He undertook the editing himself, but soon obtained many able and indefatigable helpers.
There were then two young advocates walking the Parliament House in search of briefs.

These were John Wilson (Christopher North) and John Gibson Lockhart (afterwards editor of the _Quarterly_).

Both were West-countrymen--Wilson, the son of a wealthy Paisley manufacturer, and Lockhart, the son of the minister of Cambusnethan, in Lanarkshire--and both had received the best of educations, Wilson, the robust Christian, having carried off the Newdigate prize at Oxford, and Lockhart, having gained the Snell foundation at Glasgow, was sent to Balliol, and took a first class in classics in 1813.

These, with Dr.Maginn--under the _sobriquet_ of "Morgan O'Dogherty,"-- Hogg--the Ettrick Shepherd,--De Quincey--the Opium-eater,--Thomas Mitchell, and others, were the principal writers in _Blackwood_.
No.

7, the first of the new series, created an unprecedented stir in Edinburgh.