assion, and disdainful
vehemence, which seemed for a time to be so much more in favour with the
public."[41]

But the authority of Jeffrey did not long remain unchallenged. His
unfortunate "This will never do" became a by-word among the younger
writers who were gradually awaking to the realization of a new spirit in
criticism. The protest against the methods of the dictatorial quarterlies
found expression in the two brilliant monthly periodicals, Blackwood's and
the London Magazine, founded respectively in 1817 and 1820. In these no
opportunity was neglected to thrust at the inflated pretensions of the
established reviews, and, though the animus of rivalry might be suspected
of playing its part, the blows usually struck home. There is an air of
absolute finality about Lockhart's "Remarks on the Periodical Criticism of
England," and his characterization of Jeffrey in this article is a bold
anticipation of the judgment of posterity.[42] The editor of the London
Magazine[43] writes with equal assurance, "We must protest against
considering the present taste as the standard of excellence, or the
criticisms on poetry in the Edinburgh Review as the voice even of the
present taste." The test of critical eligibility in this age is an
appreciation of Wordsworth and a proper understanding of Coleridge his
prophet, and it is by virtue of what inspiration they drew from these
oracles that John Lockhart and John Scott became better qualified than
Jeffrey or Gifford to form the literary opinions of the public.

Coleridge more than any other person was responsible for bringing about a
change in the attitude of literature toward criticism. As Hazlitt puts it
with his inimitable vividness, he "threw a great stone into the standing
pool of criticism, which splashed some persons with the mud, but which
gave a motion to the surface and a reverberation to the neighbouring
echoes, which has not since subsided."[44] Whether his ideas were borrowed
from the Germans or evolved in his own brain, their importance for English
literature remains the same. Coleridge's service lay in asserting and
reasserting such fundamental principles as that a critical standard is
something quite distinct from a set of external rules; that the
traditional opposition between genius and laws was based on a
misconception as to the function of the critic; that all great genius
necessarily worked in accordance with certain laws which it was the
function of the critic