ly neglected, truths. The inquirers as a rule have in their minds
much more what has followed than what has gone before; and they contrast
the early numbers of the _Edinburgh_, not with its jejune forerunners,
but with such matured instances as Macaulay's later essays; the early
numbers of the _Quarterly_, not with the early numbers of the
_Edinburgh_, but with their own successors. Again it is apt to be
forgotten that the characteristics of joint-stock periodical-writing
make as much for general inequality as for occasional goodness. That
which is written by many hands will seldom be as bad, but can never be
as good, as that which is written by one; that which takes its texts and
starting-points from suggested matters of the moment will generally
escape the occasional dulness, but can rarely attain the occasional
excellence, of the meditated and original sprout of an individual brain.

The _Edinburgh_ in its early years was undoubtedly surpassed by itself
later and by its rivals; but it was a far greater advance upon anything
that had gone before it. It had the refreshing audacity, the fly-at-all
character of youth and of intellectual opposition to established ideas;
it was, if even from the first not free from partisanship, at any rate
not chargeable with the dull venal unfairness of the mere bookseller's
hack who attacks Mr. Bungay's books because he is employed by Mr. Bacon,
or _vice versa_. And it had a very remarkable staff, comprising the
learning and trained intelligence of men like Leslie and Playfair, the
unrivalled wit of Sydney Smith, the restless energy and occasional
genius of Brougham, the solid profundity of Horner, the wide reading and
always generous temper of Scott, and other good qualities of others,
besides the talents of its editor Jeffrey himself.

Of these talents there is no doubt, though they were initially somewhat
limited and not seldom misdirected afterwards. Jeffrey's entire energies
were absorbed by the _Review_ between its foundation and his resignation
of the editorship after nearly thirty years' tenure, soon after which,
his party at last coming into power, he was rewarded first by the Lord
Advocateship and then by a seat on the Bench. He made a very fair judge,
and held the post almost till his death in 1850. But his life, for the
purposes of literature, is practically comprised between 1802 and 1829,
during which he was far more than titularly the guiding spirit of the
_Review_. Recen