Sir Walter Scott's "Edinburgh Annual Register" by Kenneth Curry (review)

SIR WALTER SCOTT'S "EDINBURGH ANNUAL REGISTER" BY KENNETH CURRY (Nashville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977. 217 pages, including index.) The political and military involvement of England in 1808 on the side of Iberian insurgents against Napoleon produced a disgraceful sell-out in the Convention of Cintra. Several literary men ofthe day found inspiration in the failure of existing critical journals to treat with candor this national moral disaster. One result was Wordsworth's great tract, written in a Miltonic strain, Concerning the Convention ofCintra. Another result was the collaboration in the new Edinburgh Annual Register of, among others, Sir Walter Scott, who gave general editorial guidance and contributed articles on a variety of subjects , and Robert Southey, who wrote the historical sections for the first four years of the Register's brief life. "The contagion of party feeling," according to the Register's 1809 Prospectus , had created "an infected atmosphere" for Britons eager to know the truth about current history and ideas. By contrast the new Register promised "the most enlightened and authentic intelligence." But this noble promise was to prove difficult to fulfill; the Register suffered from the inexperience, inattention, and myopia of its contributors, eventually bringing its publisher, John Ballantyne and Company, to bankruptcy. Southey's contributions brought mixed reviews—expressions of disgust from Byron and Shelley, annoyance from Wordsworth, high praise from Coleridge ("the noblest specimen of recent and progressive History in the annals of Literature")—and a substantial income, as well as the basis for much of his later History ofthe Peninsular War. For Scott the Registerbecame a vehicle for such things as his enthusiasm for military strategy, in "Cursory Remarks upon the French Order of Battle," and a bit of critical silliness in "Of the Living Poets of Great Britain," identifying Thomas Campbell, Southey, and Scott himself ("the minion of modern popularity") as the greatest of living poets, compared to whom Byron is ignored, Coleridge is almost unmentionable ("such a mixture of the terrible with the disgusting"), and Wordsworth is "an unsuccessful competitor for poetic fame." Kenneth Curry's valuable work surveys the rise and fall of the Register and weighs with wise candor its strengths and faults. He reprints the Prospectus and five of Scott's essays foreasy accessibility. Coleman Parson's review in The Wordsworth Circle 9 (Summer 1978), 255-56, offers useful clarifications. GORDON K. THOMAS* •GORDON K. THOMAS is Professor of English at Brigham Young University, author ofa book on Wordsworth and his associates and of numerous articles on the Romantics. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW85 ...