It may be well said, that these
wretched men know not what they do. They scatter their insults and their
slanders without heed as to whether the poisonous shafts light on a heart
made callous by many blows, or one like Keats', composed of more
penetrable stuff." And then addressing the reviewer he says: "Miserable
man! you, one of the meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest
specimens of the workmanship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse that,
murderer as you are, you have spoken daggers, but used none."
Joseph Ritson, the antiquary, who, though not a poet, was a great writer
on poetry and our early English songs and ballads, complained bitterly of
the ignorant reviewers, and described himself as brought to an end in ill-
health and low spirits--certain to be insulted by a base and prostitute
gang of lurking assassins who stab in the dark, and whose poisoned daggers
he had already experienced. Ritson himself was a fairly venomous critic,
and the "Ritsonian" style has become proverbial. Nowadays authors do not
usually die of criticism, not even susceptible poets. Critics can still be
severe enough, but they are just and generous, and never descend to that
scurrilous personal abuse of authors which inflicted such severe wounds a
century ago, and sometimes caused to flow the very heart's blood of their
victims.
CHAPTER IX.
DRAMA AND ROMANCE.
Sir John Yorke and Catholic Plays--Abraham Cowley--Antoine Danchet--Claude
Crebillon--Nogaret--Francois de Salignac Fenelon.
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