although another writer in June 1847 praised Sartor Resartus lukewarmly for its genial humor, morality, and its "true" philosophy, Quarterly treatment of this author was woefully inadequate. The evident intentions of the reviewers were good, but the effects of their blundering efforts were worse than useless either to appreciate the value of his work or extend his reputation.

VIII

In the case of Macaulay, the grounds of Tory antipathy are obvious. Although Macaulay had in 1831 "smashed" (his own word) Croker's Boswell's Johnson, which was published by Murray, Milman, reviewing the Lays of Ancient Rome in September 1843, criticized favorably, no political prejudice being apparent. Milman hoped for something of more substantial nature from this promising author, and alluded to the rumor of a forthcoming history.25 This was fair enough. But the first of the volumes of the History called forth in March 1849 a savage retaliation for Macaulay's abuse of Croker. The reviewer had to recognize Macaulay's talents; the entrainment of his picturesque, vivid, and pregnant execution could not be escaped. But as history, his narrative was poisoned with a rancor even more violent than the passions of the time said the reviewer. Bad taste, bad feeling, and bad faith were on every page. Macaulay had produced no new fact, his style was filled with glittering common-places, he habitually perverted his authorities, he sneered at Tories and Churchmen, he gave pain to all friends of the Protestant Establishment. He was accused of unacknowledged borrowing from Mackintosh's History of England (1830-32), and a string of parallel passages were given for comparison. And the Quarterly predicted that although these volumes of Macaulay's would be devoured as all his others had been, they would seldom be reread, would hardly find a place on the historic shelf, nor ever be quoted on any question or point of English history. Trevelyan brands this review "a farrago of angry trash," and declares it did no harm except to set people reading Macaulay's essay on Croker's Boswell. The his

25 See Croker Correspondence, ii, 24-29, Macaulay writes, “I am going to dust the varlet's jacket for him in the next number of the "Blue and Yellow." (Life, N. Y., 1877, i, 218).

torian, himself, asserted that Croker did him a real service, causing his work to be read by many who might not have noticed it otherwise.

IX

This perversion of criticism was carried to its logical extreme in 1848, in the section of a critique which treated Jane Eyre.” Admitting that this novel was one of equal popularity with Vanity Fair, Miss Rigby (later Lady Eastlake) found Jane Eyre written with genuine power, but stamped with a coarseness of language, laxity of tone, and execrable taste. Its popularity was said to show how deeply the love of illegitimate romance is implanted in our nature. The originality of Jane's proposal to Mr. Rochester, apparently quite overcame the reviewer. She declared the novelist had committed the highest moral offense possible, i. e., making an unworthy character interesting to the reader. The language and manners of Jane offended in every particular. She was a "natural beast." That was the great evil of the book. Jane exerted great moral strength, to be sure; but it was the strength of a heathen mind which was a law unto itself. She was proud and ungrateful. It pleased God to make her poor, and an orphan, yet she thanked him for nothing and thought she owed him nothing. Throughout the book was found a rebellion against the privations of the poor, which as far as the individual is concerned, was a murmuring against God's appointments. There was a proud assertion of the rights of man, for which Miss Rigby found no authority either in God's word or Providence-there was that pervading tone of ungodly discontent which was the most prominent and subtle evil pulpit and law had to contend with. "The tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home, is the same which has also written Jane Eyre." Blinded by this rage of detraction, the reviewer pronounces the author "no artist." Charlotte Brontë recorded her opinion that the reviewer was "no gentleman." But her sister Anne was dead, and Emily was dying, when this article appeared, so she had less chance to dwell upon the injustice of it.27

20

LXXXIV, 51, a review of Vanity Fair and Jane Eyre.

27 May Sinclair (The Three Brontes, Lon. 1912, p. 116) thought there were three hands in the review.

Thus, in the review of one of the greatest novelists to appear in the closing years of this half-century, was found another egregious failure of Quarterly criticism. And again, as in other cases, the fault was not from total blindness to literary power, fidelity to life, or true delineation of human character; but because the reviewer clung to the ancient traditions of the English aristocracy, believed that eternal Providence had ordered a gradation of social ranks, and assumed with Tory smugness that God had somehow deputized her (the reviewer) and others of the Elect to guard the morals of the country. Miss Rigby pointed out the highest qualities of Jane Eyre-pointed them out and objected to them. Aristocratic and religious prejudice again stood in the way of just literary criticism.

Excepting always the personal element involved, it is now possible to explain historically the signal deficiencies of the Quarterly in evaluating much of that splendid out-flowering of literary genius between 1809 and 1850. Little of its failure was the result of adherence to eighteenth century pseudo-classical traditions. The defence of Scott and Southey from Jeffrey's attacks, the activities of these Romantic authors in the Quarterly circle, their politics and the corresponding later Toryism of Wordsworth and Coleridge, as well as the championship of Byron by Murray's review, soon weakened any devotion to out-worn literary shibboleths based on the reputation of Pope and Dryden. Nor was personal animosity, though this frequently developed in the course of a literary feud, very largely responsible.

The rationale of Quarterly criticism is to be discovered in Tory reverence for the crown, loyalty to the ancient constitution of the state, the aristocratical principles, "the defence of property (the landed interests) from the people," and fidelity to the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England. For these, the Tory critics sacrificed all writers who referred disrespectfully to the "Good King"; all who showed admiration for Napoleon and the French, or any recognized enemies of England; all who were known to have inclinations toward liberalism in political thought, or beliefs which operated for the subversion of the existing order; all who seemed to exalt the lower classes or to encourage the mob to seek equality with "their betters"; and (the largest class of all) whoever countenanced Dissent or Popery, or exhibited in his works signs of infidelity.

For these things Shelley, Leigh Hunt, Hazlitt, Charlotte Brontë, were immolated. They were condemned by the Tory reviewers— just as Hallam, Napier, Macaulay, and almost every important historian of his period was condemned; just as Senior, Ricardo, Malthus, Sadler, and almost every important economist; just as Cartwright, Bentham, Cobbett, O'Connell, Bright, Cobden, Russell, Brougham, and almost every reformer or agitator was condemned; just as William George Ward, Sidney Smith, Newman (in the end), and almost every religious leader whose influence seemed to be thrown against the Established Church was condemned. Partisan strife, although important at first, seems to have been, on the whole, an incidental matter; for Whig authors were frequently given friendly reviews, if the substance of their works was innocuous. But the true principle of Quarterly criticism was to denounce as evil and mischievous the work (and the character as well) of any writer, whose doctrines were set against the "ancient order of things, as established by our fathers."

But it is not fair to the Quarterly reviewers to recall their failures alone; for much of their work was good-and it seems as if their favorable and constructive criticism has been under-estimated in the century that has passed, with its working-over and refining of literary evaluations. The truth is that very many of the appreciations of Wordsworth and Coleridge, Scott, Southey, Crabbe, Byron, Lamb, Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, Thomas Moore, Campbell, Tennyson, Dickens, and Thackeray, and our own Washington Irving, seem sound today after the lapse of a century. Scott, Ellis, Whately, Lamb, Lyall, H. N. Coleridge, Henry Taylor, Croker when he was at his best (in other words, sincere), and Lockhart, were no mean critics. And the manner in which later students have endorsed or appropriated the pronouncements of these reviewers, is all the tribute needed to the soundness and value of their judgments. That there were weak brothers among them cannot be denied. That the critical dicta of the Quarterly were too often biased on account of political prejudice or moral apprehension, even he who runs may read. And that the loyalty of the Tory reviewers to each other and to their friends often led them into absurd and grotesque eulogy of works that have no value today, whatever vogue they may have had then, is unfortunate. But when all is said, the major part of their criticism is found

to be sane and appreciative; and the facts remain that Byron's great fame, Scott's immense popularity, Jane Austen's later vogue, and Maria Edgeworth's earlier success, all owed something to the helpful criticism and endorsement of the Quarterly.

If we can put ourselves back in the places of the Tory critics who abused Hunt and Hazlitt and Keats and Shelley, we must come to the conclusion that posterity has misjudged the reviewers almost as flagrantly as the latter misjudged the reviewed. Partisan prejudice was strong enough in that day to blind even the gallant and gentle Scott; for in advising Lockhart in 1825 to despise petty adversaries, he declared that to take notice of such men as Hunt and Hazlitt in the Quarterly was to introduce them to a world scarcely conscious of their existence. Moreover, it must always be borne in mind that the writers for the Tory oracle, like "Judge Jeffrey's gang," and the crew of Maga, were merely following the traditions of reviewers, observing the only critical manners they were acquainted with. Again, it is surely of some importance to remember that the ungentlemanly broils with Hunt and Hazlitt were both begun by the two authors, not the Tory reviewers. The attacks on Keats and Shelley and even Tennyson naturally followed, because of association with Hunt. Croker's trimming of Macaulay was only retaliation for the latter's earlier "smashing" review of Croker. Clearly, the faults of the Quarterly have been sufficiently dwelt upon. Like the unfortunate Croker, the Review of the early days is remembered by many readers for the four-page paper on Endymion, the attack on the callow Tennyson, or the castigation of Macaulay. But a few wrong sentences hastily given should not be allowed to outweigh many just verdicts in the courts of literary criticism.

Western Reserve University.