irs' and
Pepys's 'Diary' as though the books had for the first time revealed to
him the existence of Puritans or of courtiers under the Restoration. The
author of an article upon German metaphysics at the present day would
think it necessary to show that if he had not the portentous learning
which Sir William Hamilton embodied in his 'Edinburgh' articles, he had
at least read the book under review, and knew something of the language.
The author (Thomas Brown--a man who should have known better) of a
contemptuous review of Kant, in an early number of the 'Edinburgh,'
makes it even ostentatiously evident that he has never read a line of
the original, and that his whole knowledge is derived from what (by his
own account) is a very rambling and inadequate French essay. The young
gentlemen who wrote in those days have a jaunty mode of pronouncing upon
all conceivable topics without even affecting to have studied the
subject, which is amusing in its way, and which fully explains the
flimsy nature of their performance.

The authors, in fact, regarded these essays, at the time, as purely
ephemeral. The success of the 'Review' suggested republication long
afterwards. The first collection of articles was, I presume, Sydney
Smith's in 1839; Jeffrey's and Macaulay's followed in 1843; and at that
time even Macaulay thought it necessary to explain that the
republication was forced upon him by the Americans. The plan of passing
even the most serious books through the pages of a periodical has become
so common that such modesty would now imply the emptiest affectation.
The collections of Jeffrey and Sydney Smith will give a sufficient
impression of the earlier numbers of the 'Review.' The only contributors
of equal reputation were Horner and Brougham. Horner, so far as one can
judge, was a typical representative of those solid, indomitable
Scotchmen whom one knows not whether to respect for their energy or to
dread as the most intolerable of bores. He plodded through legal,
metaphysical, scientific, and literary studies like an elephant forcing
his way through a jungle; and laboured as resolutely and systematically
to acquire graces of style as to master the intricacies of the 'dismal
science.' At an early age, and with no advantages of position, he had
gained extraordinary authority in Parliament. Sydney Smith said of him
that he had the Ten Commandments written on his face, and looked so
virtuous that he might commit any crime with i