same thing to say that it
already belongs in some degree to the neighbouring or overlapping domain
of fiction.

There is, in fact, already a conventional history of the early
'Edinburgh Review,' repeated without hesitation in all literary
histories and assumed in a thousand allusions, which becomes a little
incredible when we take down the dusty old volumes, where dingy calf has
replaced the original splendours of the blue and yellow, and which have
inevitably lost much of their savour during more than half a century's
repose. The story of the original publication has been given by the
chief founders. Edinburgh, at the beginning of the century, was one of
those provincial centres of intellectual activity which have an
increasing difficulty in maintaining themselves against metropolitan
attractions. In the last half of the eighteenth century, such
philosophical activity as existed in the country seemed to have taken
refuge in the northern half of the island. A set of brilliant young men,
living in a society still proud of the reputation of Hume, Adam Smith,
Reid, Robertson, Dugald Stewart, and other northern luminaries, might
naturally be susceptible to the stimulus of literary ambition. In
politics the most rampant Conservatism, rendered bitter by the recent
experience of the French Revolution, exercised a sway in Scotland more
undisputed and vigorous than it is now easy to understand. The younger
men who inclined to Liberalism were naturally prepared to welcome an
organ for the expression of their views. Accordingly a knot of clever
lads (Smith was 31, Jeffrey 29, Brown 24, Horner 24, and Brougham 23)
met in the third (not, as Smith afterwards said, the 'eighth or ninth')
story of a house in Edinburgh and started the journal by acclamation.
The first number appeared in October 1802, and produced, we are told, an
'electrical' effect. Its old humdrum rivals collapsed before it. Its
science, its philosophy, its literature were equally admired. Its
politics excited the wrath and dread of Tories and the exultant delight
of Whigs. It was, says Cockburn, a 'pillar of fire,' a far-seen beacon,
suddenly lighted in a dark place. Its able advocacy of political
principles was as striking as its judicial air of criticism,
unprecedented in periodical literature. To appreciate its influence, we
must remember, says Sydney Smith, that in those days a number of
reforms, now familiar to us all, were still regarded as startling
innovatio