LITERARY STUDIES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 335 



influence it still continues. Divisions into periods are arbitrary. 

 The classical and the romantic movements in one form or another 

 are perennial; they flow through periods. Viewed synthetically, 

 the whole century in English literary history is, indeed, a period of 

 reconstruction. But, more narrowly considered, the period is, as in 

 Germany, encyclopedic and romantic. Its beginning is marked by 

 the organization of criticism which attended the establishment of the 

 Reviews, in 1802 the Edinburgh, and in 1809 the Quarterly, soon 

 to be followed by Blackwood's and the London Magazine. Hitherto 

 criticism had carried the authority of the writer only; and the labor 

 of criticism was generally an avocation, or, at best, secondary to 

 some regular profession. But the judgments of the Edinburgh and 

 the Quarterly were known to proceed from one or other of a coterie of 

 acknowledged scholars and men of letters, to represent the opinions 

 and policy of the coterie and the best ability of the writer. Criticism, 

 accordingly, was, at the beginning of the century, organized as a 

 profession by the Edinburgh, under the editorship of Jeffrey, with 

 the collaboration of Sydney Smith, Brougham, Scott, Leslie, etc.; by 

 the Quarterly, under the editorship of Gifford, with the collaboration 

 of Scott, Southey, Lockhart, etc.; by Blackwood's Magazine, under 

 Wilson, Lockhart, Hogg, and Maginn; and by the London, under 

 Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey. 



The history of criticism in the early part of this century may be 

 considered systematically as follows: (1) The Enunciation of the 

 Romantic Principle: Wordsworth, Coleridge's earlier writings, Scott 

 in the Edinburgh, etc. It may well be debated whether Coleridge 

 as well as the Edinburgh reviewers did not take Wordsworth's 

 apotheosis of rustic passion and speech too literally; but it was the 

 extreme construction placed upon certain of Wordsworth's pro- 

 nunciamentos, apparently untenable and really non-essential, that 

 brought into prominence his advocacy of principles indubitably 

 vital the common principles of romantic poetics. His distinction 

 between imagination and fancy, his search for a psychological basis 

 of poetic principle, and his advocacy of the comparative and 

 genetic methods of literary study are contributions to the science 

 of criticism. (2) The Classical Reaction: the Reviews Jeffrey, Gif- 

 ford, Lockhart, Southey, Wilson, etc. But here we must discrimin- 

 ate between the impressionism and narrow prejudice of a Gifford 

 (the nadir of personal criticism) and the reactionary but altogether 

 more catholic and philosophical traditionalism which, in spite of 

 occasional spleen and error, characterizes Jeffrey. Blackwood follows, 

 to some extent, the lead of the older Reviews, but Wilson's temper 

 frequently prompts to liberal appreciation; while Lockhart (even 

 if he did commit the diatribe against Keats) deserves credit as 

 a master of critical biography, and displays neither the caprice of 



