Smith published his version of the history, neither Lord Brougham nor any other person interested took the trouble to contradict it; and we are inclined to accept rather an account written within a short time of the foundation of the Review than to receive another version written by an octogenarian at an interval of more than half a century. A letter, moreover, of Sydney Smith's, first published in the Athenæum of April 1st, 1871, shows clearly that the proprietors of the journal presented him "with books to the value of £100 (corrected to £114) as a memorial of their respect for having planned and contributed to a work which to them has been a source of reputation as well as of emolument." On the other hand, Sydney Smith's editorship certainly did not extend beyond the first number, and was probably even in that subject to the direction of Jeffrey.
The list of contributions to the first four numbers may, however, be accepted as indisputable evidence of Brougham's enormous powers of work. To these four numbers he contributed twenty-one articles, besides portions of four others. Smith contributed eighteen, Jeffrey sixteen, and Horner seven. Brougham, too, kept up this rate of contribution more steadily than any of his colleagues. To the first twenty numbers he contributed no less than eighty articles, Jeffrey seventy-five, Smith twenty-three, and Horner fourteen. By this time the new periodical was fairly launched, and the additional services of such men as Play fair, Thomas Brown, Walter Scott, Hallam, Murray, and Stodhart, had been secured.
The extensive circulation and reputation of the Edinburgh Review was, Scott himself says, due to two circumstances; first that it was entirely unin-
