This happened just about the time when there was a sort of movement against the Whigs on the part of the Tories, and a sort of movement from them on the part of the people. An appetite was, in short, created, which called for food different from the sapless husk of the Edinburgh Magazine, and the hard and political fare of the Review. Various causes conspired to give body to this appetite; and Blackwood’s Magazine was the thing produced. Still the party would not have had courage actually to start that Magazine; for there was a sort of belief afloat, that anybody, who would venture to publish in the Athens that which was not Whig, would fail, and anybody who would attack the Whigs would be mauled for his pains. The Magazine was started by very plain and unpretending--at any rate, unwarlike Athenian men of letters. They had a misunderstanding with Blackwood; he got rid of them, and the Athens began to taste the racy productions of the Tory press. Even this cannot be reckoned an Athenian production; for England and Ireland had to be ransacked ere contributors could found, and even yet, Blackwood, with the aid of his brother the bailie, is editor. When a sufficient number of those who, as was supposed, would not be kept back either by moral or by literary scruples, had been collected together, the campaign was commenced. At first, they seemed to have only two objects in view,--the vilification of all persons who were supposed to be either directly or indirectly connected with the Whigs, more especially with the Edinburgh Review; and a disposition to boast of their own debauchery, immorality, and want of principle, in order to disarm any one who might attack them upon that ground.