By the end of 1806, Sir Walter Scott had contributed twelve articles in all, among them papers on Ellis’s “Early English Poets”, on Godwin’s “Life of Chaucer”, on Chatterton’s “Works”, on Froissart’s “Chronicles”. After 1806, he withdrew from the _Review_, and politics became the more prominent feature. No account of the _Edinburgh Review_ has ever been given, written or told without including a remark of Jeffrey’s to Sir Walter Scott in a letter about this time. It would never do to omit it here! The remark is this: “The _Review_, in short, has but two legs to stand on. Literature, no doubt, is one of them: but its _Right Leg_ is Politics.”[9] Scott’s ideal was to keep it literary; and his break was on account of its excessive Whiggism. In Jeffrey’s mind, however, _The Edinburgh Review_ was destined to save the nation! He championed the causes of Catholic emancipation, of popular education, prison reform, even some small degree of justice in Ireland, et cetera, all flavored, of course, with the saving grace of Whiggism. [9] Elton: _A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830_. V. i, p. 387 Modern critics more than once have characterized Jeffrey as that “once-noted despot of letters”. But it is not fair only to be told that Jeffrey once said of Wordsworth’s Excursion, “This will never do!” That he considered the end of The Ode to Duty “utterly without meaning”; and that the Ode on Intimations of Immortality was “unintelligible”; that he ignored Shelley, and committed other like unpardonable sins. Those things are true and known and by them is he judged, but they are not _all_ by which he should be judged by any means! There is no doubt in the world but what Jeffrey’s mind was cast in a superior mould. Lockhart himself has already testified there could not be “a more fertile, teeming intellect”. He was seldom, if ever, profound, we admit; but even the most grudging critic must grant him that large, speculative understanding and shrewd scrutiny so prominent in his compositions. Imagination, fancy, wit, sarcasm were his own, but not the warm and saving quality of humor. He was a great man and a brilliant criticiser, though hardly a great critic. The great critic is the true prophet and Jeffrey was no prophet. As late as 1829 in an article on Mrs. Hemans in the _Edinburgh Review_, he wrote: “Since the beginning of our critical career we have seen a vast deal of beautiful poetry pass into oblivion in spite of our feeble efforts to recall or retain it in remembrance. The tuneful quartos of Southey are already little better than lumber:--and the rich melodies of Keats and Shelley,--and the fantastical emphasis of Wordsworth,--and the plebeian pathos of Crabbe,--are melting fast from the field of our vision. The novels of Scott have put out his poetry. Even the splendid strains of Moore are fading into distance and dimness, except where they have been married to immortal music; and the blazing star of Byron himself is