SOURCE: A review of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, in Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, D. Appleton and Company, 1860, pp. 359-67.

Jeffrey was a founder and editor of the Edinburgh Review, one of the most influential magazines in early nineteenth-century England and a periodical that Scott was also involved with for a time. Jeffrey was a liberal Whig who often allowed his political beliefs to color his critical opinions. He is nevertheless considered an insightful contemporary critic of Scott's work, though Scott's political views were more conservative than Jeffrey's. In the following review, which was originally published in the Edinburgh Review in April, 1805, the critic finds the plot of The Lay of the Last Minstrel to be poorly constructed and its diction to be inconsistent. The originality of Scott's conception is praised, however, along with the "spirit and force" of the poem.

We consider [The Lay of...