contributors included a number of distinguished men, such as Mackenzie, De Quincey, Hogg, Fraser Tytler, and Jameson, there were two names which were always associated with the periodical--those of John Gibson Lockhart and Ferrier's uncle and father-in-law, John Wilson. The latter in particular was often held to be the real editor whom everyone was so anxious to discover, but this belief has been emphatically denied. Although the management might appear to be in the control of a triumvirate, Blackwood himself kept the supreme power in his hands, whatever he might at times find it politic to lead outsiders to infer. When Ferrier began to write for it in 1838, _Blackwood's Magazine_ was not of course the same fiery publication of twenty years before; nor were Ferrier's articles for the most part of a nature such as to appeal strongly to an excitable and partisan public. Things had changed much since 1817: the Reform Bill had passed; the politics of the country were very different; the Toryism of Ferrier and his friends was quite unlike the Toryism of the early part of the century: it more resembled the Conservatism or Traditionalism of a yet later date, which objected to violent changes only owing to their violence, and by no means to reform, if gradually carried out. This policy was reflected in _Maga's_ pages, to which Ferrier would naturally turn when he wished to reach the public ear, both from family association and hereditary politics. His first contribution was certainly not light in character; nor did it resemble the 'bright, racy' articles which are supposed to be the requisite for modern serial publications. The subject was 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness,' and it consisted of a series of papers contributed during two successive years (1838 and 1839), which really embodied the result of the work in which Ferrier had during the past few years been engaged, and signified a complete divergence from the accepted manner of regarding consciousness, and a protest against the 'faith-philosophy' which it became Ferrier's special mission to combat. Perhaps it is only in Scotland that a public could be found sufficiently interested in speculative questions to make them the subject of interest to a fairly wide and general circle, such as would be likely to peruse the pages of a monthly magazine like Blackwood's. But of this interesting contribution to metaphysical speculation, in which Ferrier commenced his philosophical career by grappling with the deepest and most fundamental questions in a manner, as Hamilton acknowledges, hitherto unattempted in the humbler speculations of this country, we shall speak later on, as also of his further contributions to the magazine.