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all other influences but those of independence and truth. Time was, when the birth of any book *, good or bad, might be compared to that of an Egyptian citizen, who was immediately supplied, by the priests,

* In order to prove that my opinion on the true duties of a critic, and on the necessity of dissociating political feeling from literary criticism, has always been uniform and consistent, I must again solicit pardon for the necessary egotism of quoting myself from a Sunday Paper, at that time of unrivalled circulation. Accused of optimism in too readily and too often encouraging the débût of some young authors of obvious talent-whom I neither knew then nor know this was the reply :

:

"We see no earthly reason why a Reviewer is to turn Timon or Jacques, directly his goose-quill touches that composition of gall and vinegar, ycleped ink. Nevertheless, we can render a reason' for our apparent optimism, which we think will be satisfactory to those who are of the above atrabilarious opinion; our room precludes our notice of aught that we consider unworthy the reader's notice, and which we consequently cannot approve. One of the great tendencies of modern criticism is equally ungentlemanlike and unjust. An author has frequently the sentence of approval or condemnation passed on his writings, just as he appears to coincide or differ with his critic in political opinion: and the precision with which the judgment of any work of mark, in rival Reviews, may be calculated beforehand, would be ludicrous, if it were not disgraceful. Now this, in a gentlemanly avocation, is 'pitiful,' and should be reformed altogether.' We have, we know, astonished the narrow-minded small fry of letters— the Tritons of the minnows'-by our fairness in adjudging, occasionally, the prize of superior merit to those of opposite politics. They are welcome to their surprise; and, in the mean while, we shall, in conformity with the entire independence, literary and political, of this paper, persist, when on the judgment-seat, in putting on the political eye-bandage of justice, while we grasp her literary sword; and imitate the Egyptian Judges of the dead, whether princes or commoners came before them, in appealing to the amulet of 'Truth' which decorated their necks."-Sunday Times.

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A consciousness of the above-recorded timely and repeated encouragement of then obscure, but now admitted talent, is, at this time, one of my most pleasant reminiscences.

with a good and evil genius-one defending what the other condemned. The review of a book could be foreseen with laughable precision, and mock critiques might be written beforehand (I remember two or three trifling felicities of this kind), with as much prophetic accuracy as anticipative King's speeches.

Another cause of the lately-engendered discrepancy of opinion, respecting Mr. R. Montgomery, may be traced to offended vanity and mortified pique. He has attacked (imprudently and unjustly in some cases) a great number of writers who are naturally glad to thrust out their stings in return; or, if they be blind worms, and have none, to wriggle themselves into something resembling an attitude of serpentlike menace. A blind worm may be goodhumouredly permitted to fancy itself a snake, and a weed to bristle up with the idea of its being a stinging-nettle. Many offences, however, are imputed to Mr. Montgomery by the alarmed imaginations of feeble writers. Wit haunts the weak like a bugbear; and even when most innocent of hostile intention, it always appears to blockheads in the light of an enemy.

Unhappy wit, like most mistaken things,
Atones not for the envy which it brings :
'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun,
By fools 'tis hated, and by knaves undone.

Here are causes enough, and more than enough, to account for critical discrepancy. But Mr. Montgomery has also a two-fold character. He, too,

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is a critic and a poet; and how well he can handle the critical rod, he has shown in the Age Reviewed and the Puffiad. Such a critic is not to be put down' with ease, nor divested of his hard-earned conquests with impunity. To push spoliation too far is a bad experiment, even with the vanquished; for spoliatis arma supersunt. How much more so with the triumphant and unconquered! In the war of critic with critic, the first skirmish does not decide the battle: such battles, like Waterloo, may appear to be won at twelve, only to be followed by utter discomfiture at

seven.

Mr. Montgomery may say, with Hamlet, to some of his assailants, in his critical character,

I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat;
For though I am not choleric and rash,
Yet have I in me something dangerous,
Which let thy wisdom fear.

APPENDIX.

Quid refert dictis ignoscat Mutius an non?

SINCE the foregoing strictures were written, the Edinburgh Review has joined and dignified the contest. I was not aware, till then, that the able editor of the Westminster Review had also entered the lists. I shall briefly reply to what is material in both, in this Appendix ; and, considering the style of both objurgations, the reply cannot be too brief. The Westminster Reviewer dismisses the matter with a sneer. Now, all partial notice of Montgomery from him shews want of tact as well as bad taste. I have a great respect for Dr. Bowring, and generally have concurred, and do concur, with his views as to civil and religious liberty. But, Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.' Montgomery's politics being so diametrically opposed to his, good taste should have suggested candour in appreciating his literary character. Again, Montgomery, like himself, is a poet and a critic. As Fraser's Magazine—still the most talented assailant of Montgomery-boasts of having destroyed Dr. Bowring's poetical reputation, the vulnerability of the one half of his literary character should have excited sympathy or suggested justice. Thus far considered, his

remarks must be designated as a political rejoinder to a political opponent. I am afraid they will have a worse interpretation with the ill-natured, who already say, This is not criticism, but REVENGE!' and who point to the following attack of Montgomery, (in his critical character) on the editor of the Westminster Review, (in his political, in order to shew how the critical rejoinder was provoked.

Alas, for Greece!-by Christian Turks profaned,
By Britons plunder'd, and by Moslems chain'd;

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Detested bunglers! wailing freedom's cause,
To filch her succours, and entrap applause;
May future ages ever spurn the cheat,
Your thief-committees, and your base defeat,
Your pilfer'd thousands from the trusted loan, &c.

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Accursed bondmen !-ye who groan'd for Greece;
Ye mean impostors, who combined to fleece,
When kindled England heard the freeman's moan,
And glowing patriots gave the needed loan.
Oh! what a hell was in your common heart,

When Greece was robb'd, and plunder hugg'd its part!

With at least one-half of the article in the Edinburgh Review-all that relates to puffing-I the more cordially agree, since I was the first, or among the first, to earn the enmity of the publishing puffers, by exposing, so long back as 1822, the whole machinery of their nefarious practices, in a series of papers published in a periodical, now extinct *. A deep scorn of these

• Gazette of Fashion.-The theme of those papers is expressed with all but verbal similarity in the following passage from the Edinburgh Review. The publisher is often the publisher of some periodical work. In this periodical work the first flourish of trumpets is sounded. The peal is then echoed and re-echoed by all the other periodical works over which the publisher or the author, or the author's coterie, may have any influence.'

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