Memoir of John Murray
Robert William Hay to John Murray III, 7 July 1856
It is wholly worthless, excepting as it contains strictures
of Sir W. Scott, Southey, and John Wilson
on the critical character of the late Wm.
Gifford. I by no means subscribe to all that is said by these
distinguished individuals on the subject, and I cannot help suspecting that the
high station in literature which they occupied rendered them more than commonly
sensitive to the corrections and erasures which were proposed by the editor.
Sir Walter (great man as he was) was perfectly capable
of writing so carelessly as to require correction, and both
Southey and ![]()
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John Wilson might occasionally have brought forth
opinions, on political and other matters, which were not in keeping with the
general tone of the Quarterly Review. That poor Gifford
was deformed in figure, feeble in health, unhappily for him there can be no
denying, but that he had any pleasure in tormenting, as asserted by some, that
he indulged in needless criticism without any regard to the feelings of those
who were under his lash, I am quite satisfied cannot justly be maintained. In
my small dealings with the Review, I only found the editor most kind and considerate. His
amendments and alterations I generally at once concurred in, and I especially
remember in one of the early articles, that he diminished the number of Latin
quotations very much to its advantage; that his heart was quite in the right
place I have had perfect means of knowing from more than one circumstance,
e.g., his anxiety for the welfare of his friend Hoppner the painter’s children was displayed in the
variety of modes which he adopted to assist them, and when John Galt was sorely maltreated in the Review in consequence of his
having attributed to me, incorrectly, an article which occasioned his wrath and
indignation, and afterwards was exposed to many embarrassments in life,
Gifford most kindly took up his cause, and did all he
could to further the promotion of his family. That our poor friend should have
been exposed throughout the most part of his life to the strong dislike of the
greatest part of the community is not unnatural. As the redacteur of the Anti-Jacobin, &c.,
he, in the latter part of the last century, drew upon himself the hostile
attacks of all the modern philosophers of the age, and of all those who hailed
with applause the dawn of liberty in the French Revolution; as editor of the
Quarterly
Review, he acquired, in addition to the former host of
enemies, the undisguised hatred of all the Whigs and Liberals, who were for
making peace with Bonaparte, and for
destroying the settled order of things in this country. In the present
generation, when the feeling of national hatred against France has entirely
subsided, and party feelings have so much gone by that no man can say to which
party any public man belongs, it is impossible for anyone to comprehend the
state of public feeling which prevailed during the great war of the Revolution,
and for some years after its termination. Gifford was
deeply imbued with all the sentiments on ![]()
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public matters which prevailed in his
time, and, as some people have a hatred of a cat, and others of a toad, so our
friend felt uneasy when a Frenchman was named; and buckled on his armour of
criticism whenever a Liberal or even a Whig was brought under his notice; and
although in the present day there appears to be a greater indulgence to crime
amongst judges and juries, and perhaps a more lenient system of criticism is
adopted by reviewers, I am not sure that any public advantage is gained by
having Ticket of Leave men, who ought to be in New South Wales, let loose upon
the English world by the unchecked appearance of a vast deal of spurious
literature, which ought to have withered under the severe blasts of Criticism.
Believe yours very truly,
John Galt (1779-1839)
Scottish novelist who met Byron during the first journey to Greece and was afterwards his
biographer; author of
Annals of the Parish (1821).
William Gifford (1756-1826)
Poet, scholar, and editor who began as a shoemaker's apprentice; after Oxford he
published
The Baviad (1794),
The Maeviad
(1795), and
The Satires of Juvenal translated (1802) before becoming
the founding editor of the
Quarterly Review (1809-24).
Robert William Hay (1786-1861)
After education at Christ Church, Oxford, he was private secretary to Viscount Melville,
first lord of the Admiralty (1812) and permanent under-secretary of state for the colonies
(1825).
John Hoppner (1758-1810)
English portrait painter and member of the Royal Academy (1795); he was a close friend of
William Gifford and the father of Byron's correspondent Richard Belgrave Hoppner.
Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821)
Military leader, First Consul (1799), and Emperor of the French (1804), after his
abdication he was exiled to Elba (1814); after his defeat at Waterloo he was exiled to St.
Helena (1815).
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
John Wilson [Christopher North] (1785-1854)
Scottish poet and Tory essayist, the chief writer for the “Noctes Ambrosianae” in
Blackwood's Magazine and professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh
University (1820).
The Anti-Jacobin. (1797-1798). A weekly magazine edited by William Gifford with contributions by George Canning, John
Hookham Frere, and George Ellis. It was the model for many later satirical
periodicals.
The Quarterly Review. (1809-1967). Published by John Murray, the
Quarterly was instigated by Walter
Scott as a Tory rival to the
Edinburgh Review. It was edited by
William Gifford to 1824, and by John Gibson Lockhart from 1826 to 1853.
