disappointing blank. Of course, in so extended and arduous a labour, it may be easy to convict him of an occasional slip; but we are too well pleased with the general aspect of this specimen volume to indulge in a carping, captious spirit of microscopic cavilling. There are plenty of professors of that art, who will fasten on any weak points he may have betrayed; and we honestly think he may welcome them to make the most of what they will find slender diet. Most useful and honourable is the pursuit of emendatory criticism, and the sincerely painstaking author will always be grateful to be set right; but far different from this is the fidgety vexatious censorship, which exhausts its petty but pertinacious ingenuity in gnat-straining extraordinary.
Rien ne touche son gout, taut il est difficile,
Et veut voir des défauts à tout ce qu'on écrit.
Il pense que louer n'est pas d'un bel esprit,
Que c'est d'etre savant que trouver à redire,
Qu'il n'appartient qu'aux sots d'admirer et de rire,
Et qu'en n'approuvant rien des ouvrages du temps,
Il se met au-dessus de tous les autres gens.[1]
Save us from the all-accomplished Ruffus qui toties Ciceronem Allobroga dixit![2] That the ruffian tribe of fault-finders, skilled to stab a reputation with a bare bodkin, can so exercise their skill on Mr. BeU'a annotations as to defeat the claims of his edition to be what the public requires, we do not for a moment believe. As little can we doubt that his will be the popular edition of the English Poets, if only the future volumes, to which we look forward with real interest and pleasurable confidences, be equal in completeness of equipment to the first. The man who proclaims his discontent with this half-a-crown curiosity of literature, for it is nodiing less, is one of those inappeasable grumblers who want better bread than is made of wheat. Nay, we will say better plum-cake than teems with the spolia opima of "nests of spicery," and the rich fruitage of the south.
Glorious John, that strong man armed, "who wrestles with and conquers Time,"[3] deserves a reviewal specially devoted to his achievements in the "lofty rhyme" he "built" up in a form so towering, stately, and massive; and we have a longing to causer about him at some length, in our desultory fashion. The progress of this edition will afford choice opportunity to do so.
- ↑ Molière: Le Misanthrope. Act II.
- ↑ Juvenal. Sat. VII.
- ↑ "Our course," thus Landor addresses Wordsworth, in reference to their contemporary poetical career–
"Our course by Milton's light was sped,
And Shakspeare shining overhead:
Chatting on deck was Dryden, too,
The Bacon of the rhyming crew;
None ever crossed our mystic sea
More richly stored with thought than he;
Though never tender nor sublime,
He wrestles with and conquers Time."
Landor's Miscellaneous Poems.
