Only special copies of books published in Edinburgh came to London by coach: the bulk was forwarded in Leith smacks.
In the
Edinburgh Review
for July, 1813, the
Giaour
was reviewed as a poem "full of spirit, character, and originality," and producing an effect at once "powerful and pathetic." But the reviewer considers that "energy of character and intensity of emotion... presented in combination with worthlessness and guilt," are "most powerful corrupters and perverters of our moral nature," and he deplores Byron's exclusive devotion to gloomy and revolting subjects.
Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850) succeeded Sidney Smith as editor of the
Edinburgh Review