its appeal, the _Critical_ had lost its former prestige, and the other
two had never risen above a level of mediocrity. There was more than a
lurking suspicion that these periodicals were, to a certain extent,
booksellers' organs, quite unreliable on account of the partial and
biassed criticisms which they offered the dissatisfied public. The time
was evidently ripe for a new departure in literary reviews--for the
establishment of a trustworthy critical journal, conducted by capable
editors and printing readable notices of important books. People were
quite willing to have an unfortunate author assailed and flayed for
their entertainment; but they did not care to be deceived by laudatory
criticisms that were inspired by the publisher's name instead of the
intrinsic merits of the work itself.

Such was the state of affairs when Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham and
Sydney Smith launched the _Edinburgh Review_ in 1802, choosing a name
that had been borne in 1755-56 by a short-lived semi-annual review.
There were several significant facts associated with the new enterprise.
It was the first important literary periodical to be published beyond
the metropolis. It was the first review to appear quarterly--an interval
that most contemporary journalists would have condemned as too long for
a successful review. Moreover, it was conducted upon an entirely
different principle than any previous review; by restricting its
attention to the most important works of each quarter, it gave extensive
critiques of only a few books in each number and thus avoided the
multitude of perfunctory notices that had made previous reviews so
dreary and unreadable.

The idea of founding the _Edinburgh Review_ was apparently suggested by
Sydney Smith in March, 1802. Jeffrey and Francis Horner were his
immediate associates; but during the period of preparation Henry