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.