Chapter 19

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 of Wordsworth, he will learn that the poet did not disdain to take an occasional suggestion for the improvement of his verse.

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. 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.