Francis Jeffrey (October 23 1773 – June 26 1850), Scottish critic, political writer and lawyer, was for some twenty-six years editor of the Edinburgh Review. He is sometimes referred to as Lord Jeffrey or as Francis, Lord Jeffrey, having been made a Lord of Session in 1834.
Francis Jeffrey Sydney Smith, in a letter to Jeffrey, claimed this as his own parody of him: "If you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty, you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against you about the Moon and the Solar System;— 'Damn the solar system! bad light—planets too distant—pestered with comets—feeble contriviance;—could make a better with great ease.'" (The Review of English Studies New Series, vol. 44, pp. 430-432).