Chapter IV

The story of the foundation of the _Edinburgh Review_ has been told so often as hardly to bear repeating. Enough of the facts, however, must be gone over again to make clear the change that the new periodical wrought in reviewing and in the relations between critics and the public.

The classical account of the origin of the _Review_ is Sydney Smith’s and is to be found in the Preface to his collected _Works_; it has been reproduced in Lord Cockburn’s _Life of Jeffrey_[5] and in the _Life and Times of Lord Brougham_.[6] With his usual crabbedness Brougham disputes a few minor details, but he leaves the substantial accuracy of “Sydney’s” story unimpeached.

The idea of the new _Review_ was Sydney Smith’s. The most important conspirators were Sydney, Jeffrey, Francis Horner, and Brougham. The plot was discussed and matured in Jeffrey’s house in Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh. Sydney Smith’s famous proposal of a motto, _Tenui musam meditamur avena_, “We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal,” was rejected; the “sage Horner’s” suggestion was adopted,--a line from Publius Syrus, _Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur_, which foretold the righteous severity of tone that was to characterize the _Review_. The first number was to have appeared in June, 1802, but, owing to dilatory contributors and Jeffrey’s faintheartedness, was seriously delayed; it finally appeared in October, 1802, under the supervision of Sydney Smith. After the publication of the first number Jeffrey was formally appointed editor, and, with some hesitation, accepted the post.

The success of the _Review_ was from the start beyond all expectation. “The effect,” says Lord Cockburn, “was electrical. And instead of expiring, as many wished, in their first effort, the force of the shock was increased on each subsequent discharge. It is impossible for those who did not live at the time, and in the heart of the scene, to feel, or almost to understand the impression made by the new luminary, or the anxieties with which its motions were observed.” Lord Brougham’s account of the matter is no less emphatic. “The success was far beyond any of our expectations. It was so great that Jeffrey was utterly dumbfounded, for he had predicted for our journal the fate of the original _Edinburgh Review_, which, born in 1755, died in 1756, having produced only two numbers! The truth is, the most sanguine among us, even Smith himself, could not have foreseen the greatness of the first triumph, any more than we could have imagined the long and successful career the _Review_ was afterwards to run, or the vast reforms and improvements in all our institutions, social as well as political, it was destined to effect.”

The subscription list of the _Review_ grew within six years from 1750 to 9000; and by 1813 it numbered more than 12,000. The importance of these figures will be better understood when the reader recollects that in 1816 the London _Times_ sold only 8000 copies daily. Moreover, it should be remembered that one copy of a magazine went much further then than it goes now, and did service in more than a single household. In 1809 Jeffrey boasted that the _Review_ was read by 50,000 thinking people within a month after it was printed; doubtless this was a perfectly sound estimate.

Various causes have been suggested as contributing to the instant and phenomenal success of the _Review_,--the puzzling anonymity of its articles, its magisterial tone, the audacity of its attacks, what Horner calls its “scurrility,” the novelty of its Scotch origin. All these causes doubtless had their influence. More important still, however, were the wit, the knowledge, and the originality of the brilliant contributors that Jeffrey rallied round him. Writing to his brother in July, 1803, Jeffrey thus describes his fellow-workers: “I do not think you know any of my associates. There is the sage Horner, however, whom you have seen, and who has gone to the English bar with the resolution of being Lord Chancellor; Brougham, a great mathematician, who has just published a book upon the Colonial Policy of Europe, which all you Americans should read; Rev. Sydney Smith and P. Elmsley, two Oxonian priests, full of jokes and erudition; my excellent little Sanscrit Hamilton, who is also in the hands of Bonaparte at Fontainebleau; Thomas Thomson and John Murray, two ingenious advocates; and some dozen of occasional contributors, among whom the most illustrious, I think, are young Watt of Birmingham and Davy of the Royal Institution.”[7] Many of these names are now forgotten, but those of Sydney Smith, Brougham, Horner, and Davy speak for themselves and are guarantees of brilliancy of style, originality of treatment, and vigorous thought.

The editor and the contributors, then, must receive their full share of credit for the success of the new _Review_; but their ability alone can hardly account for a success that converted the “blue and yellow” into a national institution. To explain a success so permanent and far-reaching, we must look beyond editor and contributors and consider the relation of the _Review_ to its social environment. The _Edinburgh Review_ came into being in answer to a popular need; it developed a new literary form to meet this need; and its business arrangements were such as enabled the cleverest and most suggestive writers to adapt their work to the requirements of the reading public more readily and more effectively than ever before. The meaning of these assertions will grow clearer as we consider the difference between the _Edinburgh Review_ and earlier English Reviews.