SOURCE: "Wallflower the Third: 'Ingoldsby,' " in Victorian Wallflowers, Kennikat Press, 1934, reissued 1966, pp. 128-53.

In the essay that follows, Elwin places Barham's work within the context of Victorian literature.

When, following the foundation of Fraser, Thomas Campbell and Cyrus Redding shook the dust of Colburn's office from their shoes, they soon afterwards undertook the editorial of a new magazine, the Metropolitan, issued by a publisher named Cochrane. Campbell was an instance of a writer who succeeded early in building a high reputation, which he failed to consolidate because he feared that, by writing below his own standard, he might pull himself down from his own pedestall. As Scott remarked in 1826, 'he wants audacity, fears the public, and what is worse, fears the shadow of his own reputation'. Describing him as 'an idle man—an abstracted man', Redding recognized that he was 'not the man to lead in anything...