Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by R. Brimley Johnson
History
Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by R. Brimley Johnson
Books -- Reviews; Criticism; English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
We might carry this part of our examination to an immense extent; but we
forbear. Enough, and more than enough, is done to show that a strict
revision of the text is indispensible; and, if it should fall to the lot
of the present editor to undertake it, we trust that he will evince
somewhat more care than he manifests in the conclusion of the work
before us. It will scarcely be credited that Mr. Weber should travel
through such a volume as we have just passed, in quest of errata, and
find only one. "Vol. ii (he says), p. 321, line 12, for satiromastrix
read satiromastix!"
We could be well content to rest here; but we have a more serious charge
to bring against the editor, than the omission of points, or the
misapprehension of words. He has polluted his pages with the blasphemies
of a poor maniac, who, it seems, once published some detached scenes of
the "Broken Heart." For this unfortunate creature, every feeling mind
will find an apology in his calamitous situation; but--for Mr. Weber, we
know not where the warmest of his friends will seek either palliation or
excuse.
ON KEATS
[From _The Quarterly Review_, April, 1818]
Reviewers have sometimes been accused of not reading the works which
they affected to criticise. On the present occasion we shall anticipate
the author's complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his
work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty--far from it--indeed, we
have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to
be, to get through it; but with the fullest stretch of our perseverence,
we are forced to confess that we have not been able to struggle beyond
the first of the four books[1] of which this Poetic Romance consists. We
should extremely lament this want of energy, or whatever it may be, on
our parts, were it not for one consolation--namely, that we are no
better acquainted with the meaning of that book through which we have so
painfully toiled than we are with that of the three which we have not
looked into.
[1] _Endymion: A Poetic Romance_. By John Keats. London, 1818.
It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt
that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody)
it is not, we say, that the author has not powers of language, rays of
fancy, and gleams of genius--he has all these; but he is unhappily a
disciple of the new school of what has been somewhere called Cockney
poetry; which may be defined to consist of the most incongruous ideas in
the most uncouth language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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