If Macaulay represents a new _Edinburgh_ from the days of Jeffrey, Brougham, and Sydney Smith, the variety of criticism embraced by the _Quarterly_ is even more startling. There was more malice, and far coarser personalities in the early days, and almost continuously while Gifford, Croker, and Lockhart held the reins: it is--almost certainly-- among these three that the responsibility for our "anonymous" group of onslaughts may be distributed. The two earliest appreciations of Jane Austen (from Scott and Whately) offer an interlude--actually in the same period--which positively startles us by the honesty of its attempt at fair criticism and the entire freedom from personality. Gladstone's interesting recognition of Tennyson, and the "Church in Arms" against Darwin (so ably pleaded by Wilberforce), belong to yet another school of criticism which comes much nearer to our day, though retaining the solemnity, the prolixity, and the _ex cathedra_ assumption of authority with which all the Reviews began their career; and is singularly cautious in its independence. WILLIAM GIFFORD (1757-1826) Gifford was the editor of the _Quarterly_ from its foundation in February, 1809, until September, 1824, and undoubtedly established its reputation for scurrility. It is probable that more reviews were written, or directly inspired, by him than have been actually traced to his pen; and, in any case, as Leigh Hunt puts it, he made it his business to See that others Misdeem and miscontrue, like miscreant brothers; Misquote, and misplace, and mislead, and misstate, Misapply, misinterpret, misreckon, misdate, Missinform, misconjecture, misargue, in short Miss all that is good, that ye miss not the court. Gifford was hated even more than his associates; not only, we fear, for his venal sycophancy, but because he had been apprenticed to a shoemaker and never concealed the lowness of his origin. Moreover, "the little man, dumpled up together and so ill-made as to seem almost deformed," received from Fortune-- One eye not overgood, Two sides that to their cost have stood A ten years' hectic cough, Aches, stitches, all the various ills That swell the devilish doctor's bills, And sweep poor mortals off. Scott is almost alone in his generosity towards the learning and industry of an editor who helped to make infamous the title of critic. His original poems (_The Baviad_ and _The Moeviad_) have a certain sledge-hammer merit; and he did yeoman service by suppressing the _Della Cruscans_.