J827.] Mr.Gi/ord. 171 



changes which break up the purposes of the man of literature more than 

 any other, and gain him the imputation of fickleness or indolence, while 

 he is groaning under the anxiety to resume his original pursuit, and out- 

 rageous at the obstacles that, as if by magic, start up to wring the pen out of 

 his hand, delayed the completion of his Juvenal for nearly twenty years. 

 It was, however, finished at last ; and in it the English reader may enjoy 

 the full vigour of the greatest of all satirists. Lie will find all the force, 

 and nearly all the pungency, but he will not find the elegance of phrase. 

 Juvenal, in all the grossness of his pictures, is distinguished for finish of 

 language. The sternness, haughty dignity, and axiomatic power of the 

 matchless original, are visible in the cast, moulded by Gifford ; but the 

 brillancy and polish have escaped his artist hand. 



The " Baviad and Maeviad " brought him into more direct publicity. 

 A childish newspaper interchange of complimentary verses, in the genuine 

 style of the " Verses by a Person of Quality," had at first attracted tho 

 curiosity, then excited the ridicule, and then inflamed the wrath of the 

 worldly criticism. The feebleness of the poetry might have escaped ; but 

 it had risen into fashion, and fashionable people had, by degrees, become 

 contributors. The crime of the " Delia Crusca " school was now past all 

 patience, and Gifford sharpened his pen for stinging it to death. He pro- 

 duced a bitter succession of verses, and obtained for himself some reputa- 

 tion as a literary scarifier. But the object of his fury was worth neither 

 his fears, his wrath, nor his verses. It was dying before he attacked it ; 

 and he only assisted to give a little publicity to its funeral. The chief 

 Muses of the Delia Crusca were women, and therefore not the legitimate 

 object of attack; or careless and idle men, to whom attack was amusing, 

 as giving them something to stir up the languor of a life spent about the 

 Clubs. Mrs. Robinson was too pretty, and too unfortunate for the ven- 

 geance of a poet. Mrs. Cowley had deserved too well of the drama, to be 

 justifiably charged with debasing literature. Major Topham, Andrews, 

 Merry, and the rest, probably, cared nothing on the subject, and only 

 scoffed at the remote irritation of a writer, who " lived somewhere out of 

 the knowledge of any gentleman of their acquaintance." 



The French Revolution was one of the fortunate accidents of Gilford's 

 life. It swept away kings, nobles, bishops, and generals, in all directions. 

 But it urged him upwards into a connection with those whose praise, though 

 it may not always be Fame, is generally Fortune. The violence and ac- 

 tivity of the republican newspapers had totally beaten down the lazy 

 loyalty and insipid decencies of the ministerial. The Revolution was the 

 reign of newspapers. It was the first time that their importance began to 

 be thoroughly felt. It happens by a curious anomaly in nations, and in 

 individuals, that they generally go wrong before they go right. The 

 Wrong is the impulse, the Right, the lesson. England, to which repub- 

 licanism must be ruin, was mad for republicanism. The Whigs, to every 

 man of whom worth plundering, or leading to the block, it would 

 have been confiscation and the guillotine : the Whigs, the chief land- 

 holders and exclusive boroughmongers of England, in their usual defe- 

 rence to the wisdom of the mob, cried out for " Reform," which their 

 ragged masters in the streets more honestly called " Revolution : " All 

 the newspapers that were not expressly intended for circulation among the 

 chambermaids of the West End, and the lords of the household, were 

 Whig; all the aspirants for popularity were Whigs; all who thought this 

 change must come, and wished to secure an interest with the new Repub- 



Z 2 



