man, dumpled up together and so ill-made as to seem almost deformed,"
received from Fortune--

One eye not overgood,
Two sides that to their cost have stood
A ten years' hectic cough,
Aches, stitches, all the various ills
That swell the devilish doctor's bills,
And sweep poor mortals off.

Scott is almost alone in his generosity towards the learning and
industry of an editor who helped to make infamous the title of critic.
His original poems (_The Baviad_ and _The Moeviad_) have a certain
sledge-hammer merit; and he did yeoman service by suppressing the _Della
Cruscans_.

It was Gifford also "who did the butchering business in the
Anti-Jacobin." He was far heavier, in bludgeoning, than Jeffrey; while
Hazlitt epitomized his principles of criticism with his accustomed
vigour:--"He believes that modern literature should wear the fetters of
classical antiquity; that truth is to be weighed in the scales of
opinion and prejudice; that power is equivalent to right; that genius is
dependent on rules; that taste and refinement of language consist in
_word-catching_."

* * * * *

Gifford's review of _Ford's Weber_ is, perhaps, no more than can be
expected of the man who had edited _Massinger_ six years before he wrote
it; and produced a _Ben Jonson_ in 1816 and a _Ford_ in 1827. Of these