The _Edinburgh Review_ was first published in 1802. The plan was suggested by Sydney Smith, at a meeting of _literati_, in the fourth or fifth flat or story, in Buccleugh-place, Edinburgh, then the elevated lodging of Jeffrey. The motto humorously proposed for the new review by its projector was, "_Tenui musam meditamur avena,_"--_i.e._, "We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal;" but this being too nearly the truth to be publicly acknowledged, the more grave dictum of "_Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur_" was adopted from _Publius Syrus_, of whom, Sydney Smith affirms, "None of us, I am sure, ever read a single line!" Lord Byron, in his fifth edition of _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, refers to the reviewers as an "oat-fed phalanx." * * * * * CLEVER STATESMEN. However great talents may command the admiration of the world, they do not generally best fit a man for the discharge of social duties. Swift remarks that "Men of great parts are often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination. This I once said to my Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe, that the clerk in his office used a sort of ivory knife, with a blunt edge, to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only by requiring a steady hand; whereas, if he should make one of a sharp penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease, and disfigure the paper." * * * * * THE FIRST MAGAZINE. The _Gentleman's Magazine_ unaccountably passes for the earliest periodical of that description; while, in fact, it was preceded nearly forty years by the _Gentleman's Journal_ of Motteux, a work much more closely resembling our modern magazines, and from which Sylvanus Urban borrowed part of his title, and part of his motto; while on the first page of the first number of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ itself, it is stated to contain "more than any book of the _kind_ and price." * * * * * MRS. TRIMMER. This ingenious woman was the daughter of Joshua and Sarah Kirby, and was born at Ipswich, January 6, 1741. Kirby taught George the Third, when Prince of Wales, perspective and architecture. He was also President of the Society of Artists of Great Britain, out of which grew the Royal Academy. It was the last desire of Gainsborough to be buried beside his old friend Kirby, and their tombs adjoin each other in the churchyard at Kew.