I have been desirous of writing to you for nearly a week past, as I never felt more the want of a personal conversation. I will endeavour, however, to explain myself to you, and will rely on your confidence and indulgence for secrecy and attention in what I have to communicate. I have before told you that the idea of a new Review has been revolving in my mind for nearly two years, and that more than twelve months ago I addressed Mr. Canning on the subject. The propriety, if not the necessity, of establishing a journal upon principles opposite to those of the Edinburgh Review has occurred to many men more enlightened than myself; and I believe the same reason has prevented others, as it has done myself, from attempting it, namely, the immense difficulty of obtaining talent of sufficient magnitude to render success even doubtful.
By degrees my plan has gradually floated up to this height. But
there exists at least an equal difficulty yet—that peculiar talent in an
editor of rendering our other great sources advantageous to the best possible
degree. This, I think, may be accomplished, but it must be effected by your
arduous assistance, at least for a little time. Our friend Mr. Gifford, whose writings show him to be
both a man of learning and wit, has lived too little in the world lately to
have obtained that delicacy and tact whereby he can feel at one instant, and
habitually, whatever may gratify public desire and excite public attention and
curiosity. But this you know to be a leading feature in the talents of
Mr. Jeffrey and his friends; and
that, without the most happy choice of subjects, as well as the ability to
treat them well—catching the “manners living as they
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Our first number must contain the most valuable and striking information in politics, and the most interesting articles of general literature and science, written by our most able friends. If our plan appears to be so advantageous to the ministers whose measures, to a certain extent, we intend to justify, to support, to recommend and assist, that they have promised their support; when might that support be so advantageously given, either for their own interests or ours, as at the commencement, when we are most weak, and have the most arduous onset to make, and when we do and must stand most in need of help? If our first number be not written with the greatest ability, upon the most interesting topics, it will not excite public attention. No man, even the friend of the principles we adopt, will leave the sprightly pages of the Edinburgh Review to read a dull detail of staid morality, or dissertations on subjects whose interest has long fled.
I do not say this from any, even the smallest doubt, of our
having all that we desire in these respects in our power; but because I am
apprehensive that without your assistance it will not be drawn into action, and
my reason for this fear I will thus submit to you. You mentioned in your letter
to Mr. Gifford, that our Review should
open with a grand article on Spain—meaning a display of the political
feeling of the people, and the probable results of this important contest. I
suggested to Mr. Gifford that Mr. Frere should be written to, which he said was easy, and
that he thought he would do it; for Frere could not only
give the facts upon the subject, but could write them better than any other
person. But having, in my project, given the name of Southey as a person who might assist
occasionally in a number or two hence, I found at our next interview that
Mr. Gifford, who does not know Mr.
Southey, had spoken to a friend to ask
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Mr. Gifford also told me, with very great stress, that among the articles he had submitted to you was Hodgson’s Translation of Juvenal, which at no time could be a very interesting article for us, and having been published more than six months ago, would probably be a very stupid one. Then, you must observe, that it would necessarily involve a comparison with Mr. Gifford’s own translation, which must of course be praised, and thus show an individual feeling—the least spark of which, in our early numbers, would both betray and ruin us. He talks of reviewing himself a late translation of ‘Persius,’ for (entre nous) a similar reason. He has himself nearly completed a translation, which will be published in a few months.
In what I have said upon this most exceedingly delicate point,
and which I again submit to your most honourable confidence, I have no other
object but just to show you without reserve how we stand, and to exemplify what
I set out with—that without skilful and judicious management we shall
totally mistake the road to the accomplishment of the arduous task which we
have undertaken, and involve the cause and every individual in not merely
defeat, but disgrace. I must at the same time observe that Mr. Gifford is the most obliging and
well-meaning man alive, and that he is perfectly ready to be instructed in
those points of which his seclusion renders him ignorant; and all that I wish
and mean is, that we should strive to open clearly the view which is so obvious
to us—that our first number must be a most brilliant one in every
respect; and to effect this, we must avail ourselves of any valuable political
information we can command. Those persons who have the most interest in
supporting the Review must be called upon immediately for their strenuous
personal help. The fact must be obvious to you,—that if Mr. Canning, Mr.
Frere, Mr. Scott, Mr. Ellis, and Mr.
Gifford, with their immediate and true friends, will exert
themselves heartily in every respect, so as to produce with secrecy
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