Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 330, April 1843Various
Science
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 330, April 1843
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
_North_.--If you must learn the truth, then, he has been to us, in
one sense, nothing better than an unfeeling wooden idol. Some of us
have been provoked by his indifference to our powers of annoyance,
and his ingratitude in not repaying eulogy in kind. We have among
ourselves a gander or two, (no offence, Mr. Landor,) that,
forgetting they are webfooted, pretend to a perch on the tall
bay-tree of Apollo, and, though heavy of wing, are angry with
Wordsworth for not encouraging their awkward flights. They, like you,
accuse him of jealousy, forsooth! That is the reason that they are
now gabbling at his knees, now hissing at his heels. Moreover, our
caprices are not unuseful to our interests. We alternately pique and
soothe readers by them, and so keep our customers. As day is
partitioned between light and darkness, so has the public taste as
to Wordsworth been divided between his reverers and the followers of
the Jeffrey heresy. After a lengthened winter, Wordsworth's glory is
now in the long summer days; all good judgments that lay torpid have
been awakened, and the light prevails against the darkness. But as
bats and owls, the haters of light, are ever most restless in the
season when nights are shortest, so are purblind egotists most
uneasy when their dusky range is contracted by the near approach and
sustained ascendancy of genius. We now put up a screen for the
weak-sighted, now withdraw it from stronger eyes; thus we plague and
please all parties.
_Landor_.--Except Wordsworth, whose eyelids are too tender to
endure his own lustre reflected and doubled on the focus of your
burnished brass. He dreads the fate of Milton, "blasted with excess
of light."
_North_. Thank you, sir; that is an ingenious way of accounting for
Wordsworth's neglect of our luminous pages. Yet it rather sounds
like irony, coming from Mr. Walter Savage Landor to the editor of
"The (Not Gentleman's) Magazine."
_Landor_.--Pshaw! still harping on my Satire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account