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with no exceptions beyond two or three great names, acquaintance with which has been forced upon them by circumstances entirely out of their controul. The fate of Homer, of Eschylus, of Dante-nay, of Milton-is his.

The spirit of this facetious and rejoicing ignorance has become so habitual to the Scotchmen of the present day, that even they who have thrown off all allegiance to the Edinburgh Review, cannot devest themselves of its influence. There is no work which has done so much to weaken the authority of the Edinburgh Review in such matters as Blackwood's Magazine; and yet I saw an article in that work the other day, in which it seemed to be made matter of congratulatory reflection, that "if Mr. Coleridge should make his appearance suddenly among any company of well educated people on this side the Tweed, he would meet with some little difficulty in making them comprehend who he was." What a fine idea for a Scottish critic to hug himself upon ! How great is the blessing of a contented disposition!

P. M.

LETTER XLI.

TO THE SAME.

THE Whigs are still lords of public opinion in Edinburgh, to an extent of which, before visiting Scotland, I could scarcely have formed any adequate notion. The Tories have all the political power, and have long had it; but from whatever cause, (and I profess myself incapable of assigning any rational one,) their power does not appear to have given them command of much sway over the general opinions, even of those that think with them regarding political matters. I confess that I, born and bred a Tory, and accustomed, in my part of the country, to see the principles I reverence supported by at least an equal share of talent, was not

a little mortified by certain indications of faint-heartedness and absurd diffidence of themselves among the Scottish Tories, which met my eye ere I had been long in Edinburgh.

I am inclined, upon the whole, to attribute a good deal of this to the influence of the Edinburgh Review. That work was set on foot, and conducted for some years, with an astonishing degree of spirit; and although it never did any thing to entitle it to much respect, either from English Scholars, or English Patriots, or English Christians, I can easily see how such a work, written by Scotchmen, and filled with all the national prejudices of Scotchmen, should have exerted a wonderful authority over the intellect of the city in which it was published. Very many of its faults (I mean those of the less serious kind-such as its faults in regard to literature and taste,) were all adapted for the meridian of Scotland; and for a time, certainly, the whole country was inclined to take a pride in its success. The prestige of the Edinburgh Review has now most undoubtedly vanished even there; but there still remains a shadow of it sufficient to invest its old conductors with a kind of authority over the minds of those, who once were disposed to consider them as infallible judges, de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis; and then the high eminence of some of these gentlemen in their profession of the law, gives them another kind of hold upon the great body of persons following that profession which is every thing in Edinburgh; because the influence of those who follow it is not neuturalized to any considerable extent, by the presence of any great aristocracy, or of any great intellectual cultivation out of themselves. The Scotch are a people of talkers; and among such a people, it is wonderful how far the influence of any one person may be carried around and below him, by mere second-third-and fourth-hand babbling, all derived from one trivial source. I am not, however, of opinion, that this kind of work will go on much longer. Jeffrey has evidently got sick of the Review-and, indeed, when I look back to what he has done, and compare that with what he might have done, I think this is no wonder ; Brougham has enough

to do in Parliament-that is to say, he gives himself enough to do; and even there you well know what a charlatan kind of reputation he has-Horner is dead-Walter Scott has long since left them. The Review is now a very sensible plain sort of book; in its best parts, certainly not rising above the British Review-and in its inferior parts, there is often a display of calm drivelling, much beyond what the British Review itself would admit. And then there is no point-no wit -no joke—no spirit, nothing of the glee of young existence about it. It is a very dull book, more proper to read between sleeping and waking, among old, sober, cautious tradesmen, than to give any spring to the fancy or reason of the young, the active and the intelligent. The secret will out ere long-viz. That the Edinburgh Reviewers have not been able to get any effectual recruits among the young people about them. There is no infusion of fresh blood into the veins of the Review. When one visits Edinburgh, where one cannot stir a step without stumbling over troops of confident, comfortable, glib, smart young Whigs, one is at a loss to understand the meaning of this dearth. One would suppose that every ball-room and tavern overflowed with gay Edinburgh Reviewers. One hears a perpetual buzz about Jeffrey, Brougham, the Review, &c. &c., and would never doubt, that prime articles were undergoing the process of concoction in every corner. But, alas! the fact is, that the young Edinburgh Whigs are a set of very stupid fellows, and the Review must wait long enough, if it is never to be resuscitated but by them.

They are really a very disagreeable set of pretenders-I mean those of them that do make any pretensions at all to literary character. They are very ill educated in general; they have no classical learning; few of them can construe two lines of any Latin poet; and as for Greek, they scarcely know which end of the book should be held to their noses. They have never studied any philosophy of any kind—unless attending a course of lectures on metaphysics, delivered by a man far too ingenious to be comprehended for above five

sentences at a time, by persons of their acquirements and capacity, can be called studying philosophy. They know sometimes a little about chemistry and geology, to be sure; but these are studies in which the proficiency of mere amateurs can never be any great matter. They know a very little of English history and politics-enough to enable them to spin out a few half-hours of blarney in their debating societies. But, upon the whole, it may safely be asserted, that all they know, worthy of being known, upon any subject of general literature, politics, or philosophy, is derived from the Edinburgh Review itself; and as they cannot do the Review any great service by giving it back its own materials, I conceive that this work is just in the act of falling a sacrifice to habits of superficial acquirement, and contented ignorance, which it was short-sighted enough to encourage, if not to create, in order to serve its own temporary purposes among the rising generation of Scotland.

One would imagine, however, that these young Whigs might have begun, long ere this time, to suspect somewhat of their own situation. They must be quite aware, that they have never written a single page in the Edinburgh Review, or that, if they have done so, their pages were universally looked upon as the mere lumber of the book; contrasting, too, their own unproductive petulance, with the laborious and fruitful early years of those whom they worship, and in whose walk they would fain be supposed to be following-it is difficult to understand how they happen to keep themselves so free from the qualms of conscious imbecility. Perhaps, after all, they are au fond less conceited than they appear to be; but certainly, to judge from externals, there never was a more self-satisfied crew of young ignoramuses. After being let a little into their real character and attainments, I cannot say but that I derived a considerable degree of amusement from the contemplation of their manners. As for their talk, it is such utter drivelling, the moment they leave their text-books, (the moment they give over quoting,) that I must own I found no great entertainment in it. It is a pity to see a fine coun

try, like Scotland, a country so rich in recollections of glorious antiquity, so rich in the monuments of genius, at this moment adorned with not a few full-grown living trees of immortal fruit-it is a pity to see such a country so devoid of promise for her future harvest. It is a pity to see her soil wasting on the nurture of this unproductive pestilential underwood, juices which, under better direction, might give breadth to the oak, and elevation to the pine.

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The respectable elder Whigs must, of a surety, feel very sore upon this; for it is not to be supposed, that they can be quite so easily satisfied with these young gregarii, as the young gregarii are with themselves. I understand, accordingly, that nothing gives them so much visible delight, as the appearance of any thing like a revival of talent among their troops. When a young Whig makes a tolerable speech at the bar, or writes a tolerable law-paper, or adventures to confess himself author of a tolerable paragraph in a party print-in short, when he manifests any symptom of possessing better parts than the confessedly dull fellows around him, there is much rejoicing in the high places, a most remarkable crowing and clapping of wings in honour of the rising luminary. The young genius is fed and fattened for a season with puffs and praises; and, in consequence of that kind of dominion, or prestige, to which I have already alluded, the very Tories begin to contemplate him with a little awe and reverence, as a future formidable antagonist, with whom it may be as well to be upon some tolerable terms in private. Well-a year or two goes over his head, and the genius has not visibly improved in any thing except conceit. He is now an established young Whig genius. If any situation becomes empty, which it would be convenient for him to fill, and if, notwithstanding of this, he is not promoted to it by those, whom, on every occasion, he makes the object of

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