This little person is a considerable catspaw: and so far worthy of
some slight notice. He is the Government Critic, a character nicely differing from that of a
Government spy—an invisible link, that connects literature with the police. It is his
business to keep a strict eye over all the writers who differ in opinion with his Majesty's
Ministers, and to measure their talents and attainments by the standard of their servility and
meanness. For this office he is well qualified.—The Editor of the Quarterly
Review is also Paymaster of the Band of Gentlemen-Pensioners; and whenever
an author comes before him in the one capacity, with whom he is not acquainted in the other, he
knows how to deal with him. He has his cue beforehand. The distinction between truth and
falsehood is lost upon him; he minds only the distinction between Whig and Tory. The same set
of threadbare common-places, the same second-hand assortment of abusive nicknames, are always
repeated; and the ready convenient he comes in aid of the lack of other resources, and passes
off, with impunity, in the garb of religion and loyalty. He is under the protection of the Court; and his zeal for his King and country gives him a right to
say what he pleases of every writer who does not do all in his power to pamper the one into a
tyrant, and to trample the other into a herd of slaves. Without wit or understanding in
himself, he derives his weight with the great and powerful from the very circumstance that
takes away all real weight from his opinion, viz. that it has no one
object but to flatter their folly and vices in the grossest manner, by holding up to hatred and
contempt whatever opposes in the slightest degree, or in the most flagrant instances of abuse,
their pride and passions. Accustomed to the indulgence of his mercenary virulence and
party-spite, he seems to have lost all relish as well as capacity for the ordinary exercises of
the understanding, and makes up for the obvious want of ability by the barefaced want of
principle. There is something in the nature of man that suits with his office. He is in no
danger of exciting the jealousy of his patrons by a splendid display of extraordinary talents,
while his sordid devotion to their will, and to his own interest, at once ensures their
gratitude and contempt. Of an humble origin himself, he recommends his performances to persons
of fashion by always abusing low people, with the smartness of a lady's waiting-woman, and the
independent spirit of a travelling tutor. Raised from the lowest rank to his present despicable
eminence in the world of letters, he is indignant that any one should attempt to rise into
notice, except by the same regular trammels and servile gradation, or go about to separate the
stamp of merit from the badge of sycophancy. The silent listener in select circles and menial
tool of noble families has become the oracle of Church and State. The purveyor to the
prejudices of a private patron succeeds, by no other title, to regulate the public taste.
Having felt the inconveniences of poverty, this man looks up with low and grovelling admiration
to the advantages of wealth and power: having had to contend with the mechanical difficulties
of ignorance, he sees nothing in learning but its mechanical uses. A self-taught man naturally
becomes a pedant, and mistakes the means of knowledge for the end, unless he is a man of
genius, and Mr. Gifford is not a man of genius. From having known nothing
originally, he thinks it a great matter to know any thing now, no matter what or how small it
is—nay, the smaller and more insignificant it is, the more curious he thinks it, as it is
farther removed from common sense and human nature. The collating of points and commas is the
highest game his literary ambition can reach to, and the squabbles of editors are to him more
important than the meaning of the author.
| THE EXAMINER. | 379 |