hich any country might naturally be proud. Truly this is an
illustration of Jeffrey's fundamental principle, that taste has no laws,
and is a matter of accidental caprice.

It may be said that better critics have erred with equal recklessness.
De Quincey, who could be an admirable critic where his indolent
prejudices were not concerned, is even more dead to the merits of
Goethe. Byron's critical remarks are generally worth reading, in spite
of his wilful eccentricity; and he spoke of Wordsworth and Southey still
more brutally than Jeffrey, and admired Rogers as unreasonably. In such
cases we may admit the principle already suggested, that even the most
reckless criticism has a kind of value when it implies a genuine (even
though a mistaken) taste. So long as a man says sincerely what he
thinks, he tells us something worth knowing.

Unluckily, this is just where Jeffrey is apt to fail; though he affects
to be a dictator, he is really a follower of the fashion. He could put
up with Rogers's flattest 'correctness,' Moore's most intolerable
tinsel, and even Southey's most ponderous epic poetry, because
admiration was respectable. He could endorse, though rather coldly, the
general verdict in Scott's favour, only guarding his dignity by some not
too judicious criticism; preferring, for example, the sham romantic
business of the 'Lay' to the incomparable vigour of the rough
moss-troopers,

Who sought the beeves that made their broth
In Scotland and in England both--

terribly undignified lines, as Jeffrey thinks. So far, though his
judicial swagger strikes us now as rather absurd, and we feel that he is
passing sentence on bigger men than himself, he does fairly enough. But,
unluckily, the 'Edinburgh' wanted a butt. All lively critical journals,
it would seem, resemble the old-fashioned squires who kept a badger
ready to be baited whenever a little amusement was desirable. The rising
school of Lake poets, with their austere professions and real
weaknesses, was just the game to show a little sport; and, accordingly,
poor Jeffrey blundered into grievous misapprehensions, and has survived
chiefly by his worst errors. The simple fact is, that he accepted
whatever seemed to a hasty observer to be the safest opinion, that which
was current in the most orthodox critical circles, and expressed it with
rather more point than his neighbours. But his criticism implies no
serious thought or any deeper sentiment than pleasure