hink to nine hours). 'He was in favor of short days of work, and having
labored eighteen hours per diem for nearly twenty years, he was now
going to "strike" for fifteen during the rest of his life.' But I doubt
the success of Mr. Greeley's 'strike,' and apprehend that his early
application has continued with but little abatement.

Before leaving Edinburgh for the New World, it was my good fortune to
become acquainted with Jeffrey. He was at this time not so much
distinguished as the reviewer, as he was by his new title of Lord
Jeffrey, Judge of Court Session, with a salary of L3000 per annum. Lord
Jeffrey was a small man, of light but elegant make, and peculiarly
symmetrical. His head was quite small, but his countenance was of an
imposing character; and his eye, brilliant but not fierce, often melted
into a pensive tenderness. Such was Jeffrey's appearance on the bench in
his latter days. I should have little judged from it that he was the
relentless critic, whoso withering sarcasm was felt from the garrets of
Grub Street to the highest walk of science or university life. My
intimacy with Ballantyne, who published the _Edinburgh Review_, often
brought the different MSS. before me, and I could contrast the exquisite
neatness of Wardlaw with the slanting school-boy hand of Jeffrey. The
tone and style of review literature have changed greatly since its
inception, when each quarterly gloried in the character of a literary
ogre, and dead men's bones lay round its doors, as erst about the castle
of Giant Despair. Authors are not now thrown to the wild beasts for the
entertainment of the multitude, as in former days; and had John Keats,
or even poor Henry Kirke White, written and published fifty years later,
they would never have perished by the critic's pen. Yet the same
malignant assault which crushed their tender muse was the only thing
which could amuse the latent powers of a far greater genius; and had not
Byron been as cruelly attacked by the _Edinburgh_, he would never have
given 'Childe Harold' to the world. The authorship of that most unjust
and malignant _critique_, which, however brief, was sufficient to make
the author of 'the Hours of Idleness,' foe the time, contemptible, was
long a secret; but it is now admitted that it was by Jeffrey. Little did
the murderous critic think that his challenge would bring out an
adversary who would soon unhorse him, and then dash victoriously over
the field under the especial pat