opportunity. His gifts were critical rather than creative, and his most
famous work is the collected “Noctes Ambrosianae” which began to run
in the March number (1822) of _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_. He was
one of the very first to praise Wordsworth; and though in general, far
too superlative both in praise and blame to be considered dependable, a
very great deal of his criticism holds good to the present hour. Along
in the first days of Wordsworth’s career, Wilson proclaimed him, with
Scott and Byron, “one of the three great master spirits of our day in
the poetical world”. Lockhart, long his close friend and associate,
writes thus: “He is a very warm, enthusiastic man, with most charming
conversational talents, full of fiery imaginations, irresistible
in eloquence, exquisite in humor when he talks ...; he is a most
fascinating fellow, and a most kind-hearted, generous friend; but his
fault is a sad one, a total inconsistency in his opinions concerning
both men and things.... I ... believe him incapable of doing anything
dishonorable either in literature or in any other way.”[58]
[58] A. Lang: _Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart_, V. i, p. 93
It was the pen of John Gibson Lockhart, however, almost as wholly as
Wilson’s which insured the success of the magazine; and Blackwood was
as eager to enlist Lockhart into his services as Wilson. Like Wilson,
too, “Maga” was Lockhart’s opportunity! He had given early promise as
a future critic. Elton says he wrote “sprightly verse and foaming
prose”. From 1817 to 1830 he was not only one of the invaluable
supporters of “Maga”, but one of its rare _lights_! In announcing the
marriage of his daughter to Lockhart, Sir Walter Scott said: “To a
young man of uncommon talents, indeed of as promising a character as
I know”.[59] His gift for caricature colored his writings. His was a
mind and eye and genius for the comic. His satire was that keen and
bitter piercing satire which all are ready to recognize as talent, but
few are ready to forgive if once subjected to it. But there was little
malice behind it ever. Much of what he wrote has been condemned for its
bitter, and often personal, import. But Lockhart was only twenty-three
at the time of his first connection with the magazine--and what is
more, “constitutionally a mocker”. All is well with his serious work,
but according to Mr. Lang, the “Imp of the Perverse” was his ruling
genius! Others say, “as a practitioner in the gentle art of making
enemies, Lockhart excelled”,[60] and that he possessed the “native gift
of insolence”[61]. They are strong words, not wholly without cause, and
illustrate the attitude of many minds towards his work; yet perhaps
they only go to prove that he began to write responsible articles too
young, and was allowed entirely too free a swing.
[59] Ibid., V. i, p. 230
[60] J. H. Millar: _A Literary History of Scotland_, p. 517
[61] Same
The story of James Hogg is by far the most fascinating of those
connected with _Blackwood’s_; and in a later series of articles in
that magazine on these first three stars, the writer says: “Hogg
was undoubtedly the most remarkable. For his was an untaught and
self-educated genius, which shone with rare though fitful lustre
in spite of all disadvantages, and surmounted obstacles that were
seemingly insuperable.”[62] It is difficult to ascertain his exact
relations with the magazine. One thing at least is certain,--he
contributed much. Wilson and Lockhart found great joy in “drawing” him,
and Hogg was kept wavering between vexation and pride “at occupying
so much space in the most popular periodical of the day”.[63] As
Saintsbury puts it, he was at once the “inspiration, model, and butt of
_Blackwood’s Magazine_”[64]. But indeed the shepherd drawn so cleverly
in the Noctes “was not”, his daughter testifies, “the Shepherd of
Ettrick, or the man James Hogg”. And in all justice to him, there can
be no doubt that he is totally misrepresented therein.
[62] _Memorials of James Hogg_, p. 11
[63] J. H. Millar: _A Literary History of Scotland_, p. 530
[64] Saintsbury: _Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860_, p. 37
His poetry is his only claim upon the world. It was the one thing
dearest to his own heart, and the one thing for which he claimed or
craved distinction or recognition of any kind. The heart warms to
this youth with his dreams and aspirations, brain teeming with poems
years before he learned to write. As might be expected from a man
whose own grandfather had conversed with fairies, in Hogg’s poetry
the supernatural is close to the natural world. He is reported once
to have said to his friend Sir Walter Scott: “Dear Sir Walter! Ye can
never suppose that I belang to your School o’ Chivalry! Ye are the
king o’ that school, but I’m the king o’ the Mountain and Fairy School,
which is a far higher ane nor yours.”[65] This “sublime egotism” is
not displeasing in one whose heart and soul was wrapt up in an earnest
belief in and reverence for his art. It is the egotism of a deep nature
which scorns to hide its talents in the earth. James Hogg spoke to the
heart of Scotland, and was proud and content in so doing.
[65] _Memorials of James Hogg_, p. x
To all appearances Blackwood was now the centre of a group after his
own heart! With these three as a nucleus, others of considerable talent
joined the circle. Talent, wit, keen and zealous minds were theirs,
with enough fervor and intrepidity of spirit to guarantee that “Maga”
would never again pass unnoticed. Henceforth there was sensation
enough to satisfy even the heart of a William Blackwood! Whatever
accusations were afterwards levelled at “Maga” (and they were many) no
one could again accuse it of being either dull or uninteresting--the
one unpardonable sin of book or magazine! The last thing that “Maga”
wished to be was neutral! Better to offend than be only “inoffensive”;
better to raise a rumpus than grow respectable! And from October 1817
on, “respectable” is the last word anyone thought of applying to
_Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_!
IV
_First Years of “Maga”_
With its new grip on life in October 1817, the editorial notice of
Blackwood’s omitted any profession of a new prospectus. It reads: “In
place of a formal Prospectus, we now lay before our Readers the titles
of some of the articles which we have either already received, or which
are in preparation by our numerous correspondents.” Follows some two
pages or more of titles alluring and otherwise, whereupon the notice
continues: “The Public will observe, from the above list of articles,
that we intend our Magazine to be a Depository of Miscellaneous
Information and Discussion. We shall admit every Communication of
Merit, whatever may be the opinion of the writer, on Literature,
Poetry, Philosophy, Statistics, Politics, Manners, and Human Life....
We invite all intelligent persons ... to lay their ideas before the
world in our Publication; and we only reserve to ourselves the right
of commenting upon what we do not approve.”[66] That right was always
reserved, and there was never any hesitancy on the part of any of them
in acting thereon, as the magazine itself testifies.
[66] _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_, V. ii, p. 2
A short paragraph of “Notices to Correspondents”[67] following the
editorial notice, is of more than casual interest. Its flavor is
shown by the following:--
“The communication of Lupus is not admissible. D. B.’s Archaeological
Notices are rather heavy. We are obliged to our worthy Correspondent
M. for his History of ‘Bowed David’, but all the anecdotes of that
personage are incredibly stupid, so let his bones rest in peace.... We
have received an interesting Note enclosing a beautiful little Poem,
from Mr. Hector Macneil ... and need not say how highly we value his
communication.... Duck-lane, a Town Eclogue, by Leigh Hunt--and the
Innocent Incest by the same gentleman, are under consideration; their
gross indecency must however be washed out. If we have been imposed
upon by some wit, these compositions will not be inserted. Mr. James
Thomson, private secretary for the charities of the Dukes of York
and Kent, is, we are afraid, a very bad Poet, nor can the Critical
Opinions of the Princes of the Blood Royal be allowed to influence
ours.... Reason has been given for our declining to notice various
other communications.” Many of the contributors, probably most of them,
received personal letters; in fact, this paragraph does not appear in
every number.
[67] Same
This number, _The_ number of _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_, the
startling and blood-curdling number of October 1817, contained
among other sensations, the Chaldee Manuscript, supposedly from the
“Bibliotheque Royale” (Salle 2, No. 53, B. A. M. M.)--in reality a
clever and scathing piece of satire couched in Biblical language,
which spared no one of note in the whole town of Edinburgh, and written
by heaven knows whom! Its interest was strictly local, dealing with
Edinburgh and Edinburgh personalities, written with the Edinburgh
public in view; but its fame spread like wild fire! Like Byron,
_Blackwood’s Magazine_ woke up one morning to find itself grown famous
over night! As Mrs. Oliphant puts it: “Edinburgh woke up with a roar
of laughter, with a shout of delight, with convulsions of rage and
offense”. Its fame involved, however, not only the clamor of Edinburgh,
but instant recognition throughout the kingdom. Result? Libel actions,
challenges to duels, lawsuits, and--the suppression of the Chaldee
Manuscript. Its fame has come down to the present day, but one peep at
it involves carfare to the British Museum!
This amazing piece of literature seems innocent enough at first glance;
and in truth it was what people read _into_ it rather than what they
read _in_ it that made all the trouble. Quoting from it:
“I looked, and behold a man clothed in plain apparel stood in the door
of his house: and I saw his name ... and his name was as it had been
the color of ebony, and his number was as the number of a maiden--(17
Princes Street, of course)....
“And I turned my eyes, and behold two beasts came from the lands of
the borders of the South; and when I saw them I wondered with great
admiration.... And they came unto the man ... and they said unto him,
Give us of thy wealth, that we may eat and live ... and they proffered
him a Book; and they said unto him, Take Thou this and give us a sum
of money, ... and we will put words into the Book that will astonish
the children of thy people.... And the man hearkened unto their voice,
and he took the Book and gave them a piece of money, and they went away
rejoicing in their hearts.... But after many days they put no words in
the Book; and the man was astonished and waxed wroth, and he said unto
them, What is this that ye have done unto me, and how shall I answer
those to whom I am engaged? And they said, what is that to us? See thou
to that.”[68]
[68] Mrs. Oliphant: _Annals of a Publishing House_, V. i, p. 119-20
All this seems innocent tomfoolery enough--pure parody on our friend
Ebony, and the two beasts Pringle and Cleghorn who “put no words in
the Book”. But that was not all, Constable and the _Edinburgh Review_
figured prominently; and Sir Walter Scott who, we are told, “almost
choked with laughter”, and Wilson and Lockhart and Hogg.
“There lived also a man that was _crafty_ in council ... and he had a
notable horn in his forehead with which he ruled the nations. And I saw
the horn that it had eyes, and a mouth speaking great things, and it
magnified itself ... and it cast down the truth to the ground and it
practised and prospered.”[69]
[69] Ibid., V. i, p. 121
Constable never outlived this name of the Crafty and the reputation of
the _Edinburgh Review_ for “magnifying itself” lives to the present
day. “The beautiful leopard from the valley of the palm-trees” (meaning
Wilson) “called from a far country the Scorpion which delighted to
sting the faces of men”, (Lockhart, of course) “that he might sting
sorely the countenance of the man that is crafty, and of the two beasts.
“And he brought down the great wild boar from the forest of Lebanon
and he roused up his spirits and I saw him whittling his dreadful
tusks for the battle.”[70] This last is James Hogg. There were others.
Walter Scott was the “great Magician which has his dwelling in the
old fastness hard by the river Jordan, which is by the Border”[71] to
whom Constable, the Crafty, appealed for advice. Francis Jeffrey was
“a familiar spirit unto whom he (the Crafty) had sold himself”.[72]
The attack on the Rev. Prof. Playfair, later so sincerely deplored in
_Peter’s Letters_, reads in part thus: “He also is of the seed of the
prophets, and ministered in the temple while he was yet young; but
he went out and became one of the scoffers”[73]--in other words, one
of the Edinburgh Reviewers! The spirit of prophecy seems indeed to
have been upon the writer of the Chaldee, for it ends--appropriately,
thus: “I fled into an inner chamber to hide myself, and I heard a great
tumult, but I wist not what it was.”[74] The great tumult was heard, to
be sure, and the authors fled to be safe.
[70] Ibid., V. i, p. 123
[71] Ibid., V. i, p. 122
[72] A. Lang: _Life and Letters of John Gibson Lockhart_, V. i, p. 161
[73] Same
[74] Same
Just who wrote the Chaldee will never be known; but all indications
are that the idea and first draft were James Hogg’s, and that it was
touched up and completed by Wilson and Lockhart, with the aid, or
rather with the suggestions and approval of William Blackwood.
The number for August 1821 contains the first of a series of “Familiar
Epistles to Christopher North, From an Old Friend with a New Face.”[75]
Letter I deals with Hogg’s Memoirs. This is anticipating a bit,
anticipating some four years, in fact, but is nevertheless apropos of
our discussion of the Chaldee. Just who the Old Friend with a New Face
was would be hard to judge. Mr. Lang has surmised him to be either
Lockhart or De Quincey. It is a lively bit of work, worthy the wit
of either, but the sentences do not feel like Lockhart’s. That both
these men were friends of Hogg, encourages one to hope that the biting
sarcasm of the thing was its own excuse for being, and came not from
the heart. Such was ever the tone of “Maga”, however; and none can deny
that once begun the article _must_ be read! Excerpts follow: “Of all
speculations in the way of printed paper, I should have thought the
most hopeless to have been ‘a Life of James Hogg, by himself’. Pray who
wishes to know anything about his life? ...
“It is no doubt undeniable that the political state of Europe is not so
interesting as it was some years ago. But still I maintain that there
was no demand for the Life of James Hogg.... At all events, it ought
not to have appeared before the Life of Buonaparte.”[76]
[75] _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_, V. x, p. 43
[76] Same
But to come again to our Chaldee Manuscript, the correspondent says
concerning Hogg’s claim to its authorship: “There is a bouncer!--The
Chaldee Manuscript!--Why, no more did he write the Chaldee Manuscript
than the five books of Moses.... I presume that Mr. Hogg is also the
author of Waverley.--He may say so if he chooses.... It must be a
delightful thing to have such fancies as these in one’s noodle;--but
on the subject of the Chaldee Manuscript, let me now speak the truth.
You yourself, Kit ... and myself, Blackwood and a reverend gentleman
of this city alone know the perpetrator. It was the same person who
murdered Begbie!”--Begbie, by the way, was a bank porter, whose murder
was one of the never solved mysteries of Edinburgh. “It was a disease
with him to excite 'public emotion’. With respect to his murdering
Begbie ... all at once it entered his brain, that, by putting him to
death in a sharp and clever and mysterious manner ... the city of
Edinburgh would be thrown into a ferment of consternation, and there
would be no end of ‘public emotion’.... The scheme succeeded to a
miracle.... Mr. ---- wrote the Chaldee Manuscript precisely on the same
principle.... It was the last work of the kind of which I have been
speaking, that he lived to finish. He confessed it and the murder the
day before he died, to the gentleman specified, and was sufficiently
penitent....
“After this plain statement, Hogg must look extremely foolish. We shall
next have him claiming the murder, likewise, I suppose; but he is
totally incapable of either.”[77]
[77] Ibid., V. x, p. 49-50
It is altogether probable that Hogg’s frank avowal dismayed the men
who had studied to keep its authorship secret for so many years,
fearing lest the confession implicate his colleagues. At any rate,
such vehement protestations as the above are to be eyed askance in the
light of saner evidences. “Maga” was prone to go off on excursions of
this kind; and William Blackwood had at last realized his dreamed-of
Sensation! No doubt he knew the risk he took in publishing the Chaldee;
but in the tumult which followed, he stood equal to every occasion.
Hogg was not then in Edinburgh, and Wilson and Lockhart too thought
it wise to leave town. The letters of the two latter to Blackwood
during the days of the libel suits remind one of the tragic notes
of boys of twelve a la penny dreadful! But Blackwood was firm and
undisturbed through it all, disclaiming all responsibility himself,
never disclosing a single name. The secret was safe and the success
of “Maga” sure. In the November number, however, he saw fit to insert
such statements as the following: “The Publisher is aware that every
effort has been used to represent the admission into his Magazine of an
article entitled “A Translation of a Chaldee Manuscript” as an offence
worthy of being visited with a punishment that would involve in it his
ruin as a Bookseller and Publisher. He is confident, however, that his
conduct will not be thought by the Public to merit such a punishment,
and to them he accordingly appeals.”[78]--And again, on a page by
itself in the same November number appears the following statement:
“The Editor has learned with regret that an Article in the First
Edition of last Number, which was intended merely as a _jeu d’esprit_,
has been construed so as to give offence to Individuals justly entitled
to respect and regard; he has on that account withdrawn it in the
Second Edition, and can only add, that if what has happened could have
been anticipated, the Article in question certainly never would have
appeared.”[79]
[78] Ibid., V. ii, p. 1 of the introductory pages
[79] Ibid., V. ii, p. 129
Aside from the Chaldee, there were two other distinct and decided
Sensations in this memorable number, both too well known to
demand detailed attention. They were Wilson’s attack on Coleridge,
“Observations on Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria”,[80] the leading
article and a long one; and Lockhart’s paper “On the Cockney School
of Poetry”[81]. The former is an inexcusable, ranting thing which
concludes that Mr. Coleridge’s Literary Life strengthens every argument
against the composition of such Memoirs”[82], ... that it exhibits
“many mournful sacrifices of personal dignity, after which it seems
impossible that Mr. Coleridge can be greatly respected either by
the Public or himself.”[83] Such words were strong enough in their
own day, but seem doubly presumptuous in the light of our present
hero-worship,--especially as the article continues with verdicts like
the following: “Considered merely in a literary point of view, the
work is most execrable.... His admiration of Nature or of man,--we had
almost said his religious feelings toward his God,--are all narrowed,
weakened, and corrupted and poisoned by inveterate and diseased
egotism.”...[84]
[80] Ibid., V. ii, p. 3
[81] Ibid., V. ii, p. 38
[82] Ibid., V. ii, p. 5
[83] Same
[84] Same
This was a sin for which “Maga” later atoned by repeated tributes to
his genius, to his poetry and its beauty in many subsequent numbers
of the periodical. Lockhart two years afterwards spoke of it as “a
total departure from the principles of the Magazine”[85]--“a specimen
of the very worst kind of spirit which the Magazine professed to
be fighting in the _Edinburgh Review_.”[86] “This is indeed the only
one of the various sins of this Magazine for which I am at a loss to
discover--not an apology--but a motive. If there be any man of grand
and original genius alive at this moment in Europe, such a man is
Mr. Coleridge.”[87] And two months after this paper, in the issue
for December 1817 appeared a “Letter to the Reviewer of Coleridge’s
Biographia Literaria”, beginning with the words: “To be blind to our
failings and alive to our prejudices, is the fault of almost every one
of us.... It is the same with me, the same with Mr. Coleridge, and
it is, I regret to state it, the same with his reviewer!”[88]... And
this writer, who signs, himself J. S., sums up his valiant defense,
declaring “it is from a love I have for generous and fair criticism,
and a hate to everything which appears personal and levelled against
the man and not his subject--and your writing is glaringly so--that
I venture to draw daggers with a reviewer. You have indeed imitated,
with not a little of its power and ability, the worst manner of the
_Edinburgh Review_ critics. Forgetting ... that freedom of remark does
not exclude the kind and courteous style, you have entirely sunk the
courteousness in the virulency of it.”[89] Thus “Maga” redeemed itself
and Coleridge was avenged.
[85] J. G. Lockhart: _Peter’s Letters_, V. ii, p. 218
[86] Same
[87] Same
[88] _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_, V. ii, p. 285-6
[89] Ibid., V. ii, p. 287
As for the third of the three articles which best illustrate the
whoopla-spirit of this new venture, Lockhart’s paper “On the Cockney
School of Poetry”, all is said when we say it was the first of a
series of corrosive and scurrilous articles directed against Leigh
Hunt in particular, and Hazlitt and Webbe, and in general, the
“younger and less important members” of that school, “The Shelley’s
and the Keatses”! Modern critics! Beware how you cast stones at our
Percy Smith’s and Reggie Brown’s! Says our young friend Lockhart in
this article that Leigh Hunt is “a man of little education. He knows
absolutely nothing of Greek, almost nothing of Latin”[90] ... and
so forth and so on. He cannot “utter a dedication, or even a note,
without betraying the _Shibboleth_ of low birth and low habits. He is
the ideal of a Cockney poet.... He has never seen any mountain higher
than Highgate-hill, nor reclined by any streams more pastoral than the
Serpentine River. But he is determined to be a poet eminently rural,
and he rings the changes--till one is sick of him, on the beauties of
the different ‘high views’ which he has taken of God and nature, in
the course of some Sunday dinner parties at which he has assisted in
the neighborhood of London.... As a vulgar man is perpetually laboring
to be genteel--in like manner the poetry of this man is always on the
stretch to be grand.”[91]
[90] Ibid., V. ii, p. 38
[91] Ibid., V. ii, p. 39
This is just a taste of what is in reality very clever stuff. The
subject of approbation or disapprobation had best be omitted. At any
rate “Maga” “started something”, for the term “Cockney School” was
taken up by the major and minor Reviews and nearly every daily paper
of England and Scotland. What Wilson said later (1832) in a review of
Tennyson’s poems, characterizes the _Blackwood_ attitude toward the
Cockneys from the first: “Were the Cockneys to be to church, we should
be strongly tempted to break the Sabbath.”[92] Whatever our evaluation
of this sort of criticism, the admission perhaps saves the reputation
of Lockhart and other _Blackwood_ critics! Their opposition was more a
matter of principle than of judgment.
[92] J. H. Millar: _A Literary History of Scotland_, p. 506
The rest of the contents of the October 1817 number are interesting
and lively, though it must be admitted scarcely so startling as this
famous triad. A discussion of the “Curious Meteorological Phenomena
Observed in Argyleshire”[93] reads interestingly and rapidly, and is
of sufficient weight to save the magazine from flying away altogether!
“Analytical Essays on the Early English Dramatists, No. II., Marlowe’s
Edward II”[94] is the work of John Wilson, and bears the stamp of his
outpouring of appreciation and enthusiasm. Another article, “On the
Optical Properties of Mother-of-Pearl, etc.”[95] seems to be a purely
scientific offering, and so far as the writer can judge, presumably
accurate and just as it should be. Page 47 bears side by side, a tender
little “Elegy” of James Hogg’s and a poem in honor of the Ettrick
Shepherd and his songs by John Wilson. “Strictures on the Edinburgh
Review”[96] and “Remarks on the Quarterly Review”[97] are two articles
one would scarcely go to sleep over.
[93] _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_, V. ii, p. 18
[94] Ibid., V. ii, p. 21
[95] Ibid., V. ii, p. 33
[96] Ibid., V. ii, p. 41
[97] Ibid., V. ii, p. 57