Gifford himself. Now, I have much respect for the talents of each of these two gentlemen, but from. which of them is it, that either I or any sensible man would care much to hear an opinion upon two-thirds of the matters that do, or should fall to be discussed in a journal of the general literature of England? Suppose, for a moment, such a book as Pope's Dunciad were to be published to-morrow, Mr Southey, even though he did not find himself mentioned in it, would infallibly toss up his nose and pronounce it the work of a man of no imagination-no originality-no poetry. Mr Gifford would not in his heart like it, because he would feel, after reading two full pages, that all was over with his Bæviad and Mæviad. How would this work be reviewed in the Quarterly?

It would not be reviewed by any hearty fellow, because he would know that he could not express his true opinion of it without offending Southey and Gifford in the first place, and without saying things that could not fail to appear quite absurd, and out of place in the Quarterly Review, in the second. How could a sharp witty satirist be praised with any honesty or effect in a journal, the prime supporter of which is the author of " the Vision of Judgment,"-in a journal where you find Milman extolled as a first-rate poet the one number, and Shelley run down as no poet at all the next-in a journal where you find Waverley and Guy Mannering treated as works of very slender merit (the second of them indeed as little better than a piece of silliness) and Ivanhoe lauded to the third heavens,-in a journal where William Hazlitt is talked of as a mere prattling ninny, and Signor Ugo Fudgiolo as one of the greatest geniuses in Europe?

It would not be reviewed by Mr Gifford, because Mr Gifford, though not at all delighted with the book, could not for his life be blind to its merits; and although he might also have many private reasons for not wishing to speak the truth, I do the splenetic Mr Gifford the justice to say, that I do not believe he is capable of sitting down gravely to write in his own person what he feels to be un

true.

Mr Southey would receive the book at Keswick by his next mail-coach parcel, and I think he might very pos

sibly set about reviewing it. But then he would speak such utter nonsense about it, that Mr Gifford would not hear of its being inserted. They would laugh over it for a day or two,-particularly if it were written in hexameters, or contained any bulletin of the state of Mr Southey's family,and then the article would either be put in the fire, or inclosed under a blank cover to "the British," in the view of helping my poor grandmother's pot to boil for a day or two longer, or, perhaps, of extinguishing the old body's life altogether in the smoke.

This is, however, a very unfair way of putting the thing: for few things are less likely than the appearance of a Dunciad in an age when there is so little besides duncery. There is no need of imagining or supposing any thing. Just look at what is, and you will be satisfied. Look, for example, at Mr Milman, writing three or four articles every year in the Quarterly, and, for his pains, having one article in the year written in praise of himself by some friend of his own. Look at Mr Mitchell writing two dissertations on Aristophanes in the Quarterly Review: and then turn to the next number of the Quarterly, and see Mr Mitchell praised through thirty pages, (no matter how justly and deservedly), for a translation of Aristophanes, to which these very dissertations of his have been prefixed. See Reginald Heber writing regularly in the Review, and his poetry,-Reginald Heber's pretty college-prize-poetry,-quoted-absolutely quoted, in the Quarterly Review.-Look at Reginald Heber puffing Robert Southey, and Robert Southey puffing Reginald Heber. Look at authors dedicating their books to Mr Gifford, and Mr Gifford reviewing their books either by himself or by his true legitimate vassals-his nameless knot-headed templars and curates !—It all goes the same way in the Edinburgh; yes, and in the inferior journals, inferior animals trudge defiled still more damnably, the same vile path on which they canter. Behold Sir James Macintosh filling a hundred pages of the Edinburgh Review, with his insipid, fifty-times-distilled nonsense about reform; and then remember, if you can, the multitude of notes and parentheses, in which the Edinburgh Review insinuates that Sir James is destined

to be the true Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, (all in one,) of Great Britain. Look at Mr Brougham, who has lived, in a great measure, for twenty years of his life, by writing in the Edinburgh Review, and see with what face he can bear to hear the Edinburgh Review puffing him as the "immortal statesman and legislator" of the age. See the radical Examiner praising the borough-mongering Edinburgh Review, and the Pope-worshipping Edinburgh Review praising the little painted crockery-pots of Mr Leigh Hunt. See Hazlitt writing in the Edinburgh Review, and Hazlitt praised in the Edinburgh Review. See Wordsworth quizzed in the Edinburgh Review, and Keates and Cornwall patted on the back in it.-Poor Keates! I cannot pass his name without saying that I really think he had some genius about him. I do think he had something that might have ripened into fruit, had he not made such a mumbling work of the budssomething that might have been wine, and tasted like wine, if he had not kept dabbling with his fingers in the vat, and pouring it out and calling so lustily for quaffers, before the grounds had time to be settled, or the spirit to be concentrated, or the flavour to be formed. Still poorer Barry! The Edinburgh Review compares you to Lord Byron. Upon my honour you ought not to swallow such utter humbug. You are very far from being, or even for promising to be even a Keates; for there is more merit in thrumming on the craziest spinnet in the world, however miserably, thau in making the prettiest barrel-organ in the world "discourse excellent music."

Now, these things are all very bad, but they are merely the bad things of detail. The system out of which they proceed is the real evil, and, unless the system be guarded against, there is no more use in pointing out the subordinate absurdities, than there is in cropping off the head of a toadstool, and leaving the vile root in the ground. The whole system of your modern journal is a piece of utter dishonesty from the foundation. The only supposition upon which any man of sense would put any faith in such a work, is the supposition that it speaks to the particulars of literature from the generals of literature-that it considers individual works in relation to the

whole literary treasures of the world, and pronounces of them accordinglythat it expresses, concerning every thing, the judgment of the same spirit or spirits, judging of every thing on the same principles, and by the same standards. No English journal has ever exhibited any thing like what I would wish to describe; but they have all exhibited its contraries, (even Blackwood has done so,)—and so you may form some notion of what I would say. Without unity of principle and purpose, nothing honest can be ac complished; and pray, what unity, either of literary principle, or of literary purpose, can any one suppose to exist in a work, in which it is the toss-up of a halfpenny, whether a new poem shall be reviewed by Mr Southey, or Mr Milman, or Mr Gifford, or Mr Croker,-or by Mr Jeffrey, or Mr Brougham, or Sir James Macintosh, or Mr Hazlitt. It is utter nonsense to talk about Editors, and to say that they, as things go, can model what passes through their hands, so as to make every thing express, upon the whole, or in the main, their own opinion. If it were so in regard to such Editors as I have been speaking of, it would be no great matter; but it is not so, and it never can be so, unless "all old things pass away," and the Edinburgh and Quarterly become as much forgotten as two" withered scrolls." Who supposes that the editor of a Review can afford to give serious disgust to a regular, clever, and effectual writer in his book ?-that Mr Gifford would afford to damn an author, patronized really and du bon cœur by Mr Southey-or to refuse praising such an author, if Mr Southey chose to make a point of it? There may, for ought I know, be not one, nor three, but three dozen literary men, in regard not only to one and all of whom, but to one and all of whose friends, Mr Gifford feels himself as effectually fettered as if he were tied with all the cords that Sampson broke, and that nobody but Sampson could have dreamed of breaking. It must be just the same with Mr Jeffrey; indeed he himself, in one of his late Reviews, had the candour to say, almost in so many words, that it is so. To please one person, an editor must puff this man; and, if he have to do with men of a certain sort of temper, there is perhaps no way of pleasing

but by DAMNING that man, and ainsi va le monde. Not Creevy himself could compute the extent to which the ramifications of this vile system may extend-nor calculate from how many scores of dirty puddles the same trimly-foliaged poison-tree may be sucking its continual nutriment.

My Lord Byron, in that prime specimen of humbug, his Letter to Bowles, gives that gentleman a casti gation for his complaint to Mr Gifford, on the subject of an article in the Quarterly Review on Spence's Anecdotes. Mr Bowles wrote a letter to Mr Gifford, lamenting over some cuts at a publication of his own in that article, and wondering how such cuts could have been permitted against a publication which he says Mr Southey, "the most able and eloquent writer in the Quarterly Review, approved." Lord Byron tells Mr Bowles, that it was a very foolish thing of him to imagine that the Quarterly Review either does, or pretends to express the opinions of one man, and lauds, in a certain sort, the impartiality of the editor of the Quarterly, who allowed Mr Bowles to be cut up, even though Mr Southey approved of Mr Bowles. Mr Bowles is, indeed, somewhat too sensitive, and he never shewed that more clearly, than by making any complaint to any body at all about such a matter as a cut in a Review. But if he had been to make any complaint upon this paltry occasion, he should evidently have addressed it, not to Mr Gifford, but to Mr Southey; for nothing could ever make Southey and Gifford think in the same way of Pope; but every body knows, that if Mr Southey had chosen to put himself to any trouble, there would have been no such thing as any cuts at Mr Bowles in the Quarterly Review. There is Mr Wordsworth now, who has blasphemed all his life against Pope; why was no notice taken of the blasphemy of such a sturdy heretic as this, while such grievous notice was taken of Mr Bowles? Does not every body know that Wordsworth was spared, because the Quarterly Reviewers know any attack upon the first of Lakers would infallibly offend the second of the Lakers? and that Mr Bowles was sacrificed, because they knew that Laker the second would not care one single hexameter for the fate of Mr Bowles? Patet; this is all VOL. XI.

as clear as possible. There is humbug on every hand, and I know not where there is most of it. There is much humbug in the article in the Quarterly Review, although Lord Byron calls it "able," for there is more sense in three lines of Lord Byron's own pamphlet, than in the whole of its smartness. There is much humbug again in any pretence, (either from the Quarterly or Lord Byron): that Pope stands in need of being de fended for nobody abuses Pope except Wordsworth and Southey, whom every body pities for conceit and prejudice, and Barry Cornwall, and the like, whom every one despises for utter incapacity. There is some hum bug in Mr Bowles's pathetic address to Mr Gifford; and there is also very exquisite humbug in Lord Byron's method of commenting on that per formance.

I say there is exquisite humbug; and Lord Byron knows it is; and I confess this is one piece of his Lordship's humbug, to discover the motive of which I am excessively puzzled. Perhaps it was only to try what people would swallow-but people have not swallowed, and never will swallow, an assertion from Lord Byron, that he (Lord Byron) thinks, if the English nation were to perish, Milton and Shakespeare" would perish along with it, and Pope survive." If the English nation were to perish to-mor row, I have no doubt each of those three poets would survive, because the French and Italians would take care of Pope, and the Germans and other bibbers of Rhenish would take exceeding good care of the rest. But if Lord Byron had really looked back on the history of other literatures, I don't say he would not have formed, but he would not have ventured to feign such an opinion as this about the probable fate of English literature in a very improbable situation. If he had asked himself, for example, who they are that have survived the national ruin of the Greeks and Romans, what would he have found? Would he not have found, that the authors, which are the greatest favourites with the world now, are precisely those who stood to the people for whom they wrote most nearly in the same relations in which Milton and Shakespeare do now stand to the English people? Is Shakespeare more decidedly an English author than

2 X

Homer or Aristophanes was a Greek author? Is his spirit more decidedly English than theirs Greek? Is his language more intensely English than theirs was Greek? Is Milton, either in thought or in style, more peculiar ly an English author than Plato is a Greek author? Never was any species of hum more entirely exploded, than that old Frenchified species of abusing authors for addressing themselves, with all their pith and power, to the peculiar nations of whose "mother tongues" they make use. All authors must do so, if they are to produce a great effect while they are new, and, in spite of what Byron says, if they are to sustain their character with posterity. If I were a civilized African or American, living in the year of God four thousand and twenty-two, I would feel more curiosity to read an English author expressing fervidly the spirit, character, manners, and habits of the English people, as they existed in the year 1822, than I would to read any piece of didactic poetry, or didactic prose, that ever has been, or ever will be produced, either in England or in any other country under heaven. Take even a didactic author, and ask of yourself what is the part of his works you feel most interest in reading. What do you read the oftenest in Cicero? not surely his dissertations about the utile and the pulchrum, but his speeches which lay before us the picture of a high-bred Roman's mind, as affected by matters of Roman interest and his letters, which shew how a great man, of a nation extinct for so many centuries, conducted himself in his private circle-how he addressed himself to his friend-his son -his daughter. What is it you read with most interest in Pope himself? Not certainly his exquisite versifications of Lord Bolingbroke's didactie prose, but his much more exquisite

pictures of manners and characters observed by his own keen eye, and peculiarly English-his letters-his satires

his Rape of the Lock-any thing ra ther than his Essay on Man, or his Elegy on the Unfortunate Lady-the very two of his works that one could the most easily imagine to have been written not by an Englishman; and if the French and Italians be not of the same way of thinking about Pope, that is only one instance more that there is very little of just or tasteful criticism in France and Italy. Take any other author of the present day, and apply the principle to him. Is there any man now living, or will there be any man living a hundred years hence, who would rather read Campbell's verses against scepticism than his " British Soldier's Dream?" Is there any body who wishes Sir Walter Scott to publish three volumes of Sermons every three months? Does any one prefer Lord Byron's un-English verses on Talavera, to his English verses upon Waterloo? Who likes Wordsworth, when he writes of "man," and "fate," and "loyalty," and "religion ?"—And who does not like him when he describes a common Cumberland beggar, travelling his rounds in a sequestered valley, carrying the news of one hamlet to another, and so forming a sort of bond between the good English country people, who give him their alms? No-There is nothing for it but sticking to life and nature, and the people we live among. By not doing so, Mr Southey has written many heavy scores of dead and dying books; and, by doing so, he has written one that is life and health all over, and bids fair for immortality his Life of Nelson.

It is not possible to take up a volume that treats of Scottish character, under the guise of fictitious narrative, without thinking of the genius and achievements of the great Unknown. A sort of unconscious comparison is made, as we proceed in the perusal of any such work, between the representations there given, and those which have already held us enthralled in delight and won der. And we have no doubt, that such comparison, if necessarily prolonged by similarity of subject, could not but prove fatal to the success of any new writer, however powerful his genius. But, on the other hand, if it be immediately dismissed from the view, and the work which at first occasioned it, appear to be one original in its subject and execution, and in no way interfering with, or trespassing upon the provinces of the Magician, though belonging to the same land, then the effect produced on the reader by that unconscious comparison, is a genial one, and the new author enjoys the benefit of it, in meeting with an ear nest and an eager attention. We are pleased to find that he is not an imitator; and equally so, to find that he has opened up to us unsuspected sources of amusement or instruction, in a re gion familiar to us, and of which we had perhaps supposed we already knew the extent, or at least the nature of all the riches.

Such was the case with us when we first read the "Annals of the Parish." The author spoke of Scotland, and of nothing else. Every thing was Scottish. Yet no one could have discovered that he had ever read the works of our great national novelist. The scenery-the characters-the incidentsthe reflections-the feelings-all were different, as if they had belonged to another people, and another land, yet were they all perfectly true to the same. "The Annals of the Parish," were absurdly and ignorantly said, in the Quarterly Review, to belong (we forget how) to what are called the Scotch Novels. It is true that they were published after about fifty of these volumes;

but they have no other relation to them, than of time and place. Accordingly the "Annals of the Parish," is a book which will keep its station in our literature. Its claims are not high or obtrusive. But it is original, and true to nature, and therefore it must live.

Unless we are greatly mistaken, the very remarkable volume, entitled, “Some Passages in the Life of MrAdam Blair," possesses this independent and original character. Every page of it is Scottish-yet there is not in it all one page that seems to have been suggest→ ed by any picture or representation in the great Novels. In like manner, its principal character is a Scottish clergyman, and drawn with great power and truth, yet those who have rested with calm satisfaction on the simple, inno cent, and primitive character of Micah Balwhidder, in the Manse of Dalmail ing, will be no less pleased to be introduced to the impassioned, erring, and interesting Adam Blair in that of the parish of Cross-Meikle.

The author of this book seems to be a man possessing very deep insight into the passionate nature of the hu man soul; and has ventured to place the entire interest of his work, it may be said, on the display of passion in one obscure individual. He keeps close to his subject, and feels his power over it. His picture is never feebly drawn, though sometimes the colours are laid on with a somewhat too dashing hand; and though there are passages in this volume that will bear comparison with the most vivid and forcible delineations of human nature to be found in our literature, yet the general impression left on the reader's mind by the whole, is, that the author is easily capable of better and greater things, and cannot fail, if he chooses to exert his noble powers to the utmost, to take his place in the first rank of modern genius.

We are aware, that out of Scotland, the incident on which the whole interest of this narrative rests, may scarcely seem suited or equal to produce that utter prostration of mind,