two hundred and fifty-eight articles. Sir John Barrow, traveller and South African statesman, contributed much and copiously, multitudinous reviews and voyages, all in his unvarying “solid food” style and tone. Hallam and Sharon Turner wrote historical papers; Ugo Fosculo wrote on Italian classics. Such was the tone of the Quarterly. It took itself seriously, and was evidently always taken seriously. But no modern would consider those dim old pages of criticism as a criterion to the literature of that age. It was too heavy to be sensitive to new excellencies, too intent on upholding failing causes to recognize new ones. In truth, it was a periodical strangely unresponsive to artistic or literary excellence or attainment. By 1818 and 1819 its circulation was almost 14,000—practically the same as the Edinburgh Review; but the Quarterly never made the stir the Edinburgh did. Ellis spoke truth when he pronounced it, “Though profound, notoriously and unequivocally dull”.13 Gifford remained editor until 1824; then John Taylor Coleridge ascended the throne for two years, and after that, Lockhart.

Concerning the Scots Magazine which seemed to be dying a natural death about the time of the initial impulse of “Maga”, Lockhart writes: “It seems as if nothing could be more dull, trite and heavy than the bulk of this ancient work.”14 An occasional contribution by Hazlitt or Reynolds enlivened it a bit, but only served to emphasize in contrast the duller parts.

The name of Leigh Hunt can scarcely be omitted from this panorama, though here it is the journalist rather than the journal which attracts attention. At various times he edited various publications, ten in all, and all of them more or less short-lived and unsuccessful. Among them was the Reflector (1810-11), a quarterly which is remembered mainly because Hunt was its editor and Charles Lamb one of its contributors. Most noteworthy of his periodical projects was the Examiner, a newspaper which he began to edit (1808) for his brother, and continued to do so for the space of some thirteen years. It professed no political allegiance, but was enough outspoken in its radical views to land both Leigh Hunt and his brother in prison, after printing an article on the Prince Regent. Among other things of interest, it started a department of theatrical criticism; and on the whole, with men like Hazlitt and Lamb contributing, it could not escape being interesting. The Blackwood group later reacted to it and its editor as a bull does to a red rag, testifying at least that it was far from nondescript.

The London Magazine did not start until two years after Blackwood’s, and we will dismiss it with only a few words. It was a periodical fashioned after the sprightlier manner which Blackwood’s, too, strove to maintain. They were bitter rivals from the first; and as to which was the more bitter, the more stinging in its personalities, it would be hard to judge. At one time matters even reached such a pitch that John Scott, the London’s first editor, and Lockhart found it necessary to “meet on the sod”. The London put forth many fine things. In September 1821 it gave to the public “Confessions of an Opium Eater” by a certain Thomas De Quincey. A year later it offered “A Dissertation on Roast Pig” by an author then not so well known as now. A poem or two of one John Keats appeared in its pages; and when all is said, there is no doubt that the London Magazine did at times splendidly illumine the poetry of the age. It ran from 1820 to 1829.

Thus in brief was the periodical world. The quarterly reviews were avowedly pretentious, never amusing, not creative. Contents were limited to political articles, to pompous dissertations and reviews. There were no stories, no verse, nothing unbending, never a touch of fantasy. Their political flavor was the least of their sins. A touch of the Radical, the Whig or the Tory is a real contribution to the history of literature, wherein it inevitably involves great historic divisions of the thought of a nation concerning life and art. No. Our quarrel, like Blackwood’s, is on the ground of their rigidity. It is well to hold fast that which is good; but it is not well to insistently oppose and blind oneself and others to the changing order and the forward march of men and letters.

Knowing what we do of Jeffrey and the Edinburgh Review it is easy to comprehend what prompted Lockhart’s pen to say: “It is, indeed, a very deplorable thing to observe in what an absurd state of ignorance the majority of educated people in Scotland have been persuaded to keep themselves, concerning much of the best and truest literature of their own age, as well as of the ages that have gone by”.15... His quarrel is ours for the nonce, and to comprehend the spirit of “Maga” it is first necessary to comprehend the spirit which prompted much for which it is so rigorously criticised. Lockhart speaks of the “facetious and rejoicing ignorance” of the Reviewers. “I do not on my conscience believe”, says he in Peter’s Letters, “that there is one Whig in Edinburgh to whom the name of my friend Charles Lamb would convey any distinct or definite idea.... They do not know even the names of some of the finest poems our age has produced. They never heard of Ruth or Michael, or The Brothers or Hartleap Well, or the Recollections of Infancy or the Sonnets to Buonaparte. They do not know that there is such a thing as the description of a churchyard in The Excursion. Alas! how severely is their ignorance punished in itself”!16 Perhaps we can forgive the egotistic note in the following words, also from Peter’s Letters: “There is no work which has done so much to weaken the authority of the Edinburgh Review in such matters as Blackwood’s Magazine.”17 Blackwood’s is at least still readable which is more than can be said of most of its contemporaries. Though it did not, like the London, discover a Charles Lamb or a De Quincey, it