158 MEMOIR OF JOHN WILSON. 



Of the subjects spoken of or contemplated, the only one which 

 he took up was Byron, the review of whom did not make its ap- 

 pearance till August of the following year. That was my father's 

 first and last contribution to the Edinburgh Reviexo. Another frag- 

 ment of a letter from Jeffrey, that must have been written not long 

 after, may also be inserted here for the sake of coherence. It refers 

 to a vindication of Wordsworth by my father, in reply to a letter 

 in the Edinburgh Magazine criticising the poet's strictures on the 

 Edinburgh Review's estimate of the character of Burns : — 



..." hear that you had any thing to do with it, and was so far 

 from feeling any animosity to the author that I conceived a very 

 favorable opinion of him. I have not had an opportunity of looking 

 into it since I saw your letter, but I can most confidently assure 

 you that nothing that is there said can break any squares between 

 us, and that you may praise Wordsworth as much as you please, 

 and vilipend my criticisms on him in the most sweeping manner 

 without giving me a moment's uneasiness or offence, provided you 

 do not call me a slanderer, and an idiot, and a puppy, and all the 

 other fine names that that worthy and judicious person has thought 

 fit to lavish on me. I fairly tell you that I think your veneration 

 for that gentleman is a sort of infatuation, but in you it is an amia- 

 ble one, and I should think meanly of myself indeed if I were to 

 take exception at a man for admiring the poetry or the speculative 

 opinions of an author who, having had some provocation, has been 

 ridiculously unjust to me. One thing I am struck with as a wilful 

 blindness and partiality in the paper in question, and that was your 



passing over entirely the remarkable fact of the said W saying 



little or nothing of the blasphemies against Burns which occur in the 

 Quarterly, and which are far more violent and offensive than mine, 

 and pouring out all the vials of his wrath at the Edinburgh, which 

 had given him much less provocation. Is it possible for you in your 

 conscience to believe after this that the tirade against the Edinburgh 

 critic was dictated by a pure, generous resentment for the injuries 

 done to Burns, and not by a little vindictive feeling for the severities 

 practised on himself. By the way, I think I am nearly right in 

 what I have said of Burns ; that is, I think the doctrine and moral- 

 ity to which I object is far oftener inculcated in his writings than 

 any other, and is plainly most familiar to his thoughts, though per- 

 haps it was ungenerous to denounce it so strongly. 



