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
Whether we shall ever, hereafter, have occasion to advert to any new
poetical efforts of Mr. Coleridge, or not, we cannot say. We wish we had
a reasonable cause to expect it. If not, then this hail and farewell
will have been well made. We conclude with, we believe, the last verses
he has written--
_My Baptismal Birth-Day._
God's child in Christ adopted,--Christ my all,--
What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather
Than forfeit the blest name, by which I call
The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father?
Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee;
Eternal Thou, and everlasting we.
The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death:
In Christ I live: in Christ I draw the breath
Of the true life:--Let then earth, sea, and sky
Make war against me! On my heart I show
Their mighty Master's seal. In vain they try
To end my life, that can but end its woe.
Is that a death-bed where a Christian lies?
Yes! but not his--'tis Death itself there dies.--Vol. ii, p. 151.
SIR WALTER SCOTT ON JANE AUSTEN
[From. _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1815]
_Emma; a Novel_. By the Author of _Sense and Sensibility, Pride and
Prejudice_, etc. 3 vols. 12mo. London. 1815.
There are some vices in civilized society so common that they are hardly
acknowledged as stains upon the moral character, the propensity to which
is nevertheless carefully concealed, even by those who most frequently
give way to them; since no man of pleasure would willingly assume the
gross epithet of a debauchee or a drunkard. One would almost think that
novel-reading fell under this class of frailties, since among the crowds
who read little else, it is not common to find an individual of
hardihood sufficient to avow his taste for these frivolous studies. A
novel, therefore, is frequently "bread eaten in secret"; and it is not
upon Lydia Languish's toilet alone that Tom Jones and Peregrine Pickle
are to be found ambushed behind works of a more grave and instructive
character. And hence it has happened, that in no branch of composition,
not even in poetry itself, have so many writers, and of such varied
talents, exerted their powers. It may perhaps be added, that although
the composition of these works admits of being exalted and decorated by
the higher exertions of genius; yet such is the universal charm of
narrative, that the worst novel ever written will find some gentle
reader content to yawn over it, rather than to open the page of the
historian, moralist, or poet. We have heard, indeed, of one work of
fiction so unutterably stupid, that the proprietor, diverted by the
rarity of the incident, offered the book, which consisted of two volumes
in duodecimo, handsomely bound, to any person who would declare, upon
his honour, that he had read the whole from beginning to end. But
although this offer was made to the passengers on board an Indiaman,
during a tedious outward-bound voyage, the _Memoirs of Clegg the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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