tions were perpetually agitated, was visible the "And no great loss either;" cried Miss Toddles, roof of the rich cousin; who, if clothed neither in perceiving that her patroness was speechless from purple nor fine linen, might have luxuriated in the curiosity. "But how, my dear Ma'am, (I am going vesture of a queen, without injury to her over- to give a great card, I throw out the knave of diabrimming coffers. And the sufferings of the monds :) how will you guarantee us that?” Erskines were fully known to Miss Lavinia. Her "Because they have left Apston for ever!toadies were well aware, that she took as much | Tens!-I expected as much—ace out against me! pleasure as people in general take offence, in being-Just like my luck.—Mrs. Latitat goes up." talked to about her "poor relations." They could not be too poor to please her. It was delightful to hear of Captain Erskine having been seen in a threadbare coat, drawing along the river-path towards the Bournefields, a little cart constructed by himself for his children, and containing three of them.

crushed under its wheels, call Government. The old gentleman has considerable patronage in his own department, and considerable influence in the departments of his colleagues; and I feel, of course, that I am doing him a double favour, by

the debt of gratitude of his scape-grace son, and to procure for his Majesty's Civil Service, a servant whom his Majesty's military service so cavalierly dispensed with.

"However, (laud we the caprices of the blind goddess!) a few months ago, I happened to be stay-enabling him to discharge, in some small degree, ing in a country-house with an old fogrum, whose stupidity I thought unpardonable, considering he bore the same name with my Talavera preserver. On cross-questioning Sir John Erskine, I found that he had the honour to be your uncle; and that you, whom I sometimes feared had been "catawampously chawed up" by the Yankees, were married, and quietly settled as the father of a family at Apston in Shropshire. I scarcely knew whether to be glad or indignant, at finding you still alive. I suppose, however, I must have been a little pleased: for, the first leisure moment I could command, I hastened down to your retreat, hoping to find you surrounded with the domestic happiness and comfort which no man more richly deserves.

"Alas! my dear Erskine, on my arrival at Apston, your poor wife was at the point of death; and while waiting a day or two at the inn, trusting her recovery might justify my presenting myself again at your door, I heard from vulgar report enough of your family affairs, to be satisfied that Fortune had treated you less liberally than would have done her credit. My visit could only be a troublesome intrusion.

"In short, my dear fellow, (for to this conclusion must we come at last,) I have ever since been cudgelling my brains to discover some way in which to better your condition, without compromising those honourable feelings of a gentleman, with which you were always so eminently endowed. My father, I need not tell you, forms part of the great lumbering car of Juggernaut, which we devotees, who allow ourselves to be

"And so, my dear Erskine, even let Somerset House atone for the wrongs of the Horse-Guards. The appointment (of which the enclosed letter from my father's secretary more exactly explains the nature) conveys with it a comfortable residence, and a salary of nearly £500 per annum. By accepting it, you will confer a favour on my whole family. By allowing me to meet the difficulties of your removal from Shropshire by becoming your banker for your first quarter's salary, a further obligation on myself. Do not be at the trouble of writing me a long letter of thanks. We shall meet shortly; when I hope to disclose in person to Mrs. Erskine all the pleasure I heard expressed by humble well-wishers of hers, during my stay at Apston, that her valuable life was spared to her family. In return, if you are disposed to be over-grateful for my poor services, I shall then be able to silence you with more detailed allusions to the eventful hour when, at the risk of life and limb, your prowess preserved so eminent an individual to his country, creditors, and friends, as "Your very faithful and obliged

"POWDERHAM HOUSE, PICCADILLY,
February 15, 1825."

(To be continued.)

"BALTIMORE,

AMONG the extraordinary pranks ever playing by the Old Juggler Time, none can seem more diverting to those whose literary memories reach back for thirty years, than to see the great Aristarch of the North, the incarnate WE of the once all-powerful Edinburgh Review, an abdicated monarch; stripped of every attribute of supremacy, and laid on the dissecting table of the modern critics, much in the same condition as any other fallible penman. It required some courage, and great magnanimity in Lord Jeffrey to submit to the ordeal of publication; virtually to plead before that tribunal of which he was once the Supreme Judge, and tacitly to submit to the award of those to whom it might now be a malicious satisfaction

LORD JEFFREY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.* had but a slender control over his greater Barons— and really could not prevent them from occasionally waging a little private war, upon griefs or resentments of their own." He had also the difficulties to contend against which beset every party organ that affects anything like independence, and aspires to influence opinion and action beyond the limits of its party. Whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the justice or propriety of "the high place" which The Review at once assumed, as if of right, over literature and politics, it is certain that the boldness of the course succeeded for a very great length of time. Trembling and cowed, authors appeared at the critical tribunal, not as of yore, to have their smaller faults civilly pointed out and gently censured, but to be schooled in the principles of their own art by their master, the reviewer; who, with the most natural air in the world, and quite as a matter of course, or in virtue of his office, understood the principles of poetry better than all the poets, and of fiction better than all the fictionists; who was, in short, the Pope of literature and science, throned on the seven hills of Philosophy, Politics, History, Physics and Metaphysics, Poetry and Romance. "The Edinburgh Review," says Lord Jeffrey, “aimed high from the beginning." It aimed high, indeed; at no less than the establishment of a literary despotsible to succeed. But wherever its aims were just, ism in Europe: in which it was fortunately imposit succeeded abundantly; and, unable to misdi

To make the cruel feel the pangs they give. On this score, we imagine, however, that the author of these Contributions had little to apprehend. The eminent services which he and his band of brothers, but more especially himself, have rendered to literature and science; and " in familiarizing the public mind with higher speculations, and sounder and larger views of the great objects of human pursuit than had ever before been brought effectually home to their apprehensions, and also in permanently raising the standard, and increasing the influence of all such occasional writings," can never either be forgotten, nor lightly valued. As an immense improvement upon every

thing of the same sort that had been previously

known or contemplated, either in this country or in continental Europe, it is, indeed, impossible to rate the character and influence of The Edinburgh Review too highly. Its appearance, as soon as it had surmounted the blunders and crudities of extreme and presumptuous youth, constituted a new and brighter era in periodical literature. Literature was, for the moment, eclipsed by its own creature, criticism. And for this we are persuaded that the world is mainly indebted to Mr. Jeffrey; who from the first bestowed a large share of his time and attention in working out the original happy idea of Mr. Sydney Smith with singular ability and sagacity; and an aptitude for the delicate office, which we think could not have been found in any other of his associates, however great their intellectual powers. With the single exception of Mr. Horner, we cannot indeed conceive of any one of Jeffrey's colleagues that could have been trained to fulfil the onerous duties of conducting this great organ of literature and opinion, and of forming the cement and animating spirit of the confraternity. And it is but too probable, that though Mr. Horner's temper could have stood all the trials and assaults made upon it, his animal spirits must have failed. Lord Jeffrey intimates his early difficulties when he says, in explaining a particular circumstance, "I was but a Feudal monarch; who

rect or impede the course of original genius, or long to mislead the public taste, the habits of literary discussion, and of mental activity to which it stimulated millions of minds, again reacting on tens of millions, must have produced vast and salutary effects upon society.

We do not observe that Lord Jeffrey offers any apology for what some will regard as the cardinal vice of The Review, namely, the cool assumption of the critic's superiority to the author, whoever he might be: Byron, Scott, Southey, Wordsthe master-policy. To have given up this, would worth, it was all the same. This was, indeed, have been to descend to the level of ordinary Journalists; and it must be confessed, that, in many instances, this claim was sustained with great ability, and not unfrequently established, by views of important questions more original and profound than any to be met with in the work professing to discuss them.

Neither for the smaller airs of petulant assumption, or of a gracious condescension not over graceful, which the Review occasionally exhibited, do we see any apology offered; yet blemishes of this petty sort were, we apprehend, among the most irritating of the juvenile delinquencies of the Oracle of the Northern Literary Confederacy; who sometimes gave more offence by the arrogant manner of dealing out counsel, advice, and praise, than censure could have provoked. It is but a shabby apology, and one which, we are sure, Lord Jeffrey would disdain to use, that the worst faults of The Edinburgh Re

view, in its most juvenile days, were immeasurably distanced by its unscrupulous and bitterly malignant rival of the South, from the first hour that it came into existence, until Mr. Gifford ceased to conduct it.

V.

that have since elapsed, he has steered clear of party politics. His reviews, since he resigned, have only been four. Nor, so far as we notice, has any one of these, save the Life of Sir James Mackintosh, obtained a place in the four well-filled volumes beIn a careful, but somewhat over-anxious pre- fore us. Ample as they are, they do not, we are face, Lord Jeffrey states the reasons which have told, contain a third of the entire body of Mr. led to the publication of this selection from his Jeffrey's able and varied contributions to The multitudinous contributions during thirty-eight | Review. They form, however, we should imagine, years. On the whole, he thinks that, though the cream of the mass of his writings; and some of holding the high, grave, and responsible station of the crack temporary articles are here, as well as a Judge of the Court of Session, he has no cause those on which time has set the stamp of excellence. to be ashamed of his share in originating and The contributions are arranged under general carrying on The Review; to which, indeed, he heads, without any regard to the date of their rather looks back with a mixture of agreeable and appearance, which seems a truer principle than a applausive feelings; and not declining his share merely chronological sequence. We have, I. GEof its early faults or blunders, he modestly puts NERAL LITERATURE and LITERARY BIOGRAPHIES. in a claim, which will be most liberally allowed, II. Historical Memoirs. III. Poetry. IV. Phito participate in the merits, which so vastly out- losophy, Metaphysics, and Jurisprudence. balance the defects. Some will conceive the state- Novels, Tales, and Prose Works of Fiction. VI. ment altogether superfluous. Who, save for The GENERAL POLITICS (temporary party questions being Review, out of Edinburgh, and the few assize avoided, as things that have perished in the use ;) towns of Scotland, would ever have heard, or and lastly, MISCELLANEOUS CONTRIBUTIONS. Mr. much cared about Lord Jeffrey more than any Jeffrey's elaborate Essay, or rather Treatise upon other respectable and learned Scottish Judge?-a the Principles of Taste, which was published in set of persons most estimable in their own sphere, the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, but of surprisingly little importance to all the world, but of which the germ had previously appeared in lawyers included, beyond the Border; and across a review of Alison's Essays on the Principles of the channel, or the Atlantic, of none whatever. Taste, stands at the head of the collection, as the most considerable and sustained literary effort of the author. What a field this enumeration opens up! How much of delight and instruction must it recall to two generations of readers! how many fond memories of things once most precious! It becomes almost an impertinence to specify the reviews of the poetry of Crabbe, Scott, and Campbell, Byron, and Burns; or of the works of De Stael, and Alfieri, and the early English Dramatists; the novels of Scott and Miss Edgeworth, and other eminent fictionists. There is, however, we think, no department more rich or more edifying and delightful to look back upon than the Literary Biographies, and some of those which are designated Historical Memoirs. Need we recall such familiar things as the papers on the Lives of Swift, Burns, Mackintosh, Franklin, Heber, Cowper, Curran, Collingwood, Reid, Priestley, and Colonel Hutchinson and his wife; or the entertaining articles on Pepys, the Memoirs of the Margravine of Baireuth, or the Emperor Baber, Madame de Deffand, or Baron Grimm? All of these may not be equal in value; yet they comprise a body of papers, in our opinion, the most instructive and interesting ;-of Biography, teaching by example, such as no other work could furnish mestic and Literary Plutarch.

Lord Jeffrey claims praise for the uniform moral tendency of his reviews; even those of the most frivolous works which he condescended to notice: and this, we think, will also be unhesitatingly and heartily accorded. This principle, the most valuable by which a Journalist can be guided, has, indeed, in one or two instances, betrayed him into something like undue severity to individuals. We may specify the cases of Burns and of Swift; in which reasoning, in itself most powerful and just, is somewhat harshly applied.

A good deal of the preface is occupied with an explanation of a statement made by Sir Walter Scott, in relation to Lord Jeffrey, which appears in Mr. Lockhart's Memoirs of Scott. His Lordship perhaps, gives the affair more importance than it deserves; but upon investigation, he appears to be in the right, though Scott wrote at the moment, and Jeffrey looks back after the lapse of thirty busy years.

Our readers must remember, that it was the Rev. Sydney Smith who first magnanimously resolving, with his briefless associates, to "cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal," projected from his seven-storied attic, the great political and literary organ, which from 1803 till 1829, was under the management, though not the absolute control, of Mr. Jeffrey. When the editor-but Mr. Jeffrey studiously eschews the term, editor -was, in 1829, elected by Whigs and Tories unanimously, Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, he thought it becoming in the head of that "great law corporation" to resign the business of conducting what "might in many respects be fairly represented as a party Journal." For several years after this period he wrote nothing for The Review; and in his contributions during the years

-a true Do

In the reprints, Lord Jeffrey has acted upon the principle, "what is writ is writ." The omissions are, therefore, mainly of extracts from the books reviewed; and the emendations slight, and nearly all verbal, intended either to throw light on obscurities or correct the text. Though Lord Jeffrey, in some few instances, regrets that he has not employed a gentler tone or form of expression, and though he seems to lean more to the side of in

moral aim; we would, if our space for past popular and familiar writings permitted, rather gladly extract, and largely, from the review of O'Driscol's History of Ireland; which engages attention from its great

dulgence than in former years, we observe no important change of opinion in any principle, whether of morals, philosophy, or taste, that he formerly avowed and supported. In that controversy about words-for it is little else-on Hu-intrinsic value, and especially by the applicability man Perfectibility, he assumed the side sanctioned of the general reasoning to the existing relations by reason and experience; and he maintains it between Great Britain and Ireland. As it is, we still, against the Perfectibility School, whether of earnestly recommend this paper, which appears in England or France. Had the Masters or Founders the fourth volume, to the attention of both the Engof that School substituted the word Progression | lish and Irish people, but especially to the latter; for Perfectibility, the dispute would have been at an and content ourselves with this sentence from the end, and Mr. Jeffrey and they at one; and they note appended to the reprint of The Review :—“ If really could have meant no more. In his controversy at that time, [in 1827,] I thought a separation, or a with the Lake Poets, or rather with Wordsworth-dissolution of the Union, (for they are the same thing,) for the quarrel with Southey was as much politi- a measure not to be contemplated but with horror, cal as poetical-Lord Jeffrey also holds his original it may be supposed that I should not look more ground, content to see the age desert him, and to charitably on the proposition, now that Catholic remain in a glorious minority. But he makes a Emancipation and Parliamentary Reform have becoming and handsome, and, we are certain, taken away some, at least, of the motives or aposatisfactory apology for the mode of his condem-logies of those by whom it was maintained. The nation, when he says, in a note affixed to the review of The Excursion, "I have spoken in many places rather too bitterly and confidently of the faults of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry; and forgetting that, even on my view of them, they were but faults of taste, or venial self-partiality, have sometimes visited them, I fear, with an asperity which should be reserved for objects of moral reprobation. If I were now to deal with the whole question of his poetical merits, though my judgment might not be substantially different, I hope I should repress the greater part of the vivacities of expression." The Critic should have stopped here; and, at all events, not again have wakened the question of poetical merits at least we think so; probably from being of the number-no small one-of persons who still "actually admire this White Doe of Rylstone;" and find a savage kind of beauty, and a profound moral, even in Peter Bell. The worst thing, after all, of those celebrated critiques is, that they impugn the sensibility and judgment of their author even more than his candour; and augur something like limited imagination, or a narrow range of poetical emotion.

Lord Jeffrey frankly owns, that he has said, in his time, "petulant and provoking things of Mr. Southey, and such as he would not say now;" but he is not conscious that he was ever unfair to Southey's poetry. It may be freely admitted, that if there was a bias, the critic was unconscious of it; and also that Southey's changes of opinion, united with his tone of intolerance and dogmatism, were, for the moment, beyond measure provoking, and even worthy of chastisement. The only review of Southey's poetry reprinted is the last written; that of Roderick the Last of the Goths. The juxta-position of the poetical critiques in the volume is unfortunate. So much praise of Rogers and Moore; not that the criticism on the latter is not acute and discriminating; and so much depreciation of Roderick, and The White Doe, and The Excursion, must still be a little irritating to some folks.

Instead of calling or recalling the attention of readers to what, in these volumes, is beautiful and refined in speculation; poignant, animated, and graceful in composition; or noble and persuasive in

example of Scotland [in The Review] is still, I think, well put for the argument. And among the many who must now consider this question, it may be gratifying to some to see upon what grounds, and how decidedly an opinion was then formed upon it, by one certainly not much disposed to think favourably of the conduct or pretensions of England.”—There is another review which, upon the same solid, utilitarian principle that guides us in the above instance, we would also recommend to the attention of modern readers; leaving the gay, the elegant, the imaginative, and entertaining papers, to shift for themselves. We mean now an article upon the nature of those social, humane, and friendly relations which should subsist between Great Britain and the Free United States of America. This paper was written so far back as 1819; since which period the evils pointed out have been heinously aggravated by the Trollopes, Kembles, Marryats, and Dickenses; who have, most inconsiderately, revenged venial offences offered to their own vanity and self-love, by unjustifiable attacks upon a whole nation: for personal offence, or wounded vanity, is clearly at the bottom of some of it. To this paper, we find the following note attached: "There is no one feeling, having public concerns for its object, with which I have so long and deeply been impressed, as that of the vast importance of our maintaining friendly relations with the free, powerful, moral, and industrious States of America; a condition upon which I cannot help thinking, that not only our own freedom and prosperity, but that of the better part of the world, will ultimately be found to be more and more dependent. I give the first place, therefore, in this concluding division of the work, to an earnest and somewhat importunate exhortation to this effect, which, I believe, produced some impression at the time, and, I trust, may still help forward the good end to which it was directed."

One word more, and we have done. Younger journalists, party-writers, and literary critics of all grades, may find much in the Spirit and in the Art manifested in these volumes, for their instruction and guidance, and something also for warning. They will see, that one of the greatest