m 



verdict by the next generation. The Edinburgh Reviewers did, 

 on the whole, more harm than good, by their smart writing. 

 They retarded for years the appreciation both of Wordsworth and 

 of Coleridge, and prevented many of our fathers from coming under 

 an influence, which would have deepened their lives and broad- 

 ened their culture, whether it increased their cleverness or not. 

 But as surely as those who lose their temper injure only themselves, 

 all literary curses come home to roost ; and the verdict of the 

 scornful, though brilliant, essayist, dealing with a mind he cannot 

 comprehend, is reversed in the next generation, and soon forgotten 

 altogether. 



We do not now even laugh at Jeffrey's sentence, "This will 

 never do,'' with which the Edinburgh Polyphemus began his 

 assault upon T/ie Excursion; because criticism has itself taught 

 us that Jeffrey was incapable of appreciating one so new, original, 

 and great. It was his misfortune, as much as his fault. The 

 commonplace mind (and many acute critics have very common- 

 place minds), however clear sighted within its own domain, cannot 

 take the measure of an intellect like Wordsworth's. And in this 

 connection, it is most interesting to look back for half a century 

 and compare the estimate formed of him by the Edinburgh and 

 the Quarterly with the appreciation of Coleridge, who, during his 

 undergraduate residence at Cambridge, and before the two men 

 ever met, read the Descriptive Sketches, and said of them, " Seldom, 

 if ever, was the emergence of a great and original poetic genius 

 above the literary horizon more evidently announced." It always 

 requires some originality to discover the merits of an original mind; 

 and, after all, the poets are the best critics of each other, as may 

 be seen in Mrs. Browning's Vision of Poets ; though, to be candid, 

 they are sometimes also the worst, witness the English Bards and 

 Scotch Reviewers. You will remember, I dare say, Southey's reply 

 to the Ettrick Shepherd, who had said to him, " I suppose you 

 have heard what a crushing review Jeffrey has given The Excursion." 

 — " He crush The Excursion 1 Tell him he might as easily crush 

 Skiddaw." 



It must be admitted that there are structural defects in the 



