The Scottish Review, 1882-1900

with the demise of the North British Review in 1871 there was no periodical whose main concern was Scottish affairs, if indeed the late review could have been so described. And although Scotland possessed two influential newspapers, the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman, no monthly or quarterly was engaged in the fight for Scottish Home Rule and other liberal-national measures. ¹ To correct this situation, two men living in Paisley, both intensely Scottish, determined in 1882 to found a new quarterly in order to “protest against the idea that London is the center of Scottish life, as also against the idea that Scotland is not strong enough to have a literary organ of its own.” The Reverend W. M. Metcalfe, a minister of the Established Church of Scotland, was “the originator and editor” of the Scottish Review. ² His collaborator was the Paisley publisher whose name was associated with so many Scottish literary revivals, Alexander Gardner. ³ Gardner described the venture as one in which he was to take the pecuniary risk and Metcalfe was to do the editing, though in point of fact this division of labor was never precisely adhered to. ⁴