[Religious Pamphleteers]

First published Edinburgh Saturday Post, 26 January 1828, pp. 302–3. Never reprinted. This article is one of many in the Post concerning a battle of the booklets between Edinburgh’s crusading minister, Andrew Thomson, and his various detractors (see Volume 5, pp. 187–9). The first four paragraphs of this review are pious and ponderous, and were very likely by the editor of the Post, Alexander Peterkin, who secretly admired Thomson. But the fifth paragraph, with its startling brevity and its less-than-respectful couplet about a ‘Scotchman well armed’, marks a definite change in tone.