r to the editor
proposing to widen the scope of the _Review_, and giving a striking
survey of the state of contemporary literature in all the countries of
Europe. Smith's two contributions are out of sight the ablest and most
important articles the _Review_ published.

He gives a warm and most appreciative welcome to Johnson's
_Dictionary_, but thinks it would have been improved if the author had
in the first place more often censured words not of approved use, and
if in the second he had, instead of simply enumerating the several
meanings of a word, arranged them into classes and distinguished
principal from subsidiary meanings. Then to illustrate what he wants,
Smith himself writes two model articles, one on _Wit_ and the other on
_Humour_, both acute and interesting. He counts humour to be always
something accidental and fitful, the disease of a disposition, and he
considers it much inferior to wit, though it may often be more
amusing. "Wit expresses something that is more designed, concerted,
regular, and artificial; humour something that is more wild, loose,
extravagant, and fantastical; something which comes upon a man by fits
which he can neither command nor restrain, and which is not perfectly
consistent with true politeness. Humour, it has been said, is often
more diverting than wit; yet a man of wit is as much above a man of
humour as a gentleman is above a buffoon; a buffoon, however, will
often divert more than a gentleman."

In his second contribution--a long letter to the editor published in
the appendix to the second number--Smith advocates the enlargement of
the scope of the _Review_ so as to give some account of works of
importance published abroad, even though space had to be provided for
the purpose by neglecting unimportant publications issued from the
Scotch press, and, in fact, he considers this substitution as a
necessity for the continued life of the _Review_. For, says he, "you
will oblige the public much more by giving them an account of such
books as are worthy of their regard than by filling your paper with
all the insignificant literary news of the time, of which not an
article in a hundred is likely to be thought of a fortnight after the
publication of the work that gave occasion to it." He then proceeds to
a review of contemporary continental literature, which he says meant
at that time the literature of France. Italy had ceased to produce
literature, and Germany produced only science. A