likely to result from an over-anxious desire to supply the want of the
first rudiments of education; that sort of wit, which is the offspring
of ill-humour or bodily pain; that sort of sense, which arises from a
spirit of contradiction and a disposition to cavil at and dispute
the opinions of others; and that sort of reputation, which is the
consequence of bowing to established authority and ministerial
influence. He dedicates to some great man, and receives his compliments
in return. He appeals to some great name, and the Under-graduates of the
two Universities look up to him as an oracle of wisdom. He throws the
weight of his verbal criticism and puny discoveries in _black-letter_
reading into the gap, that is supposed to be making in the Constitution
by Whigs and Radicals, whom he qualifies without mercy as dunces and
miscreants; and so entitles himself to the protection of Church and
State. The character of his mind is an utter want of independence and
magnanimity in all that he attempts. He cannot go alone, he must have
crutches, a go-cart and trammels, or he is timid, fretful, and helpless
as a child. He cannot conceive of any thing different from what he finds
it, and hates those who pretend to a greater reach of intellect
or boldness of spirit than himself. He inclines, by a natural and
deliberate bias, to the traditional in laws and government; to
the orthodox in religion; to the safe in opinion; to the trite in
imagination; to the technical in style; to whatever implies a surrender
of individual judgment into the hands of authority, and a subjection of
individual feeling to mechanic rules. If he finds any one flying in the
face of these, or straggling from the beaten path, he thinks he has them
at a notable disadvantage, and falls foul of them without loss of time,
partly to soothe his own sense of mortified self-consequence, and as an
edifying spectacle to his legitimate friends. He takes none but unfair
advantages. He _twits_ his adversaries (that is, those who are not
in the leading-strings of his school or party) with some personal or
accidental defect. If a writer has been punished for a political libel,
he is sure to hear of it in a literary criticism. If a lady goes on
crutches and is out of favour at court, she is reminded of it in Mr.
Gilford's manly satire. He sneers at people of low birth or who have
not had a college-education, partly to hide his own want of certain
advantages, partly as well-timed flattery to those who possess them. He
has a right to laugh at poor, unfriended, untitled genius from wearing
the livery of rank and letters, as footmen behind a coronet-coach laugh
at the rabble. He keeps good company, and forgets himself. He stands at
the door of Mr. Murray's shop, and will not let any body pass but the
well-dressed mob, or some followers of the court. To edge into the
_Quarterly_ Temple of Fame the candidate must have a diploma from the
Universities, a passport from the Treasury. Otherwise, it is a breach of
etiquette to let him pass, an insult to the better sort who aspire to
the love of letters--and may chance to drop in to the _Feast of the
Poets_. Or, if he cannot manage it thus, or get rid of the claim on the
bare ground of poverty or want of school-learning, he _trumps_ up an
excuse for the occasion, such as that "a man was confined in Newgate a
short time before"--it is not a _lie_ on the part of the critic, it is
only an amiable subserviency to the will of his betters, like that of
a menial who is ordered to deny his master, a sense of propriety, a
knowledge of the world, a poetical and moral license. Such fellows
(such is his cue from his employers) should at any rate be kept out of
privileged places: persons who have been convicted of prose-libels ought
not to be suffered to write poetry--if the fact was not exactly as it
was stated, it was something of the kind, or it _ought_ to have been
so, the assertion was a pious fraud,--the public, the court, the prince
himself might read the work, but for this mark of opprobrium set upon
it--it was not to be endured that an insolent plebeian should aspire to
elegance, taste, fancy--it was throwing down the barriers which ought
to separate the higher and the lower classes, the loyal and the
disloyal--the paraphrase of the story of Dante was therefore to perform
quarantine, it was to seem not yet recovered from the gaol infection,
there was to be a taint upon it, as there was none in it--and all this
was performed by a single slip of Mr. Gifford's pen! We would willingly
believe (if we could) that in this case there was as much weakness and
prejudice as there was malice and cunning.--Again, we do not think it
possible that under any circumstances the writer of the _Verses to Anna_
could enter into the spirit or delicacy of Mr. Keats's poetry. The fate
of the latter somewhat resembled that of
--"a bud bit by an envious worm,
Ere it could spread its sweet leaves to the air,
Or dedicate its beauty to the sun."
Mr. Keats's ostensible crime was that he had been praised in the
_Examiner Newspaper_: a greater and more unpardonable offence probably
was, that he was a true poet, with all the errors and beauties of
youthful genius to answer for. Mr. Gifford was as insensible to the one
as he was inexorable to the other. Let the reader judge from the two
subjoined specimens how far the one writer could ever, without a
presumption equalled only by a want of self-knowledge, set himself in
judgment on the other.
"Out went the taper as she hurried in;
Its little smoke in pallid moonshine died:
She closed the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air and visions wide:
No utter'd syllable, or woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,
Paining with eloquence her balmy side;
As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
Her heart in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.
"A casement high and triple-arch'd there was,
All garlanded with carven imag'ries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings;
And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings.
"Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast,
As down she knelt for Heaven's grace and boon;
Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a Saint:
She seem'd a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven:--Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal taint.
"Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.
"Soon trembling in her soft and chilly nest,
In sort of wakeful swoon, perplex'd she lay,
Until the poppied warmth of sleep oppress'd
Her soothed limbs, and soul fatigued away
Flown, like a thought, until the morrow-day:
Blissfully haven'd both from joy and pain;
Clasp'd like a missal where swart Paynims pray;
Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain,
As though a rose should shut, and be a bud again."
EVE OF ST. AGNES.
With the rich beauties and the dim obscurities of lines like these, let
us contrast the Verses addressed _To a Tuft of early Violets_ by the
fastidious author of the Baviad and Mæviad.--
"Sweet flowers! that from your humble beds
Thus prematurely dare to rise,
And trust your unprotected heads
To cold Aquarius' watery skies.
"Retire, retire! _These_ tepid airs
Are not the genial brood of May;
_That_ sun with light malignant glares,
And flatters only to betray.
"Stern Winter's reign is not yet past--
Lo! while your buds prepare to blow,
On icy pinions comes the blast,
And nips your root, and lays you low.
"Alas, for such ungentle doom!
But I will shield you; and supply
A kindlier soil on which to bloom,
A nobler bed on which to die.
"Come then--'ere yet the morning ray
Has drunk the dew that gems your crest,
And drawn your balmiest sweets away;
O come and grace my Anna's breast.
"Ye droop, fond flowers! But did ye know
What worth, what goodness there reside,
Your cups with liveliest tints would glow;
And spread their leaves with conscious pride.
"For there has liberal Nature joined
Her riches to the stores of Art,
And added to the vigorous mind
The soft, the sympathising heart.
"Come, then--'ere yet the morning ray
Has drunk the dew that gems your crest,
And drawn your balmiest sweets away;
O come and grace my Anna's breast.
"O! I should think--_that fragrant bed_
_Might I but hope with you to share_--[A]
Years of anxiety repaid
By one short hour of transport there.
"More blest than me, thus shall ye live
Your little day; and when ye die,
Sweet flowers! the grateful Muse shall give
A verse; the sorrowing maid, a sigh.
"While I alas! no distant date,
Mix with the dust from whence I came,
Without a friend to weep my fate,
Without a stone to tell my name."
We subjoin one more specimen of these "wild strains"[B] said to be
"_Written two years after the preceding_." ECCE ITERUM CRISPINUS.
"I wish I was where Anna lies;
For I am sick of lingering here,
And every hour Affection cries,
Go, and partake her humble bier.
"I wish I could! for when she died
I lost my all; and life has prov'd
Since that sad hour a dreary void,
A waste unlovely and unlov'd.
"But who, when I am turn'd to clay,
Shall duly to her grave repair,
And pluck the ragged moss away,
And weeds that have "no business there?"
"And who, with pious hand, shall bring
The flowers she cherish'd, snow-drops cold,
And violets that unheeded spring,
To scatter o'er her hallow'd mould?
"And who, while Memory loves to dwell
Upon her name for ever dear,
Shall feel his heart with passion swell,
And pour the bitter, bitter tear?
"I did it; and would fate allow,
Should visit still, should still deplore--
But health and strength have left me now,
But I, alas! can weep no more.
"Take then, sweet maid! this simple strain,
The last I offer at thy shrine;
Thy grave must then undeck'd remain,
And all thy memory fade with mine.
"And can thy soft persuasive look,
That voice that might with music vie,
Thy air that every gazer took,
Thy matchless eloquence of eye,
"Thy spirits, frolicsome as good,
Thy courage, by no ills dismay'd,
Thy patience, by no wrongs subdued,
Thy gay good-humour--can they "fade?"
"Perhaps--but sorrow dims my eye:
Cold turf, which I no more must view,
Dear name, which I no more must sigh,
A long, a last, a sad adieu!"
It may be said in extenuation of the low, mechanic vein of these
impoverished lines, that they were written at an early age--they were
the inspired production of a youthful lover! Mr. Gifford was thirty when
he wrote them, Mr. Keats died when he was scarce twenty! Farther it may
be said, that Mr. Gifford hazarded his first poetical attempts under all
the disadvantages of a neglected education: but the same circumstance,
together with a few unpruned redundancies of fancy and quaintnesses of
expression, was made the plea on which Mr. Keats was hooted out of the
world, and his fine talents and wounded sensibilities consigned to an
early grave. In short, the treatment of this heedless candidate for
poetical fame might serve as a warning, and was intended to serve as a
warning to all unfledged tyros, how they venture upon any such doubtful
experiments, except under the auspices of some lord of the bedchamber or
Government Aristarchus, and how they imprudently associate themselves
with men of mere popular talent or independence of feeling!--It is the
same in prose works. The Editor scorns to enter the lists of argument
with any proscribed writer of the opposite party. He does not refute,
but denounces him. He makes no concessions to an adversary, lest they
should in some way be turned against him. He only feels himself safe in
the fancied insignificance of others: he only feels himself superior
to those whom he stigmatizes as the lowest of mankind. All persons are
without common-sense and honesty who do not believe implicitly (with
him) in the immaculateness of Ministers and the divine origin of Kings.
Thus he informed the world that the author of TABLE-TALK was a person
who could not write a sentence of common English and could hardly spell
his own name, because he was not a friend to the restoration of the
Bourbons, and had the assurance to write _Characters of Shakespears
Plays_ in a style of criticism somewhat different from Mr. Gifford's. He
charged this writer with imposing on the public by a flowery style; and
when the latter ventured to refer to a work of his, called _An Essay on
the Principles of Human Action_, which has not a single ornament in it,
as a specimen of his original studies and the proper bias of his mind,
the learned critic, with a shrug of great self-satisfaction, said, "It
was amusing to see this person, sitting like one of Brouwer's Dutch
boors over his gin and tobacco-pipes, and fancying himself a Leibnitz!"
The question was, whether the subject of Mr. Gifford's censure had ever
written such a work or not; for if he had, he had amused himself with
something besides gin and tobacco-pipes. But our Editor, by virtue
of the situation he holds, is superior to facts or arguments: he is
accountable neither to the public nor to authors for what he says of
them, but owes it to his employers to prejudice the work and vilify the
writer, if the latter is not avowedly ready to range himself on the
stronger side.--The _Quarterly Review_, besides the political _tirades_
and denunciations of suspected writers, intended for the guidance of the
heads of families, is filled up with accounts of books of Voyages
and Travels for the amusement of the younger branches. The poetical
department is almost a sinecure, consisting of mere summary decisions
and a list of quotations. Mr. Croker is understood to contribute the
St. Helena articles and the liberality, Mr. Canning the practical good
sense, Mr. D'Israeli the good-nature, Mr. Jacob the modesty, Mr. Southey
the consistency, and the Editor himself the chivalrous spirit and the
attacks on Lady Morgan. It is a double crime, and excites a double
portion of spleen in the Editor, when female writers are not advocates
of passive obedience and non-resistance. This Journal, then, is a
depository for every species of political sophistry and personal
calumny. There is no abuse or corruption that does not there find a
jesuitical palliation or a bare-faced vindication. There we meet the
slime of hypocrisy, the varnish of courts, the cant of pedantry, the
cobwebs of the law, the iron hand of power. Its object is as mischievous
as the means by which it is pursued are odious. The intention is to
poison the sources of public opinion and of individual fame--to pervert
literature, from being the natural ally of freedom and humanity, into an
engine of priestcraft and despotism, and to undermine the spirit of the
English Constitution and the independence of the English character.
The Editor and his friends systematically explode every principle of
liberty, laugh patriotism and public spirit to scorn, resent every
pretence to integrity as a piece of singularity or insolence, and strike
at the root of all free inquiry or discussion, by running down every
writer as a vile scribbler and a bad member of society, who is not
a hireling and a slave. No means are stuck at in accomplishing this
laudable end. Strong in patronage, they trample on truth, justice, and
decency. They claim the privilege of court-favourites. They keep as
little faith with the public, as with their opponents. No statement in
the _Quarterly Review_ is to be trusted: there is no fact that is not
misrepresented in it, no quotation that is not garbled, no character
that is not slandered, if it can answer the purposes of a party to do
so. The weight of power, of wealth, of rank is thrown into the scale,
gives its impulse to the machine; and the whole is under the guidance of
Mr. Gifford's instinctive genius--of the inborn hatred of servility for
independence, of dulness for talent, of cunning and impudence for truth
and honesty. It costs him no effort to execute his disreputable task--in
being the tool of a crooked policy, he but labours in his natural
vocation. He patches up a rotten system as he would supply the chasms in
a worm-eaten manuscript, from a grovelling incapacity to do any thing
better; thinks that if a single iota in the claims of prerogative and
power were lost, the whole fabric of society would fall upon his
head and crush him; and calculates that his best chance for literary
reputation is by _black-balling_ one half of the competitors as
Jacobins and levellers, and securing the suffrages of the other half in
his favour as a loyal subject and trusty partisan!
Mr. Gifford, as a satirist, is violent and abrupt. He takes obvious or
physical defects, and dwells upon them with much labour and harshness of
invective, but with very little wit or spirit. He expresses a great deal
of anger and contempt, but you cannot tell very well why--except that he
seems to be sore and out of humour. His satire is mere peevishness and
spleen, or something worse--personal antipathy and rancour. We are in
quite as much pain for the writer, as for the object of his resentment.
His address to Peter Pindar is laughable from its outrageousness. He
denounces him as a wretch hateful to God and man, for some of the most
harmless and amusing trifles that ever were written--and the very good-
humour and pleasantry of which, we suspect, constituted their offence in
the eyes of this Drawcansir.--His attacks on Mrs. Robinson were unmanly,
and even those on Mr. Merry and the Della-Cruscan School were much
more ferocious than the occasion warranted. A little affectation and
quaintness of style did not merit such severity of castigation.[C] As a
translator, Mr. Gifford's version of the Roman satirist is the baldest,
and, in parts, the most offensive of all others. We do not know why
he attempted it, unless he had got it in his head that he should thus
follow in the steps of Dryden, as he had already done in those of Pope
in the Baviad and Maeviad. As an editor of old authors, Mr. Gifford is
entitled to considerable praise for the pains he has taken in revising
the text, and for some improvements he has introduced into it. He had
better have spared the notes, in which, though he has detected the
blunders of previous commentators, he has exposed his own ill-temper and
narrowness of feeling more. As a critic, he has thrown no light on the
character and spirit of his authors. He has shewn no striking power of
analysis nor of original illustration, though he has chosen to exercise
his pen on writers most congenial to his own turn of mind, from their
dry and caustic vein; Massinger, and Ben Jonson. What he will make of
Marlowe, it is difficult to guess. He has none of "the fiery quality"
of the poet. Mr. Gifford does not take for his motto on these
occasions--_Spiritus precipitandus est!_--His most successful efforts in
this way are barely respectable. In general, his observations are petty,
ill-concocted, and discover as little _tact_, as they do a habit of
connected reasoning. Thus, for instance, in attempting to add the name
of Massinger to the list of Catholic poets, our minute critic insists
on the profusion of crucifixes, glories, angelic visions, garlands of
roses, and clouds of incense scattered through the _Virgin-Martyr,_ as
evidence of the theological sentiments meant to be inculcated by the
play, when the least reflection might have taught him, that they proved
nothing but the author's poetical conception of the character and
_costume_ of his subject. A writer might, with the same sinister,
short-sighted shrewdness, be accused of Heathenism for talking of Flora
and Ceres in a poem on the Seasons! What are produced as the exclusive
badges and occult proofs of Catholic bigotry, are nothing but the
adventitious ornaments and external symbols, the gross and sensible
language, in a word, the _poetry_ of Christianity in general. What
indeed shews the frivolousness of the whole inference is that Deckar,
who is asserted by our critic to have contributed some of the most
passionate and fantastic of these devotional scenes, is not even
suspected of a leaning to Popery. In like manner, he excuses Massinger
for the grossness of one of his plots (that of the _Unnatural Combat_)
by saying that it was supposed to take place before the Christian era;
by this shallow common-place persuading himself, or fancying he could
persuade others, that the crime in question (which yet on the very face
of the story is made the ground of a tragic catastrophe) was first made
_statutory_ by the Christian religion.
The foregoing is a harsh criticism, and may be thought illiberal. But as
Mr. Gifford assumes a right to say what he pleases of others--they may
be allowed to speak the truth of him!
[Footnote A: What an awkward bed-fellow for a tuft of violets!]
[Footnote B:
"How oft, O Dart! what time the faithful pair
Walk'd forth, the fragrant hour of eve to share,
On thy romantic banks, have my _wild strains_
(Not yet forgot amidst my native plains)
While thou hast sweetly gurgled down the vale.
Filled up the pause of love's delightful tale!
While, ever as she read, the conscious maid,
By faultering voice and downcast looks betray'd,
Would blushing on her lover's neck recline,
And with her finger--point the tenderest line!"
_Mæviad_, pp. 194, 202.
Yet the author assures us just before, that in these "wild strains" "all
was plain."
"Even then (admire, John Bell! my simple ways)
No heaven and hell danced madly through my lays,
No oaths, no execrations; _all was plain_;
Yet trust me, while thy ever jingling train
Chime their sonorous woes with frigid art,
And shock the reason and revolt the heart;
My hopes and fears, in nature's language drest,
Awakened love in many a gentle breast."
_Ibid._ v. 185-92.
If any one else had composed these "wild strains," in which "all is
plain," Mr. Gifford would have accused them of three things, "1.
Downright nonsense. 2. Downright frigidity. 3. Downright doggrel;" and
proceeded to anatomise them very cordially in his way. As it is, he is
thrilled with a very pleasing horror at his former scenes of tenderness,
and "gasps at the recollection" _of watery Aquarius_! _he! jam satis
est!_ "Why rack a grub--a butterfly upon a wheel?"]
[Footnote C: Mr. Merry was even with our author in personality of abuse.
See his Lines on the Story of the Ape that was given in charge to the
ex-tutor.]
* * * * *
MR. JEFFREY
The _Quarterly Review_ arose out of the _Edinburgh_, not as a corollary,
but in contradiction to it. An article had appeared in the latter on Don
Pedro Cevallos, which stung the Tories to the quick by the free way in
which it spoke of men and things, and something must be done to check
these _escapades_ of the _Edinburgh_. It was not to be endured that the
truth should _out_ in this manner, even occasionally and half in jest. A
startling shock was thus given to established prejudices, the mask was
taken off from grave hypocrisy, and the most serious consequences were
to be apprehended. The persons who wrote in this Review seemed "to have
their hands full of truths", and now and then, in a fit of spleen or
gaiety, let some of them fly; and while this practice continued, it was
impossible to say that the Monarchy or the Hierarchy was safe. Some of
the arrows glanced, others might stick, and in the end prove fatal. It
was not the principles of the _Edinburgh Review_, but the spirit that
was looked at with jealousy and alarm. The principles were by no means
decidedly hostile to existing institutions: but the spirit was that of
fair and free discussion; a field was open to argument and wit; every
question was tried upon its own ostensible merits, and there was no foul
play. The tone was that of a studied impartiality (which many called
_trimming_) or of a sceptical indifference. This tone of impartiality
and indifference, however, did not at all suit those who profited or
existed by abuses, who breathed the very air of corruption. They know
well enough that "those who are not _for_ them are _against_ them."
They wanted a publication impervious alike to truth and candour; that,
hood-winked itself, should lead public opinion blindfold; that should
stick at nothing to serve the turn of a party; that should be the
exclusive organ of prejudice, the sordid tool of power; that should go
the whole length of want of principle in palliating every dishonest
measure, of want of decency in defaming every honest man; that should
prejudge every question, traduce every opponent; that should give no
quarter to fair inquiry or liberal sentiment; that should be "ugly
all over with hypocrisy", and present one foul blotch of servility,
intolerance, falsehood, spite, and ill-manners. The _Quarterly Review_
was accordingly set up.
"Sithence no fairy lights, no quickning ray,
Nor stir of pulse, nor object to entice
Abroad the spirits; but the cloister'd heart
Sits squat at home, like Pagod in a niche
Obscure!"
This event was accordingly hailed (and the omen has been fulfilled!) as
a great relief to all those of his Majesty's subjects who are firmly
convinced that the only way to have things remain exactly as they are is
to put a stop to all inquiries whether they are right or wrong, and that
if you cannot answer a man's arguments, you may at least try to take
away his character.