These terribly virulent satires, like those of Boileau and Pope, were aimed at contemporary poets of an inferior order, and like them, too, were most crushing in their effect. The Della Cruscan School[26] never smiled, or rather smirked, again after the issue of the Baviad and Mæviad. But it is a rare thing to meet with a critic or a satirist who escapes the danger of committing a fault in condemning one. Gifford did not escape this danger. His lines certainly did not answer to the epigram—
“Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
Wound with a touch that’s scarcely felt or seen.”
His unhappy victims were hacked and hewed in pieces in a merciless and barbarous manner; while the spectators enjoyed the savage sport, and accorded the cruel executioner a wreath of laurel for the vigor and talent displayed in his unenviable task. These satires first made Gifford’s name in the world of letters. But his fame as a scholar was established chiefly on his translations of Persius and Juvenal, and his excellent editions, with valuable notes, of the early “English Dramatists.” Speaking of Gifford’s edition of Ben Jonson’s dramatic and other works, John Kemble, the most accomplished actor of his day, says, “It is the best edition, by the ablest of modern commentators, through whose learned and generous labors old Ben’s forgotten works and injured character are restored to the merited admiration and esteem of the world.”
The celebrity thus obtained, along with the friendship of the leading Tory politicians of the day, secured for Gifford the position of editor of the London Quarterly. It ought to be stated that when Mr. Channing started the Anti-Jacobin in 1797, Gifford was entrusted with the conduct of that journal, and had thus acquired a little experience of journalism. His connection with this paper, which came out weekly, lasted only for a year. But he managed the Quarterly, as we have said, for fifteen years, that is, from 1809, the date of its commencement, to 1824, when ill-health compelled him to lay his pen aside.
The plan of this new journal had originated with John Murray, the famous publisher, and had received the hearty support of Walter Scott, Egbert Southey, Canning, Rose, Disraeli, and Hookham Frere. The first number, containing three articles by Walter Scott, was published on the 1st February, 1809, and was immediately sold out, a second edition being called for. Canning wrote for the second number, and Southey became a constant and most prolific contributor. “For the first hundred and twenty-six numbers he wrote ninety-four articles, many of them of great permanent value.“[27] At John Murray’s ”drawing-rooms,” where the leading literary men of the day were wont to assemble at four o’clock, Gifford met with a brilliant assemblage of poets, novelists, historians, artists, and others. Murray the publisher delighted “to gather together such men as Byron, Scott, Moore, Campbell, Southey, Gifford, Hallam, Lockhart, Washington Irving, and Mrs. Somerville; and, more than this, he invited such artists as Lawrence, Wilkie, Phillips, Newton, and Pickersgill, to meet them and paint them, that they might hang forever on his walls.“[28] It was in reference to one of Murray’s ”publishers’ dinners” Byron wrote the lines in which occurs the following allusion to Gifford:
“A party dines with me to-day,
All clever men who make their way;
Crabbe, Malcolm, Hamilton, and Chantrey
Are all partakers of my pantry.