thors with
fear and trembling. It became a vehicle for the efforts of the best minds.
Macaulay wrote for it those brilliant miscellanies which at once
established his fame, and gave it much of its popularity. In it Jeffrey
attacked the Lake poetry, and incurred the hatred of Byron. Its
establishment, in 1803, was an era in the world of English letters. The
papers were not merely reviews, but monographs on interesting subjects--a
new anatomy of history; it was in a general way an exponent, but quite an
independent one, of the Whig party, or those who would liberally construe
the Constitution,--putting Churchmen and Dissenters on the same platform;
although published in Edinburgh, it was neither Scotch nor Presbyterian.
It attacked ancient prescriptions and customs; agitated questions long
considered settled both of present custom and former history; and thus
imitated the champion knights who challenged all comers, and sustained no
defeats.

Occupying opposite ground to this is the great English review called the
_London Quarterly_: it was established in 1809; is an uncompromising
Tory,--entirely conservative as to monarchy, aristocracy, and Established
Church. Its first editor was William Gifford; but it attained its best
celebrity under the charge of John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in-law of Sir
Walter Scott, a man of singular critical power. Among its distinguished
contributors were Southey, Scott, Canning, Croker, and Wordsworth.

The _North British Review_, which never attained the celebrity of either
of these, and which has at length, in 1871, been discontinued, occupied
strong Scottish and Presbyterian ground, and had its respectable
supporters.

But besides the parties mentioned, there is a floating one, growing by
slow but sure accretion, know as the _Radical_. It includes men of many
stamps, mainly utilitarian,--radical in politics, innovators, radical in
religion, destructive as to systems of science and arts, a learned and
inquisitive class,--rational, transcendental, and intensely dogmatic. As a
vent for this varied party, the _Westminster Review_ was founded by Mr
Bentham, in 1824. Its articles are always well written, and sometimes
dangerous, according to our orthodox notions. It is supported by such
writers as Mill, Bowring, and Buckle.

Besides these there are numerous quarterlies of more or less limited
scope, as in science or art, theology or law; such as _The Eclectic, The
Christian Observer, The Dub