JET. 24.] THE 'EDINBURGH REVIEW/ 251 



cient and zealous member of the party. We regret 

 your loss to a degree that I shall not express to you, 

 though we do not altogether despair of receiving a 

 few short critiques on such foreign publications as 

 you happen at any rate to read with care. I par- 

 ticularly wish we had from you a review of Ware's 

 strange paper on the blind boy restored to sight. 

 Brougham has selected from the same volume of the 

 'Philosophical Transactions/ Herschel's discovery of 

 the sympathy between the spots of the sun and the 

 prices of wheat in Eeading market. 



-Yours ever, ERA. HORNER." 



These preliminary difficulties being thus explained 

 and disposed of, I now proceed to give some account 

 of the establishment of the Review, of its early sup- 

 porters, and their contributions. 



I can never forget Buccleuch Place, for it was there 

 one stormy night, in March 1802, that Sydney Smith 

 first announced to me his idea of establishing a critical 

 periodical or review of works of literature and science. 

 I believe he had already mentioned this to Jeffrey and 

 Horner; but on that night the project was for the first 

 time seriously discussed by Smith, Jeffrey, and me. 

 I at first entered warmly into Smith's scheme. Jeffrey, 

 by nature always rather timid, was full of doubts and 

 fears. It required all Smith's overpowering vivacity 

 to argue and laugh Jeffrey out of his difficulties. 

 There would, he said, be no lack of contributors. 



