receding from its place of pride.”[10] Herein he only redeems himself from his early condemnation of Wordsworth and Shelley and Southey, to damn himself irrevocably in our eyes again with his amazing lack of foresight! No! Jeffrey was no prophet. He had not the range of vision of the true critic, and “where there is no vision the people perish”. This was indeed an epitaph written a century ago for a grave not even yet in view. It must not be hastily concluded from this, however, that all the criticism in the _Edinburgh Review_ was poor stuff. A vast amount of it was splendid work; the best output of the best minds of the time; and it was the one and only authentic and readable journal for years. This is corroborated by a statement of Sir Walter Scott’s in a letter to George Ellis: “No genteel family can pretend to be without the _Edinburgh Review_; because, independent of its politics, it gives the only valuable literary criticisms that can be met with.”[11] [10] Elton: _A Survey of English Literature, 1780-1830_, V. i, p. 390 [11] _Cambridge History of English Literature_, V. xii, p. 164 But it was high time for a new periodical of opposite politics and fresh outlook; and in 1809 Gifford was established as editor of _The Quarterly Review_. Its four pillars were politics, literature, scholarship, and science; but its main purpose was to oppose the _Edinburgh_ and create an intellectual nucleus for the rallying of the Tories. In October 1808 after plans were well on foot, Scott wrote to Gifford, prospective editor: “The real reason for instituting the new publication is the disgusting and deleterious doctrines with which the most popular of our Reviews disgraces its pages.”[12] This of course was a reference to the political policies of the _Edinburgh_, yet the tone of the _Quarterly_ was not to be one of political opposition only. Scott was eager for the success of the first number and wrote nearly a third of it himself. Later he busied himself to enlist the services of Southey and Rogers and Moore and Kirkpatrick Sharpe as contributors. Southey wrote altogether about one hundred articles on subjects varying from Lord Nelson to the Poor Laws. Scott himself contributed about thirty with his usual versatility of subject matter, all the way from fly fishing to Pepys’ Diary. In the issue for January 1817 he even reviewed “Tales of my Landlord” and “ventured to attribute them to the author of Waverley and Guy Mannering.”! John Wilson Croker, satirist, was another prominent contributor, narrow of mind and heart, intolerant of soul. He was an accurate and able “argu-fier” however, and one of the ruling genii in the politics of the _Quarterly_. In forty-five years he contributed something like two hundred and fifty-eight articles. Sir John Barrow, traveller and South African statesman, contributed much and copiously, multitudinous reviews and voyages, all in his unvarying “solid food” style and tone.