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114 they could be identified with Wilson, has been disputed; but, as the publisher, Major Blackwood, points out, the time was past for anyone to be hurt by the personalities which they contained, and the only harm the republication could inflict was upon the Noctes themselves. The conception of the 'Chaldee Manuscript,' he tells us, was in the first part due to Hogg; and Wilson and Lockhart were held responsible for the last. There is a tradition, too, though Ferrier does not mention it, that Hamilton was one of the party in Mr. Wilson's house (53 Queen Street) where the skit was said to have been concocted, and that he even contributed to it a verse. This may have been the case, as Wilson and Lockhart were his intimate friends; but it seems strange to think of so thoroughgoing a Whig being found mixed up in such a plot, and with such companions.

Though it is easy to understand that Ferrier felt the editing of his father-in-law and uncle's work was a duty which it was incumbent upon him to perform, one cannot help surmising that it may have been a less congenial task to him than many others. There was little in common between the two men, both distinguished in their way, and Wilson's humour and poetic fancy, however bright and vivid, was not of the sort that would appeal most to Ferrier. A few years before his death Ferrier gave up the project he had in view of writing Wilson's life, partly in despair of setting forth his talents as he felt they should be set forth, and partly from the lack of material to work from. He says, in a letter written at the time, 'It would do no good to talk in general terms of his wonderful powers, of his genius being greater (as in some sense it was) than that of any of his contemporaries—greater, too, than any of his