JET. 24.] THE ( EDINBURGH REVIEW/ 259 



wrote seventy -five articles; Smith, twenty- three; 

 Homer, fourteen; and I, eighty. 



The great success of this publication, three editions 

 being immediately exhausted, and a large permanent 

 circulation established, and the influence of the work 

 in after-times, are matters well known and universally 

 felt. The first effect of our Review, absolutely inde- 

 pendent of the trade and of any party in the country, 

 local or general, was to raise the character and to 

 increase the influence of periodical criticism. The 

 purpose to which this influence was devoted was the 

 promotion of sound and liberal opinions upon all 

 questions in Church and State, leaving the doctrines 

 of religion untouched, and assuming the duty of sub- 

 mission to the constitution as fixed and permanent, 

 the frame of our government only being subject to 

 decorous and temperate comment or discussion. The 

 severity of the criticism on books and their authors 

 was much, and often justly, complained of; but no 

 one could accuse it of personal malice, or any sinister 

 motives. The rule was inflexibly maintained, never 

 to suffer the insertion of any attack by a writer who 

 was known, or even justly suspected, to have a per- 

 sonal difference with the author, or other sinister 

 motive ; and if any person had been found to have 

 kept concealed such cause of bias upon his critical 

 judgment, no contribution would ever afterwards 

 have been received from that person. So, if any one 

 had practised the deception of concealing the real 

 authorship, he was placed under the ban of prohibi- 



