[Review of Blackwood’s Magazine for October 1827]

First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 29 September, 1827, p. 166. Reprinted Tave, pp. 129–45 (with attribution, pp. 145–8). Many details suggest De Quincey, but the story about Wordsworth and buttered toast (see below, p. 93) establishes his authorship firmly. Also of note are the italics and dashes, the use of ‘between’, the defense of ‘Ricardian Political Economy’, the many allusions to people and places in Westmorland and London, and the insider’s knowledge of who wrote what in Blackwood’s.