And first, the famous attack--not altogether undeserved, it must be allowed--of the _Edinburgh_ upon Byron. "The poetry of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor men are said to permit", and so on for two or three pages of rather vulgar and heartless merriment at the young lord's expense. [Footnote: _Edinburgh Review_, xi. 285. It is uncommonly hard to find any trace of poetic power, even of the imitative kind, in the _Hours of Idleness_. It is significant that the best pieces are those in the heroic couplet; an indication--to be confirmed by _English Bards_--of Byron's leaning towards the past.] The answer to the sneer, as all the world knows, was _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. The author of the article had reason to be proud of his feat. Never before did pertness succeed in striking such unexpected fire from genius. And it is only fair to say that the Review took its beating like a gentleman. A few years later, and the _Edinburgh_ was among the warmest champions of the "English Bard". [Footnote: See the article on _The Corsair_ and _Bride of Abydos_, Ib. xxiii. 198. After speaking of the "beauty of his diction and versification, and the splendour of his description", the reviewer continues: "But it is to his pictures of the stronger passions that he is indebted for the fulness of his fame. He has delineated with unequalled force and fidelity the workings of those deep and powerful emotions.... We would humbly suggest to him to do away with the reproach of the age by producing a tragic drama of the old English school of poetry and pathos." The _amende honorable_ with a vengeance. The review of _The Giaour_, Byron thought, was "so very mild and sentimental that it must be written by Jeffrey in _love_".--Moore's _Life_, p. 191.] It was reserved for Southey, a pillar of the _Quarterly_, to rank him as the "Goliath" of the "Satanic school". Let us now turn to the _Quarterly_ upon Keats. _Endymion_, in spite of the noble self-criticism of its preface, is denounced as "Cockney poetry" [Footnote: The phrase was also employed by _Blackwood_, vol. iii. 519-524.]--a stupid and pointless vulgarism--and is branded as clothing "the most incongruous ideas in the most uncouth language". The author is dismissed with the following amenities: "Being bitten by Leigh Hunt's insane criticism, he more than rivals the insanity of his poetry"; and we are half-surprised not to find him told, as he was by _Blackwood_, to "go back to the shop, Mr. John; back to the plasters, pills, and ointment-boxes". [Footnote: _Quarterly Review_, xix. 204. See _Blackwood_, vol. iii. 524; where the Reviewer sneers at "the calm, settled, imperturbable, drivelling idiocy of _Endymion_".]