"William Tait, bookseller and publisher, was an enterprising, hard-headed man of the world... He early discerned the brilliant talents, then latent and almost unsuspected, of young [Thomas] Carlyle. About 1820, Tait took him by the hand a little, but in what way is not very clear; and for ten years continued loyally to admire him.”

“The most celebrated of the contributors to the magazine was, however, Thomas De Quincey...Many of his most prized essays originally appeared in this periodical.”

“In February, 1834, Tait's began to astonish its readers by the series of articles under the general title, 'Sketches of Life and Manners from the Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater'...[which] De Quincey wrote for at least nine years" (Scott, SNQ 6:9).