works Thomas Moore exclaimed "What a canker'd carle it is! Strange that
a man should be able to lash himself up into such a spiteful fury, not
only against the living but the dead, with whom he engages in a sort of
_sciomachy_ in every page. Poor dull and dead Malone is the shadow at
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,