never been carried so far in any other publication, and 

 undoubtedly contributed very greatly to its success. The illustri- 

 ous example of Sir Walter Scott had given encouragement to this 

 species of deception, and the editor and writers of Blackwood 

 thought themselves quite at liberty, not only to perplex the public 

 by affixing all sorts of fictitious names and addresses to their com- 



* The following epitaph on Tickler, from the XocUs, is worthy of extraction : 



u Pray for the soul 



Of Timothy Tickler; 

 For the Church and the bowl 

 A determined stickler. 



" Born and bred in the land 



Where Fyne herrings they munch, 

 And a capital hand 

 At concocting of punch. 



" From that great bumper school 

 To Auld Reekie he came, 

 And drew in a stool 

 To his desk in the same. 



" But, though W. S., 



And ambitious to thrive, 

 Even his foes must confess 

 Cheated no man alive. 



" Neither harried poor gentry 

 Of house or of land, 

 Nor bolted the country 

 With cash in his hand. 



" Where tall as a steeple, 

 And thin as a shadow, 

 He towered o'er the people 

 In the Links or the Meadow. 



(Cftorus.) — With a pipe in his cheek 



And a goblet before him, 

 Every night of the week 

 In sascula soeculorum." 



Mr. Sym was born in 1T50 and died, in 1844. 



