  Thomas Gray When Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard appeared in 1751, the Monthly Rev., IV, p. 309, gave it the following curious notice:—"The excellence of this little piece amply compensates for its want of quantity." The immediate success and popularity of the Elegy established Gray's poetical reputation; hence his Odes (1757) were received and criticized as the work of a poet of whom something entirely different was expected. The thin quarto volume containing The Progress of Poesy and The Bard (entitled merely Ode I and Ode II in that edition) was printed for Dodsley by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill, and was published on August 8, 1757. Within a fortnight Gray wrote to Thomas Warton that the poems were not at all popular, the great objection being their obscurity; a week later he wrote to Hurd:—"Even my friends tell me they [the Odes] do not succeed ... in short, I have heard nobody but a player [Garrick] and a doctor of divinity [Warburton] that profess their esteem for them." For further comment, see Gray's Works, ed. Gosse, II, pp. 321-328. Our review, which is reprinted from Monthly Rev., XVII (239-243) (September, 1757), was written by Oliver Goldsmith, and is included in most of the collected editions of his works. Although it was practically wrung from Goldsmith while he was the unwilling thrall of Griffiths, it is a noteworthy piece of criticism for its time—certainly far superior to the general standard of the Monthly Review. While recognizing the scholarly merit of the poet's work, Goldsmith showed clearly why the Odes could not become popular. A more favorable notice of the volume appeared in the Critical Rev., IV, p. 167. In reprinting this review, the long quotations from both odes have been omitted. This precedent is followed in all cases where the quotations are of inordinate length, or are offered merely as "specimens" without specific criticism. No useful end would be served in reprinting numerous pages of classic extracts that are 1. Quinault. Philippe Quinault (1635-1688), a popular French dramatist and librettist. 2. Mark'd for her own. An allusion to the line in the Epitaph appended to the Elegy: "And Melancholy marked him for her own." Oliver Goldsmith Goldsmith's Traveller (1764) was begun as early as 1755—before he had expressed what Professor Dowden calls his "qualified enthusiasm" and "official admiration" for Gray's Odes. In criticizing Gray, he quoted Isocrates' advice—Study the people—and properly bore that precept in mind while he was shaping his own verses. The Odes and the Traveller are respectively characteristic utterances of their authors—of the academic recluse, and of the warm-hearted lover of humanity. The review, quoted from the Critical Rev., XVIII (458-462) (December, 1764), is from the pen of Dr. Samuel Johnson. Apart from its distinguished authorship and the strong words of commendation in the final sentence, it possesses slight interest as literary criticism. It is, in fact, little more than a brief summary of the poem, enriched by a few well-chosen illustrative extracts. The fact that Johnson contributed nine or ten lines to the poem (see Boswell, ed. Hill, I, p. 441, n. 1, and II, p. 6) may account partly for the character of the review. Johnson's quotations from the poem are not continuous and show several variations from authoritative texts. William Cowper Cowper stands almost alone among English poets as an instance of late manifestation of poetic power. He was over fifty years of age when he offered his first volume of Poems (1782) to the public. This collection, which included Table-Talk and other didactic poems, appeared at the beginning of the most prosaic age in the history of modern English literature; yet the critics did not find it sufficiently striking in quality to differentiate it from the level of contemporary verse, or to forecast the success of The Task and John Gilpin's Ride three years later. The notice in the Critical Rev., LIII (287-290), appeared in April, 1782. While the same poems are but slightly esteemed 10. Non Dii, non homines, etc. Properly, non homines, non di, Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 373. 10. Caraccioli. Jouissance de soi-mÊme (ed. 1762), cap. xii. 11. There needs no ghost, etc. See Hamlet, I, 5. 110. Robert Burns The Kilmarnock edition (1786) of Burns' Poems was published during the most eventful period of the poet's life; the almost universally kind reception accorded to this volume was the one source of consolation amid many sorrows and distractions. Two reviews have been selected to illustrate both the Scottish and English attitude toward the newly discovered "ploughman-poet." The Edinburgh Magazine, IV (284-288), in October, 1786, gave Burns a welcome that was hearty and sincere; though we may smile to-day at the information that he has neither the "doric simplicity" of Ramsay, nor the "brilliant imagination" of Ferguson. Besides the poems mentioned in brackets, the magazine published further extracts from Burns in subsequent numbers. The Critical Review, LXIII (387-388), gave the volume a belated notice in May, 1787, exceeding even the Scotch magazine in its generous appreciation. With the generally accepted fact in mind that all of Burns' enduring work is in the Scottish dialect, and that his English poems are comparatively inferior, it is interesting to note the Critical Review's regret that the dialect must "obscure the native beauties" and be often unintelligible to English readers. The same sentiment was expressed by the Monthly Review, LXXV, p. 439, in the critique reprinted (without its curious anglified version of The Cotter's Saturday Night) in Stevenson's Early Reviews. There is perhaps no other English poet whose fame was so suddenly and securely established as Burns'. At no time since the appearance of the Kilmarnock volume has the worth of his lyrical achievement been seriously questioned. The Reliques of Burns, edited by Dr. Cromek in 1808, were reviewed by Walter Scott in 14. Rusticus abnormis sapiens, etc. Horace, Sat. II, l. 3. 15. A great lady ... and celebrated professor. Evidently Mrs. Dunlop and Professor Dugald Stewart, who both took great interest in Burns after the appearance of the Kilmarnock volume. William Wordsworth The thin quartos containing An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches were published by Wordsworth in 1793. The former was practically a school-composition in verse, written between 1787-89 and dedicated to his sister; the latter was composed in France during 1791-92 and was revised shortly before publication. The dedication was addressed to the Rev. Robert Jones, fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, who was Wordsworth's companion during the pedestrian tour in the Alps. Though An Evening Walk was published first, the Monthly Review, XII, n.s. (216-218), in October, 1793, noticed both in the same issue and naturally gave precedence to the longer poem. Specific allusions in the text necessitate the same order in the present reprint. The impatience of the reviewer at the prospect of "more descriptive poetry" was due to the fact that many such productions had recently been noticed by the Monthly, and that the volumes then under consideration evidently belonged to the broad stream of mediocre verse that had been flowing soberly along almost since the days of Thomson. These first attempts smacked so decidedly of the older manner that we cannot censure the critic for failing to foresee that Wordsworth was destined to glorify the "poetry of nature," and to rescue it from the rut of listless and soporific topographical description. Both poems, in the definitive text, are readable, and exhibit here and there a glimmer of the poet's future greatness; yet it must be borne in mind that Wordsworth was continually tinkering at his verse, to the subsequent despair of conscientious variorum editors, and that most of the absurdities and infelicities in his first editions disappeared under the correcting influence of his sarcastic critics and his own maturing taste. A collation of the accepted text with the Monthly Review's quotations will repay the student; thus, the twelve opening lines quoted by the reviewer are represented by eight lines in Professor Knight's edition, and only four of these correspond to the original text. The reviewer confined his remarks to the first thirty lines of the poem and very properly neglected the rest. He followed, with moderate success, the method of quotation with interpolated sarcasm and badinage—a method that was afterwards effectively pursued by the early Edinburgh Reviewers and the Blackwood coterie. There are few examples of that style in the eighteenth century reviews, but some noteworthy specimens of a later period—e.g., the Edinburgh Review on Coleridge's Christabel and the Quarterly on Tennyson's Poems—are reprinted in this volume. The review of An Evening Walk is simply an appended paragraph to the previous article. Wordsworth evidently appreciated the advice conveyed in the reviewer's final sentence and found many of the lines that "called loudly for amendment." More favorable notices of both poems will be found in Critical Review, VIII, pp. 347 and 472. Lyrical BalladsThe Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge were published anonymously early in September, 1798—a few days before the joint authors sailed for Germany. Coleridge's contributions were The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, The Foster-Mother's Tale, The Nightingale, and The Dungeon; the remaining nineteen poems were by Wordsworth. As the publication of this volume has been accepted by most critics as the first fruit of the new romantic spirit and the virtual beginning of modern English poetry, the reception accorded to the Lyrical Ballads becomes a matter of prime importance. It is well known that the effort was a failure at first and that the apparent triumph of romanticism did not occur until the publication of Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805); but a contemporary blindness to the beauty of two of the finest poems in English literature cannot be permitted to figure in the critics' dispassionate investigation of causes and influences. There were four interesting reviews of the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads, namely, (1) Critical Rev., XXIV, n.s. (197-204), in October, 1798, which is reprinted here; (2) Analytical The article in the Critical Review was written by Robert Southey under conditions most favorable for such a malicious procedure. The publisher, his friend Cottle, had transferred the copyright of the Lyrical Ballads to Arch, a London publisher, within two weeks of the appearance of the volume, giving as a shallow excuse the "heavy sale" of the book. Both Wordsworth and Coleridge were in Germany. Southey had quarreled with Coleridge, and was probably jealous of the latter's extravagant praise of Wordsworth. He accordingly seized the opportunity to assail the work without injuring Cottle's interests or entailing the immediate displeasure of the travelling bards. He covered his tracks to some extent by referring several times to "the author," although the joint authorship was well known to him. While severe in most of his strictures on Wordsworth, Southey reserved his special malice for The Ancient Mariner. He called it "a Dutch attempt at German sublimity"; and in a letter written to William Taylor on September 5, 1798—probably while he was writing his discreditable critique—he characterized the poem as "the clumsiest attempt at German sublimity I ever saw." Southey's responsibility for the article became known to Cottle, who communicated the fact to the poets on their return a year later. Wordsworth declared that "if Southey could not conscientiously have spoken differently of the volume, he ought to have declined the task of reviewing it." Coleridge indited an epigram, To a Critic, and let the matter drop. Shortly afterwards he showed his renewed good-will by aiding Southey in preparing the second Annual Anthology (1800). The subsequent reviews of the Lyrical Ballads adopted the tone of the Critical (then recognized as the leading review) and internal evidence shows that they did not hesitate to borrow ideas from Southey's article. The Analytical Review also saw German extravagances in The Ancient Mariner; the Monthly borrowed Southey's figure of the Italian and Flemish painters, and called The Ancient Mariner "the strangest story of a cock and bull that we ever saw on paper ... a rhapsody of unintelligible wildness and incoherence." The belated review in the British Critic Poems (1807)Wordsworth's fourth publication, the Poems (1807), included most of the pieces written after the first appearance of the Lyrical Ballads. It was likewise his first venture subsequent to the founding of the Edinburgh Review. Jeffrey had assailed the theories of the "Lake Poets" (and, incidentally, coined that unfortunate term) in the first number of the Review, in an article on Southey's Thalaba, and three years later (1805), in criticizing Madoc, he again expressed his views on the subject. Now came the first opportunity to deal with the recognized leader of the "Lakers"—the poet whose work most clearly illustrated the poetic theories that Jeffrey deemed pernicious. The article here reprinted from the Edinburgh Rev., XI (214-231), of October, 1807, and Jeffrey's review of The Excursion, in ibid., XXIV (1-30), are perhaps the two most important critiques of their kind. No student of Wordsworth's theory of poetry, as set forth in his various prefaces, can afford to ignore either of these interesting discussions of the subject. (For details, see A.J. George's edition of the Prefaces of Wordsworth, Gates' Selections from Jeffrey, Beers' Nineteenth Century Romanticism, Hutchinson's edition of Lyrical Ballads, etc.) It was undoubtedly true that Jeffrey, although an able critic, failed to grasp the real significance of the new poetic movement, and to appreciate the influence wrought by the doctrines of the Lake Poets on modern conceptions of poetry. Yet he was far from wrong in many of his criticisms of Wordsworth. While deprecating the latter's theories, it is clear that Jeffrey regarded him as a poet of great power who was being led astray by his perverse practice. The popular conception of Jeffrey as a hectoring and blatant opponent of Wordsworth is not substantiated by the review. The impartial reader must agree with Jeffrey at many points, and if he will take the trouble to collate Jeffrey's quotations with the revised text We recognize Wordsworth to-day as the most unequal of English poets. There is little that is common to the inspired bard of Tintern Abbey, the Immortality Ode and the nobler Sonnets, and the unsophisticated scribe of Peter Bell and The Idiot Boy. Like Browning, he wrote too much to write well at all times, and if both poets were capable of the sublimest flights, they likewise descended to unimagined depths; but the fault of Wordsworth was perhaps the greater, because his bathos was the result of a deliberate and persistent attempt to enrich English poetry with prosaically versified incidents drawn at length from homely rural life. Samuel Taylor Coleridge The first part of Coleridge's Christabel was written in 1797 during the brief period of inspiration that also gave us The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan—in short, that small group of exquisite poems which in themselves suffice to place Coleridge in the front rank of English poets. The second part was written in 1800, after the author's return from Germany. The fragment circulated widely in manuscript among literary men, bewitched Scott and Byron into imitating its fascinating rhythms, and, at Byron's suggestion, was finally published by Murray in 1816 with Kubla Khan and The Pains of Sleep. It is probable that the high esteem in which these poems were held by Coleridge's literary friends led him to expect a favorable reception at the hands of the critics; hence his keen disappointment at the general tone of their sarcastic analysis and their protests against the absurdity and obscurity of the poems. The principal critiques on Christabel were:—(1) Edinburgh Rev., XXVII (58-67), which is here reprinted; (2) Monthly Rev., LXXXII, n.s. (22-25), reprinted in Stevenson's Early Reviews; (3) The Literary Panorama, IV, n.s. (561-565); and (4) Anti-Jacobin Rev., L (632-636). It is evident that Coleridge was eminently successful in the gentle art of making enemies. We have seen that Southey's attack on the Lyrical Ballads was a direct result of his ill-will toward Coleridge; the outrageous article in the Edinburgh Review was written by William Hazlitt under similar inspiration, and was followed by abusive papers in The Examiner (1816, p. The other reviews of Christabel were all unfavorable. Most extravagant was the utterance of the Monthly Magazine, XLVI, p. 407, in 1818, when it declared that the "poem of Christabel is only fit for the inmates of Bedlam. We are not acquainted in the history of literature with so great an insult offered to the public understanding as the publication of that r[h]apsody of delirium." Hazlitt's primitive remarks on the metre of Christabel are of little interest. Coleridge was, of course, wrong in stating that his metre was founded on a new principle. The irregularly four-stressed line occurs in Spenser's Shepherd's Calender and can be traced back through the halting tetrameters of Skelton. Coleridge himself alludes to this fact in his note to his poem The Raven, and elsewhere. Coleridge's earlier poetical publications were received with commonplace critiques usually mildly favorable. For reviews of his Poems (1796) see Monthly Rev., XX, n.s., p. 194; Analytical Rev., XXIII, p. 610; British Critic, VII, p. 549; and Critical Rev., XVII, n.s., p. 209; the second edition of Poems (1797) is noticed in Critical Rev., XXIII, n.s., p. 266; for Lyrical Ballads, see under Wordsworth; for the successful play Remorse (1813), see Monthly Rev., LXXI, n.s., p. 82, and Quarterly Rev., XI, p. 177. Robert Southey Madoc, a ponderous quarto of over five hundred pages and issued at two guineas, was published by Southey in 1805 as the second of that long-forgotten series of interminable epics including Thalaba, The Curse of Kehama, and Roderick, Last of the Goths. These huge unformed productions were not poems, but metrical tales, written in a kind of verse that could have flowed indefinitely from the author's pen. In short, Southey was not a poet, and the whole bulk of his efforts in verse, with but one or two exceptions, seems destined to oblivion. As poet-laureate for thirty years and the associate of Wordsworth and Coleridge in the "Lake School," Southey will, however, remain a figure of some importance in the history of English poetry. The review of Madoc reprinted from the Monthly Rev., XLVIII (113-122) for October, 1805, was written in the old style then fast giving way to the sprightlier methods of the Edinburgh. Here we find a style abounding in literary allusions and classical quotations, and evincing a generally patronizing attitude toward the author under discussion. Most readers will agree with the sentiments expressed by the reviewer, who succeeded in making his article interesting without descending to the depths of buffoonery. No apology is necessary for the excision of the reviewer's unreasonably long extracts from the poem. Madoc was also reviewed at great length in the Edinburgh Review by Francis Jeffrey. 61. Ille ego, qui quondam, etc. The lines usually prefixed to the Æneid. 61. Prorumpere in medias res. Cf. Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 148. 61. Macklin's Tragedy. Henry VII (1746), his only tragedy, and a failure. 61. Toto carere possum. Cf. Martial, Epig. XI, 56. 61. CamoËns. The author of the Portuguese Lusiad (1572) which narrates the adventures of Vasco da Gama. 62. Milton. Quoted from Sonnet XI.—On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises. 63. Snatching a grace, etc. Pope's Essay on Criticism, l. 153. Charles Lamb Most of Lamb's earlier poetical productions appeared in conjunction with the work of other poets. Four of his sonnets were printed with Coleridge's Poems on Various Subjects (1796), and he was more fully represented in Poems by S.T. Coleridge. Second Edition. To which are now added Poems by Charles Lamb and Charles Lloyd (1797). In the following year appeared Blank Verse, by Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb. For new and interesting material concerning the three poets, see E.V. Lucas' Charles Lamb and the Lloyds (1899). Lloyd (1775-1839) wrote melancholy verses and a sentimental, epistolary novel Edmund Oliver, but nothing of permanent value. However, in 1798, he was almost as well known as Coleridge, and was hailed in some quarters as a promising poet. The Monthly Rev., XXVII, n.s. (104-105), in September, 1798, published the critique of Blank Verse which is here reprinted. Its principal interest lies in the scant attention shown to Lamb, although the volume contained his best poem—the tender Old Familiar Faces. Dr. Johnson's characterization of blank-verse as "poetry to the eye" will be found at the end of his Life of Milton as a quotation from "an ingenious critic." Lamb's drama, John Woodvil (1802), written in imitation of later Elizabethan models, was a failure. It was unfavorably noticed in the Monthly Rev., XL, n.s., p. 442 and at greater length in the Edinburgh Rev., II, p. 90 ff. Many years later (1830) Lamb prepared his collection of Album-Verses at the request of his friend Edward Moxon, who had achieved some fame as a poet and was enabled (by the generous aid of Samuel Rogers) to begin his more lucrative career as a publisher. Three years after the appearance of Album-Verses, he married Lamb's adopted daughter, Emma Isola. The Album-Verses, like most of their kind, were a collection of small value; the Literary Gazette, 1830 (441-442), consequently lost no time in assailing them. The AthenÆum, 1830, p. 435, at that Walter Savage Landor Landor was twenty-three when he published Gebir anonymously in 1798—the year of the Lyrical Ballads—and he lived until 1864. The nine decades of his life covered an important period of literature. He was nine years old when the great Johnson died, yet he lived to see the best poetic achievements of Tennyson, Browning, and Arnold. However, he did not live to see Gebir a popular poem. Southey gave it a favorable welcome in the Critical Review, and became a life-long admirer of Landor; but our brief notices reprinted from the Monthly Rev., XXXI, n.s., p. 206, and British Critic, XV, p. 190 of February, 1800, represent more nearly the popular verdict. Both reviewers complain of the obscurity of the poem, which, it will be remembered, had been originally written in Latin, then translated and abridged. Notwithstanding the fact that Landor declared himself amply repaid by the praise of a few appreciative readers, he prepared a violent and scornful reply to the Monthly Review, and would have published it but for the sensible dissuasion of a friend. Some interesting extracts from the letter are printed in Forster's Life of Landor, pp. (76-85). He protested especially against the imputed plagiarisms from Milton and gave ample evidence of the pugnacious spirit that brought him into difficulties several times during his life. See also the Imaginary Conversation between Archdeacon Hare and Walter Landor, wherein the reception of Gebir is discussed and Southey's poetry is praised at the expense of Wordsworth's. Landor's first publication, the Poems (1795) was noticed in the Monthly Rev., XXI, n.s., p. 253. Sir Walter Scott The successful series of metrical tales which Scott inaugurated with the Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) had for its second The critique of Marmion, written by Jeffrey for the Edinburgh Rev., XII (1-35), had the place of honor in the number for April, 1808. It was chosen for the present reprints partly as a fitting example of Jeffrey's fearlessness in expressing his opinions, and partly for its historic interest as the article that contributed to Scott's rupture with the Edinburghers and to his successful founding of a Tory rival in the Quarterly Review. Although the article has here been abridged to about half of its original length by the omission of six hundred quoted lines and a synopsis of the poem, it is still the longest of these reprints. Jeffrey evidently felt that a detailed account of the story was necessary in order to justify his strictures on the plot. An author of those days could afford to ignore the decisions of the critical monthlies, but the brilliant criticism and incisive diction of the Edinburgh Review carried weight and exerted far-reaching influence. Jeffrey's article was practically the only dissonant note in the chorus of praise that greeted Marmion, and Scott probably resented the critic's attitude. Lockhart, in his admirable chapter on the publication of Marmion, admits that "Jeffrey acquitted himself on this occasion in a manner highly creditable to his courageous sense of duty." The April number of the Edinburgh appeared shortly before a particular day on which Jeffrey had engaged to dine with Scott. Fearing that under the circumstances he might be an unwelcome guest, he sent the following tactful note with the copy which was forwarded to the poet:— "Dear Scott,—If I did not give you credit for more magnanimity than any other of your irritable tribe, I should scarcely venture to put this into your hands. As it is, I do it with no little solicitude, and earnestly hope that it will make no difference in the friendship which has hitherto subsisted between us. I have spoken of your poem exactly as I think, and though I cannot reasonably suppose that you will be pleased with everything I have said, it would mortify me very severely to believe I had There was but one course open to Scott; accordingly to Lockhart, "he assured Mr. Jeffrey that the article had not disturbed his digestion, though he hoped neither his booksellers nor the public would agree with the opinions it expressed, and begged he would come to dinner at the hour previously appointed. Mr. Jeffrey appeared accordingly, and was received by his host with the frankest cordiality, but had the mortification to observe that the mistress of the house, though perfectly polite, was not quite so easy with him as usual. She, too, behaved herself with exemplary civility during the dinner, but could not help saying, in her broken English, when her guest was departing, 'Well, good night, Mr. Jeffrey. Dey tell me you have abused Scott in de Review, and I hope Mr. Constable has paid you very well for writing it.'" Jeffrey's article apparently had little influence on the sale of Marmion, which reached eight editions (25,000 copies) in three years. In October, 1808, the Edinburgh Review published an appreciative review of Scott's edition of Dryden, and afterwards received with favor the later poems and the principal Waverley Novels. 78. Mr. Thomas Inkle. The story of Inkle and Yarico was related by Steele in no. 11 of the Spectator. It was afterwards dramatized (1787) by George Colman. Lord Byron The twentieth number of the Edinburgh Review contained Jeffrey's long article on Wordsworth's Poems (1807); the twenty-second contained his review of Scott's Marmion; and the twenty-first (January, 1808) contained a still more famous critique, long attributed to Jeffrey—the review of Byron's Hours of Idleness (1807). It is reprinted from Edinburgh Rev., XI (285-289) in Stevenson's Early Reviews and forms Appendix II of R.E. Prothero's edition of Byron's Letters and Journals. We know definitely that the article was written by Henry Brougham. (See Prothero, op. cit., II, p. 397, and Sir M.E. Grant Duff's Notes from a Diary, II, p. 189.) It is hardly within the province of literary criticism to deal with hypothetical conditions in authors' lives; but it is at least a matter of some interest to conjecture whether Byron would have become a great poet if this stinging review had not been published. It is evident that the Hours of Idleness gave few signs of promise, and the poet, fully intent upon a political career, himself expressed his intention of abandoning the muse. Many an educated Englishman has published such a volume of Juvenilia and sinned no more. But a nature like Byron's could not overlook the effrontery of the Edinburgh Review. The proud-spirited poet was evidently far more incensed by the patronizing tone of the article than by its strictures: what could be more galling than the reiterated references to the "noble minor," or the withering contempt that characterized a particular poem as "the thing in page 79"? Many years later, Byron wrote to Shelley:—"I recollect the effect on me of the Edinburgh on my first poem; it was rage, and resistance, and redress—but not despondency nor despair." (Prothero, V, p. 267.) There was method in Byron's "rage and resistance and redress." For more than a year he labored upon a satire which he had begun even before the appearance of the Edinburgh article. (See letter of October 26, 1807, in Letters, ed. Prothero, I, p. 147.) In the spring of 1809, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers was given anonymously to the world. The publication of this vigorous satire virtually decided Byron's career. Not only did he abuse Jeffrey, whom he believed responsible for the offending critique, but he flung defiance in the face of almost all his literary contemporaries. The authorship of the satire was soon apparent, and in a flippant note to the second edition, Byron became still more abusive toward Jeffrey and his "dirty pack," and declared that he was ready to give satisfaction to all who sought it. A few years later he regretted his rashness in assailing the authors of his time. He also learned of the injustice done to Jeffrey and had ample reason to feel embarrassed by the tone of the eight reviews of his poems that Jeffrey did write for the Edinburgh. (See the list in Prothero, II, p. 248.) In Don Juan (canto X, xvi), he made the following retraction:— The other reviews of Hours of Idleness are of little interest. The Monthly and the Critical both praised the book; the Literary Panorama, III, p. 273, said the author was no imbecile, but an incautious writer. 98. θελο λεγειν,—Anacreon, Ode I. (θέλο λέγειν Ἀτρείδας, κ. τ. λ.) 98. μεσονυκτιοις, ποθ' ὁραις,—Anacreon, Ode III. (μεσονυκτίοις ποθ' ὥραις, κ. τ. λ.) 100. Sancho,—Sancho Panza in Don Quixote. The proverb is of ancient origin. See French, Latin, Italian and Spanish forms in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. Childe HaroldShortly after the appearance of the second edition of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, Byron left England and travelled through the East, at the same time leisurely composing the first two cantos of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Their publication in 1812 placed him at the head of the popular poets of the day. Henceforth the reviews gave extensive notices to all his productions. (For references, see J.P. Anderson's bibliography appended to Hon. Roden Noel's Life of Byron.) Childe Harold was reviewed in the Edinburgh Rev., XIX (466-477), by Jeffrey; in the Quarterly, VII (180-200), by George Ellis; in the British Review, III (275-302); and Eclectic Review, XV (630-641). The article here reprinted from the Christian Observer, XI (376-386), of June, 1812, is of special interest as an early protest from conservative, religious circles against the immoral and irreverent tone of Byron's poetry. As literary criticism, it is almost worthless, in spite of the elaborate allusions and quotations with which the critic—evidently a survivor of the old school—has interlarded his remarks. Little can be said in defense of an article which insists that the chief end of poetry is to be agreeably didactic and which (in 1812) cites Southey as the greatest of living poets. However, it probably represents the attitude of a large number of worthy people of the time, who recognized that Byron had genius, and wished to see him exercise his powers 101. Lion of the north, Francis Jeffrey. The usual agnomen of Gustavus Adolphus. Cf. Walter Scott, the "Wizard of the North." 105. Faiery Queen will not often be read through. Hume's History of England, Appendix III. 106. Qui, quid sit pulchrum, etc. Horace, Epis. II (3-4). 106. Rursum—quid virtus, etc. Horace, Epis. II (17-18). 107. Our sage serious Spenser, etc. Milton's Areopagitica, Works, ed. Mitford, IV, p. 412. 107. Quinctilian. See Quintilian, Book XII, Chap. I. 107. Longinus. On the Sublime, IX, XIII, etc. 108. Restoration of Learning in the East. A Cambridge prize poem (1805) by Charles Grant, Lord Glenelg (1778-1866). 109. Thersites. See Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida. 109. Caliban. See Shakespeare's The Tempest. 109. Heraclitus. The "weeping philosopher" (circa 500 B.C.). 109. Zeno. The founder (342-270 B.C.) of the Stoic School. 109. Zoilus. The ancient grammarian who assailed the works of Homer. The epithet Homeromastix is sometimes applied to him. 113. The philosophic Tully, etc. See the concluding paragraph of Cicero's De Senectute. Percy Bysshe Shelley It is doubtful whether any other poet was so widely and so continuously assailed in the reviews as Shelley. Circumstances have made certain critiques on Byron, Keats, and others more widely known, but nowhere else do we find the persistent stream of abuse that followed in the wake of Shelley's publications. The Blackwood articles were usually most scathing, and those of the Literary Gazette were not far behind. Fortunately, the poet spent most of his time in Italy and thus remained in ignorance of the Alastor, which appeared in 1816, attracted comparatively little attention. The tone of the brief notice reprinted from the Monthly Rev., LXXIX, n.s., p. 433, shows that the poet was as yet unknown to the critics. Blackwood's Magazine, VI (148-154), gave a longer and, on the whole, more favorable account of the poem. In the same year, Leigh Hunt published his Story of Rimini, most noteworthy for its graceful rhythmical structure in the unrestricted couplets of Chaucer. This departure from the polished heroics of Pope, which were ill-adapted to narrative subjects in spite of his successful translation of Homer, was hailed with delight by the younger poets. Shelley imitated the measure in his Julian and Maddalo, and Keats did likewise in Lamia and Endymion. Hunt was soon recognized by the critics as the leader of a group of liberals whom they conveniently classified as the Cockney School. Shelley's ill-treatment at the hands of the reviewers dates from his association with this coterie. His Revolt of Islam (1818) was assailed by John Taylor Coleridge in the Quarterly Review, XXI (460-471). The Cenci was condemned as a horrible literary monstrosity by the scandalized critics of the Monthly Rev., XCIV, n.s. (161-168); the Literary Gazette, 1820 (209-10); and the New Monthly Magazine, XIII (550-553). The review here reprinted from the London Mag., I (401-405), is comparatively mild in its censure. One would naturally suppose that the death of Keats would have ensured at least a respectful consideration for Shelley's lament, Adonais (1821); but the callous critics were by no means abashed. The outrageous article in the Literary Gazette of December 8, 1821, pp. (772-773), is one of the unpardonable errors of literary criticism; but it sinks into insignificance beside the brutal, unquotable review which Blackwood's Magazine permitted to appear in its pages. In the same year Shelley's youthful poetical indiscretion, Queen Mab, which he himself called "villainous trash," was published under circumstances beyond his control, and forthwith the readers of the Literary Gazette were regaled with ten columns of foul abuse from the pen of a critic who declared that he was driven almost speechless by the sentiments expressed in the poem. Well could the heartless reviewer of Adonais write:—"If criticism killed the disciples of that [the 115. Eye in a fine phrenzy rolling. Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream, V, 1, 12. 115. Above this visible diurnal sphere. Milton's Paradise Lost, Book VII, 22. 116. Parc quod satis est manu. Horace, Odes, III, 16, 24. 116. Lord Fanny. A nickname bestowed upon Lord Hervey, an effeminate noble of the time of George II. 117. O! rus, quando ego te aspiciam. Horace, Satires, II, 6, 60. 117. Mordecai. See Book of Esther, V, 13. 118. Last of the Romans. Mark Antony in Shakespeare's Julius CÆsar, III, 2, 194. 120. Full fathom five. Shakespeare's The Tempest, I, 2, 396. 126. OhÉ! jam satis est. Horace, Satires, I, 5, 12-13. 126. Tristram Shandy. The excommunication is in vol. III, chap. XI. 133. Put a girdle, etc. See Shakespeare's Midsummer-Night's Dream, II, 1, 175. John Keats The history of English poetry offers no more interesting case between poet and critic than that of John Keats. The imputed influence of a savage critique in hastening the death of the poet has given the Quarterly Review an unenviable notoriety which clings in spite of the efforts of scholars to establish the truth. To many students, Keats, Endymion, and Quarterly are practically connotative terms; and this is a direct result of the righteous but misguided indignation of Shelley—misguided because his information was incomplete and the more guilty party escaped, thus inflicting upon the Quarterly the brunt of the opprobrium of which far more than half should be accredited to Blackwood's Magazine. Endymion was published in April, 1818. One of the publishers (Taylor and Hessey) requested Gifford, then editor of the Quarterly Review, to treat the poem with indulgence. This indiscreet move probably actuated Gifford to provide a severe critique; at any rate, in the belated April number of the Quarterly, XIX (204-208), which was not issued until September, appeared the famous review. A persistent error, which has crept into W. Meanwhile, Blackwood's Magazine, III (519-524) had made Endymion the text of its fourth infamous tirade against the Cockney School of Poetry. The signature "Z" was appended to all the articles, but the critic's identity has not yet been discovered. Leigh Hunt thought it was Walter Scott, Haydon suspected the actor Terry, but it is more probable that the honor belongs to John Gibson Lockhart. One account attributes the entire series to Lockhart; another attributes the series to Wilson, but holds Lockhart responsible for the Endymion article. Mr. Andrew Lang, in his Life and Letters of Lockhart, dismissed the matter by saying that he did not know who wrote the article. The Quarterly critique was reprinted in Stevenson's Early Reviews, in Rossetti's Life of Keats, in Buxton Forman's edition of Keats' Poetical Works (Appendix V) and elsewhere. From a critical point of view, it is, as Forman terms it, a "curiously unimportant production." The student will at once question its power to cause distress in the mind of the poet; as for malignant severity, there are several reviews among the present reprints that put the brief Quarterly article to shame. When we turn to what Swinburne calls the "obscener insolence" of the Blackwood article, we find an unrestrained torrent of abuse against both Hunt and Keats that amply justified Landor's subsequent allusions to the Blackguard's Magazine. The Quarterly critique was captious and ill-tempered; but the Blackwood article was a personal insult. It is impossible to consider in detail the vexed question of the influence which these reviews had upon Keats. In Mr. W.M. Rossetti's Life of Keats, pp. (83-106) there is a full discussion of the evidence on the subject. Within a few months after the appearance of the articles, Keats wrote:—"Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic of his own works. My own domestic criticism has given me pain without comparison beyond what Blackwood or The Quarterly could possibly inflict." Some weeks later he wrote that the Quarterly article had only served to Shelley had gone to Italy before the reviews were published. He heard of the Quarterly article, but knew nothing of Blackwood's while writing Adonais; hence in both poem and preface, the former review is charged with having caused Keats' death. Shelley declared that Keats' agitation over the review ended in the rupture of a blood vessel in the lungs with an ensuing rapid consumption. These statements, which Shelley must have had indirectly, have not been substantiated. We are forced to the conclusion now generally accepted—that Keats, although sensitive to personal ridicule, was superior to the stings of review criticism and that the distressing events of the last year of his life were sufficient to assure the early triumph of the inherent and unconquerable disease. 141. Miss Baillie. Joanna Baillie (1762-1851) authoress of numerous forgotten plays and poems which enjoyed great popularity in their day. 142. Land of Cockaigne. Here means London, and refers specifically to the Cockney poets. An old French poem on the Land of Cockaigne described it as an ideal land of luxury and ease. The best authorities do not accept Cockney as a derivative form. The Cockney School was composed of Londoners of the middle-class, supposedly ill-bred and imperfectly educated. The critics took special delight in dwelling upon the humble origin of the Cockneys, their lack of university training, and especially their dependence on translations for their knowledge of the classics. 142. When Leigh Hunt left prison. Hunt had been imprisoned for libel on the Prince Regent (1812). 146. Vauxhall. The Gardens were a favorite resort for Londoners early in the eighteenth century and remained popular for a long time. See Thackeray's Vanity Fair (chap. VI). The implication in the present passage is that the Cockney poet gets his ideas of nature from the immediate vicinity of London. 147. East of Temple-bar. That is, living in the City of London. 150. Young Sangrado. An allusion to Doctor Sangrado, in Le Sage's Gil Blas (1715). Alfred Lord Tennyson Tennyson's first poetical efforts, which appeared in Poems by Two Brothers (1827) attracted little critical attention. His prize-poem, Timbuctoo (1829) received the interesting notice here reprinted from the AthenÆum (p. 456) of July 22, 1829. Timbuctoo was printed in the Cambridge Chronicle (July 10, 1829); in the Prolusiones AcademicÆ (1829); and several times in Cambridge Prize-Poems. The use of heroic metre in prize-poems was traditional; hence the award was an enviable tribute to the blank-verse of Timbuctoo. Tennyson's success was emphasized by the remarkable series of reviews that greeted his earliest volumes of poems. The Poems, chiefly Lyrical (1830) were welcomed by Sir John Bowring in the Westminster Review, by Leigh Hunt in the Tatler, by Arthur Hallam in the Englishman's Magazine, and by John Wilson in Blackwood's Magazine. The Poems (1833) were reviewed by W.J. Fox in the Monthly Repository, and by John Stuart Mill in the Westminster Review. This array of names was indeed a tribute to the poet; but the unfavorable review, was, as usual, most significant. The article written by Lockhart for the Quarterly Rev., XLIX (81-97), has been characterized as "silly and brutal," but it was neither. Tennyson's fame is secure; we can at least be just to his early reviewer. It is true that the poet winced under the lash and that ten years elapsed before his next volume of collected poems appeared; but Canon Ainger is surely in error when he holds the Quarterly Review mainly responsible for this long silence. The rich measure of praise elsewhere bestowed upon the volume would leave us no alternative but the conclusion that Tennyson was childish enough to maintain his silence for a decade because Lockhart took liberties with his poems instead of joining the chorus of adulation. We know that there were other and stronger reasons for Tennyson's silence and we also know that the effect of Lockhart's article was decidedly salutary. When the next collection of Poems (1842) did appear, the shorter pieces ridiculed by Lockhart were omitted, and the derided passages in the longer poems were altered. We may, without conscientious scruples, take Mr. Andrew Lang's advice, and enjoy a laugh over Lockhart's performance. Its mock appreciations are, perhaps, far-fetched at times; but there are enough effective passages to give zest to the article. It has been said in all seriousness that Lockhart failed to appreciate the beauty of most of Tennyson's lines, and that he confined his remarks to the most assailable passages. Surely, when a critic undertakes to write a mock-appreciation, he will not quote the best verses, to the detriment of his plan. The poet must see to it that his volume does not contain enough absurdities to form a sufficient basis for such an article. There is a striking contrast to the humor of Lockhart in the little-known review of the same volume by the Literary Gazette, 1833, pp. (772-774). The latter seized upon some crudities that had escaped the Quarterly's notice, and, with characteristic brutality, decided that the poet was insane and needed a low diet and a cell. Although the reception accorded to Poems (1842) was generally favorable, the publication of The Princess in 1847 afforded the critics another opportunity to lament Tennyson's inequalities. The spirit of the review of The Princess here reprinted from the Literary Gazette of August 8, 1848, is practically identical with that of the AthenÆum on January 6, 1848, but specifies more clearly the critic's objections to the medley. It is noteworthy that Lord Tennyson made extensive changes in subsequent editions of The Princess, but left unaltered all of the passages to which the Literary Gazette took exception. The beautiful threnody In Memoriam (1850) and Tennyson's elevation to the laureateship in the same year established his position as the leading poet of the time; but the appearance of Maud in 1856 proved to be a temporary check to his popularity. A few personal friends admired it and praised its fine lyrics; but as a dramatic narrative it failed to please the reviews. The most interesting of the critiques (unfortunately too long to be reprinted here) appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, XLI (311-321), of September, 1855,—a forcible, well-written article, which, incidentally, shows how much the magazine had improved in respectability since the days of the lampooners of Byron, Shelley, and Keats. The authorship of the article has not been disclosed, but we know that W.E. Aytoun asked permission of the proprietor to review Tennyson's Maud. (See Mrs. Oliphant's William Blackwood and his Sons.) The publication of the Idylls 153. Catullus. See Catullus, II and III—(Passer, deliciÆ meÆ puellÆ, and Lugete, O Veneres Cupidinesque). 153. Είθε λύρη, κ. τ. λ. Usually found in the remains of AlcÆus. Thomas Moore translates it with his Odes of Anacreon (LXXVII), beginning "Would that I were a tuneful lyre," etc. Lockhart proceeds to ridicule Tennyson for wishing to be a river, which is not what the quoted lines state. Nor does Tennyson "ambition a bolder metamorphosis" than his predecessors. Anacreon (Ode XXII) wishes to be a stream, as well as a mirror, a robe, a pair of sandals and sundry other articles. See Moore's interesting note. 155. Non omnis moriar. Horace, Odes, III, 30, 6. 156. Tongues in trees, etc. Shakespeare's As You Like It, II, 1, 17. 157. AristÆus. A minor Grecian divinity, worshipped as the first to introduce the culture of bees. 164. Dionysius Periegetes. Author of περιήγησις τῆς γῆς, a description of the earth in hexameters, usually published with the scholia of Eustathius and the Latin paraphrases of Avienus and Priscian. For the account of Æthiopia, see also Pausanias, I, 33, 4. 167. The Rovers. The Rovers was a parody on the German drama of the day, published in the Anti-Jacobin (1798) and written by Frere, Canning and others. It is reprinted in Charles Edmund's Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. The chorus of conspirators is at the end of Act IV. 169. The Groves of Blarney. An old Irish song. A version may be seen in the Antiquary, I, p. 199. The quotation by Lockhart differs somewhat from the corresponding stanza of the cited version. 170. Corporal Trim. In Sterne's Tristram Shandy. 173. Christopher North. John Wilson, of Blackwood's Magazine. Robert Browning The reviews of Browning's poems are singularly uninteresting from a historical standpoint. There is usually a protest against the obscurity of the poetry and a plea that the author should make better use of his manifest genius. For details concerning The early poems were so abstruse that the critics were unable to make sport of them as they did in the case of Wordsworth, Byron, Tennyson, and the rest; and when Browning finally deigned to write within range of the average human intellect, that particular style of reviewing had lost favor. His earliest publication, Pauline (1832) was well received by W.J. Fox in Monthly Repository, and in the AthenÆum. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine called it a "piece of pure bewilderment." See also the brief notice in the Literary Gazette, 1833, p. 183. Paracelsus (1835) had a similar experience; the reprint from the AthenÆum, 1835, p. 640, is fairly characteristic of the rest, among which are the articles in the Monthly Repository, 1835, p. 716; the Christian Remembrancer, XX, p. 346, and the reviews written by John Forster for the Examiner, 1835, p. 563, and the New Monthly Magazine, XLVI (289-308). Neither the favorable review of Sordello (1840) in the Monthly Rev., 1840, II, p. 149, nor the partly appreciative article in the AthenÆum, 1840, p. 431, seems to warrant the well-known anecdotes relating the difficulties of Douglas Jerrold and Tennyson in attempting to understand that poem. The AthenÆum gave the poet sound advice, especially in regard to the intentional obscurity of his meaning. That this admonition was futile may be gathered from the Saturday Review's article (I, p. 69) on Men and Women (1855) published fifteen years after Sordello. The critic reverted to the earlier style, and produced one of the most readable reviews of Browning. Whatever may be the final verdict yet to be passed upon Browning's poetic achievement, the fact remains that the contemporary reviews from first to last deplored in his work a deliberate obscurity which was wholly unwarranted and which precluded the universal appeal that is essential to a poet's greatness. 189. Della Crusca of Sentimentalism. Robert Merry (1755-1798) under the name Della Crusca became the leader of a set of poetasters who flourished during the poetic dearth at the end of the eighteenth century and poured forth their rubbish until William Gifford exposed their follies in his satires The Baviad (1794) and The MÆviad (1795). 189. Alexander Smith. A Scotch poet (1830-1867). 189. Mystic of Bailey. Philip James Bailey (1816-1902), best known as the author of Festus, published The Mystic in 1855. 192. Hudibras Butler, etc. Samuel Butler, author of Hudibras (1663-78); Richard H. Barham, author of the Ingoldsby Legends (1840); and Thomas Hood, author of Whims and Oddities (1826-27). These poets are cited by the reviewer for their skill with unusual metres and difficult rhymes. |
|
