In 1802, when the Edinburgh Review (which was the first of its line to acquire distinction) came into being, the passion of the times found voice in politics.  Both Whigs and Tories had been alarmed by the excesses of the French Revolution; both feared that England was drifting the way of France; each had a remedy, but opposed and violently maintained.  The Tories put the blame of the Revolution on the compromises of Louis XVI, and accordingly they were hostile to any political change.  The Whigs, on the other hand, saw the rottenness of England as a cause that would incite her to revolution also, and they advocated reform while yet there was time.  The general fear of a revolution gave the government of England to the Tories, and kept them in power for several decades.  And England was ripe for trouble.  The government was but nominally representative.  No Catholic, Jew, Dissenter or poor man had a vote or could hold a seat in Parliament.  Industrially and economically the country was in the condition of France in the year of Arthur Young’s journey.  The poverty was abject, the relief futile and the hatred of the poor for the rich was inflammatory.  George III, slipping into feebleness and insanity, yet jealous of his unconstitutional power, was a vacillating despot, quarrelling with his Commons and his Ministers.  Lord Eldon as Chancellor, but with as nearly the control of a Premier as the King would allow, was the staunch upholder of all things that have since been disproved and discarded.  Bagehot said of him that “he believed in everything which it is impossible to believe in.”  France and Napoleon threatened across the narrow channel.  England still growled at the loss of her American colonies.  It was as yet the England of the old regime.  The great reforms were to come thirty years later—­the Catholic Emancipation, the abolishment of slavery in the colonies, the suppression of the pocket boroughs, the gross bribery of elections, the cleaning of the poor laws and the courts of justice.

It was in this dark hour of English history that the writers polished their brasses and set up as Persons.  And if the leading articles that they wrote of mornings stung and snapped with venom, it is natural that the book reviews on which they spent their afternoons had also some vinegar in them, especially if they concerned books written by those of the opposition.  And other writers, even if they had no political connection, borrowed their manners from those who had.  It was the animosities of party politics that set the general tone.  Billingsgate that had grown along the wharves of the lower river, was found to be of service in Parliament and gave a spice and sparkle even to a book review.  Presently a large part of literary England wore the tags of political preference.  Writers were often as clearly distinguished as were the ladies in the earlier day, when Addison wrote his paper on party patches.  There were seats of Moral Philosophy to be handed out, under-secretaryships,