It is doubtful which of the two young men, whose eager co-operation and delighted seizure upon an instrument as new as it was effective with which to move the world gave Blackwood's project immediate force and energy, was the more important to that great undertaking and to himself. It is evident, however, that at the first start it was Lockhart who was more immediately prominent, though Wilson soon became the chief influence and more constant worker,—at once the prop and the plague, as will be seen, of Magazine and publisher. Though he was the very impersonation of irregularity, careless prodigality of strength, and want of system, he had the great advantage of remaining on the spot and continuing in the same circle of adherents and friends, and was thus a more prevailing presence than his more exact and less accidental comrade and coadjutor. They were both, when they began the work of life, as little systematic, as careless of all rule, as can be conceived. It was the joy and glory of youth in those days to win its honours and attain its effects with almost an affectation of idleness and indifference to any serious motive. I do not know whether there was so much more force of impulse and energy in the generation that this was the expression of a natural tendency or the sign of their special stage of development.