ORIGIN OF “THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.”
The Edinburgh Review was first published in 1802. The plan was suggested by Sydney Smith, at a meeting of literati, in the fourth or fifth flat or story, in Buccleugh-place, Edinburgh, then the elevated lodging of Jeffrey. The motto humorously proposed for the new review by its projector was, “Tenui musam meditamur avena,”—i. e., “We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal;” but this being too nearly the truth to be publicly acknowledged, the more grave dictum of “Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur” was adopted from Publius Syrus, of whom, Sydney Smith affirms, “None of us, I am sure, ever read a single line!” Lord Byron, in his fifth edition of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, refers to the reviewers as an “oat-fed phalanx.”