ABSTRACT
The Kaleidoscope described serially an imaginary village called Gowkston ‘in the same manner as the Author of Waverley has excited interest…’ he hoped to do the same for his villagers. Gowkston inhabitants were in daily communication with a very real devil, and his visits were considered an honour. Old women were thought to be the cause of all illnesses and of one of these ‘not a single man, woman or child in the whole town goes past her door, without the precaution of thrusting their thumbs into the palms of their hands and looking always straight forward before their noses. The brothers were groping towards the idea of writing and publishing their own paper, and the demise of this first effort after a few months they treated philosophically.
