Jeffrey's Criticism: A Selection

by Francis Jeffrey, Peter F. Morgan (Editor)

Francis Jeffrey held an important position as leader and moulder of public taste in the first third of the nineteenth century. This selection of his contributions to the Edinburgh Review, of which he was Editor between 1802 and 1829, is the first edition of his criticism since 1910. The voices most loudly heard by his contemporaries were those of Jeffrey and his fellow periodical critics, and not those which we think of today as expressive of the period - Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Lamb, Hazlitt and de Quincey. Jeffrey was also largely responsible for instituting the format of the full-scale review essay which has persisted in significance to this day.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey, was a Scottish judge and literary critic.

He was born in Edinburgh, and, after attending the Royal High School, he studied at the University of Glasgow and Queen's College, Oxford. He became a member of the Speculative Society, where he debated with Walter Scott, Lord Brougham, Francis Horner, the Marquess of Lansdowne, Lord Kinnaird and others. He was admitted to the Scottish bar in December 1794, but, having abandoned the Tory principles in which he had been educated, he found that his Whig politics hampered his legal prospects.

In 1802, Jeffrey joined with Sydney Smith and other friends to establish a liberal critical periodical, The Edinburgh Review. Jeffrey served as editor from 1803 until 1829, after which he continued to contribute essays on criticism, biography, politics, and ethics.

According to Lord Cockburn, the effect of the first number of The Edinburgh Review was "electrical." The English reviews were at that time practically publishers' organs, with articles by hack writers instructed to obey the publishers' interests. The Edinburgh Review, on the other hand, enlisted a brilliant and independent staff of contributors, guided by the editor, not the publisher.

In 1830 the Whig Party, which The Edinburgh Review had robustly supported, came into office; and Jeffrey was appointed Lord Advocate. As a member of the House of Commons, he introduced the Scottish Reform Bill in 1831. In 1834 he was made a judge and assumed the title of Lord Jeffrey.