3

of "complacent old phrases," such as any schoolboy might utter, was, in turn, assailed for his language. This was said to be not what Hunt advocated in his "absurd and ignorant" theory, but an "ungrammatical, unauthorized, chaotic jargon." The review of Foliage in 1818 was a similar attack. The reviewer railed at Shelley whom Hunt was said to admire. Part of the attack was directed at Hunt's systematic revival of epicureanism, his undermining of the influence of Christianity, his impure language and sentiment. For apparently the same reasons he was rabidly attacked in Blackwood's, especially in the well-known papers on the "Cockney School," by Lockhart. "Hamstead Hunt" was a "bad reckless, unbeliever." Here, as in the Quarterly, his name was constantly linked with that of Hazlitt. Hunt's own story in the Autobiography makes clear the political reasons for these attacks.* That he lacked-in the minds of the Tory reviewers, at least, "sound principle and Christian humility," was another ground of disapproval. A touching conclusion to the paper on Foliage, was the final prophecy of a bitter doom for Hunt, and the pious wish that he might be converted. Lord Byron and His Contemporaries in 1828 brought the crowning attack on Hunt, by Lockhart in the Quarterly. The work was said to be filled with "dirty gabble"-the "miserable book of a miserable man." And after condemning Hunt for his political liberalism, Lockhart with consummate invective called him "one who could touch nothing which mankind would wish to preserve, without polluting it." 5

III

The third prominent author of the period to feel the "merciless tomahawk" of the reviewers in the Quarterly was Shelley, who, as we have seen, was mentioned with Hunt in the Foliage review.

This led to the warm defense of Shelley's life in the Examiner, Sept. 26, Oct. 3 and 10, 1819.

• Autobiography, i, 239.

5 Other references to Hunt are found in Russell's review of Hazlitt's Round Table (XVII, 157), and in J. T. Coleridge's review of Laon and Cythna (XXI, 460). In the latter, Shelley is compared to his friend and leader, Hunt, a very vain man, with half-instructed, half-discontented spirit, unteachable, unaimable, querulous,and unmanly." In a review of Moore's Life of Byron (LIV, 210), Lockhart digresses to attack Hunt again. And in another paper (XXXI, 211), his is called the most vicious of all styles of writing.

John Taylor Coleridge's review of Laon and Cythna was the first introduction of this poet to the Quarterly's inhospitable columns. Godwinian lawlessness, atheism, and utter lack of moral scruples, were the evils which operated to reduce Shelley's rank as a poet. Laon and Cythna was "insupportably dull" and "laboriously obscene," of a truth, because Shelley would have men return to a state of life in accordance with the distorted ideas he had derived from Political Justice. Love in Shelley was not the highest form (the fulfilling of the law!); it was the lowest, most degraded kind, Shelley scorned repentance and faith, "the two principles upon which Christianity may be said to be built." Although he had slandered, ridiculed, and blasphemed "our holy religion," Coleridge generously made allowances for the sinner, pitied him, and recommended to him a study of the Bible. The reviewer supplemented this criticism with a glance at Rosalind and Helen-a "more vulgar, more unintelligible" production than the Revolt, and more impure in thought. Coleridge drew a dark picture of Shelley's ultimate condition on this earth, hinted that his private life was disgusting, and said finally, "So must it ever be with the downward course of infidelity and immorality." These two counts, added to that of Shelley's political sympathies with Hunt, were the bases of Quarterly criticism of his immortal works. A few of the "beauties" of the poems were mentioned, however," they resemble the later things of Southey!"

7

The second castigation of Shelley was equally unjust. It appeared three years later in W. S. Walker's review of Prometheus Unbound, which was called eloquent testimony to the fact that Shelley could write in a style neither he nor anybody could reada style absolutely and intrinsically unintelligible. The predominant characteristic of his poetry is frequent and total want of meaning. Walker, like Jeffrey, demanded clear conceptions-in other words, common sense. Shelley's " showy" verses contributed to the instruction of none. Sometimes, he gave up the unintelligible style for the ugly and impious. He gave his readers enjoyment of the charms of doggerel; for his poetry lacked music, the rhythm was harsh and inharmonious. "In the whole volume there is not one original image of nature, one simple expression

6

XXI, 460, Apr. 1819.

7

'XXVI, 168, Oct. 1822.

of human feeling or one new association of the appearances of the moral world with those of the material world." Walker compared the incoherences of the poem to those of an itinerant Methodist preacher and said Shelley influenced people as the preacher might (a criticism which must have been particularly unpalatable to the poet). Shelley's notions of poetry were fundamentally erroneous, for he thought reason and sound thinking were aliens to the muse. Poetical power can only be shown by writing good poetry, and Shelley had not done it. But Walker complained that there was more to resent than the poet's sins against taste and good sense. His flagrant offenses against morals, his "wanton, gratuitous impiety," and the fact that he went out of his way to revile Christianity and its author-these were the real transgressions of Shelley. Walker scoffed at his "beautiful idealisms" of moral excellence. He paraphrased the fine lines beginning, "The painted veil, by those who were, called Life," as evidence that Shelley's poetry was nothing more or less than "drivelling prose run mad." And he derided Shelley's declaration that his intentions were pure discharging the "sacred duty" of exposing the character and tendency of his writings, because they were at war with "all that dignifies man, and all that man reveres."

Like the Quarterly, Blackwood's hoped Shelley would learn to fear God and honor the King, but from 1819 on it did not hesitate to proclaim him a true poet and one of the first order. Maga later branded Walker's critique in the Quarterly as infamous and stupid, declaring the reviewer a man of far less worth than Shelley, his falsehood and uncharitableness showing his intellect to be inferior. Apparently, the Quarterly group began to see that they were hurting themselves more than the poet; for when, about three years later, Shelley's fragmentary translation of Goethe's Faust came to Lockhart's attention, the Review no longer withheld praise. One department of literature, Lockhart saw, had suffered a great loss in the death of this unfortunate and misguided gentleman. Great admiration was expressed for the merit of "these specimens." Shelley had a fine ear for harmony and a great command over poetical language. To be a distinguished original poet, he lacked little except distinctness of conception and regulation of 8 XXXIV, 136, June 1826.

8

taste. Lockhart acknowledged Shelley's genius as translator, and quoted excerpts to illustrate it.9

IV

William Hazlitt, the doughty essayist, who wrote in the Spirit of the Age, and in the brutal Letter to Mr. William Gifford, sketches of the Tory editor, is the last of the four prominent figures who seemed especially marked out for Quarterly contumely. The savage assaults on Hazlitt are explained easily-first, on political grounds, and then on grounds of very human and very acrimonious personal feeling.

James Russell began the feud in a review of the Round Table.10 He classed Hazlitt with Hunt, who wrote some of the essays, and said he could not bother to distinguish between these gentlemen. The purpose in reviewing this "loathsome trash" was to fling Hazlitt back into "the situation in which nature designed that he should grovel." His criticisms of Burke and Pitt (quoted) were "beneath contempt," etc. etc. Political hostility is the informing spirit of this paper. That these essays were reprinted from the Examiner, was no doubt justification for this Tory assault.

Russell was probably the reviewer of the Characters of Shakespear's Plays, the next object of attack." Again, the review was abusive in the extreme, and revealed little attempt to estimate the literary value of the work. The noble critical passage on Iago was called "slip-shod absurdity." The famous apothegm, "It is we who are Hamlet," was ridiculed. Johnson's "Preface" was defended from the strictures of Hazlitt, and called the most perfect piece of criticism since Quintilian. The few specimens Hazlitt selected proved his knowledge of Shakespeare and of the English tongue to be "on a par with the purity of his morals and the depth of his understanding." Toward the end of the review, the writer threw aside his mask, and denounced Hazlitt at " a patriot who was not a friend of his country, a poor, cankered creature,

See one other reference to Shelley, LXXXII, 436. In the Edinburgh, Shelley was only noticed once-in 1824, when the posthumous poems appeared. E. R., XL, 494.

10

XVII, 154, Apr. 1817.

"full of senseless and wicked sophistry "-one of a class of men by whom literature was disgraced, who carried on a trade in sedition.

Again, in July 1818, the Quarterly in a critique in the English Poets found Hazlitt making predatory incursions on taste and common sense, war on accurate reasoning and intelligible language. Hazlitt was a metaphysician. His definition of poetry included everything. He showed only an occasional semblance of connected thinking, so it was unnecessary to enter into any of the criticisms of particular poets-such was the trend of this article. This, of course, is not criticism, but vilification for political reasons. But mercenary virulence and party spite" were to go unanswered no longer. In 1819 Hazlitt published his Letter, not only an irascible retort to the review in the Quarterly of his own works, but also, in part, a reply to the review of Hunt's Rimini. Quarterly politicians began to perceive that they had caught a tartar. The next article, therefore, that on the Political Essays, was a melange of political and personal vituperation, showered upon the Jacobin, the "insect of the moral world," whose powers do not extend much beyond "making some dirt and noise. . . 12 We have no desire to conceal the detestation we feel for the spirit that pervades his volumes," wrote the reviewer. He revealed the grounds of his animus pretty clearly when he quoted Hazlitt's condemnation of the Tories, and denounced this " forlorn drudge of the Examiner" as a slanderer of the human race. With much the same charity, Col. John Matthews handled Table Talk.13 He regarded reviewing Hazlitt, Hunt, and Hone as sacrificing the asses-an occupation which he compared with that of the Hyperboreans of old. Hazlitt he called a slang-whanger, that is-in American usage "one who makes use of political and other gabble to amuse the crowd." The whole article is a general attack on Radicalism in politics; otherwise it does not greatly differ from previous treatments of Hazlitt. His connection with the Examiner, his championing Hunt's theories of language, his vagueness and "metaphysical" tendencies-these incited the Tories. After the Letter appeared, pure personal spite

12

xx, 158, Nov. 1820. One of the few articles actually written by Gifford.

13 XXVI, 103, Oct. 1822.