Moreover, the
same hot blood which laid him open to his enemies, also rendered him
impatient of rebuke. Coercion roused his spirit of opposition; he fell
to replies and retorts, and to "making sport for the Philistines." He
would show his contempt for his foes by admitting their charges, and
even by making himself more worthy of their vituperation. And so a great
name and genius were tarnished and spotted, and a dark shadow fell upon
his glory. But let us say he never drew the sword without provocation.
In condemning the wholesale onslaught he made in the "Bards and
Reviewers," we must remember that it was a reply to a most unwarrantable
and offensive attack made upon him by the "Edinburgh Review," written as
though the fact of the author being a nobleman had increased the spleen
of the critic. It says:--
"The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither
gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed we do not recollect to have
seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction
for that exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat,
and can no more get above or below the level than if they were so
much stagnant water.... We desire to counsel him that he forthwith
abandon poetry and turn his talents, which are considerable, and
his opportunities, which are great, to better account.
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