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LITERARY LEAFLETS.
BY SIR NATHANIEL.
No. VIII.—Edward Quillinan.
Edward Quillinan is a name not much known out of literary circles. Even within them, it is not a name known and read of all men. The son-in-law of Sir Egerton Brydges, and afterwards of Wordsworth—the assailant of Mr. Savage Landor, in retaliation of the Southey and Porson dialogue—the occasional contributor to quarterly and monthly periodicals—and the accomplished Portuguese scholar—all this Mr. Quillinan was known to be, and this was about all. Nor has his biographer, in the sketch prefixed to the present edition of his Poems,[1] added much to this sum total of knowledge. Mr. Johnston has been cautiously mindful of his friend's opinion, that there is on the part of candid biographers a danger that they may tell the public more than the public have a right to know. The memoir, however, so far as it goes, is interesting and in good taste—so much so, that it stimulates the reader's appetite to grow by what it feeds on.
Wordsworth, avowedly slow to admire, and, as Mr. Johnston says "by no means forward to express approbation even when he felt it," and "scarcely condescending to the language of mere compliment," many years ago affirmed his conviction that Mr. Quillinan had it in his power to attain a permanent place among the poets of England; that his thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and judgment in style, and skill in metre, entitled him to it; and that if he had not then (1827) succeeded in gaining it, the cause apparently lay in the choice of subjects. We fear that the ensuing quarter of a century closed without the success in question being realised. Feeling, contemplative ease, and what himself somewhere calls the "bland pressure of judicious thought, and chaste constraint of language," mark Mr. Quillinan's verse; but we nowhere recognise, positively (as Wordsworth hoped) or potentially[2] (as Wordsworth asserted), the hand of the Maker—he poietes, whose poiesis
- ↑ Poems by Edward Quillinao. With a Memoir by Wm. Johnston. Moxon. 1853.
The Lusiad of Luis de Camoens. Books I. to V. Translated by Edward Quillinan. With Notes by John Adamson. Moxon. 1853.
- ↑ Wordsworth's criticism, however encouraging to the subject of it, was, we should suppose, infinitely less flattering than that of the aspirant's first father-in-law was likely to be, if we may judge from extant specimens. Mr. Gillies, for instance, however valuable to literature as a translator and magazine sketcher, is nowhere, to our knowledge, accepted as an original bard. Yet to this gentleman's quite forgotten effusions in verse could Sir Egerton Brydges apply (and doubtless with entire sincerity) such panegyric as the following, in letters addressed to the amiable verse-maker: "It is perfect inspiration! It is as far superior to any the best composition of any living poet [N.B. This was in 1813], as Shakspeare, and Milton, and Spenser are to the dead. …… All the compositions of other living poets will appear comparatively as nothing to me. If I could attend ta any minor delight in the delirium of pleasure which this fragment gives me," &c., &c. And again: " You have fixed yourself on my mind, beyond all competition, the greatest genius of the age. …… Do not accuse me of fulsome compliment. I am incapable of saying what I do not think." This "Curiosity of Literature" is to be found in R. P. Gillies' "Memoirs of a Literary Veteran," vol. ii.
