enabled a journal of such recent establishment, not only to take the lead, and give the tone to most of its predecessors, but in a variety of instances utterly to supersede their authority, and reduce whole cartloads of criticism to a melancholy inactivity in the publisher's warehouse. For this purpose, it is necessary to take a view of the state of the popular reviews previous to 1802.

The imperfections of these journals may be traced to one great cause. Each of the leading English reviews, though originally established by men of letters, had gradually fallen under the dominion of the publishing bookseller. We have no wish to join in the common cry against this class of tradesmen, which is chiefly swelled by the deep-mouthed discontents of neglected authors. On the contrary, we feel great sympathy for their situation, and are humbly of opinion, that not only the authors, but even the age, are very ready to transfer the depression of neglected genius, and other consequences of their own egotism or stupidity, to the broad shoulders of the gentlemen in the Row. A bookseller, to live by his trade, must buy so as to sell with profit. If the demand for any work, be it ever so in genious, is insufficient to pay for print and paper, is it reasonable to expect that the tradesman can pay for the copy-right? The shameful fact, that the Paradise Lost was bought for ten pounds, throws infamy indeed upon the taste of the age, but not on the conduct of the purchaser, who did not sell an edition in eight years, and was probably a loser by the bar gain. In short, a bookseller, even supposing him a judge of literature, has it not in his power with common prudence to make the author of a new work an offer which may be

fully adequate even to his own ideas of its value; for the risk arising from the caprice of the public must be covered by such an insurance as makes no small deduction from the price of an author's labour. But this deduction becomes much greater, and almost intolerable, if, which is far more commonly the case, the bookseller is obliged to provide some guarantee against the consequence, not only of the public fickleness, but of his own ignorance. Few of these gentlemen are, and, fortunately for the state of their warehouses, few even affect to be, judges of literary merit. They buy copy-rights as a blind man might purchase a lot of horses, at such an average price, that the success of one book may compensate the loss upon twenty. In this point of view, the accompts between the worshipful Company of Stationers, and the no less worshipful Society of Authors, come, upon a general balance of the ledger, nearly to an equality, although, no doubt, the personal accompts with some individuals may stand greatly in favour of the bibliopolists. We are, therefore, fully sensible how much this trade is a lottery, and it is without the last wish of censuring those engaged in it, that we point out the divers inconveniences attending those reviews which are under mercantile management.

A periodical publication has been often said to resemble a mail-coach. It must set out at a particular day and hour, it must travel the road whether full or empty, and whether it conveys bullion to the bank of England, or a sample of cheese to a grocer in Thames street. In such a case, the prudent owner of the vehicle purveys such horses as are fittest for this regular, fatiguing, and, in some points

of view, derogating duty. He buys no "fine framped steeds," that are fitted for a chariot or curricle, nor yet brutes that, by their clumsy make and bulk of bone, are qualified only to tug in a drayman's cart; but he labours to secure, of

"Spare-fed prancers many a raw-boned pair;"

such as have, perhaps, seen their best days, and acquired discretion to submit to their necessary task, while they retain vigour and animation sufficient to tug through it speedily and hardily. The bare-worn common of literature has always afforded but too numerous a supply of authors who hold a similar description; and who, by misfortune or improvidence, or merely from having been unable to force themselves forward to public notice, are compelled to subject talents worthy of better employment, to whatever task a bookseller shall be pleased to dictate. In London particularly, where the pursuit of letters is a distinct profession, whose students cannot easily provide for themselves in the more ordinary walks of life, there are, and must be, many men of learning, of mental vigour, even of genius, whose circumstances do not entitle them to despise the regular and fixed emolument which may be procured by stated employ. ment in an established review. A mongst these, then, the bookseller might easily select such as could at once labour at the most reasonable rate, and to the best effect; while he may be supposed also to have possessed the authority necessary to direct their industry into those channels which had obliquely the effect of advancing his own trade. It was, accordingly, a thing so well known, as to be observed even by the dullest, that from the publisher's name in the

imprint of a new book, readers were enabled to calculate, with absolute certainty, the nature of the treatment it would receive in the corresponding reviews. From this it naturally followed, that the more heavy, or, to speak technically, the more dull of sale a work happened to be, the more this tender assistance was necessary on the part of the reviewers, and the more eagerly it was called for by the proprietors of both works. A man of genius, and many have been engaged in such labour, might sometimes wince a little under the burden which was thus imposed upon him, since to produce a panegyric without merit is as difficult as to make bricks without straw. But the strongest minds are bent to circumstances,— even Johnson submitted to Cave the bookseller, a sheaf of his powerful and varied effusions, with the humiliating acknowledgement, emptoris sit eligere; and it may be readily supposed, that few, who have resembled him in poverty and in talents, have been more nice and fastidious than Johnson. It thus happened in the general case, that the reviewer, like a fee'd barrister, sacrificed his own feelings and judgement to the interest of the bookseller his employer; and it followed, almost of course, that, without bending the whole force of his mind to so ungracious and unsatisfactory labour, he was satisfied if he discharged it in a workman-like manner, and, without aiming at excellence, was contented if he could not be justly charged with ignorance of his subject, or negligence in the mode of treating it. In this manner, a dull and stupifying mediocrity began to be the most distinguishing feature of the English reviews, even of such as were written by men of acknowledged learning and admitted talents. Articles doubtless occa

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 supposed 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 ac companied 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 civility towards others, although they had not the same powerful title to protection. A certain deference was 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 guarded retenue both in the strictures hazarded 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 objected by the reader was, that the critic was

Content to dwell in decencies for ever.

This rule was not, indeed, without exceptions; the mind of a liberal and public-spirited critic sometimes reversed the sentence of his employer, and, unlike the prophet of Midian, anathematized the works on which he was summoned to bestow benedictions. Neither was it meet that the critical rod should be hung up in mere shew, lest in time, as it is learnedly argued by the Duke of Vienna, it should become "more mocked than feared." The terrors of the office were, therefore, in some measure maintained by the severity exercised upon the trumpery novels and still-born poe. try which filled the monthly catalogue, whose unknown, and perhaps starving authors, fared like the parish-boys at a charity school, who are flogged not only for their own errors, but to 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 even in birth; a powerful literary patron, or perhaps the reviewer himself, had some private pique to indulge, and 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 publica 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 habitu al civility and professional deference of the tradesman seemed to qualify the labours of those who wrote under his direction; and the critics 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 quiet ness 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 review, ers, and a word or two of snug, quiet, honied assent from a few private friends. The public indeed began to murmur that

Lost was the critic's sense, nor could be

found

While one dull formal unison went round, But the venerable and well-wigged

VOL. II. PART II.

authors of sermons and essays, and mawkish poems and stupid parish histories, bore each triumphantly his ponderous load into the mart of lite rature, 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 uns wieldy sloth for a quarter of a century. 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 talents and pursuits, conceived a project (designed, we believe, to be temporary,) to rescue this province of literature from the state of degradation 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 impar tial review of such works as appeared to merit public attention. The scheme of publication, although deeply 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 hono. rarium 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 fortunate 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 remained 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 critics claimed a merit and consequence beyond the ordinary class of reviewers; that their band, like the confederates of Gadshill, were "no footland-rakers, no long-staff sixpenny strikers, but nobility and tranquillity, burgomasters and great oneyers." In short, this subordinate circumstance (for it must be supposed that we hold it highly subordinate to the principal causes of success) gave the undertaking at its outset an appearance of seriousness, for which, considering the youth of those upon whom the execution was to rest, they might otherwise hardly have gained the necessary credit.

In another circumstance, the Edinburgh 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 public 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 of the same arrangement, it was announcedto the public, that it was the object of this new publication to be distinguished rather by the selection than for the number of its articles; that the editors did not assume any merit for