NOCTES AMBROSIANÆ. BY JUSTIN WINSOR, JOHN WILSON, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. CHRISTOPHER NORTH," OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE, PROFESSOR OF MORAL WM. MAGINN, LL.D., J. G. LOCKHART, JAMES HOGG, AND OTHERS REVISED EDITION. WITH MEMOIRS AND NOTES, BY R. SHELTON MACKENZIE, D. C. L VOL. I AUGUST, 1819-AUG., 1824. NEW YORK: W. J. WIDDLETON, PUBLISHER 1872. n the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of New York. PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION OF 1863. THE continued demand for the "Noctes Ambrosianæ," shows that the public interest in that work is unabated. Ere finally dismissing this revised edition. from my hands, I desire to state how I undertook the work, nine years ago. One of the miscellaneous publications which I early delighted to read was Blackwood's Magazine. The first number that ever fell into my hands when I was a boy contained the commencement of the "Noctes," in which Christopher North and Morgan O'Doherty were the interlocutors, and I firmly believed, for a time, that these personages, who talked so naturally yet so brilliantly of men and manners, books and politics, were as real individuals as any living authors of the day. In time, of course, I came to know better; but I never lost my liking for the "Noctes "-more especially after I became acquainted with Wilson, Maginn, Lockhart, and Hogg. Circumstances combined made me a newspaper editor and magazine writer before I was well out of my teens. And though from that time I was anxious to see the "Noctes" in a collective form, I did not anticipate that this was ever to be executed by myself. However, a very extensive course of reading, a large acquaintance with authors, artists, and public men, and an excellent memory, unconsciously prepared me for what, indeed, became "a labor of love" in later years. It gratified me to learn that Mr. Blackwood had a complete edition in view, as early as the beginning of 1832. This was prevented by his death in September, 1834. In 1843, leading publishers in Philadelphia, reprinted the "Noctes" in four volumes. Without any prefatory history of the series, without any notice of the authors, without the slightest key to the subjects and persons discussed and introduced, almost without even the dates of the respective numbers, and without an index, this edition was as indifferent as neglect, carelessness, and want of taste could make it. It is not surprising that the sale was limited. In 1852 I became a resident in the United States, where the first work I edited was "Sheil's Sketches of the Irish Bar," the success of which gave its publisher such confidence in my pen that he desired to employ it again. I proposed to edit the "Noctes Ambrosianæ," with as full annotations as would make the work thoroughly intelligible to general readers. At the end of April, 1854, news of Professor Wilson's death reached New York, and my publisher resolved to bring out the "Noctes," provided it could be done by the middle of the ensuing August, so as to come into the fall book-market. Rather rashly, as I now think, I undertook the work, without an adequate idea of the vast labor which it involved. The first thing was to take the original "Noctes" from the Magazine. Next, to go through about sixty volumes of the Magazine, to search for references to the text. Lastly, there was the difficulty of distributing the "copy," so as to make five volumes of equal size. In the search through Blackwood, I discovered in the numbers for August and September, 1819, the articles which I have called “Christopher in the Tent," the precursors of the "Noctes," which occupy the first 128 pages of my first volume. These, to use one of Coleridge's expressions, were "as good as manuscript," for they were unknown, even to myself, until I found them in my search. May, 1854, had fairly set in ere I could commence writing the notes, and the five volumes being distributed among as many printers, as the pressure for time was unusually great, I had to supply fresh copy daily to each, and to correct five separate sets of proofs and revises, and to annotate every passage where it seemed necessary. At the same time, I was also literary editor and political writer on a daily, and dramatic and musical critic on a weekly paper in New York. Nor was my labor limited to mere annotations-for I had to preface the volumes with an elaborate history of "Blackwood's Magazine," and biographies of Wilson, Lockhart, Hogg, and Maginn. Lastly (and this alone took a fortnight), I had to make a double index, containing over three thousand references. The time occupied on the work was three months, during which I averaged fourteen hours work per day-taking a recess only on each Sunday. The publication of the five volumes took place on the appointed 15th of August, 1854. The sale of the Philadelphia edition had been about 900 copies in eleven years; of mine, about 3,000 went off in one year. Two years after its publication, Professor Ferrier, son-in-law of John Wilson, edited the "Noctes" in four volumes. Avowedly omitting all that he believed Wilson had not written (which included much of what he had), he printed only thirty-nine out of the whole seventy "Noctes." In his preface he very handsomely complimented the American edition as creditable to my "industry and good sense," and, moreover, made liberal use of my notes. By the critics of this country my edition of "The Noctes" was treated with favor, which I value the more because, at the time. I was personally acquainted with few of them. Without appearing invidious, let me particularly mention a long and appreciative review in the New York Tribune, from the accomplished pen of Mr. George Ripley, and, in The Citizen (New York), a paper entitled "A Night with the 'Noctes,'" written by Mr. John Savage, in which sound criticism was blended with genial wit, in a conversational manner, much after Wil. son's own fashion. Speaking of my Index, which I value because of the trouble it gave me, it said: "It is a complete guide to almost every sentence of pith, poetry, or passion in the five volumes. It is an almost perfect concordance of the wit, criticism, personality, punch, porter, oysters, wild-fowl, devilled kidneys, decanters, spoons, and every thing else indulged in by the school of wits who supped and revelled, or are supposed to have done so, at Master Ambrose's." Nor can my amour propre refrain from mentioning that Dr. S. A. Allibone has done mo the honor of frequently quoting my notes in his surpassing Critical Dictionary of English Literature and British and American Authors." PHILADELPHIA, March, 1863. R. SHELTON MACKENZIE. |