_Bacon_, _Clive_, _Hastings_ and many others. Napier experienced some
difficulty in steering a middle course for the review between Lord
Brougham, who sought to use its pages to further his own political
ambitions, and Macaulay, who vigorously denounced the procedure. The
_Edinburgh_ was no longer conspicuous among its numerous contemporaries;
but the literary quality was much higher than at first. Among the other
famous contributors of this period were Carlyle, John Stuart Mill,
Thackeray, Bulwer, Hallam, Sir William Hamilton and many others. This
was undoubtedly the greatest period in the history of the review. Its
power in Whig politics is shown by the fact that Lord Melbourne and Lord
John Russell sought to make it the organ of the government.

Napier's successor in 1847 was William Empson, who had contributed to
the _Edinburgh_ since 1823 and who held the editorship until his demise
in 1852. Next followed Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who, however,
resigned in 1855 to become Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord
Palmerston's cabinet. During his régime he wrote less than a score of
articles for the review. His immediate successor was the late Henry
Reeve, whose forty years of faithful service until his death in 1895
brings the review practically to our own day. When Reeve began his
duties by editing No. 206 (April, 1855) Lord Brougham was the only
survivor of the contributors to the original number. In 1857, when a
discussion arose between editor and publisher concerning the
denunciatory attitude assumed by the review toward Lord Palmerston's
ministry, Reeve drew up a list of his contributors at that time,
including Bishop (afterwards Archbishop) Tait, George Grote, John
Forster, M. Guizot, the Duke of Argyll, Rev. Canon Moseley, George S.
Venables, Richard Monckton Milnes and a score of others--most of them
"names of the highest honour and the most consistent adherence to
Liberal principles." Within the four decades that followed, the