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. 743, and 1817, p. 236). There was no
justification for Hazlitt, and none has been attempted by his
biographers. Judged by its intrinsic merits, the Edinburgh article is
one of the most absurd reviews ever written by a critic of recognized
ability. Hazlitt followed the method of outlining the story by quotation
with interspersed sarcasm and ironical criticism. As a coarse boor might
crumple a delicate and beautifully wrought fabric to prove that it has
not the wearing qualities of a blacksmith's apron, Hazlitt seized upon
the ethereal story of _Christabel_, with its wealth of mediaeval and
romantic imagery, and held up to ridicule the incidents that did not
conform to modern English conceptions of life. It requires no great art
to produce such a critique; the same method was applied to _Christabel_
with hardly less success by the anonymous hack of the _Anti-Jacobin_.
Whatever may have been Hazlitt's motives, we cannot understand how a
critic of his unquestioned ability could quote with ridicule some of the
very finest lines of _Kubla Khan_, and expect his readers to concur with
his opinion. The lack of taste was more apparent because he quoted, with
qualified praise, six lines of no extraordinary merit from _Christabel_
and insisted, that with this one exception, there was not a couplet in
the whole poem that achieved the standard of a newspaper poetry-corner
or the effusions scratched by peripatetic bards on inn-windows. An
interesting discussion between Mr. Thomas Hutchinson and Col. Prideaux
concerning Hazlitt's responsibility for this and other critiques on
Coleridge in the _Edinburgh Review_ will be found in _Notes and Queries_
(Ninth Series), X, pp. 388, 429; XI, 170, 269.
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
_AEneid_.
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. _Camoens_. 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 _Athenaeum_, 1830, p. 435, at that time
the bitter rival of the _Gazette_, published a more favorable review,
and a few weeks later (p. 491) printed Southey's verses, _To Charles
Lamb, on the Reviewal of his Album-Verses in the Literary Gazette_,
together with a sharp commentary on the methods of the _Gazette_.
Several times during that year the _Athenaeum_ assailed the system of
private puffery which was followed by the _Gazette_ and eventually
caused its downfall. There is a reply to the _Athenaeum_ in the _Literary
Gazette_, 1833, p. 772.
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 member the more
elaborate _Marmion_ (1808). From the first, Scott's poems and romances
were favorably received by the reviews and usually noticed at great
length. There was always a story to outline and choice passages to
quote. As suggested in the Preface, these paeans of praise are of
comparatively little interest to the student, and need hardly be cited
here in detail.
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 given you pain. If you have any amity left for me, you
will not delay very long to tell me so. In the meantime, I am very
sincerely yours, F. Jeffrey."
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:--
"And all our little feuds, at least all _mine_,
Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine
To make such puppets of us things below),
Are over. Here's a health to 'Auld Lang Syne!'
I do not know you, and may never know
Your face--but you have acted, on the whole,
Most nobly; and I own it from my soul."
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. [Greek: thelo legein],--Anacreon, Ode I. ([Greek: thelo legein
Atreidas, k. t. l.])
98. [Greek: mesonyktiois, poth' horais],--Anacreon, Ode III. ([Greek:
mesonyktiois poth' horais, k. t. l.])
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 Harold_
Shortly 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 with due regard for the proprieties of civilized life. As
Byron's offences grew more flagrant in his later poems, the criticisms
in the conservative reviews became more vehement. For Byron's
controversy with the _British Review_, which he facetiously dubbed "my
grandmother's review" in _Don Juan_, see Prothero, IV, pp. (346-347),
and Appendix VII. The ninth Appendix to the same volume is Byron's
caustic reply to the brutal review of _Don Juan_ in _Blackwood's
Magazine_, V, p. 512 ff.
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 great majority of these spiteful attacks in the
less important periodicals.
_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 Cockney]
school, Shelley would not have been alive to write an elegy on another."