Early Reviews of English Poets

Reviews of English Poets, by
John Louis Haney

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Title: Early Reviews of English Poets
Author: John Louis Haney
Release Date: July 6, 2006 [EBook #18766]
Language: English
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EARLY REVIEWS
OF

ENGLISH POETS
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
JOHN LOUIS HANEY, PH.D.
Assistant Professor of English and History, Central High School,
Philadelphia; Research Fellow in English, University of Pennsylvania
PHILADELPHIA THE EGERTON PRESS 1904
COPYRIGHT, 1904 BY JOHN LOUIS HANEY
PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY, LANCASTER,
PA.

TO
MY FRIEND AND TEACHER
PROFESSOR FELIX E. SCHELLING
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

PREFACE
"Among the amusing and instructive books that remain to be written,
one of the most piquant would be a history of the criticism with which
the most celebrated literary productions have been greeted on their first
appearance before the world." It is quite possible that when Dr.
William Matthews began his essay on Curiosities of Criticism with
these words, he failed to grasp the full significance of that future
undertaking. Mr. Churton Collins recently declared that "a very
amusing and edifying record might be compiled partly out of a

selection of the various verdicts passed contemporaneously by reviews
on particular works, and partly out of comparisons of the subsequent
fortunes of works with their fortunes while submitted to this
censorship." Both critics recognize the fact that such a volume would
be entertaining and instructive; but, from another point of view, it
would also be a somewhat doleful book. Even a reader of meagre
imagination and rude sensibilities could not peruse such a volume
without picturing in his mind the anguish and the heart-ache which
those bitter and often vicious attacks inflicted upon the unfortunate
victims whose works were being assailed.
Authors (particularly sensitive poets) have been at all times the sport
and plaything of the critics. Mrs. Oliphant, in her Literary History of
England, said with much truth: "There are few things so amusing as to
read a really 'slashing article'--except perhaps to write it. It is infinitely
easier and gayer work than a well-weighed and serious criticism, and
will always be more popular. The lively and brilliant examples of the
art which dwell in the mind of the reader are invariably of this class."
Thus it happens that we remember the witty onslaughts of the
reviewers, and often ignore the fact that certain witticisms drove Byron,
for example, into a frenzy of anger that called forth the most vigorous
satire of the century; and others so completely unnerved Shelley that he
felt tempted to write no more; and still others were so unanimously
hostile in tone that Coleridge thought the whole detested tribe of critics
was in league against his literary success. There were, of course, such
admirable personalities as Wordsworth's--for the most part indifferent
to the strongest torrent of abuse; and clever craftsmen like Tennyson,
who, although hurt, read the criticisms and profited by them; but, on
the other hand, there are still well-informed readers who believe that
the Quarterly Review at least hastened the death of poor Keats.
It has been suggested that such a volume of the "choice crudities of
criticism" as is here proposed would likewise fulfill the desirable
purpose of avenging the author upon his ancient enemy, the critic, by
showing how absurd the latter's utterances often are, and what a
veritable farrago of folly those collected utterances can make. We may
rest assured that however much hostile criticism may have pained an

author, it has never inflicted a permanent injury upon a good book. If
there appear to be works that have been thus more or less obscured, the
fault will probably be found not in the critic but in the works
themselves. According to this agreeable theory, which we would all
fain believe, the triumph of the ignorant or malevolent critic cannot
endure; sooner or later the author's merit will be recognized and he will
come into his own.
The present volume does not attempt to fulfill the conditions suggested
by Dr. Matthews and Mr. Collins. A history of contemporary criticism
of famous authors would be a more ambitious undertaking,
necessitating an extensive apparatus of notes and references. It seeks
merely to gather a number of interesting anomalies of
criticism--reviews of famous poems and famous poets differing more or
less from