It must be allowed that both novelty and talent were displayed in those productions,--at least in some of them. The style and manner were altogether new: a sort of virgin-soil, as it were, had been turned up for culture; and though by far the greater portion of its produce was weeds, and weeds too of the rankest description, yet they had all the vigour and greenness of a first crop. Periodical writing had for a long time consisted of abstract disquisitions, or tales which had no decided locality, or connexion with individual and existing character; and whatever may have been the practices of the writers, they kept up a regular show of sobriety and morality in their writings. But the writers of Blackwood’s Journal not only seasoned their productions with unsparing personality, but affected to be adepts in debauchery, and pretended to keep no secrets from their readers, even in the most unseemly of their carousals. Having manufactured ideal names and characters for themselves, they treated these in the most unceremonious manner; and this, in some measure, took off the edge of that indignation which otherwise would have been felt at their treatment of real characters. More than any thing, they succeeded; and success is generally received as the test not only of ability, but of a good cause, in literature as well as in war. If Blackwood’s Magazine had never got into considerable circulation, the writers in it would have been regarded as miserable and malicious rebels from the honest cause of literature; but as they were in so far successful, they obtained in some degree the renown of heroes. Among those writers there were, unquestionably, some of talents far superior to what may be supposed the average of those who contribute to ordinary magazines; and though these for a time took part in the ribald practices of the publication, and were pleased for a season with that eclât which such practices are supposed to afford; yet still, new in what might be considered as the most blamable perversions of their talents, there were gleams of a better spirit, and promises that they could not always follow the same course. That some of the best of them have already done so, is apparent from the altered spirit of the later numbers, in which there is an attempt at the same external appearance, but a visible paucity in spirit; and the probability is that, ere long, Blackwood’s Magazine, which has always had a considerable portion of its articles from London, will gradually derive its supplies more and more from that quarter, or dwindle to the same inanity as its monthly brother of the Athens.