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sacrilege against his own spirit, and degraded himself from the height of his original elevation. It is clear, that they who think Napoleon a man of a secondary class, do not belong to the first order themselves. The optics of a Lilliputian cannot take in the dimensions of a giant.

I may venture, before I dismiss Mr Gifford, to notice just one other of his many bigotries,—it is one which to German ears must, I think, appear still more extraordinary. His prejudice against Napoleon is founded in justice, and we can pardon his transferring some portion of a legitimate aversion from the ambitious schemes to the personal character of the conqueror. But no apology can be offered for the indiscriminating hatred he seems to feel towards a whole nation of his fellow-countrymen—the Scots. The Tweed, to be sure, flows between England and Scotland, but in government, constitution, laws, and above all, in literature,—these two rival countries have long since become entirely united. To revive the feelings of those old warlike days which have been immortalized by a series of poets, not in the world of politics, but in that of letters, is an idea worthy only of an old woman on the Border. The literature of Great Britain forms a whole of exquisite variety, and among modern nations, of unrivalled excellence. It has been reared by the hands of English, Scots, and Irish; and to disturb the union of their labours is in vain. What should we think of an Austrian, who should be insensible to all the merits of Saxon literature? and yet the Austrian and Saxon are brethren only in one respect, while in no point whatever, that I know of, has the Englishman different interests from the Scotsman. It is a shame that the good sense of the English should have been so long insulted by such miserable trash, as the abuse of Scots universities, Scots religion, and Scots learning, in the Quarterly Review. It is no wonder that the northern wits are sometimes tempted to retaliate with equal injustice, and equal want of success. Men who shew such a little way of thinking in regard to matters of common life, can never expect to be consulted by those who have detected their meannesses, in respect to a subject of such peculiar delicacy of literary merit. The Quarterly Review, excellent as its general politics are, and highly interesting as many even of its literary criticisms have been, would long since have ceased to flourish, but for the admirable accounts it contains of all the books of travels. Its editor collects, with infinite assiduity, the MS. journals of every traveller who returns to London, and by digesting the information these contain, into the form of criticisms on some new book, he continues to render his work by far the richest geographical and statistical journal in the world. But this has nothing to do with Mr Gifford as a critic.

I find that I have already said a great deal concerning the Quarterly Review and its editor, and yet I am very sensible that I ought to have directed your attention in the first instance to their elder and still more important adversaries, the Edinburgh Review and Mr Jeffray. The journal, conducted by this gentleman in a provincial town of Britain, has, notwithstanding it is opposed by the whole weight of ministerial influence, a circulation far beyond any periodical work in England,^[1] and such as, even among the more numerous readers of Germany, is altogether unrivalled. It is said, that upwards of fifteen thousand copies are sold of every number which is published, so that it forms, in fact, an excellent estate for those who conduct it. When it began to be published about twenty years ago, the periodical criticism of England had fallen into great disrepute, and the new work being supported by several young men of great talents, who had adopted a mode of writing quite novel in England, although sufficiently hackneyed elsewhere, soon attracted a great share of admiration from all the politicians and literati of the island. During the first splendour of its success, it came to possess all the authority of an oracle, and although a considerable number of its first worshippers have withdrawn to a different shrine, its influence is still held in no small reverence by those who have adhered to it. At first its reputation was raised by the united

1. ↑ We suspect that our author's information is not correct with regard to some of these circumstances.