82 REFORM AND DEMOCRACY 



the Edinburgh Review, was less harsh in judg 

 ment on things social and political, but, be 

 cause of its patronizing irony, not less offensive 

 to the Americans. In 1820 Sydney Smith pub 

 lished in the Edinburgh Review his famous series 

 of questions concerning the culture of Jonathan 

 as compared with that of John: &quot;In the four 

 quarters of the globe, who reads an American 

 book? or goes to an American play? or looks at 

 an American picture or statue? . . . Finally, 

 under which of the old tyrannical governments 

 of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his 

 fellow creatures may buy and sell and torture?&quot; 

 The North American Review and other pub 

 lications took up the cudgels for the Americans 

 with spirit, and a wordy warfare raged through 

 many years. By the judicious the controversy 

 was deprecated; for it obviously stirred up ill 

 feeling and misunderstandings on both sides 

 of the ocean. The great British reviews were 

 regularly reprinted in the United States, and 

 though their circulation was small and confined 

 chiefly to the towns of the seaboard, all criti 

 cism of the Americans was diligently reproduced 

 in the local periodicals, and the exasperation 

 was spread to the remotest regions of the Union. 

 In Great Britain the influence of the quarterlies 



