For it is to be said of Jeffrey, that when he opposed himself to enthusiasm, he did so in the spirit of an enthusiast; and that this had a tendency to correct such critical mistakes as he may occasionally have committed. And as of him, so of his Review. In professing to go deeply into the _principles_ on which its judgments were to be rested, as well as to take large and original views of all the important questions to which those works might relate,—it substantially succeeded, as Jeffrey presumed to think it had done, in familiarising the public mind with higher speculations, and sounder and larger views of the great objects of human pursuit; as well as in permanently raising the standard, and increasing the influence, of all such occasional writings far beyond the limits of Great Britain. Nor let it be forgotten that the system on which Jeffrey established relations between his writers and publishers has been of the highest value as a precedent in such matters, and has protected the independence and dignity of a later race of reviewers. He would never receive an unpaid-for contribution. He declined to make it the interest of the proprietors to prefer a certain class of contributors. The payment was ten guineas a sheet at first, and rose gradually to double that sum, with increase on special occasions; and even when rank or other circumstances made remuneration a matter of perfect indifference, Jeffrey insisted that it should nevertheless be received. The Czar Peter, when working in the trenches, he was wont to say, received pay as a common soldier. Another principle which he rigidly carried out, was that of a thorough independence of publishing interests. The Edinburgh Review was never made in any manner tributary to particular bookselling schemes. It assailed or supported with equal vehemence or heartiness the productions of Albemarle-street and Paternoster-row. ‘I never asked such a thing of him but once,’ said the late Mr. Constable, describing an attempt to obtain a favourable notice from his obdurate Editor, ‘and I assure you the result was no encouragement to repeat such petitions.’ The book was Scott’s edition of Swift; and the result one of the bitterest attacks on the popularity of Swift, in one of Jeffrey’s most masterly criticisms.