Two years later (1807), differences having arisen between the proprietors and the editor of the _Edinburgh Review_, it was in contemplation to alter the management, and Longman wrote requesting Southey to review him two or three articles “in his best manner.” Southey did not keep firkins of criticism of first and second brand, but he was not unwilling to receive ten guineas a sheet instead of seven pounds. When, however, six months later, Scott urged his friend to contribute, Judge Jeffrey still sat on the bench of the _Edinburgh Review_, hanging, drawing, and quartering luckless poets with undiminished vivacity. It was of no use for Scott to assure Southey that the homunculus, notwithstanding his flippant attacks on _Madoc_ and _Thalaba_, had the most sincere respect for their author and his talents. Setting all personal feelings aside, an irreconcilable difference, Southey declared, between Jeffrey and himself upon every great principle of taste, morality, and policy, occasioned a difficulty which could not be removed. Within less than twelve months Scott, alienated by the deepening Whiggery of the _Review_, and by more personal causes, had ceased to contribute, and opposite his name in the list of subscribers Constable had written, with indignant notes of exclamation, “_Stopt!!!_” John Murray, the young bookseller in Fleet Street, had been to Ashestiel; in “dern privacie” a bold complot was laid; why should the Edinburgh clique carry it before them? The spirit of England was still sound, and would respond to loyalty, patriotism, the good traditions of Church and State, the temper of gentlemen, courage, scholarship; Gifford, of the Anti-Jacobin, had surely a sturdier arm than Jeffrey; George Ellis would remember his swashing-blow; there were the Roses, and Matthias, and Heber; a rival _Review_ should see the light, and that speedily; “a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation—an excellent plot, very good friends.”