If it be asked what gave that strong coherence to these associates which
constituted them groups, a wise man would answer,--congeniality of
character. A wiser man, however, would not overlook the element of
_suppers_. The "Edinburgh Review" seems to have been first suggested
over a quiet bottle of wine; and at a later day the Edinburgh reviewers,
increased in number by the accession of Mackintosh and one or two
others, formed an honored clique by themselves in the splendid society
of Holland House. The "Noctes Ambrosianae" is the enduring monument of
the way in which the Blackwood men passed their nights, and not the less
so from the fact that they were for the most part written out by Wilson
in sober solitude. Charles Lamb began his career of suppers with
Coleridge, as the latter came up to London from the University to visit
him, and the famous Wednesday-evening parties given by him and his
sister Mary would occupy a large space in the literary history of this
epoch. It is a true proverb, that people are but distant acquaintances
till they have eaten salt together.

The sketches which we have thus given will indicate the leading
tendencies that were operating in English literature, though the groups
themselves did not include all the eminent literary men.
Campbell, Shelley, and Byron were single lights, and did not form
constellations,--unless, perhaps, Shelley and Byron may be regarded as a
wayward and quickly-disappearing Gemini. Sir Walter Scott, and, in their
later years, Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, were of a cosmopolitan
character, and served as links between different parties. And it may be
added, that diplomatic relations and frequent intercommunication existed
between all the groups.

Passing from the general schedule to the characters and careers of