LITERATURE. BLACKWOOD^ MAGAZINE. 189 



Ensign O'Doherty, by Mordecai Mullion, and a host of others too 

 numerous to mention. The variety and mystification thus produced 

 undoubtedly gave great additional zest to the writing; and this 

 apparently multitudinous host of contributors danced about the 

 victims of their satire with a vivacity and gleefulness which the 

 public could not but relish even when it condemned. After all, 

 and giving their full weight to the censures which were justly in- 

 curred by many of these compositions, there is much truth in the 

 following remarks, in a vindication of itself prefixed to the Maga- 

 zine a few years after :— " For a series of years, the Whigs in Scot- 

 land had all the jokes to themselves ; they laughed and lashed as 

 they liked ; and while all this was the case, did anybody ever hear 

 them say that either laughing or lashing were among the seven 

 deadly sins ? People said at times, no doubt, that Mr. Jeffrey was 

 a more gentlemanly Whig than Mr. Brougham; that Sydney Smith 

 grinned more good-hunioredly than Sir James Mackintosh, and so 

 forth, but all these were satirists, and, strange to say, they all re- 

 joiced in the name." While I cannot agree with the statement 

 following these remarks, that the only real offence of Blackwood's 

 contributors was their being Tories, there is no doubt, I think, 

 that that circumstance greatly aggravated their sins in the eyes of 

 their opponents.* 



The faults in question were, however, in themselves sufficiently 

 grave, and may now be referred to, it is hoped, without risk of re- 

 kindling the old embers. The worst of them undoubtedly, for 

 which even " Dr. Peter Morris " could afterwards see no apology, 

 was the attack on the venerable Playfair, which appeared in 1818, 

 in the September number of the Magazine, under the guise of a 

 " Letter to the Rev. Professor Laugner, occasioned by his writing 

 in the Konigsberg Review : by the Baron von Lauerwinkel."f In 



* Insolenco and personality have very seldom been altogether wanting in the vigorous youth 

 of journalism, and some of the ablest periodicals that have ever appeared have incurred the most 

 censure in this respect. The Edinburgh Review cannot by impartial judges be pronounced to 

 have been immaculate. The Quarterly is open to the same remark; and Eraser's Magazine, 

 that most philosophic and well-conducted periodical, for some time seemed bent on out-doing the 

 early style of Blackwood, after its older sister had subsided into propriety and self-restraint. 



t This mischievous composition professed to be a translation from a German periodical (a lit- 

 erary stratagem, by the way, which probably set the example which Mr. Carlyle, among others, 

 has turned to such frequent and effective purpose), and was thus introduced :— "The Koni. 

 Eeview, conducted by the late ingenious M. Mnndwerk, was a few years ago very much admired 

 in Germany by numerous readers, who took delight in seeing infidel and unpatriotic opinions 

 maintained bv men of acknowledged wit and talent. Strange as the circumstance may appear. 



