which he thrusts his 'Jonson,' as he did at poor Monck Mason, still
duller and deader, in his _Massinger_." Mr. A.H. Bullen, again, remarks
of his Ford, "Gifford was so intent on denouncing the inaccuracy of
others that he frequently failed to secure accuracy himself.... In
reading the old dramatists we do not want to be distracted by editorial
invectives and diatribes."

The review of _Endymion_ called forth Byron's famous apostrophe to--

John Keats, who was killed off by one critique
Just as he really promised something great,
If not intelligible, without Greek
Contrived to talk about the gods of late
Much as they might have been supposed to speak.
Poor fellow! his was an untoward fate;
'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle,
Should let itself be snuff'd out by one article.

It is but just to say, however, that the _Blackwood_ review of the same
poem, printed below, was scarcely less virulent; and later critics have
scouted the notion of the poet not having more strength of mind than he
is credited with by Byron. It is strange to notice that De Quincey found
in _Endymion_ "the very midsummer madness of affectation, of false
vapoury sentiment, and of fantastic effeminacy"; while one is ashamed
for the timidity of the publisher who chose to return all unsold copies
to George Keats because of "the ridicule which has, time after time,
been showered upon it."

JOHN WILSON CROKER

(1780-1857)

Croker was certainly unfortunate in his enemies, though they have given
him immortality. The contemptible Rigby in Disraeli's _Coningsby_
(admittedly drawn from him) is scarcely more damaging to his reputation
than the sound, if prejudiced, onslaught of Macaulay's review, of which
we find echoes, after twelve years, in the same essayist's Madame
D'Arblay. Dr. Hill tells us that he "added considerably to our knowledge
of Johnson," yet he was a thoroughly bad editor and had no real sympathy
with either the subject or the author of that incomparable "Life":
through his essentially low mind. He was not a scholar, and he was
inaccurate.

Croker was intimately associated with the _Quarterly_ from its
foundation until 1857, retaining his bitterness and spite to the year of
his death. But he was a born fighter, and never happier than in the heat
of controversy. That he secured the friendship of Scott, Peel, and
Wellington must go to prove that his political, and literary prejudices,
had not destro