The latter was preeminently vulgar in
its appeal, the _Critical_ had lost its former prestige, and the other
two had never risen above a level of mediocrity. There was more than a
lurking suspicion that these periodicals were, to a certain extent,
booksellers' organs, quite unreliable on account of the partial and
biassed criticisms which they offered the dissatisfied public. The time
was evidently ripe for a new departure in literary reviews--for the
establishment of a trustworthy critical journal, conducted by capable
editors and printing readable notices of important books. People were
quite willing to have an unfortunate author assailed and flayed for
their entertainment; but they did not care to be deceived by laudatory
criticisms that were inspired by the publisher's name instead of the
intrinsic merits of the work itself.
Such was the state of affairs when Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham and
Sydney Smith launched the _Edinburgh Review_ in 1802, choosing a name
that had been borne in 1755-56 by a short-lived semi-annual review.
There were several significant facts associated with the new enterprise.
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