down to the date of The Edinburgh Review, were constructed after the fashion approved ever since the year 1730. These Magazines were compilations, thrown together without much attention to method, and consisting partly of original writing, but chiefly of extracts from such works of the day as were likely to be interesting, mixed up with the ordinary gossip of the newspapers. They were thus a pleasant medley of everything; where a new invention in mechanics, or a recipe in cookery, or the particulars of some astonishing lusus naturæ, might be found in the same page with dissertations on the deepest subjects of philosophy or science. There is much ability and good writing in some of these magazines. In the New Monthly, for instance, any one who chooses to take the trouble, may extract from the superincumbent mass a great deal that is interesting. But the talent which was contributed to such publications was, in fact, for all practical purposes, completely smothered by the load of matter by which it was surrounded. Succeeding to these cumbrous and unmanageable vehicles of public opinion, the method, clearness, and vivacity of the Review showed in favourable contrast, as a smart four-inhand stage-coach of the present day may be supposed to do, compared with the lumbering conveyances in which our ancestors travelled. It thus started with all the attractions of novelty, as well as with those of power.

While the Review was received with singular favour by the public generally, the feelings it excited were by no means those of unmingled admiration in all quarters. On the contrary, it hit so hard the prejudices of many influential classes, that its vigour and ability only rendered it the more obnoxious. Authors were also not unwilling to impugn the partiality or fairness of a tribunal, through the ordeal of which so few could pass with credit. In looking into the "Memoirs of William Taylor," lately published, we find, in the letters of Southey, who was a great correspondent of his, a good illustration of the feelings by which our author and his Review were regarded by the irritable race to which the poet belonged. He never speaks of Jeffrey but with a degree of bitterness which indicates much of the fear, as well as the smart, of injured vanity; and we have no doubt that many of his tuneful brethren at that time participated in his sentiments. It is worth remarking, however, that Taylor, so far from taking the trouble to apply any balm to his wounds, never fails to put in a word of praise of the Scotch Reviewers. Taylor's commendation is valuable, as the expression of the opinion of a rival critic, speaking of genius which had eclipsed his own. He was the principal contributor to the "Monthly Review," and is fairly entitled to the praise, not only of having done much to introduce the taste for German literature in this

country, but also of having first adventured the broader and more scientific style of criticism which The Edinburgh Review afterwards carried to so much perfection. While he was well able to appreciate the kindred merits of the new Journal, the simplicity and disinterestedness of his praise adds greatly to its value. "It is not," he says in 1809, in answer to one of Southey's invectives, "with Jeffrey's politics that I am in love; but with his brilliant and definite expressions, and his subtle argumentative power. I have not seen The Quarterly Review. It is said to rival that of Jeffrey; but I should be surprised if there is literary strength enough in any other combination to teach so many good opinions so well as the Edinburgh Reviewers."*

This brings us to speak of the work which is at present our more peculiar theme, and of its author, the director and head of this formidable confederacy. It is simply a reprint of selected articles from the Review, without any addition by the author, with the exception of the preface, and some occasional notes. Here and there he has curtailed an article, sometimes to adapt it to modern readers, and sometimes for other reasons, explained at the places where they occur. Apart from its other merits, it cannot fail to interest as a memorial of the wisdom, policy, and triumphs of the government of the autocrat of criticism, to which, unlike most abdicated monarchs, he looks calmly back with honest but well-tempered pride, undisturbed by the cravings of ambition, and undisquieted by the recollection of former strife. The dignity proper to his station may have, in some degree, moderated the vivacity and point for which the subjects of the little annotations scattered up and down these volumes afford considerable scope; but, on the other hand, there is something most attractive in the mellowed light thrown over the whole, from a flame which once burned so fiercely;-in the gentle candour and the unassuming and considerate reflection, untinctured by a single drop of gall, with which he recurs to conflicts which are now matter of history in our literary annals. Not a vestige is to be found there of the touchy vanity common to authorship; nor even of the natural dogmatism of a man engaged during an ardent life in the maintenance of strong opinions. It is with a kind of apologetic diffidence, rather than with any vaunt of consistency, that in writing of his earlier feuds, he intimates that he still thinks as he then thought, but with all kind words of the antagonists who remain, and kinder of those who are departed, and an amiable and unbidden regret for the strength of words, which grate upon his memory, while he cannot feel them to be undeserved. Such was

* Memoirs of William Taylor, vol. ii., p. 272.

the mind of the man whose name at one time, among a certain class, was a synonym for bitterness, revilings, and all uncharitableness, and who certainly enjoyed no small amount of fear and hatred among those who knew nothing of him except through the terrors of his lash.

It is not fair, perhaps, to contrast the ebullitions of a poet impatient of the recent smart, with the quiet reminiscences of such a work as this; but having just spoken of Southey, and we would wish to speak reverently of the memory of so powerful an intellect, we cannot but turn to the tribute paid by the once dreaded critic to the two most inveterate of his adversaries.

"I have, in my time, said petulant and provoking things of Mr. Southey-and such as I would not say now. But I am not conscious that I was ever unfair to his poetry: and if I have noted what I thought its faults, in too arrogant and derisive a spirit, I think I have never failed to give hearty and cordial praise to its beauties-and generally dwelt much more largely on the latter than the former. Few things, at all events, would now grieve me more, than to think I might give pain to his many friends and admirers, by reprinting, so soon after his death, any thing which might appear derogatory either to his character or his genius; and therefore, though I cannot say that I have substantially changed any of the opinions I have formerly expressed as to his writings, I only insert in this publication my review of his last considerable poem; which may be taken as conveying my matured opinion of his merits-and will be felt, I trust, to have done no scanty or unwilling justice to his great and peculiar powers."—Vol. iii., p. 133.

"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 own 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 these vivacités of expression: And indeed, so strong has been my feeling in this way, that considering how much I have always loved many of the attributes of his genius, and how entirely I respect his character, it did at first occur to me whether it was quite fitting that, in my old age and his, I should include in this publication any of those critiques which may have formerly given pain or offence to him or his admirers. But, when I reflected that the mischief, if there really ever was any, was long ago done, and that I still retain, in substance, the opinions which I should now like to have seen more gently expressed, I felt that to omit all notice of them on the present occasion, might be held to import a retractation which I am as far as possible from intending; or even be represented as a very shabby way of backing out of sentiments which should either be manfully persisted in, or openly renounced, and abandoned as untenable.

“I finally resolved, therefore, to reprint my review of 'The Excursion;' which contains a pretty, full view of my griefs and charges against Mr. Wordsworth; set forth, too, I believe, in a more temperate strain than most of my other inculpations-and of which I think I may now venture to say farther, that if the faults are unsparingly noted, the beauties are not penuriously or grudgingly allowed; but commended to the admiration of the reader with at least as much heartiness and good-will.”—Vol. ii., p. 233.

The preface is conceived in the same gentle spirit. The episode concerning Sir Walter Scott, with which it concludes, is not without interest; but we would certainly have preferred its omission. Pace tanti nominis, it was hardly worth Jeffrey's while to have taken such anxious notice of the observation, even though it came from Scott.

It is explained in the preface, that these volumes do not contain a third of the author's contributions to the "Review," independently of the constant labour of revising, altering, and editing those of his coadjutors. When it is recollected that the party on whom this task was thrown, was, during the entire period, a barrister in great practice, and that he arrived ultimately at the highest honours, both officially and professionally, which a Scottish advocate can hold, some idea may be formed of the wonderful versatility of powers and rapidity of execution which he must have had at his command. Any one who has had the duty of an editor imposed on him, will understand how greatly the extensive occupations of the reviewer enhance the merits of his literary labours. For a dull, ill-tempered man, fancy could not imagine a more refined and perfect torment than the life of an editor. Tied to a stake-a mark for every disappointed friend or foe to fling at-daily devoured by the petulance of authorsthe jealousies and intolerable delays of contributors, and the grumblings of publishers-and doomed to a task never endingstill beginning-more hopeless and interminable than the labours of the fabled sisters, "speeding to-day, to be put back to-morrow" -an editor might well require leisure the most uninterrupted, and patience almost patriarchal, if he hoped to enjoy his life, or to retain it long. Indeed we are satisfied, that not all the intellectual qualities which he brought to the service, could have enabled Lord Jeffrey triumphantly to accomplish both his literary and professional distinctions, but for a natural sweetness and suavity of temper, that left his mind serene and unruffled for all his tasks, and enabled him to throw off with his books, equally the harassments of the editor, and the anxieties of the law.

Written amid such avocations, the selections contained in these volumes are presented to the public in a separate shape. The articles are arranged, not chronologically, but under distinct

classes of general literature, history, poetry, politics, and miscellaneous subjects.

This arrangement has certainly the advantage of presenting, in a continuous and unbroken view, the author's sentiments on the varied subjects embraced in the collection. On the other hand, it exposes the articles themselves, as the author seems to be aware, to the most trying test to which they could be subjected. As despatches sent out from time to time-orders in Council, so to speak, promulgated as occasion or delinquency required-it might frequently happen that the same doctrines might be often enforced, and the same reprimands repeated with advantage. But when thus collected, after the emergencies have passed away, and read continuously as contemporaneous essays, it was inevitable that they should present the recurrence of analogous discussions to a much greater degree than would be either natural or agreeable in a connected work; and the classification adopted, of course increases the effect of these repetitions.

This defect is most prominent in those treatises, which are otherwise the most valuable; as the author most frequently reverts to those topics on which he had thought most deeply, and which he considered most important. In fact, it is a defect quite inseparable from the style of composition. We do not say, as Fox did of reported speeches, that if these treatises make a good book, they must have been bad reviews; but nothing can be clearer, than that in following out a bold and extensive system of criticism, intended and adapted to correct the corrupted taste of the age, much of their weight and influence depended on the frequency with which the blow was repeated. Articles which stand side by side in these volumes, were separated by the distance of years; and during the interval, the changes in public feeling, or the revolutions of literature, gave zest and propriety to reflections, which, as they are here placed, seem merely echoes or reproductions of the thoughts of a few pages before.

Perhaps there is another leading feature of these Essays, which is calculated to diminish their popularity as a connected work; we mean the didactic or metaphysical cast which distinguish the most elaborate of their number. The prevalent taste for studies of that nature which reigned in Scotland at their date, naturally led the pupils of Reid and Stewart to exercise on literature and politics, the habits of inquiry which they had learned in those celebrated schools. Fashion has, in some degree, antiquated the science; and at the present day, the mysticism of metaphysics is more in favour than its pure inductions. But while it cannot be denied, that this character of the work before us may detract a little from its qualifications as a competitor for popular favour, it is far from diminishing its intrinsic