1832.] The Two Professors. 513 



and a bunch of keys at her girdle the very daughter of " Old Square," 

 in Spencer's Fairy Queen. 



But we shall be told that Lord Byron, forsooth, is an evidence of the 

 impartial manner in which the Quarterly Review exercised its functions. 

 We shall not admit the plea. If it prove any thing, it only proves the 

 slavish subserviency of that publication. In the first place, Mr. Murray 

 was Lord Byron's publisher of itself a very sufficient reason for praising 

 him. In the second place, Lord Byron was altogether too much a man 

 of the world to neglect an opportunity of standing well with Mr. Gifford, 

 the then editor, whom there can be no doubt that he flattered in a some- 

 what gross and unsparing manner j and, lastly, Gifford very well knew 

 that Lord Byron's political principles, (so far as they might be considered 

 convictions of his own,) were absurd, childish, and inconsistent j adopted 

 without much reflection and maintained altogether without skill, judg- 

 ment, or temper. That cunning old Volpine saw pretty clearly that Lord 

 Byron was at heart as much an aristocrat as any man breathing, and was 

 not apprehensive that the peer, were he so disposed, could do much harm 

 to what are termed " existing institutions." And he praised him accord- 

 ingly, and, it must be confessed, without much scruple. He laid it on, 

 as Congreve says, " with a trowel," and succeeded in building up a reputa- 

 tion which we do not hesitate to say was in a great measure unearned, 

 and will, in a few years, be, in a small degree, diminished and impaired. 

 But where was the criticism all this while ? His lordship swallowed the 

 praise, Mr. Murray devoured the pudding, but the public in the mean- 

 while " looked up and were not fed." It was not the cue of the Quarterly 

 just at that precise moment to meddle in the way of criticism with Lord 

 Byron. It was not disposed to do so there were reasons for it. It was 

 like Hull's dog in the proverb, " who was so lazy that he leaned his head 

 against the wall when he wanted to bark 5" but, unlike that sedentary 

 cur, it did not bark, after all. 



Not so, however, when it had men to deal with where aristocratical 

 pretensions were naught; and also, it was conceived, might be assailed 

 with impunity, even though that impunity were the wages of contempt. 

 Then, indeed, 



" Punishment, the drudgery for devils," 



was light work for the Quarterly. Then it spat its venom fluently 

 enough, but it is rather dry in the throat and husky of articulation now. 

 At that time, far inferior poets to Mr. Milman (and we do not wish to 

 speak contemptuously of the Oxford Professor) were lauded to the third 

 heaven by the same pen (the geese of Lincolnshire can testify that it was 

 a goose quill) that scribbled libel and calumny, and raked up old school 

 stories against Percy Shelley ; and does the Quarterly imagine that this 

 shall be forgotten hastily? But why should we cudgel such a bepus, 

 or kick so vaunting a bobadil as the Quarterly Review? It were but 

 the waste of walking-stick and the destruction of shoe-leather 5 we have 

 no doubt, however, that its unhappy victims will, one day or the other, 

 be brought to their senses. John Jones will be convinced, when he 

 receives a deputation conveying a vote of thanks from the trunk-makers, 

 that Mr. Southey's recommendation was mere moonshine; and that his 

 lucubrations have been an entire waste of midnight taper and supple- 

 mentary candle. He will be aware that the most convenient privilege of 

 genius is the excuse it affords for scratching the head and not paying 



