sionally appeared of a very different description, where the reviewer, pleased with a theme which corresponded with his own taste and pursuits, threw off the labourer, assumed the author, and analysed with a kindred spirit the productions of genius or the researches of philosophy. In other cases, the gentleman of the trade, whose book was to be reviewed, sought out among his own customers, or the literary friends of the author, some person whom he sup posed qualified to treat the subject well, and disposed to use the work favourably. Such a voluntary assistant, though he might not possess more ability than the person on whom in stated routine the task would have devolved, took it up nevertheless with the eagerness of novelty; and if, at the same time, he was paying a tax to friendship, or endeavouring to throw a double lustre upon opinions which he himself professed, his article was likely to possess a spirit and energy which might raise it above the cold uniformity of those with which it was mingled. But exceptions, arising from either of these causes, were comparatively of rare occurrence, and, upon the whole, there was a visible tameness and disposition to lethargy in the English reviews at the close of the 18th century.

A spirit of indolence is usually accompanied with a disposition to mercy, or rather those whom it has thoroughly possessed cannot give themselves the trouble of rousing to deeds of severity. Accordingly the calm, even, and indifferent style of criticism, which we have endeavoured to describe, was distinguished by a lenient aspect towards its objects. The reviewer, in the habit of treating with complacency those works which belonged to his own publisher, was apt

to use the same general style of lity towards others, although they had not the same powerful title › protection. A certain deference wo visibly paid to an author of celebrity, whether founded upon his literary qualities or on the adventitious dis tinctions of rank and title, and generally there was a marked and guard ed retenue both in the strictures ba zarded and in the mode of expressing them. If raillery was ever attempted, there was no horse-play in it, and the only fault which could be objects by the reader was, that the critic

Content to dwell in decencies for evt.

This rule was not, indeed, withou exceptions; the mind of a liberal and public-spirited critic sometimes re versed the sentence of his employer. and, unlike the prophet of Midia anathematized the works on which he was summoned to bestow benedic tions. Neither was it meet that the critical rod should be hung up a mere shew, lest in time, as it is leanedly argued by the Duke of Vienna, it should become "more mocked thas feared." The terrors of the office were, therefore, in some measure maintained by the severity exercised upes the trumpery novels and still-born poe try which filled the monthly catalogue whose unknown, and perhaps starvin authors, fared like the parish-bo at a charity school, who are flogged not only for their own errors, but co vindicate the authority of the master, who cares not to use the same freedom with the children of the squire Sometimes also "fate demanded a nobler head." The work of a rival bookseller was to be crushed ever birth; a powerful literary patron, perhaps the reviewer himself, ha some private pique to indulge, as added a handful of slugs to the pow.

der and paper which formed the usual contents of his blunderbuss. Sometimes political discussions were introduced, before which deference and moderation are uniformly found to disappear. Or, in fine, the sage bibliopolist himself occasionally opined that a little severity (so it came not the way of his own pública tions) might forward the sale of his review, and was therefore pleased to cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. But the operation of each and all of these causes was insufficient to counteract the tendency of this species of criticism to stagnate in a course of dull and flat and luke-warm courtesy. Something of the habitual civility and professional deference of the tradesman seemed to qualify the labours of those who wrote under his direction, and the crities them selves, accessible (not, we believe, in almost any case, to pecuniary interposition,) but to applications for favour in divers modes, which they found it difficult to resist, and mixing, too, in the intercourse of private life with many of those who afforded the subjects of their criticism, were seldom disposed to exercise their office in its full, or even in its necessary rigour. These were days of halcyon quietness for authors, especially for that numerous class, who, contented to venture their whole literary credit on one dull work written upon as dull a subject, look forward less to rapid sale and popular applause than to a favourable criticism from the reviewers, and a word or two of snug, quiet, honied assent from a few private friends. The public indeed began to

murmur that

authors of sermons and essays, and mawkish poems and stupid parish histories, bore each triumphantly his ponderous load into the mart of literature, expanded it upon the stall of his bookseller, sate brooding over it till evening closed, and then retired with the consolation, that, if his wares had not met a purchaser, they had at least been declared saleable, and received the stamp of currency from the official inspectors of literary merchandize. From these soothing dreams, authors, booksellers, and critics were soon to be roused by a rattling peal of thunder; and it now becomes our task to shew how a conspiracy of beardless boys innovated the venerable laws of this lenient republic of literature, scourged the booksellers out of her senate-house, overset the tottering thrones of the idols whom they had set up, awakened the hundred-necked snake of criticism, and curdled the whole ocean of milk and water, in which, like the serpentine supporter of Vistnou, he had wreathed and wallowed in unwieldy sloth for a quarter of a cen tury. Then, too, amid this dire combustion, like true revolutionists, they erected themselves into a committee of public safety, whose decrees were written in blood, and executed without mercy.

As in many other great revolutions, the causes which gave rise to this change of system were slight and fortuitous. A few young men, who had just concluded their studies at the University of Edinburgh, and were united together by a similarity of ta lents and pursuits, conceived a project (designed, we believe, to be temporary,) to rescue this province of literature from the state of degrada tion into which it had gradually sunk, and to give to the world what for ma

2 N

ny years it had not seen a fair, but, at the same time, a bold and impartial review of such works as appear. ed to merit public attention. The scheme of publication, although deep. ly laid, contained some staggering preliminaries. The associated critics, while they asserted the most uncontrouled freedom from the influence of their publisher, stipulated, it is well known, a subsidy at more than treble the rate allowed to the best as well as supplest mercenaries which London could afford. The mention of this circumstance, though it may seem to savour of minute inquiry, is in truth neither trivial nor petulant. Young men just entering upon life, especially if they belong to Scotland, are seldom in a situation to afford their time gratis, or, if in such a situation, are still more seldom disposed to bestow their leisure hours in labour of any kind. Besides, every one knows the inadequate recompence usually made to a Scottish barrister during the early years of his practice, and it was probably not injudiciously conceived, that a more ample guerdon might seduce some of that well-educated and peculiarly acute class of young men to lend their aid to the new undertaking, which was carefully cleared of every thing resembling mercenary drudgery, while the honorarium it held forth made the ordinary professional emoluments kick the beam. In one respect that mercantile part of the matter was managed with equal delicacy and prudence. No distinction was permitted between the Dilletanti writer, and one whose circumstances might render copymoney necessary or acceptable. If Czar Peter laboured in the trenches, he drew his pay as a common soldier; and thus the degrading distinction was excluded between those whose

fortune or generosity inclined them to labour for nought, and the less for tunate scholar, to whom reward was in some degree an object; the pride of the latter remained unwounded, and, mingled as he was among many critics of wealth and rank, it remain. ed a secret known to none but him self, whether he was actuated by any additional motives besides the desire of literary distinction. The report, too, of this uncommon premium gave a sort of eclat to the undertaking, and shewed that the associated cri tics claimed a merit and consequence beyond the ordinary class of review. ers; that their band, like the confe derates of Gadshill, were "no foot. land-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, but nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters and great oneyers." In short, this subordinate circum stance (for it must be supposed that we hold it highly subordinate to the principal causes of success) gave undertaking at its outset an appear. ance of seriousness, for which, con sidering the youth of those upon whom the execution was to rest, they might otherwise hardly have gained the necessary credit.

the

In another circumstance, the Edin burgh Reviewers judiciously took a difference from their brethren of England. Their criticism was professedly limited to works which, in one shape or other, deserved the pub lic attention; and, that ample time might be allowed for selecting such subjects, their term of publication was made quarterly instead of monthly, At the same time, and as a part the same arrangement, it was annous. ced to the public, that it was the object of this new publication to be distin guished rather by the selection than for the number of its articles; that the editors did not assume any merit for

conveying priority of literary intelligence, and therefore left such a space of time betwixt their periods of publication as might avail for mature consideration of the works fit to be reviewed, as well as of the judgement to be passed upon them. It cannot be doubted that this deliberate mode of proceeding at once added to the real merit of the review, and greatly raised its character with the public. The reviews had been hitherto published monthly, and it was a necessary consequence, that those numbers which appeared in what is call ed the publishing season, which lasts from the end of November till after the King's birth-day, were overwhelmed with important discussions which the critics had neither time maturely to consider, nor room to treat at length. Hence we have frequently seen the reviewer under the inconvenient but unavoidable necessity of continuing a single article of importance from one number of his review to another, by which division his argument sustained deep and material injustice. It was a yet more serious inconvenience to the editor, that he was obliged to bolster out his summer numbers with an extra proportion of those insignificant and still-born productions which never for an instant either did attract, or ought to have attracted, the attention of the public. But at all times their plan admitted too much of this trumpery. The monthly catalogue, where, as in the cauldron of Acheron, all mingles that mingle may, while it occupied a degree of room widely disproportional to its no-importance, had, in a secondary point of view, an effect disadvantageous to the character of the reviews, and those by whom they were written. We have already stated our belief that the

booksellers principally interested in the success of these works took care for their own sakes to procure respectable assistance for what are called the leading articles. But what man of talent would be bribed to the analyzing and reporting this dunghill of shreds and patches, this "mass of all things base," or write these paltry and brief notices, which were strung together, and appended to the more dignified articles, like the shreds of paper which form the tail of a boy's kite? Or, if such a critic were willing to stoop to the task of a scavenger, and was condescending enough to sift this heap of cinders, could a bookseller be expected, upon mercantile principles, to compensate his labours according to the writer's merit and not to their worth? It is probable, therefore, that these departments in many cases slipped into the hands of a low description of hackney scribblers, whose very names tended to throw disrespect upon the employment of reviewers, and who may be supposed little scrupulous as to the indirect modes by which they mended the pittance allotted them. As, therefore, in this subordi nate department, the partiality of private friendship, and the rancour of personal malignity, could be summoned into activity, unsuspected and undetected, it seems farther probable, that, if there were any real grounds for actual corruption and bribery, to which we believe the superior class of reviewers were strangers, they might perhaps occur in this ill-scoured sink, this lowest dungeon of critical publication. In disclaiming, therefore, any intention of reviewing what was naturally destined to obscurity, the Edinburgh critics at once cleared their hands of a huge, ill-arranged, and most uninteresting class of sub

jects, and relieved themselves from the necessity of associating in their labours those discreditable compeers, upon whom the task of considering it must necessarily have devolved. They did more by this arrange ment, they pledged themselves to the reader, that they would exercise no absolute and peremptory fiat of acquittal or condemnation without treating the subject at some length, and giving the grounds of their sentence, so that, if just, they might be assented to, if ill-founded, they might be opposed and confuted. Thus every thing in their plan bespoke the purpose of men capable and confident in their powers, bending themselves gravely to a purpose from which they had studiously excluded all that was trifling, vulgar, or insignificant.

The associated critics having thus provided for the expences of their campaign, calculated the duration of their marches, and estimated the importance of their proposed achievements, the Edinburgh Review appeared in October, 1802. A circumstance is said to have occurred in the very outset, unimportant in itself, but tending strongly to shew the necessity that some review should exist altogether free from bookselling influence, as well as to evince the strong opinion of the right of management which the trade retained as to all such works. A very respectable bookseller, selected as the London publisher, took upon him to decline or delay publishing the first number of the Review, alleging (it is said) very frankly, the detriment it was likely to occasion to the sale of a certain expensive work in which he was concerned, and which the Northern Aristarchs had treated with slender ceremony. The future ser

vices of this gentleman were of course declined, and it was made sufficiently manifest that the publishers were to derive no other advantage from this work than the direct emoluments which the sale might produce to them.

The first numbers of the Edinburgh Review asserted the character which it has in most respects maintained to this day. The style was bold, caustic, decided, and intolerant. To mark as far as possible the new principles of their criticism, the adventurers hung out the bloody flag in their title-page, and by the appropriate motto (Judex damnatur si nocens absolvitur) intimated their intention to discard the courteous rules and indulgent civility, under the restraint of which their contemporaries had been hitherto content to wage their drowsy warfare. It was a sort of imprecation on themselves and their infant publication, if they with held their arm from battle for pity, need, or respect of persons, "Such and such evil God on Guyon reare,

And worse and worse, young orphan, be thy paine, If I or thou due vengeance do forbeare.”—

Most readers must remember the hubbub occasioned by the first issuing forth of this unruly northern whi wind. The confusion is before our eyes and in our ears, as if it had hap pened but yesterday. A hail-storm, or rather the alarm of a mad-dog in Kensington Gardens, about four o' clock on a fine Sunday, is the best emblem we can propose to those who did not witness the universal consternation of the book-writing and book-selling world. The Edinburgh critics meanwhile, like their coun tryman Lismahago in a similar situ ation, beheld, with a Sardonic grin, the confusion they had occasioned,