editor of the _Edinburgh
Review_, came in for their share of burlesque description.

Among the persons delineated in the article were the publisher of
Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, whose name "was as it had been, the
colour of Ebony": indeed the name of Old Ebony long clung to the
journal. The principal writers of the article were themselves included
in the caricature. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was described as "the
great wild boar from the forest of Lebanon, and he roused up his spirit,
and I saw him whetting his dreadful tusks for the battle." Wilson was
"the beautiful leopard," and Lockhart "the scorpion,"--names which were
afterwards hurled back at them with interest. Walter Scott was described
as "the great magician who dwelleth in the old fastness, hard by the
river Jordan, which is by the Border." Mackenzie, Jameson, Leslie,
Brewster, Tytler, Alison, M'Crie, Playfair, Lord Murray, the Duncans--in
fact, all the leading men of Edinburgh were hit off in the same fashion.

Mrs. Garden, in her "Memorials of James Hogg," says that "there is no
doubt that Hogg wrote the first draft; indeed, part of the original is
still in the possession of the family.... Some of the more irreverent
passages were not his, or were at all events largely added to by others
before publication." [Footnote: Mrs. Garden's "Memorials of James Hogg,"
p. 107.] In a recent number of _Blackwood_ it is said that:

"Hogg's name is nearly associated with the Chaldee Manuscript. Of course
he claimed credit for having written the skit, and undoubtedly he
originated the idea. The rough draft came from his pen, and we cannot
speak with certainty as to how it was subsequently manipulated. But
there is every reason to believe that Wilson and Lockhart, probably
assisted by Sir William Hamilton, went to work upon it, and so altered
it that Hogg's original offspring was changed out of all knowledge."
[Footnote: _Blackwood's Magazine_, September 1882, pp. 368-9.]

The whole article was probably intended as a harmless joke; and the
persons indicated, had they been wise, might have joined in the laugh or
treated the matter with indifference. On the contrary, however, they
felt profoundly indignant, and some of them commenced actions in the
Court of Session for the injuries done to their reputation.

The same number of _Blackwood_ which contained the "Translation from an
Ancient Chaldee Manuscript," contained two articles, one probably by
Wilson, on Col