It came out on October 1, 1817, and sold very rapidly, but after 10,000 had been struck off it was suppressed, and could be had neither for love nor money.

The cause of this sudden attraction was an article headed "Translation from an Ancient Chaldee Manuscript," purporting to be an extract from some newly discovered historical document, every paragraph of which contained a special hit at some particular person well known in Edinburgh society.

There was very little ill-nature in it; at least, nothing like the amount which it excited in those who were, or imagined themselves to be, caricatured in it.
Constable, the "Crafty," and Pringle and Cleghorn, editors of the _Edinburgh Magazine_, as well as Jeffrey, editor of the _Edinburgh Review_, came in for their share of burlesque description.
Among the persons delineated in the article were the publisher of Blackwood's _Edinburgh Magazine_, whose name "was as it had been, the colour of Ebony": indeed the name of Old Ebony long clung to the journal.

The principal writers of the article were themselves included in the caricature.

Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was described as "the great wild boar from the forest of Lebanon, and he roused up his spirit, and I saw him whetting his dreadful tusks for the battle." Wilson was "the beautiful leopard," and Lockhart "the scorpion,"-- names which were afterwards hurled back at them with interest.