Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by R. Brimley Johnson

The moral systems of the two cycles are essentially allied: and perhaps the differences between them may be due in greater or in less part to the fact that they come to us throu...

The nations are to listen and be dumb! and why, good Johnny Keats? because Leigh Hunt is editor of the Examiner, and Haydon has painted the judgment of Solomon, and you and Corn...

This habit of representing her characters without any concealment of their faults is, no doubt, connected with that faculty which enables the authoress to give them so remarkabl...

This is delectable. What does he mean by saying that life seemed cheap? What danger could there be in the performance of his exploits, except that of being committed as a Vagran...

There is no beauty, we think, it must be admitted, in such passages; and so little either of interest or curiosity in the incidents they disclose, that we can scarcely conceive...

We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important question, to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious, seems to be overlooked by many exce...

But to return for a moment to Becky. The only criticism we would offer is one which the author has almost disarmed by making her mother a Frenchwoman. The construction of this l...

We have not yet referred to the "Ancient Mariner," "Christabel," the "Odes on France," and the "Departing Year," or the "Love Poems." All these are well known by those who know...

We have said that this was the picture of a natural heart. This, to our view, is the great and crying mischief of the book. Jane Eyre is throughout the personification of an unr...

It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should "use it as not abusing it"; and particularly one who piques himself (though indeed at the ripe age of nineteen...

The vivid distinctness of description, the minute fidelity of detail, and air of unstudied ease in the scenes represented, which are no less necessary than probability of incide...

The poetry of Mr. Hunt is such as might be expected from the personal character and habits of its author. As a vulgar man is perpetually labouring to be genteel--in like manner,...

This knocks the whole story on the head. Kennett was not aware (Wade's narrative not being published when he wrote) that the King's troops did not come in sight of Sedgemoor til...

The history of the progress of the movement lies scattered through these pages. All that we can collect concerning its first intention confirms absolutely Mr. Perceval's Stateme...

How can we account for all this? By the simplest and yet the most comprehensive answer. By declaring the stupendous fact that all creation is the transcript in matter of ideas e...

This will never do. It bears no doubt the stamp of the author's heart and fancy; but unfortunately not half so visibly as that of his peculiar system. His former poems were inte...

In 1850 Mr. Tennyson gave to the world, under the title of "In Memoriam," perhaps the richest oblation ever offered by the affection of friendship at the tomb of the departed. T...

The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had proceeded no further than the horn-book...

Mr. Southey could not be ignorant of all this; and yet it appears that he could not have known it all. He must have been conscious, we think, of the ridicule attached to his off...

The Lyrical Ballads were unquestionably popular; and, we have no hesitation in saying, deservedly popular: for in spite of their occasional vulgarity, affectation, and silliness...

The clearness of the eye to see whatever is permanent and substantial, and the fervour and strength of heart to love it as the sole good of life, are, in our view, Mr. Carlyle's...

We are inclined to attribute this change, not so much to an alteration in the public taste, as in the character of the productions in question. Novels may not, perhaps, display...

We regret that some _kind_--or, as Mr. Moxon would have thought it, _unkind_--critic, did not, on the appearance of this first volume, confirm his own misgivings that he had bee...

But Lockhart was "more than a satirist and a snarler." His polished jibes were more mischievous than brutal. "This reticent, sensitive, attractive, yet dangerous youth ... slew...

Another of these assumptions is not a little remarkable. It suits his argument to deduce all our known varieties of pigeons from the rock-pigeon (the Columba livia), and this pa...

We are told that "turtles _passion_ their voices" (p. 15); that "an arbour was _nested_" (p. 23); and a lady's locks "_gordian'd_" up (p. 32); and to supply the place of nouns t...

But besides the obvious incentives just noticed, Mr. Macaulay had also the stimulus of what we may compendiously call a strong party spirit. One would have thought that the Whig...

In 1842 his purging process made it evident that he did not mean to allow his faults or weaknesses to stint the growth and mar the exhibition of his genius. When he published "I...

To the superstitions of the North Britons must be added their peculiar and characteristic amusements; and here we have some atonement to make to the memory of the learned Paulus...

We should not have blamed the young lady if, like one of Mr. Trollope's heroines, she had made her admirer feel not only "the beauty of a woman's arm," but its weight. But, unwa...

But Mr. Macaulay particularly expatiates on the influence that Cromwell exercised over foreign states: and there is hardly any topic to which he recurs with more pleasure, or, a...

It may however be a very different point how far the author is entitled to be acquitted upon the second point of indictment. To use too much freedom with things sacred is a cour...

As for manner, he does sometimes, in imitating his models, out-Herod Herod. But why not? If Herod be a worthy king, let him be by all means out-Heroded, if any man can do it. On...

For should we grant these beauties all endure Severest pangs, they've still the speediest cure; Before one charm be withered from the face, Except the bloom which shall again ha...

It would not have been surprising if such success had turned even a strong head, and corrupted even a generous and affectionate nature. But, in the Diary, we can find no trace o...

It is not easy to say, whether the fundamental absurdity of this doctrine, or the partiality of its application, be entitled to the severest reprehension. If men are driven to c...

Johnson came among [the distinguished writers of his age] the solitary specimen of a past age, the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub Street hacks; the last of that gener...

Political changes were not the sole cause of the rapid degeneracy in letters that followed the Augustan era of Rome. Similar corruptions and decay have succeeded to the intellec...

Ernest Maltravers is an eccentric and enthusiastic young man, to whom we are introduced upon his return from a German university. Fond of wild adventure and solitary rambles, we...

The interesting recognition of _Gladstone_ awakes pleasanter sentiments; especially when we notice the return compliment (in the same _Quarterly_, but twenty-seven years later t...

The deep talk _heaves_.--p. 5. With _heav'd_ out tapestry the windows glow.--p. 6. Then _heave_ the croud.--_id_. And after a rude _heave_ from side to side.--p. 7. The marble b...

This is exactly a versification of the foulest sentence that ever issued from the lips of Voltaire. Let us hope that Percy Bysshe Shelley is not destined to leave behind him, li...

This absurd self-elevation forms a striking contrast with the dignified deportment of all the other great living Poets. Throughout all the works of Scott, the most original-mind...

These facts are patent to every one who knows anything whatever of the present state of religious thought throughout Roman Catholic Europe. Almost every one knows further that t...

FAMOUS SERMONS BY ENGLISH PREACHERS. From the VENERABLE BEDE to H.P. LIDDON. Edited with Historical and Biographical Notes by Canon DOUGLAS MACLEANE, M.A. In demy 8vo, cloth gil...

We owe, perhaps, an apology to our readers for the length of the preceding remarks; but the fact is, so very much of the intellectual life and influence of Mr. Coleridge has con...

_Shepherd._ Wordsworth tells the world, in ane of his prefaces, that he is a water-drinker--and its weel seen on him.--There was a sair want of speerit through the haill o' yon...

It is high time, however, that we should proceed to the consideration of the work which is our more immediate subject, and which, indeed, illustrates in almost every page our ge...