an enterprise as a winter campaign into the interior of Russia; but the Review did not enter a caveat against such an excursion; and, therefore, it was held as prophesying in the face of this as well as of all the other chances. I have noticed those circumstances with a view of showing, not only that the absolute literary merits of the Edinburgh Review were not the sole cause of its popularity, but that even though they had, the merit does not in whole, or even in the greater part, belong to the Athens. The Athens never could, of her own will, ability, and patronage, support a single literary man; and it could not well be expected that she could, for any length of time, support a literary work. The first of these positions may be established by a reference to the history of the whole literary men of the Athens, as well as to the state which they are in at the present time; and the second, besides being a necessary and legitimate deduction from the first, may be confirmed by an appeal to the facts. Allan Ramsay was the first Athenian writer, after the hiatus of which I have spoken; and Allan addressed himself as much to the taste and foibles of the Athens as it was possible for one of so limited education and limited powers to do. Allan made a comfortable living; but he did not make that as a poet; he did it, first, as a hairdresser, and then as a bookseller, and as the keeper of a circulating library, which, being the first of the kind in the Athens, proved a most fortunate speculation. The works of Colin Maclaurin, and some of the other illustrious men, of which the Athens never was worthy, were put into circulation as much in the way of charity to their families, as from any love for those sciences and arts of which they were the ornaments. Robert Ferguson was pre-eminently the poet of the Athens. Born within her walls, he devoted his muse to the chanting of her praises; and how did she reward her tuneful son? Why, she blamed him because he wrote verses rather than law papers; she liked his songs, and she sung them; but she would give him no reward for his labour; and poor Ferguson, neglected, heart-broken, and starved, ended his days in a mad-house; and his ungrateful step-dame, the Athens,--that city, which, if one would be silly enough to believe her, is the model, the encourager, and the rewarder, of all taste, would not do for him, what England, even in her worst and most worthless times, did for the poets whom she starved,--she would not give him a monument,--no, not so much as an unhewn stone, to let it be known that one grave in the Canon-gate church-yard contained holier dust than that of a baron bailie.