Early Reviews of English Poets | Page 9

day. When Reeve began his
duties by editing No. 206 (April, 1855) Lord Brougham was the only
survivor of the contributors to the original number. In 1857, when a
discussion arose between editor and publisher concerning the
denunciatory attitude assumed by the review toward Lord Palmerston's
ministry, Reeve drew up a list of his contributors at that time, including
Bishop (afterwards Archbishop) Tait, George Grote, John Forster, M.
Guizot, the Duke of Argyll, Rev. Canon Moseley, George S. Venables,
Richard Monckton Milnes and a score of others--most of them "names
of the highest honour and the most consistent adherence to Liberal
principles." Within the four decades that followed, the personnel of the
review has made another almost complete change. A new group of
contributors, under the editorship of Hon. Arthur R.D. Elliot, is now
striving to maintain the standards of old "blue and yellow." A caustic
note in the (1890) Annual Index of Review of Reviews said of the
Edinburgh:
"It has long since subsided into a respectable exponent of high and dry
Whiggery, which in these later days has undergone a further
degeneration or evolution into Unionism.... Audacity, wit,
unconventionality, enthusiasm--all these qualities have long since
evaporated, and with them has disappeared the political influence of the
Edinburgh."
The two great rivals which are now reaching their centenary[B] are still
the most prominent, in fact the only well-known literary quarterlies of
England. During their life-time many quarterlies have risen, flourished
for a time and perished. The Westminster Review, founded 1824, by
Jeremy Bentham, appeared under the editorship of Sir John Bowring
and Henry Southern. As the avowed organ of the Radicals it lost no
time in assailing (principally through the vigorous pens of James Mill
and John Stuart Mill) both the Edinburgh and the Quarterly. In 1836

Sir William Molesworth's recently established London Review was
united with the Westminster, and, after several changes of joint title,
continued since 1851 as the Westminster Review. Since 1887 it has
been published as a monthly of Liberal policy and "high-class
philosophy." The Dublin Review (London, 1836) still continues
quarterly as a Roman Catholic organ; similarly the London Quarterly
Review, a Wesleyan organ, has been published since 1853. Of the
quarterlies now defunct, it will suffice to mention the dissenting
Eclectic Review (1805-68) owned and edited for a time by Josiah
Conder; the British Review (1811-25); the Christian Remembrancer
(1819-68), which was a monthly during its early history; the
Retrospective Review (1820-26, 1853-54) conducted by Henry
Southern and afterwards Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas as a critical
review for old and curious books; the English Review (1844-53); and
the North British Review (1844-71), published at Edinburgh. The
impulse toward the study of continental literature during the third
decade of the century gave rise to the Foreign Quarterly Review
(1827-46); the Foreign Review and Continental Miscellany (1828-30)
and the British and Foreign Review (1835-44), continued as the British
Quarterly Review (1845-86).
A most determined effort to rival the older quarterlies resulted in the
National Review, founded in 1855 by Walter Bagehot and Richard Holt
Hutton. Its articles were exhaustive, well-written and thoroughly
characteristic of their class. In addition to the excellent work of both
editors, there were contributions by James Martineau, Matthew Arnold,
and Hutton's brother-in-law, William Caldwell Roscoe. Yet, in spite of
the high standards maintained until the end, the National ceased
publication in 1864. The many failures in this class of periodicals seem
to indicate quite clearly that the spirit of the age no longer favors a
quarterly. For our energetic and progressive era such an interval is too
long. The confirmed admirer of the elaborate essays of the Edinburgh
and the Quarterly will continue to welcome their bulky numbers; but
the average reader is strongly prejudiced in favor of the more frequent,
more attractive and more thoroughly entertaining monthlies.
It is one of the curiosities in the history of periodical literature that no

popular monthly developed during the first half of the nineteenth
century: the great quarterlies apparently usurped the entire field. We
have already seen that the Critical Review came to an end in 1817
whilst the Monthly continued until 1843. In both cases, however, the
publication amounted to little more than a sheer struggle for existence.
The Monthly's attempt to imitate in a smaller way the plan of the
quarterlies proved an unqualified failure. Neither of the two periodicals
established at the beginning of the century ever achieved a position of
critical authority. The Christian Observer, started (1802) by Josiah
Pratt and conducted by Zachary Macaulay until 1816, was devoted
mainly to the abolition of the slave-trade. Its subsequent history until its
demise in 1877 is confined almost wholly to the theological pale. The
second periodical was the Monthly Repository of Theology and General
Literature (1806-37), which achieved some literary prominence for