Early Reviews of English Poets | Page 2

the modern consensus of opinion concerning those poems and
their authors. Although most of the chosen reviews are unfavorable,
several others have been selected to afford evidence of an early
appreciation of certain poets. A few unexpectedly favorable notices,
such as the Monthly Review's critique of Browning's Sordello, are
printed because they appear to be unique. The chief criterion in
selecting these reviews (apart from the effort to represent most of the
periodicals and the principal poets between Gray and Browning) has
been that of interest to the modern reader. In most cases, criticisms of a
writer's earlier works were preferred as more likely to be spontaneous
and uninfluenced by his growing literary reputation. Thus the volume
does not attempt to trace the development of English critical methods,
nor to supply a hand-book of representative English criticism; it offers
merely a selection of bygone but readable reviews--what the critics
thought, or, in some cases, pretended to think, of works of poets whom
we have since held in honorable esteem. The short notices and the
well-known longer reviews are printed entire; but considerations of
space and interest necessitated excisions in a few cases, all of which are,
of course, properly indicated. The spelling and punctuation of the
original texts have been carefully followed.
The history of English critical journals has not yet been adequately
written. The following introduction offers a rapid survey of the subject,

compiled principally from the sources indicated in the bibliographical
list. I am indebted to Professor Felix E. Schelling of the University of
Pennsylvania, and to Dr. Robert Ellis Thompson and Professor Albert
H. Smyth of the Philadelphia Central High School for many
suggestions that have been of value in writing the introduction. Dr.
Edward Z. Davis examined at my request certain pamphlets in the
British Museum that threw additional light upon the history of the early
reviews. Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach and Professor J.H. Moffatt read the
proofs of the introduction and notes respectively, and suggested several
noteworthy improvements.
J.L.H.
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, PHILADELPHIA.

CONTENTS
Preface vii Introduction xiii Bibliography lvi
REVIEWS
GRAY Odes (Monthly Review) 1 GOLDSMITH The Traveller
(Critical Review) 5 COWPER Poems, 1782 (Critical Review) 10
BURNS Poems, 1786 (Edinburgh Magazine) 13 Poems, 1786 (Critical
Review) 15 WORDSWORTH Descriptive Sketches (Monthly Review)
16 An Evening Walk (Monthly Review) 19 Lyrical Ballads (Critical
Review) 20 Poems, 1807 (Edinburgh Review) 24 COLERIDGE
Christabel (Edinburgh Review) 47 SOUTHEY Madoc (Monthly Review)
60 LAMB Blank Verse (Monthly Review) 65 Album Verses (Literary
Gazette) 66 LANDOR Gebir (British Critic) 68 Gebir (Monthly Review)
69 SCOTT Marmion (Edinburgh Review) 70 BYRON Hours of
Idleness (Edinburgh Review) 94 Childe Harold (Christian Observer)
101 SHELLEY Alastor (Monthly Review) 115 The Cenci (London
Magazine) 116 Adonais (Literary Gazette) 129 KEATS Endymion
(Quarterly Review) 135 Endymion (Blackwood's Magazine) 141
TENNYSON Timbuctoo (Athenæum) 151 Poems, 1833 (Quarterly

Review) 152 The Princess (Literary Gazette) 176 BROWNING
Paracelsus (Athenæum) 187 Sordello (Monthly Review) 188 Men and
Women (Saturday Review) 189
Notes 197 Index 223

INTRODUCTION
To the modern reader, with an abundance of periodicals of all sorts and
upon all subjects at hand, it seems hardly possible that this wealth of
ephemeral literature was virtually developed within the past two
centuries. It offers such a rational means for the dissemination of the
latest scientific and literary news that the mind undeceived by facts
would naturally place the origin of the periodical near the invention of
printing itself. Apart from certain sporadic manifestations of what is
termed, by courtesy, periodical literature, the real beginning of that
important department of letters was in the innumerable Mercurii that
flourished in London after the outbreak of the Civil War. Although the
British Museum Catalogue presents a long list of these curious
messengers and news-carriers, the only one that could be of interest in
the present connection is the Mercurius Librarius; or a Catalogue of
Books Printed and Published at London[A] (1668-70), the contents of
which simply fulfilled the promise of its title.
Literary journals in England were, however, not a native development,
but were copied, like the fashions and artistic norms of that period,
from the French. The famous and long-lived Journal des Sçavans was
begun at Paris in 1665 by M. Denis de Sallo, who has been called,
since the time of Voltaire, the "inventor" of literary journals. In 1684
Pierre Bayle began at Amsterdam the publication of Nouvelles de la
République des Lettres, which continued under various hands until
1718. These French periodicals were the acknowledged inspiration for
similar ventures in England, beginning in 1682 with the Weekly
Memorial for the Ingenious: or an Account of Books lately set forth in
Several Languages, with some other Curious Novelties relating to Arts
and Sciences. The preface stated the intention of the publishers to

notice foreign as well as domestic works, and