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

face, full, rapid expression; figure light, nimble, pretty, though so small, perhaps hardly five feet four in height. … His voice clear, harmonious, and sonorous, had something of metallic in it, something almost plangent … a strange, swift, sharp-sounding, fitful modulation, part of it pungent, quasi latrant, other parts of it cooing, bantery, lovingly quizzical, which no charm of his fine ringing voice (metallic tenor, of sweet tone), and of his vivacious rapid looks and pretty little attitudes and gestures, could altogether reconcile you to, but in which he persisted through good report and bad."

      * * * * *

      Perhaps Jeffrey's most famous criticism was the "This will never do" on Wordsworth; of which Southey wrote to Scott, "Jeffrey, I hear, has written what his friends call a crushing review of the Excursion. He might as well seat himself on Skiddaw, and fancy that he crushed the mountain."

      It is obvious, indeed, that the Lake poets had little respect for their "superior" reviewers; whose opinions, on the other hand, were not subject to influences from high places. It will be noticed that Jefferey is even more severe on Southey's Laureate "Lays" than on his "Thalaba."

      The review on Moore, quoted below, was followed by formal arrangements for a duel at Chalk Farm on 11th August, 1806; but the police had orders to interrupt, and pistols were loaded with paper. Even the semblance of animosity was not maintained, as we find Moore contributing to the Edinburgh before the end of the same year.

      We fear that the appreciation of Keats was partly influenced by political considerations; since Leigh Hunt had so emphatically welcomed him into the camp. It remains, however, a pleasing contrast to the ferocious onslaught on Endymion of Gifford printed below.

      HENRY LORD BROUGHAM (1779–1868)

      Brougham was intimately associated with Jeffrey in the foundation of the Edinburgh Review: he is said to have written eighty articles in the first twenty numbers, though like all his work, the criticism was spoilt by egotism and vanity. The fact is that an over-brilliant versatility injured his work. Combining "in his own person the characters of Solon, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, and a great many more," his restless genius accomplished nothing substantial or sound. His writing was far less careful than his oratory. A man from whom almost everything was expected, and who was always before the eye of the public; he has been described as "the God of Whiggish idolatry," and as "impossible" in society. Harriet Martineau is unsparing in her criticism of his manners and language; and evidently he was an inveterate swearer. His enthusiasm for noble causes was infectious; only, as Coleridge happily expressed it, "because his heart was placed in what should have been his head, you were never sure of him—you always doubted his sincerity."

      In the Opposition and at the Bar this eloquent energy had full scope, "but as Lord Chancellor his selfish disloyalty offended his colleagues while," as O'Connell remarked, "If Brougham knew a little of Law, he would know a little of everything." Unquestionably his obvious failings obscured his real eminence, and even hinder us, to-day, from doing full justice to his memory.

      * * * * *

      It was the following, somewhat heavy-handed, review which inspired the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, with all its "extraordinary powers of malicious statement"—truly a Roland for his Oliver.

      SYDNEY SMITH (1771–1845)

      The third founder of the Edinburgh and one of its most aggressive reviewers, until March, 1827, Sydney Smith has been described as "most provokingly and audaciously personal in his strictures. … He was too complacent, too aboundingly self-satisfied, too buoyantly full of spirits, to hate anybody; but he burlesques them, derides them, and abuses them with the most exasperating effrontery—in a way that is great fun to the reader, but exquisite torture to the victim." At the same time, his wit was always governed by commonsense (its most prevailing distinction); and, though almost unique among humorists for his personal gaiety, "his best work was done in promoting practical ends, and his wit in its airiest gambols never escaped his control." There was, in fact, considerable independence—and even courage—in his seriously inspired attacks on various abuses, and on every form of affectation and cant. Though his manners and conversation were not precisely those we generally associate with the Cloth, Sydney Smith published several volumes of sermons, and always accepted the responsibilities of his position as a clergyman with becoming industry. Croker's veiled sarcasm in the Quarterly (printed below) was no more bitter, or truthful, than similar utterances on any Whig.

      * * * * *

      We know little to-day of—

      The sacred dramas of Miss Hannah More

       Where Moses and the little muses snore,

      but, in her own day, she was flattered in society and a real influence among the serious-minded. She understood the poor and gave them practical advice. Sydney Smith, of course, would be in sympathy with her "good works," but could not resist his joke.

      THOMAS BABINGTON LORD MACAULAY (1800–1859)

      To quote one of his own favourite expressions, "every schoolboy knows" the outlines of Macaulay's life and work. We have recited the Lays, probably read some of the History, possibly even heard of his eloquent and unmeasured attacks on those whose literary work incurred his displeasure. We know that his memory was phenomenal, if his statements were not always accurate. The biographers tell us further that no one could be more simple in private life, or more devoted to his own family: his nephews and nieces having no idea that their favourite "Uncle Tom" was a great man. Criticism, of course, is by no means so unanimous. Mr. Augustine Birrell has wittily remarked that his "style is ineffectual for the purpose of telling the truth about anything"; and James Thomson epitomised his political bias in a biting paragraph:—"Macaulay, historiographer in chief to the Whigs, and the great prophet of Whiggery which never had or will have a prophet, vehemently judged that a man who could pass over from the celestial Whigs to the infernal Tories must be a traitor false as Judas, an apostate black as the Devil." Always a boy at heart, and singularly careless of his appearance, Macaulay was so phenomenally successful in every direction that envy may account for most personal criticism not inspired by recognised opponents. Those who called him a bore were most probably over-sensitive about their own inability to hold up against arguments, or opinions, they longed to combat.

      He was a student at Lincoln's Inn when the brilliant article on the translation of a newly-found treatise by Milton on Christian Doctrine appeared in the Edinburgh (1825), and inaugurated a new power in English prose. Macaulay himself declared that it was "overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful argument"; but it secured his literary reputation and determined much of his career. He became an influence on the Edinburgh, probably somewhat modifying its whole tone, and generally identified with its reputation. "The son of a Saint," says Christopher North, "who seems himself to be something of a reviewer, is insidious as the serpent, but fangless, as the glow worm"; and the Tory press were, naturally, up in arms against the champion critic of their pet prodigies.

      * * * * *

      Southey received, as we must now admit, more than his fair share of abuse from the Liberal press, for the comfortable conservatism of his maturity; and Macaulay did not love the Laureate. We note that Blackwood's defended him with spirit, and Wilson's protracted, and furious, attack on Macaulay for this particular review may be found in the Nodes Ambrosianae, April, 1830.

      Croker, in all probability, deserved much of the scorn here poured upon his editorial labour (though it had merits which his critic deliberately ignores); Wilson, again (Noctes Ambrosianae, November, 1831), examines, and professes to confute, almost every criticism in the review. Croker himself found a convenient occasion for revenge in his review of Macaulay's History printed below.

      The interesting recognition of Gladstone awakes pleasanter sentiments; especially when we notice the return compliment (in the same Quarterly, but twenty-seven years later than Croker's attack) of the statesman's generous tribute. "Macaulay," says Gladstone, "was singularly free of vices … one point only we reserve, a certain tinge of occasional vindictiveness. Was he envious? Never. Was he servile? No. Was he