rule be purer and more perfect, if it embrace not temporal only, but the eternal interests of man, and have reference not merely to fallible conscience and a clouded moral sense, but to the clear unchanging dictates of divine truth? The spirit of evangelical religion applied as a rule of judgment, is so far from excluding or superseding the principles of taste, that it strengthens and purifies these principles, and superadds an unfailing touchstone to that ethical test which Lord Jeffrey claims as his ultimate criterion of right;-with this difference, that certainty is substituted for speculation, at best doubtful, and AUTHORITY comes in to confirm the wavering opinions of man on the great questions of moral excellence and fitness. There is no more reason why a sound spirit of religion should quench the lamp of genius, or shed a gloom over the paths of literature, than there is for a similar effect being produced by making both subservient to a spirit of mere morality. If the moral musings of the sages of antiquity only give additional interest to their writings, and charm while they instruct;-if we love to stray with Plato in meditation through academic groves, or dwell with rapture over the darkened but delightful wanderings of Cicero after a futurity he dimly foresaw, but could not fathom ;-if in these ancients, their religion, dim and doubtful, detracts nothing, but only adds to their classic grace-why should the charm be lost because we walk in broad noon, where they groped in twilight? Or, if moral judgments can best discern and preserve truth and unity, and nature, in all manifestations of intellect, surely those judgments must be the most accurate and the most exalting, which are founded on an unerring rule of right, and embrace the welfare of man, even in his everlasting destiny?

The true operation of the spirit of religious truth as a criterion of just criticism, is a subject which would lead us far away from our present theme; it deserves separate and full consideration for itself. We must, however, observe, that it would be impossible to speak of The Edinburgh Review, as a work—at least of its earlier and most celebrated numbers-without the use of terms of much stronger reprehension. Its careless, and even scoffing tone, and a certain irreligious air which it assumed, exposed it justly to great reproach, and did more to counteract the influence of the great and enlarged principles which it advocated, and to blunt the point of its brilliant sarcasm, than any other element. The age in which it started was one of much professed attachment to the Church, and clamorous fear of bringing her into danger, but of little real piety, and one in which sincere and simple religion was despised and derided equally by the sceptic and the bigot. By such articles as that on Missions in 1807, not only was just offence and scandal given to the serious

part of the community, but an excuse was afforded to those to whom the cry of "Church in danger" was convenient, to raise a popular outcry against an antagonist otherwise so formidable. It may not perhaps be easy to estimate accurately the amount of injury which was done to the really free and enlightened principles which it was the professed object of the Review to proclaim, by thus associating them in the minds of many good and worthy people with infidelity or carelessness, and inducing the belief that those who held the first, must of necessity be tinged with the last also. It is satisfactory to find, that while the great principles of freedom, and the just rules of thought, for which the Review contended, have gained strength every year of their advocacy, those very evangelical opinions, which were made the subject of ridicule and assault, have, like "birds of a tempest-loving kind," beat steadily up against the storm, until they have even found a resting-place in the pages of some of their opponents.

The principal department to which our author turned his attention, and to which the most important and effective of these criticisms relate, is that of belles lettres and poetry. The dissertations which these volumes contain on the lighter literature of our language, and the inquiries into the elements in which the merit and excellence of true poetry consist, were those on which the critic's reputation was first founded. It does not follow, that they form the most interesting articles to a modern reader. But it was in that field that the power and effect of the Review was most eminently successful. Prior to the establishment of the Quarterly Review, Jeffrey remained absolute monarch of this kingdom; and although there may be some things which seem to us rather elementary, and others that appear to be unnecessarily repeated, when we read these Essays now, we owe to him more, perhaps, than we have the means of calculating, for his constant, unceasing, and powerful efforts in the erection and defence of a sound standard of taste.

The foundation of his principles of criticism, and the cause also of his success in permanently establishing them, is to be found in his deep admiration, and thorough knowledge of the early English dramatists. Indeed, it must be admitted, that he draws little either on classical literature or the foreign writers of modern Europe; and this, perhaps, detracts from his reputation as a catholic author. It increased, however, that which is his greatest recommendation, the thoroughly English spirit which pervades all his dissertations. For the first time, for nearly a century, the public were sent back to refresh themselves at those long-forgotten springs. Dryden was perhaps the last example of the nervous English writers. Pope borrowed from him "the

long resounding line," and indeed improved on his master, if not in strength, at least in the rhythm and melody of his diction. But as the founder of a school, he led away his followers in a search after pointed antithesis and glittering conceits from the manly, vigorous style of those ancient models, on which Milton formed his majestic numbers, and from which Dryden learned the secret of his power. So much, indeed, did the fashion introduced by the brilliant wits of Queen Anne cast into the shade their rougher and more masculine predecessors, that during the last century Shakspeare himself was considered as an obsolete writer of a more vulgar and a ruder age. It is Jeffrey's greatest triumph to have instilled into the minds of his countrymen a sound appreciation and befitting reverence for these great fathers of English song, and to have recalled the taste for the graces of natural thought and passion, of which they are such abundant storehouses. Shakspeare, indeed, he worships, not with blind, but with most profound idolatry. He is the tutelar deity of his Parnassus, in whose half-inspired conceptions he sees all that is most wise, perfect, and fair, in the charms which human imagination can throw over the thoughts, actions, and relations of man. We extract the following passage from the review of "Hazlitt's Essays on Shakspeare," both as a tribute of homage to the Prince of poetry, and as in itself furnishing an example of rich and glowing eloquence, which for fire of thought, or exuberance of expression, may rank with the finest writing in the language :

"In the exposition of these, there is room enough for originality— and more room than Mr. H. has yet filled. In many points, however, he has acquitted himself excellently; partly in the development of the principal characters with which Shakspeare has peopled the fancies of all English readers-but principally, we think, in the delicate sensibility with which he has traced, and the natural eloquence with which he has pointed out that fond familiarity with beautiful forms and images—that eternal recurrence to what is sweet or majestic in the simple aspects of nature-that indestructible love of flowers and odours, and dews and clear waters, and soft airs and sounds, and bright skies, and woodland solitudes, and moonlight bowers, which are the material elements of poetry-and that fine sense of their undefinable relation to mental emotion, which is its essence and vivifying soul-and which, in the midst of Shakspeare's most busy and atrocious scenes, falls like gleams of sunshine on rocks and ruins-contrasting with all that is rugged and repulsive, and reminding us of the existence of purer and brighter elements !-which HE ALONE has poured out from the richness of his own mind, without effort or restraint; and contrived to intermingle with the play of all the passions, and the vulgar course of this world's affairs, without deserting for an instant the proper business of the scene, or appearing to pause or digress, from love of ornament or need of repose! HE ALONE, who, when the

object requires it, is always keen, and worldly, and practical-and who yet, without changing his hand, or stopping his course, scatters aroundhim, as he goes, all sounds and shapes of sweetness-and conjures up landscapes of immortal fragrance and freshness, and peoples them with spirits of glorious aspect and attractive grace-and is a thousand times more full of fancy and imagery, and splendour, than those who, in pursuit of such enchantments, have shrunk back from the delineation of character or passion, and declined the discussion of human duties and cares. More full of wisdom, and ridicule, and sagacity, than all the moralists and satirists that ever existed—he is more wild, airy, and inventive, and more pathetic and fantastic, than all the poets of all regions and ages of the world: and has all those elements so happily mixed up in him, and bears his high faculties so temperately, that the most severe reader cannot complain of him for want of strength or of reason-nor the most sensitive for defect of ornament or ingenuity. Every thing in him is in unmeasured abundance, and unequalled perfection-but every thing so balanced and kept in subordination, as not to jostle or disturb or take the place of another. The most exquisite poetical conceptions, images, and descriptions, are given with such brevity, and introduced with such skill, as merely to adorn, without loading the sense they accompany. Although his sails are purple and perfumed, and his prow of beaten gold, they waft him on his voyage, not less, but more rapidly and directly than if they had been composed of baser materials. All his excellences, like those of Nature herself, are thrown out together; and, instead of interfering with, support and recommend each other. His flowers are not tied up in garlands, nor his fruits crushed into baskets-but spring living from the soil, in all the dew and freshness of youth; while the graceful foliage in which they lurk, and the ample branches, the rough and vigorous stem, and the wide-spreading roots on which they depend, are present along with them, and share, in their places, the equal care of their Creator!”— Vol. ii., pp. 317, 318.

We do not think that we arrogate too much to our author, in tracing to this deep devotion to the early Elizabethan literature, and the impulse in that direction which he was so instrumental in promoting, much of that spirit of natural emotion, and that fathoming of the deep springs of human action, which so nobly distinguish Southey, and Wordsworth, and Scott-and Byron, the greatest of them all, from the versifiers in blank and in rhyme of the preceding century. No doubt they all waged petty war with the Corypheus of criticism, and assailed the analytic tests to which they were exposed in his fiery crucible. In these minor controversies, the critic may sometimes have been in error; but the result, beyond question was, that, tried by these ancient standards, authors discarded artifice, and trick, and mere sound; and each strove with his neighbour in the endeavour to portray natural human feeling, in all its lights and shadows; and even Byron himself, who at last bore away the palm, owed his great

ness to the wondrous power with which he stirred the deepest recesses of the heart, and transfused its strongest and darkest passions into his burning page.

The severity, and, as it was the fashion to term it, the malignity of the Review, was a subject of frequent accusation, particularly among those whose fame or vanity suffered by it. It was thought, that its style of chastisement, even when deserved, was too savage and remorseless, and that its extreme rigour clipped the wings of genius too close. But there never was any real foundation for these complaints, and they have long since died a natural death. A certain measure of exaggeration is perhaps essential to success in all efforts of intellect. If individual faults received sometimes too sharp a visiting, the Reviewer only practised the art which a painter so well understands, and heightened the colour in details, in order that the whole might have the effect of nature. "Tamers of genius," as they have been called, the Edinburgh Reviewers certainly were not. But they knew that, to produce any effect upon the public, their task required to be boldly executed. They fostered genius far more successfully by their wholesome discipline and the salutary awe which they inspired, than could have been done by volumes of ill-placed commendation. Perhaps some "mute inglorious Milton" may have held his peace from terror of the suspended rod; but the greater probability is, that all the real genius of the time, confident in its own strength, braved the trial, while the public were preserved from the flood of mediocrities and puerilities which had disgraced the preceding age.

To one class of writers, in particular the Lake Poets, the school of Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge-Jeffrey has been accused of an unjust and inexcusable aversion. As he undoubtedly exerted his powers of chastisement with great freedom on these gentlemen, and as his appreciation of them has been much canvassed and impugned, it may be worth while for a moment to consider the subject of controversy, although the public voice may be said to have substantially decided it.

Undoubtedly, all three were men of strong intellect, and very original genius, and have produced some compositions, at least, that will only perish with the language. Wordsworth, in particular, is a poet of the first order, and we are inclined to think, that his great beauties, and the high general character of his writings, hardly received full justice at the Reviewer's hands. Indeed, we do not think that any reader could form a just estimate of him from the portrait presented of him by the Review. His faults appear to us to be exaggerated, and his merits too sparingly praised If our limits would permit us to go into detail, we think we could show, that even in some of the passages which the