of
Geneva, of which M. Rousseau has the honour of being a citizen, is an
agreeable, animated, and I believe, too, a just panegyric."

Sir James Mackintosh, who republished these two numbers of the first
_Edinburgh Review_ in 1818 after the second _Edinburgh Review_ had
made the name famous, considers it noteworthy, as showing the
contributors to have taken up a very decided political position for so
early a period, that the preface to the first number speaks boldly in
praise of George Buchanan's "undaunted spirit of liberty." But Smith's
warm expression of admiration for the Republic of Geneva, to which he
reckons it an honour to belong, is equally notable. He seems to have
been always theoretically a republican, and he certainly had the true
spirit of a republican in his love of all rational liberty. His pupil
and lifelong friend, the Earl of Buchan, says: "He approached to
republicanism in his political principles, and considered a
commonwealth as the platform for the monarchy, hereditary succession
in the chief magistrate being necessary only to prevent the
commonwealth from being shaken by ambition, or absolute dominion
introduced by the consequences of contending factions."[90]

Smith's scheme for the improvement of the _Review_ was never carried
out, for with that number the _Review_ itself came to a sudden and
premature end. The reason for giving it up is explained by Lord
Woodhouselee to have been that the strictures passed by it on some
fanatical publications of the day had excited such a clamour "that a
regard to the public tranquillity and their own determined the
reviewers to discontinue their labours."[91] Doubt has been expressed
of the probability of this explanation, but Lord Woodhouselee, who was
personally acquainted with several of the contributors, is likely to
have known of the circumstances, and his statement is borne out
besides by certain corroborative facts. It is true the theological
articles of the two numbers appear to us to be singularly inoffensive.
They were entrusted to the only contributor who was not a young man,
Dr. Jardine, the wily leader of the Moderate party in the Church, the
Dean of the Thistle mentioned in Lord Dreghorn's verses as governing
the affairs of the city as well as the Church through his power over
his father-in-law--

The old Provost, who danced to the whistle
Of that arch politician, the Dean of the Thistle.

The arch politician contrived to make his t