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Edinburgh Review - Book Web

The Edinburgh Review was one of the most influential British magazines of the 19th century. It took for its motto "judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur" ("The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted.") from Publilius Syrus.

Started on October 10, 1802 by Francis Jeffrey, Sydney Smith and Henry Brougham, it was published by Archibald Constable in quarterly issues until 1929. The magazine began as a literary and political review and under its first editor, Francis Jeffrey the magazine was a strong supporter of the Whig party and laissez-faire politics, and regularly called for political reform. Its main rival was the Quarterly Review which supported the Tories. The magazine was also noted for its attacks on the Lake Poets, particularly William Wordsworth.

An earlier short-lived magazine with a similar title and purpose Edinburgh Magazine and Review (1773 - 1776) was published monthly but has no other connection to the later version.

The magazine ceased publication in 1929. The name was revived when a separate publication called The New Edinburgh Review was started in 1969 and published under that name until 1984. At issue number 67/8 it took on the Edinburgh Review name, with the motto To gather all the rays of culture into one and is still published. It is sometimes assumed that the present publication is a continuation of its namesake, a misconception which is not altogether discouraged by its publisher.

Notable contributors

Archibald Constable

Archibald Constable (February 24, 1774 - July 21, 1827), was a Scottish publisher. He was born at Carnbee, Fife, as the son of the land steward to the Earl of Kellie. In 1788 Archibald was apprenticed to Peter Hill, an Edinburgh bookseller, but in 1795 he started in business for himself as a dealer in rare books. He bought the Scots Magazine in 1801, and John Leyden, the orientalist, became its editor. In 1800 Constable began the Farmer's Magazine, and in November 1802 he issued the first number of the Edinburgh Review, under the nominal editorship of Sydney Smith; Lord Jeffrey, was, however, the guiding spirit of the review, having as his associates Lord Brougham, Sir Walter Scott, Henry Hallam, John Playfair and afterwards Lord Macaulay.

Constable made a new departure in publishing by the generosity of his terms to authors. Writers for the Edinburgh Review were paid at an unprecedented rate, and Constable offered Scott 1000 guineas in advance for Marmion. In 1804 A. G. Hunter joined Constable as partner, bringing considerable capital into the firm, styled from that time Archibald Constable & Co. In 1805, jointly with Longman & Co., Constable published Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel, and in 1807 Marmion.

In 1808 a split took place between Constable and Sir Walter Scott, who transferred his business to the publishing firm of John Ballantyne & Co., for which he supplied most of the capital. In 1813, however, a reconciliation took place. Ballantyne was in difficulties, and Constable again became Scott's publisher, a condition being that the firm of John Ballantyne & Co. should be wound up at an early date, though Scott retained his interest in the printing business of James Ballantyne & Co.

In 1812 Constable, who had admitted Robert Cathcart and Robert Cadell as partners on Hunter's retirement, purchased the copyright of the Encyclopedia Britannica, adding the supplement (6 vols, 1816-1824) to the 4th, 5th and 6th editions. In 1814 he bought the copyright of Waverley. This was issued anonymously; but in a short time 12,200 copies were disposed of, Scott's other novels following in quick succession. The firm also published the Annual Register. Through over-speculation, complications arose, and in 1826 a crash came. Constable's London agents stopped payment, and he failed for over £250,000, while James Ballantyne & Co. also went bankrupt for nearly £90,000. Sir Walter Scott was involved in the failure of both firms.

Constable started business afresh, and began in 1827 Constable's Miscellany of original and selected works ... consisting of a series of original works, and of standard books republished in a cheap form, thus making one of the earliest and most famous attempts to popularize high-quality literature.

Publilius Syrus

Publilius (less correctly Publius) Syrus, a Latin writer of maxims, flourished in the 1st century BC. He was a native of Syria, and was brought as a slave to Italy, but by his wit and talent he won the favor of his master, who freed and educated him.

His mimes, in which he acted himself, had a great success in the provincial towns of Italy and at the games given by Caesar in 46 BC. Publilius was perhaps even more famous as an improviser, and received from Caesar himself the prize in a contest in which he vanquished all his competitors, including the celebrated Decimus Laberius.

All that remains of his works is a collection of Sentences (Sententiae), a series of moral maxims in iambic and trochaic verse. This collection must have been made at a very early date, since it was known to Aulus Gellius in the 2nd century AD. Each maxim is comprised of a single verse, and the verses are arranged in alphabetical order according to their initial letters. In the course of time the collection was interpolated with sentences drawn from other writers, especially from apocryphal writings of Seneca; the number of genuine verses is about 700. They include many pithy sayings, such as the famous "judex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur" ("The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted.") adopted as its motto by the Edinburgh Review).

The best texts of the Sentences are those of Eduard Wölfflin (1869), A. Spengel (1874), and Wilhelm Meyer (1880), with complete critical apparatus and index verborum; editions with notes by O. Friedrich (1880), R. A. H. Bickford-Smith (1895), with full bibliography; see also W. Meyer, Die Sammlungen der Spruchverse des Publilius Syrus (1877), an important work.