The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-08

aristocracy, to his paid panderism to the
vilest passions of the mob, to the leprous
crust of self-conceit with which his whole
moral being is indurated, to his loathe-
some vulgarfty that constantly clings
about him like vermined garment
not SO much to all this as to the 'odious
and unnatural harlotry of his political
muse. We were the first to brand with
burning iron the falseface of this kept
mistress of demoralized incendiary- We
tore off her gaudy veil and transparent
drapery and exhibited the painted cheeks
and writhing limbs of the prostitute.
This is pretty strong when 1t is consid-
cred that it was written with regard to
such books of Hunts as Feast of the
Poets" and Hero and Leander," but a
, little further along in the same article
the reader is assured the Hunt is the
cockney poets;' he is called AN eXquis-
lite IDIOT "a. disgusting sensualist, and
| told that to his breast alone and to those
of others like him the deliberate, pen
sive and sentimental apostles of proflig-
acy, there comes no visiting of purity,
no drop of repentance.
HAZLITTs TURN.
Poor shrinking Hazlitt was not saved
by his diffidence from the lash of the re-
in politics. "Blackwood's'' assured its
readers that he was a mere ulcer; a
sore from head to foot; a poor devil SO
square half inch of healthy flesh on his
carcass; an overgrown pimple, sore to
touch" This is not, in any sense of the
w6fd crteism een but IN tbo nd aoge
memory of the unhappy author who had
done nothing to provoke it. but found
himself thus hagellated because he had
the misfortune to cherish views which
were in dissonance from those entertain
ed by the editor. The London Quarter
| ly'' was quite as virulent as Black
woods" in its efforts to belittle his repu-
tatCin. One after another his works were
attacked, and each in turn was made the
excuse for the most atrocious personal
abuse. Time and again did Hazlitt re-
solve never to again publish another book,
but the instinct of scribbling was stong
in him, and in the course of few months
after one OF these bitter diatribes he had
| recovered sufficiently to venture on an
other experiment, and after the new
volume appeared he waited with fear
and trembling TO see Wnat the re-
views would say about it. In regard to
one of the best the Quarterly found
space to observe that it was filled with
the vulgar descriptions. silly paradoxes,
nat tru1sms, musty sophistry, ill-humor
and rancorous abuse as to another he
was told that eff the creature who wrote
1t IN his endeavor to crawl into the light
illustrious men, disfigur1ng the records of
their greatness with the slime and filth
that mark his track, it is right to point
out that he may be flung back to the
he should grow.
Shelley Jared no better than Hunt or
Hazlitt for every one of his poems was
mercileSSly scored by the London GUAR
terly' in terms that would now seem out
of place in a dive. The editor told him
that poetry was by no means his forte
which, it was further animated, might
| be breaking stone on the highway. The
public was assured that Shelley'S mind
was one of those peculiar mentabilities
to which infamy was preferable to OBJ
security; baffied at every point in the
chase after notoriety, such a mind would
! still strive to attain the unattainable.
His poem, ''The Revolt of Islam,' was
declared to be unexpectedly dull; the
I story was entirely without interest; there
were no incidents of consequence; and
what there were the poet had strung out
to a length so intolerable as to weary
the most patient reader. Shelley himself
! half instructed in knowledge and less
than half disciplined in reasoning powers;
his vanity was his ruin; he was "a con-
ceited fellow" he knew little, and did
not hesitate to tell it, "a school boy
should be ashamed of his errors of fact;'
cit was impossible to believe that such
| ignorance could exist in a man who had
ever attended any school, and the con-
| clus1on was forced that some misstate-
ments were made with the deliberate in
tie better The editor did not indeed call
him a wilful liar, but sneered at his
verses quoted verse after verse, strained
and distorted the meanings conveyed, and
! jeered at every figure; casually remarked
that the author had no sense and no per-
! ception of sound and harmony. Words
worth got his dose with the rest His
rhymes were pronounced bad his meters
uneven, his subjects nonsensical. His
whole theory of poetry was declared
faulty and worthy only of an idiot 1t
is difficult to believe, on reading these
remarks from the pages of the leading