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_Quarterly_ nothing is regarded but the political creed or external circumstances of a writer: in the _Edinburgh_ nothing is ever adverted to but his literary merits. Or if there is a bias of any kind, it arises from an affectation of magnanimity and candour in giving heaped measure to those on the aristocratic side in politics, and in being critically severe on others. Thus Sir Walter Scott is lauded to the skies for his romantic powers, without any allusion to his political demerits (as if this would be compromising the dignity of genius and of criticism by the introduction of party-spirit)--while Lord Byron is called to a grave moral reckoning. There is, however, little of the cant of morality in the _Edinburgh Review_--and it is quite free from that of religion. It keeps to its province, which is that of criticism--or to the discussion of debateable topics, and acquits itself in both with force and spirit. This is the natural consequence of the composition of the two Reviews. The one appeals with confidence to its own intellectual resources, to the variety of its topics, to its very character and existence as a literary journal, which depend on its setting up no pretensions but those which it can make good by the talent and ingenuity it can bring to bear upon them--it therefore meets every question, whether of a lighter or a graver cast, on its own grounds; the other _blinks_ every question, for it has no confidence but in _the powers that be_--shuts itself up in the impregnable fastnesses of authority, or makes some paltry, cowardly attack (under cover of anonymous criticism) on individuals, or dispenses its award of merit entirely according to the rank or party of the writer. The faults of the _Edinburgh Review_ arise out of the very consciousness of critical and logical power. In political questions it relies too little on the broad basis of liberty and humanity, enters too much into mere dry formalities, deals too often in _moot-points_, and descends too readily to a sort of special-pleading in defence of _home_ truths and natural feelings: in matters of taste and criticism, its tone is sometimes apt to be supercilious and _cavalier_ from its habitual faculty of analysing defects and beauties according to given principles, from its quickness in deciding, from its facility in illustrating its views. In this latter department it has been guilty of some capital oversights. The chief was in its treatment of the _Lyrica
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