1825. 
and was not sublimed into a high spirit of 
metaphysical philosophy: Instead of giv- 
ing a language to thought, or lending the 
heatt’a tongue, he utters dark sayings, and 
deals:in allegories and riddles. His muse 
offers her services to clothe shadowy doubts, 
~nidl inscrutable difficulties in a robe. of glit- 
ing words, and to turn nature into a 
bali para He mistook the nature 
of the poet’s calling, which should be 
guided by involuntary, not by voluntary 
impulses. He shook off, as an heroic and 
praiseworthy act, the trammels of sense, 
custom, ‘and sympathy, and became the 
creature: of his own will. He was ‘all 
air,’ disdaining the bars and ties of mortal 
mould. . He ransacked his brain for incon- 
ities, and believed in whatever was in- 
credible, _ The colours of his style, for their 
gaudy, changeful, startling effect, resemble 
the display of fire-works in the dark, and 
liké them have neither durability, nor keep- 
ing, nor discriminative form. Yet Mr. Shelly, 
with all his faults, was a man of genius; 
and we lament that uncontrollable violence 
of temperament which gaye it a forced and 
false direction.” 
We had extracted much more largely 
from this splendid and highly poetical 
—pethaps, for criticism, rather too 
poetical article; but we are admonished 
by space, and by the recollection that 
the object, in. this instance also, has 
fallen. rather too much into retrospect : 
for there has been another number of 
“ The Edinburgh,” also, for a long time 
due.* ..We turn, therefore, to the more 
two-month oracle, 
¢ Universal. Review ; or Chronicle 
‘the Literature of all Nations. No. V. 
,this new intruder on the province of 
eal criticism, our attention was 
drawn by the somewhat suspicious com- 
mendation of the Rev. T. F. Dibdin, of 
-prejudice and bibliomanical re- 
now; who in his mis-nomered “ Library 
Noy mrt or young man’s guide, &c. 
i the choice of a library,”+ charac- 
tevin itthus :— 
~* Tt has at ast arrived, but too late for 
our present: he more especially 
as the whole of its articles are of a political 
east; and we have said enough of Edin- 
yurgh Review politics , 
» 4+ Tt ought certainly to have been called 
© igh Church Library Companion; or 
bigot’s guide, and old. bigot’s com- 
“in forming an orthodor library :’’ for 
ng can exceed the conscientious scru- 
88 of Mr. Dibdin, in excluding,’ 
from’ riotice, every publication, new or old, 
that t be unpalatable to the high-toned 
of church and state. In» his 
of the periodical publications. 
ofthe day, even the Monthly Magazine 
“Mowrnry Mace. No. 404. 
Philosophy of Contemporary Criticism.—No. XL. 
thé'ihitelléet, as well as fire the imagination, 
521 
“The plan of this review is excellent. It 
gives after ‘the sober and sensible plan of 
the old and new Memoirs of Literature, pub- 
lished about a century ago, a brief analysis, 
with a few pertinent remarks, of each 
article : so as to leave the reader, generally, 
to draw his own conclusions from the facts 
adduced.” 
Now, this is a promise (if strictly ad- 
hered to) in the true‘spirit of the philo- 
sophy of criticism : for the popular prac- 
tice, however profitable to the doers, of 
making the title-page of a book, a mere 
catch text, for a long and desultory es- 
Say upon a general subject, is neither 
more nor less than a species of critical 
quackery. But Mr. Dibdin’s commen- 
dation stops not here; and what imme- 
diately follows, “ seem’d to throw omi- 
nous conjecture,” upon the laudability 
of process and purpose first ascribed. 
The second number, (the last then pub- 
lished) he informs. us, Jays, before him—. 
“ Among the larger articles, at page 239, 
of this number, is a reyiew of the Deformed 
Transformed of Lord Byron. The prelimi- 
nary remarks are penned with great vigour 
and unsparing severity against the ‘immoral 
unpatriotic cast of the latter effusions of that 
noble Lord :—and with justice.” 
And in a note upon this note, having 
mentioned with like commendation, the 
severity of condemnation in the Edin- 
burgh Magazine, this High Pope Literary, 
or Guide Infallible to library collection 
and youthful: study, oracularly pro- 
nounces that 
* Tn short to chink, or speak otherwise [of 
the effusions of Lord Byron] were a spe- 
cies of stultification.”’ 
This is a mode ‘of analyzing and 
stating facts, and then '“ leaving» us. 
to draw our own conclusions,” which, if 
consistently pursued by the commended 
reviewers, could not fail of being exceed- 
ingly edifying.—But it is time for us to 
tirn to the Review itself. 
ee | 
was too dangerously liberal, to be so muclt 
as mentioned : although even Blackwood’s. 
Magazine so honestly avows that this was 
the identical publication which first set. the 
example, and gave the impulse to the pub- 
lie mind, which brought the periodical press 
out of the thraldom of frivolous regi ba 
set the example of rational utility to the 
compilers and composers of magazines in 
general; and thus became the efficient 
cause of that high respectability to whieh 
publications of this description have’ sinee 
aspired.—[See Blackwood’s Magazine! forDe- 
cember, p. 523, &e.} ‘There are other heads, : 
also, under which this guide, tothe collee~ 
tion of a library, has not been, less, pro+ 
scriptively cautious in, his‘enumerations, », 
3X 
