Edinburgh Review

Edinburgh Review, the great Whig 'buff and blue' quarterly, was started in October 1802 by a knot of young men living in the northern capital, the principal of whom were Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Horner, and Brougham. So much was secrecy felt or believed to be necessary to the success of the undertaking, that, according to the account which Lord Jeffrey gave to Mr Robert Chambers in 1846, 'the dark divans' of the reviewers were held for some time 'in a dingy room of Willison's printing-office in Craig's Close,' to which each repaired alone, and 'by back approaches or different lanes.' Of the first number, 750 copies were printed: the demand exceeded this limited supply; 750 more were thrown off, and successive editions followed. In 1808 the circulation had risen to about 9000, and it is believed to have reached its maximum—from which it has declined—in 1813, when 12,000 or 13,000 copies were printed. The pay of contributors was at first ten guineas a sheet, but shortly after 'the minimum,' says Jeffrey, 'was raised to sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign. Two-thirds of the articles were, however, paid much higher, averaging, I should think, from twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number.' The original publisher was the well-known Constable, whilst Sydney Smith was editor of the first three numbers, his successors having been Jeffrey (1803–29), Macvey Napier (1829–47), Prof. Wm. Empson (1847–52), Sir George Cornewall Lewis (1852–55), and Henry Reeve, C.B. (1855–95). The influence of the Edinburgh Review in developing and strengthening the political convictions of the Whig party cannot be overestimated; but its power was even more visible, certainly more immediately palpable, in literature. Amid the feeble and effete periodicals of the day it burst like a bombshell. The keenness of criticism, the sharpness of wit, the brilliancy of style, the vigour of mind and compre- hensiveness of knowledge exhibited by the writers excited amazement and fear in the world of letters; and although, in the case of Wordsworth, Southey, and other writers of a certain school, unfairness of a flagrant kind was undoubtedly exhibited and persevered in, yet impartial justice was, on the whole, administered. Since Jeffrey's day the most brilliant contributor was Lord Macaulay. The Edinburgh Review is now published in London. See Correspondence of Macvey Napier (1879).