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 Coleridge’s “Biographia Literaria,” the other, signed “Z,” by Lockhart, being the first of a series on “The Cockney School of Poetry.”  They were both clever, but abusive, and exceedingly personal in their allusions.

Murray expostulated with Blackwood on the personality of the articles.  He feared lest they should be damaging to the permanent success of the journal.  Blackwood replied in a long letter, saying that the journal was prospering, and that it was only Constable and his myrmidons who were opposed to it, chiefly because of its success.

In August 1818, Murray paid L1,000 for a half share in the magazine, and from this time he took a deep and active interest in its progress, advising Blackwood as to its management, and urging him to introduce more foreign literary news, as well as more scientific information.  He did not like the idea of two editors, who seem to have taken the management into their own hands.

Subsequent numbers of Blackwood contained other reviews of “The Cockney School of Poetry”:  Leigh Hunt, “the King of the Cockneys,” was attacked in May, and in August it was the poet Keats who came under the critic’s lash, four months after Croker’s famous review of “Endymion” in the Quarterly. [Footnote:  It was said that Keats was killed by this brief notice, of four pages, in the Quarterly; and Byron, in his “Don Juan,” gave credit to this statement: 

     “Poor Keats, who was killed off by one critique,
        Just as he really promised something great,... 
      ’Tis strange, the mind, that very fiery particle,
      Should let itself be snuffed out by an article.”