In 1826, an early Elleray friend of Wilson’s, De Quincey, “the opium-eater,” began to discourse of things German in the pages of _Maga_; and in 1830, the “Diary of a Late Physician” was commenced. This, one of the most successful works of modern fiction, had, Warren tells us, “been offered successively to the conductors of three leading magazines in London, and rejected as ‘unsuitable for their pages,’ and ‘not likely to interest the public.’... I have this morning been referring to nearly fifty letters which he (Blackwood) wrote to me during the publication of the first fifteen chapters of his ‘Diary.’ The perusal of them occasioned me lively emotion. All of them evidence the remarkable tact and energy with which he conducted his magazine.... He was a man of strong intellect, of great personal sagacity, of unrivalled energy and industry, of high and inflexible honour in every transaction, great or small, that I ever heard of his being concerned in.” Contemporary with the publication of the “Diary,” was that of the successful books “Tom Cringle’s Log” and “Sir Frizzle Pumpkin’s Nights at Mess,” the first by Michael Scott, and the second by the Reverend Mr. White. In May, 1832, appeared Wilson’s review of Mr. Tennyson’s first volume; in which the affectations of Mr. Tennyson’s earlier writings were ridiculed, but his more worthy pieces were praised in no niggardly terms. At the moment Mr. Tennyson was irritated, but his anger soon evaporated in some not very pungent lines to “Rusty, Crusty Christopher,” which he has long since seen fit to suppress; and, eventually, he exhibited a due acknowledgment of the truth of Wilson’s criticism, by removing several pieces and altering others. “Stoddart and Aytoun,” writes Wilson in this same review, “he of the ‘Death Wake’ and he of ‘Poland,’ are graciously regarded by old Christopher; and their volume--presentation copies--have been placed among the essays of those gifted youths, of whom, in riper years, much may be confidently predicted of fair and good”--a sentence worth quoting, when it is remembered that Aytoun afterwards married Wilson’s daughter, and in a few years occupied his position in the pages of _Maga_ itself.