eed immediately or not at all, and is hence almost certain to
profess and inculcate the opinions already held by the public to which
it addresses itself, instead of attempting to rectify or improve those
opinions. He next, to characterize the position of the _Edinburgh
Review_ as a political organ, entered into a complete analysis, from the
Radical point of view, of the British Constitution. He held up to notice
its thoroughly aristocratic character: the nomination of a majority of
the House of Commons by a few hundred families; the entire
identification of the more independent portion, the county members, with
the great landholders; the different classes whom this narrow oligarchy
was induced, for convenience, to admit to a share of power; and finally,
what he called its two props, the Church, and the legal profession. He
pointed out the natural tendency of an aristocratic body of this
composition, to group itself into two parties, one of them in possession
of the executive, the other endeavouring to supplant the former and
become the predominant section by the aid of public opinion, without any
essential sacrifice of the aristocratical predominance. He described the
course likely to be pursued, and the political ground occupied, by an
aristocratic party in opposition, coquetting with popular principles for
the sake of popular support. He showed how this idea was realized in the
conduct of the Whig party, and of the _Edinburgh Review_ as its chief
literary organ. He described, as their main characteristic, what he
termed "seesaw"; writing alternately on both sides of the question which
touched the power or interest of the governing classes; sometimes in
different articles, sometimes in different parts of the same article:
and illustrated his position by copious specimens. So formidable an
attack on the Whig party and policy had never before been made; nor had
so great a blow ever been struck, in this country, for Radicalism; nor
was there, I believe, any living person capable of writing that article
except my father.[2]

In the meantime the nascent _Review_ had formed a junction with another
project, of a purely literary periodical, to be edited by Mr. Henry
Southern, afterwards a diplomatist, then a literary man by profession.
The two editors agreed to unite their corps, and divide the editorship,
Bowring taking the political, Southern the literary department.
Southern's Review was to have been published by Longman, an