Famous Reviews | Page 3

Rambler.
CHRISTOPHER NORTH
I care not one single curse for all the criticism that ever was canted or
decanted, or recanted. Neither does the world. The world takes a poet
as it finds him, and seats him above or below the salt. The world is as
obstinate as a million mules, and will not turn its head on one side or
another for all the shouting of the critical population that ever was
shouted. It is very possible that the world is a bad judge. Well, then--
appeal to posterity, and be hanged to you--and posterity will affirm the

judgment, with costs.--_Noctes Ambrosianae, Sept_., 1825.
Our current literature teems with thought and feeling,--with passion and
imagination. There was Gifford, and there are Jeffrey, and Southey ...
and twenty--forty--fifty--other crack contributors to the Reviews,
Magazines and Gazettes, who have said more tender, and true, and fine,
and deep things in the way of criticism, than ever was said before since
the reign of Cadmus, ten thousand times over,--not in long, dull, heavy,
formal, prosy theories--but flung off-hand, out of the glowing mint--a
coinage of the purest ore--and stamped with the ineffaceable impress of
genius.--Noctes Ambrosianae, April, 1829.
The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. EDMUND
BURKE.
We must not underrate him who uses wit for subsistence, and flies from
the ingratitude of the age even to a bookseller for redress. OLIVER
GOLDSMITH.
The critical faculty is a _rara avis_; almost as rare, indeed, as the
phoenix, which appears only once in five hundred years. ARTHUR
SCHOPENHAUER.
The Supreme Critic ... is ... that Unity, that Oversoul, within which
every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other.
R. W. EMERSON.
Criticism's best spiritual work which is to keep man from a
self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarising, to lead him towards
perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in itself,
and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. MATTHEW ARNOLD.
The whole history of criticism has been a triumph of authors over
critics. R. G. MOULTON.
Our criticism is disabled by the unwillingness of the critic to learn from
an author, and his readiness to mistrust him. D. H. HOWELLS.
We have too many small schoolmasters; yet not only do I not question
in literature the high utility of criticism, but I should be tempted to say
that the part it plays may be the supremely beneficent one when it
proceeds from deep sources, from the efficient combination of
experience and perception. In this light one sees the critic as the real
helper of mankind, a torch-bearing outrider, the interpreter par
excellence. HENRY JAMES.

FAMOUS REVIEWS
* * * * *
THE EDINBURGH REVIEW
"A confederacy (the word conspiracy may be libellous) to defend the
worst atrocities of the French, and to cry down every author to whom
England was dear and venerable. A better spirit now prevails in the
Edinburgh Review from the generosity and genius of Macaulay. But in
the days when Brougham and his confederates were writers in it, more
falsehood and more malignity marked its pages than any other journal
in the language."
W.S. LANDOR.
Landor is speaking, of course, with his usual impetuosity, particularly
moved by antipathy to Lord Brougham. A fairer estimate of the "bluff
and blue" exponent of Whig principles may be obtained from our brief
estimate of Jeffrey below. His was the informing spirit, at least in its
earliest days, and that spirit would brook no divided sway.
FRANCIS LORD JEFFREY (1773-1850)
Jeffrey was editor of the Edinburgh Review from its foundation in
October 10th, 1802, till June, 1829; and continued to write for it until
June, 1848. He was more patronising in his abuse than either
Blackwood or the Quarterly, and on the whole fairer and more
dignified; though he was considerably influenced by political bias. In
fact, his judgments--though versatile--were narrow, his most marked
limitations arising from blindness to the imaginative.
The short, vivacious figure (so low that he might pass under your chin
without ever catching the eye even for a moment, says Lockhart), was
far more impressive when familiar than at first sight. Lord Cockburn
praises his legal abilities (whether as judge or advocate) almost without
qualification; but Wilson derides his appearance in the House:--"A cold
thin voice, doling out little, quaint, metaphysical sentences with the air
of a provincial lecturer on logic and _belles-lettres_. A few good Whigs
of the old school adjourned upstairs, the Tories began to converse de
omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, the Radicals were either snoring or
grinning, and the great gun of the north ceased firing amidst such a
hubbub of inattention, that even I was not aware of the fact for several
minutes."
He has been called "almost a lecturer in society," and it