Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

96 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
jects of Queen Anne to look forward to a delight-
ful stimulant of news and criticism along with their
chocolate of a morning on certain happy days ; but
it was only in the nineteenth century that the seri-
ous Keview had begun its being. Everybody knows,
as one of the most romantic episodes of literary his-
tory, the reckless, youthful, light-hearted enterprise
got up among a few clever young men, much desir-
ing both money and fame, but a little fun and ex-
citement above all, and delighted by the idea of
setting up an irresponsible tribunal, and judging
those who by nature had the gift of judging and
condemning them. That a great organ of opinion,
both political and literary, and an important com-
mercial speculation, bringing large practical recom-
pense, should have grown out of the merry meeting
round Jeffrey's dinner - table, would probably have
surprised the originators of the ' Edinburgh Review
as much as it did the world which it took by storm.
But success came so quickly at their call that they
set the fashion, and became a kind of model for other
undertakings opposed to them in every point except
the talent, the youth, and the rashness,— the last
quality particularly taking the mind of the time,
like the dash of one of the famous regiments of the
great, just concluded war, which were the more pop-
ular with the country in proportion to the impetuous
impulse with which they rode down everything before
them.
The Whig Eeview had been in a great measure a
revolt against the unbroken rule of the Tory in litera-
ture and life. But in the revolution which soon after
occurred, and in which the Whigs came to the top and
'