To this first number Sydney Smith contributed five articles.  Four of these are reviews of sermons, and the fifth is a slashing attack on John Bowles,[20] who had published an alarmist pamphlet on the designs of France.  Jeffrey thought this attack too severe, but the author could not agree.  He thought Bowles “a very stupid and a very contemptible fellow.”

“He has been hangman for these ten years to all the poor authors in England, is generally considered to be hired by government, and has talked about social order till be has talked himself into L600 or L700 per annum.  That there can be a fairer object for critical severity I cannot conceive.”

To the first four numbers Sydney Smith contributed in all eighteen articles; and he continued to contribute, at irregular intervals, till 1827.  The substance and style of his articles will be considered later on.  As to his motives in writing, he stated them to Jeffrey as being, “First, the love of you; second, the habit of reviewing; third, the love of money; to which I may add a fourth, the love of punishing fraud and folly.”

Ticknor[21] has put it on record that, late in life, Sydney Smith thus described his pecuniary relations with the Review:—­“When I wrote an article, I used to send it to Jeffrey, and waited till it came out; immediately after which I enclosed to him a bill in these words, or words like them:  ’Francis Jeffrey, Esq., to Rev. Sydney Smith:  To a very wise and witty article on such a subject, so many sheets, at forty-five guineas a sheet’; and the money always came.”

Sydney Smith “remained long enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number” of the new review, but he now determined to leave Edinburgh and settle in London, and Jeffrey became editor.  Regarding Holy Orders frankly as a profession, Sydney naturally desired professional advancement, and this of course could not be attained in presbyterian Scotland.  “I could not hold myself justified to my wife and family if I were to sacrifice any longer to the love of present ease, those exertions which every man is bound to make for the improvement of his situation.”

He left Edinburgh with very mixed feelings, for he hated the place and loved its inhabitants.  He called it “that energetic and unfragrant city.”  He dwelt in memory on its “odious smells, barbarous sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts, and most enlightened and cultivated understandings.”

“No nation,” he said, “has so large a stock of benevolence of heart, as the Scotch.  Their temper stands anything but an attack on their climate.  They would have you even believe they can ripen fruit; and, to be candid, I must own in remarkably warm summers I have tasted peaches that made most excellent pickles; and it is upon record that at the Siege of Perth, on one occasion the ammunition failing, their nectarines made admirable cannon-balls.  Even the enlightened mind of Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion