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John Wilson Croker
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Virgil : Aeneid I
John Wilson Croker to Mr Justice Jackson, 4 December 1856: 'I am pretty sure that the first eclogue and the first book of the Aeneid were all of Virgil that I translated [while of school age]. Pope's Homer I had by heart. The old Lord Shannon had given me one when my father once took me (aet. 10) to Castle Martyr. I dare say I knew of no translation of Virgil, and, stimulated by the example of Mr. Pope, was resolved to fill up that chasm in English literature.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Virgil : Eclogues I
John Wilson Croker to Mr Justice Jackson, 4 December 1856: 'I am pretty sure that the first eclogue and the first book of the Aeneid were all of Virgil that I translated [while of school age]. Pope's Homer I had by heart. The old Lord Shannon had given me one when my father once took me (aet. 10) to Castle Martyr. I dare say I knew of no translation of Virgil, and, stimulated by the example of Mr. Pope, was resolved to fill up that chasm in English literature.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Alexander Pope : translations from Homer
John Wilson Croker to Mr Justice Jackson, 4 December 1856: 'I am pretty sure that the first eclogue and the first book of the Aeneid were all of Virgil that I translated [while of school age]. Pope's Homer I had by heart. The old Lord Shannon had given me one when my father once took me (aet. 10) to Castle Martyr. I dare say I knew of no translation of Virgil, and, stimulated by the example of Mr. Pope, was resolved to fill up that chasm in English literature.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Charles Long and Lord Mulgrave : letters to Lord Lonsdale
John Wilson Croker to his wife, 28 July 1850: 'After dinner I read some of the letters written by Charles Long and Lord Mulgrave to the late Lord Lonsdale about the time I came into political life, which of course amused me. Lord Mulgrave writes to Lord Lonsdale, in October, 1809, to say that he had written to offer the Secretary of the Admiralty "to Mr. Croker who was active, quick, and intelligent, and who might go off to Canning if he were not attended to." In this last point, at least, Lord Mulgrave was mistaken, for before the offer was made me, I had already answered Mr Canning that I could not take his view of the differences in the Cabinet.'
UnknownCentury: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker
Napoleon Bonaparte : letter to the Prince Regent
John Wilson Croker to his wife, 20 July 1815: '[General] Becker showed us a copy of Buonaparte's letter to the Prince Regent, in which he says that driven out of home by internal factions and foreign enemies, he came, like Themistocles, to sit on the British hearth, and to claim the protection of our laws [...] In reading this, when I came to "[italics]Themistocle[end italics]" who certainly was the last person I expected to meet there, I could not help bursting out into a loud laugh, which astonished the French, who thought all beautiful, but "[italics]Themistocle[end italics]" sublime and pathetic. I called the whole letter a base flattery, and said Buonaparte should have died rather than have written such a one; the only proper answer would have been to have enclosed him a copy of one of his Moniteurs, in which he accused England of assassination and every other horror.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Manuscript: Unknown, Copied.
George Gordon, Lord Byron : Childe Harold III
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 September 1816: 'I have read with great pleasure the poem you lent me [Childe Harold III]. It is written with great vigour, and the descriptive part is peculiarly to my taste, for I am fond of realities, even to the extent of being fond of localities. A spot of ground a yard square, a rock, a hillock, on which some great achievement has been performed, or to which any recollections of interest attach, excite my feelings more than all the monuments of art [...] But I did not read with equal pleasure a note or two which reflects [sic] on the Bourbon family. What has a poet who writes for immortality, to do with the little temporary passions of political parties? [...] I wish you could persuade Lord Byron to leave out these two or three lines of prose, which will make thousands dissatisfied with his glorious poetry [comments further in defence of French royal family] [...] pray use your influence on this point. As to the poem itself, except a word or two suggested by Mr. Giffard, I do not think anything can be altered for the better.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker
George Gordon, Lord Byron :
John Wilson Croker to the Rev. George Croly, 28 November 1816: 'Though I have little time to read poetry,and notwithstanding all the charms of fashion, I read more of Pope and Dryden than I do of even Scott and Byron; that is to say, I do not return to Scott and Byron with the same regular appetite that I do to the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Walter Scott :
John Wilson Croker to the Rev. George Croly, 28 November 1816: 'Though I have little time to read poetry,and notwithstanding all the charms of fashion, I read more of Pope and Dryden than I do of even Scott and Byron; that is to say, I do not return to Scott and Byron with the same regular appetite that I do to the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
John Dryden :
John Wilson Croker to the Rev. George Croly, 28 November 1816: 'Though I have little time to read poetry,and notwithstanding all the charms of fashion, I read more of Pope and Dryden than I do of even Scott and Byron; that is to say, I do not return to Scott and Byron with the same regular appetite that I do to the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Alexander Pope :
John Wilson Croker to the Rev. George Croly, 28 November 1816: 'Though I have little time to read poetry,and notwithstanding all the charms of fashion, I read more of Pope and Dryden than I do of even Scott and Byron; that is to say, I do not return to Scott and Byron with the same regular appetite that I do to the others.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
: Blackwood's Magazine
John Wilson Croker to William Blackwood, 24 August 1819: 'I have received your last number [...] As a series of essays, critical and humorous, it is excellent; but in this part of the world we think there is too much criticism and humour for a magazine. In a work of this kind we expect curious facts and miscellaneous information [...] the personal and local pleasantry which is so abundant in your magazine, and which, I have no doubt, must be delightful in Edinburgh and Glasgow, is [italics]here[end italics] scarcely understood, and in Ireland I have some reason to know that it is a perfect puzzle.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
George Gordon, Lord Byron : 'Letter to the Editor of My Grandmother's Review'
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 15 September 1819: 'Thank you for the perusal of the letter; it is not very good, but it will vex these old women of British critics, which is perhaps all the author intended. I told you from the first moment that I read "Don Juan," that your fears had exaggerated its danger. I say nothing about what might have been suppressed; but if you had published "Don Juan" without hesitation or asterisks, nobody would ever have thought worse of it than as a larger Beppo, gay and lively and a little loose. Some persons would have seen a strain of satire running beneath the gay surface, and might have been vexed or pleased according to their temper; but there would have been no outcry against the publisher or author.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker
George Gordon, Lord Byron : Don Juan: cantos I-II
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 July 1819: 'I am agreeably disappointed by finding "Don Juan" very little offensive. It is by no means worse than "Childe Harold," which it resembles as comedy does tragedy. There is a prodigious power of versification in it, and a great deal of very good pleasantry. There is also some magnificent poetry, and the shipwreck, though too long, and in parts very disgusting, is on the whole finely described [...] on the score of morality, I confess it seems a more innocent production than "Childe Harold." What "Don Juan" may become by-and-bye I cannot foresee, but at present I had rather a son of mine were Don Juan than, I think, any other of Lord Byron's heroes. Heaven grant he may never resemble any of them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Crabbe : Tales
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 July 1819: 'I had Crabbe's tales with me on shipboard, and they were a treasure. I never was so much taken with anything. The tales are in general so well conducted that, in prose, they would be interesting as mere stories; but to this are added such an admirable [italics]ease[end italics] and [italics]force[end italics] of diction, such good pleasantry, such high principles, such a strain of poetry, such a profundity of observation, and such a gaiety of illustration as I never before, I think, saw collected. He imagines his stories with the humour and truth of Chaucer, and tells them with the copious terseness of Dryden, and the tender and thoughtful simplicity of Cowper. There are sad exceptions here and there, which might easily be removed, but on the whole it is a delightful book.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
: Courier
John Wilson Croker to Robert Peel, 24 December 1821: 'I have seen in the Courier the accounts from the Irish papers of O'Connell's affair.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Newspaper
Camille Desmoulins : journal
From John Wilson Croker's Note Books, 24 October 1825: 'The first time I ever saw [Germaine de Stael] was at dinner at Lord Liverpool's in Combe Wood [...] During dinner she talked incessantly but admirably, but several of her apparently spontaneous mots were borrowed or prepared. For instance, speaking of the relative states of England and the Continent at that period, the high notion we had formed of the danger to the world from Buonaparte's despotism, and the high opinion the Continent had formed of the riches, strength and spirit of England; she insisted that these opinions were both just, and added with an elegant elan, "Les etrangers sont la posterite contemporaine." This expression I have since found in the journal of Camille Desmoulins.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker
: report of death of Lord Exmouth
John Wilson Croker to Lord Hertford, 30 January 1833: 'Are you fond of a bit of superstition? One day last week, at A. Baring's, I told them at breakfast that I dreamt a tooth had dropped out, and that, of course, I should hear of the death of a friend. So we looked at the newspapers for a couple of days with some kind of interest, but no bad news came, and we were about to give up our superstition, when lo! two days after, I read an account of the death that very same night of my dear old friend Lord Exmouth, who with his dying breath sent me a most affectionate message.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Newspaper
:
John Wilson Croker to his wife, whilst in Oxford for the installation of the Duke of Wellington as Chancellor of the University, 12 June 1834: 'The dinner at Christ Church was very fine [...] we dined at five, and got away by daylight [...] The Master and his wife had dined at Brasenose, and did not come back till I had come to Ned [Edward Giffard]'s rat-hole, where I read till eleven o'clock, and then went to bed.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Unknown
J. H. Jesse : (apparently) Selwyn and His Contemporaries
John Wilson Croker to J. H. Jesse, 5 December 1843: 'I am much obliged by your kind attention in sending me your Selwyn volumes: but to be candid with you, I can by no means approve of the publication of letters of so peculiarly a private, and in many instances, scandalous, character. I cannot, I honestly confess, understand what authority can exist for such a ripping up of private life. I am sorry also to observe some few considerable, and many small errors, in the notes. Some of them are probably typist errors, but some are not.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
anon : 'The Commercial Policy of Pitt and Peel'
John Wilson Croker to Lord Stanley, 4 [?14] June 1847: 'I have had communicated to me the pages of a pamphlet, which is in the press, and about to be published in defence of the policy, and still more of the fairness of and consistency of Sir R. Peel's conduct [...] 'When you come to see the pamphlet you will find on p.45, &c, your personal accordance with Sir Robert's free trade measures, and particularly your Canada Corn Bill produced in his behalf. 'The pamphlet is well-written, and in rather a conciliatory tone, and certainly looks like like a move towards re-uniting the party under Sir R. Peel; but there is no argument for, and indeed hardly any palliation of, the particular steps of his proceeding in 1845-6. It [italics]assumes[end italics] that the Irish famine has proved, and that the state of England by and by will further prove, that all he did was [italics]right[end italics], as the writer thinks that he has shown that it was all [italics]fair[end italics].'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker
Benjamin Disraeli : 'Buckinghamshire speeches'
John Wilson Croker to Lord Brougham, 22 February 1853: 'I fear that the Government of the country is likely to become from such a strange mixture of things [described earlier in letter, about Lord John Russell's leadership of House of Commons] at once odious and ridiculous [...] I despair, and have done so ever since I read Disraeli's Buckinghamshire speeches.'
UnknownCentury: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker
Charlotte Smith :
John Wilson Croker to Mr C. Phillips, 3 January 1854: 'As to my novel reading I confess that in my younger days I used to read them all from Charlotte Smith to Maria Edgeworth; Scott I have by heart; but I so far differ from you about Hook's that I date my later indifference to novels from my disappointment at his.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Maria Edgeworth :
John Wilson Croker to Mr C. Phillips, 3 January 1854: 'As to my novel reading I confess that in my younger days I used to read them all from Charlotte Smith to Maria Edgeworth; Scott I have by heart; but I so far differ from you about Hook's that I date my later indifference to novels from my disappointment at his.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Theodore Hook : Gilbert Gurney
John Wilson Croker to Mr C. Phillips, 3 January 1854: 'As to my novel reading I confess that in my younger days I used to read them all from Charlotte Smith to Maria Edgeworth; Scott I have by heart; but I so far differ from you about Hook's that I date my later indifference to novels from my disappointment at his. '"Gilbert Gurney" is something of an autobiography, as you say [...] the book might have been called a picture, for which our society furnished the principal sitters; yet I could not read it. I diligently tried to do so, but never accomplished a volume, and I have often debated in my own mind how I, who looked with admiration and wonder at Hook's power of oral amusement, should be so repelled by his novels [...] it led me at first to read no novel, that I might have a better excuse to my poor dear Hook for not reading his; and insensibly I lost the taste for them altogether, partly from mu mind's growing less impressionable, but partly, or perhaps chiefly, from a very matter-of-fact cause, that I happened never to have subscribed to a circulating library, and since I left office I have had, I know not how, less spare time than I had at the Admiralty in the height of the war. I was greatly struck with some early detached tales of Mr. Dickens, and some stray livraisons of his longer works, but I found I could not read them continuously'.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Charles Dickens : short fictions
John Wilson Croker to Mr C. Phillips, 3 January 1854: 'As to my novel reading I confess that in my younger days I used to read them all from Charlotte Smith to Maria Edgeworth; Scott I have by heart; but I so far differ from you about Hook's that I date my later indifference to novels from my disappointment at his. '"Gilbert Gurney" is something of an autobiography, as you say [...] the book might have been called a picture, for which our society furnished the principal sitters; yet I could not read it. I diligently tried to do so, but never accomplished a volume, and I have often debated in my own mind how I, who looked with admiration and wonder at Hook's power of oral amusement, should be so repelled by his novels [...] it led me at first to read no novel, that I might have a better excuse to my poor dear Hook for not reading his; and insensibly I lost the taste for them altogether, partly from mu mind's growing less impressionable, but partly, or perhaps chiefly, from a very matter-of-fact cause, that I happened never to have subscribed to a circulating library, and since I left office I have had, I know not how, less spare time than I had at the Admiralty in the height of the war. I was greatly struck with some early detached tales of Mr. Dickens, and some stray livraisons of his longer works, but I found I could not read them continuously'.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Unknown
Charles Dickens : novels
John Wilson Croker to Mr C. Phillips, 3 January 1854: 'As to my novel reading I confess that in my younger days I used to read them all from Charlotte Smith to Maria Edgeworth; Scott I have by heart; but I so far differ from you about Hook's that I date my later indifference to novels from my disappointment at his. '"Gilbert Gurney" is something of an autobiography, as you say [...] the book might have been called a picture, for which our society furnished the principal sitters; yet I could not read it. I diligently tried to do so, but never accomplished a volume, and I have often debated in my own mind how I, who looked with admiration and wonder at Hook's power of oral amusement, should be so repelled by his novels [...] it led me at first to read no novel, that I might have a better excuse to my poor dear Hook for not reading his; and insensibly I lost the taste for them altogether, partly from mu mind's growing less impressionable, but partly, or perhaps chiefly, from a very matter-of-fact cause, that I happened never to have subscribed to a circulating library, and since I left office I have had, I know not how, less spare time than I had at the Admiralty in the height of the war. I was greatly struck with some early detached tales of Mr. Dickens, and some stray livraisons of his longer works, but I found I could not read them continuously'.'
Century: 1800-1849 / 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Unknown
: article on Duke of Wellington
John Wilson Croker to John Murray jr, 14 February 1857: 'I have been so very ill as to have been unable until yesterday to look at the Raglan article in the last Quarterly [...] In reading it, however, I find a statement that the Duke of Wellington "had been often heard to say in after years that there were two or three periods of the battle of Waterloo when he thought it all over with us." I am very curious to know that reviewer's authority for this statement [discusses article further, referring to other accounts of battle and Welington] [...] 'I write with difficulty and in great pain, but I am anxious to record my evidence on this particular point which had from the first excited my surrpise and curiosity'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
George Gordon Lord Byron : The Corsair
John Murray to Lord Byron, 3 February 1814, on first reception of The Corsair: 'Never, in my recollection, has any work, since the "Letter of Burke to the Duke of Bedford," excited such a ferment [...] I sold, on the day of publication, -- a thing perfectly unprecedented -- 10,000 copies; and I suppose thirty people, who were purchasers (strangers), called to tell the people in the shop how much they had been delighted and satisfied. Mr. Moore says it is masterly, -- a wonderful performance. Mr. Hammond, Mr. Heber, D'Israeli, every one who comes [...] declare their unlimited approbation. Mr. Ward was here with Mr. Gifford yesterday, and mingled his admiration with the rest [...] Gifford did what I never knew him do before -- he repeated several passages from memory [...] I was with Mr. Shee this morning, to whom I had presented the poem; and he declared himself to have been delighted [...] I have the highest encomiums in letters from Croker and Mr. Hay; but I rest most upon the warm feeling it has created in Gifford's critical heart.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
John Barrow : Review of Dupin, On the Navy of England and France
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 22 December 1821: 'I am happy to tell you that your Review is abominably bad -- happy for your sake, because, as you will, I dare say, sell 12,000, it only shows that you have an estate which produces wholly independent of its culture. All that ridiculous importance given to Dupin, a wretched ecrivasseur, and that affectation of naval statistics, I think very unsuitable. Your "Alchemy" is appropriate enough, great elaboration and pomp of work ending in smoke and dross. If Dalzell's "Lectures" are as obscure and dull as your commentary, they were not worth reviewing, no more than the commentary is worth reading [...] The article on Hazlitt is good, and that on the Scotch novels [italics]excellent[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
Francis Cohen : 'Astrology and Alchemy'
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 22 December 1821: 'I am happy to tell you that your Review is abominably bad -- happy for your sake, because, as you will, I dare say, sell 12,000, it only shows that you have an estate which produces wholly independent of its culture. All that ridiculous importance given to Dupin, a wretched ecrivasseur, and that affectation of naval statistics, I think very unsuitable. Your "Alchemy" is appropriate enough, great elaboration and pomp of work ending in smoke and dross. If Dalzell's "Lectures" are as obscure and dull as your commentary, they were not worth reviewing, no more than the commentary is worth reading [...] The article on Hazlitt is good, and that on the Scotch novels [italics]excellent[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
T. Mitchell : Review of Dalzell, Lectures on the Ancient Greeks
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 22 December 1821: 'I am happy to tell you that your Review is abominably bad -- happy for your sake, because, as you will, I dare say, sell 12,000, it only shows that you have an estate which produces wholly independent of its culture. All that ridiculous importance given to Dupin, a wretched ecrivasseur, and that affectation of naval statistics, I think very unsuitable. Your "Alchemy" is appropriate enough, great elaboration and pomp of work ending in smoke and dross. If Dalzell's "Lectures" are as obscure and dull as your commentary, they were not worth reviewing, no more than the commentary is worth reading [...] The article on Hazlitt is good, and that on the Scotch novels [italics]excellent[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
Col. Matthews : 'article on Hazlitt'
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 22 December 1821: 'I am happy to tell you that your Review is abominably bad -- happy for your sake, because, as you will, I dare say, sell 12,000, it only shows that you have an estate which produces wholly independent of its culture. All that ridiculous importance given to Dupin, a wretched ecrivasseur, and that affectation of naval statistics, I think very unsuitable. Your "Alchemy" is appropriate enough, great elaboration and pomp of work ending in smoke and dross. If Dalzell's "Lectures" are as obscure and dull as your commentary, they were not worth reviewing, no more than the commentary is worth reading [...] The article on Hazlitt is good, and that on the Scotch novels [italics]excellent[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
Nassau senior : '[article] on the Scotch novels'
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 22 December 1821: 'I am happy to tell you that your Review is abominably bad -- happy for your sake, because, as you will, I dare say, sell 12,000, it only shows that you have an estate which produces wholly independent of its culture. All that ridiculous importance given to Dupin, a wretched ecrivasseur, and that affectation of naval statistics, I think very unsuitable. Your "Alchemy" is appropriate enough, great elaboration and pomp of work ending in smoke and dross. If Dalzell's "Lectures" are as obscure and dull as your commentary, they were not worth reviewing, no more than the commentary is worth reading [...] The article on Hazlitt is good, and that on the Scotch novels [italics]excellent[end italics].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
: court news
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 July 1821: 'Ramsgate is still empty and dull; our good weather fled with the pomp of the Coronation.... Blessings on the Queen! I see by this morning's paper that she is determined to make a part of the show. But her day is gone by, and there wanted but this last part of her farce to finish her character [following her trial for adultery and estrangement from husband] with the few respectable people that yet cling to her.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Newspaper
Washington Irving : Sketch Book [?of Geoffrey Crayon]
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 January 1825: 'I never could read the "Sketch Book," nor, what d'ye call it? "Knickerbocker." Mr. Irving has a charming English style, formed by a careful and affectionate study of Addison, perhaps a little too much sweetened; and so polished that, although the surface is proportionably bright, it is nothing but surface. I can no more go on all day with one of his books than I could go on sucking a sugar-plum. The "American Dutchmen" I do not understand at all; an historical account of such people might be entertaining, but, without any means of distinguishing how much is fiction and how much truth, these stories tire and puzzle me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Washington Irving : Sketch Book [?of Geoffrey Crayon]
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 January 1825: 'I never could read the "Sketch Book," nor, what d'ye call it? "Knickerbocker." Mr. Irving has a charming English style, formed by a careful and affectionate study of Addison, perhaps a little too much sweetened; and so polished that, although the surface is proportionably bright, it is nothing but surface. I can no more go on all day with one of his books than I could go on sucking a sugar-plum. The "American Dutchmen" I do not understand at all; an historical account of such people might be entertaining, but, without any means of distinguishing how much is fiction and how much truth, these stories tire and puzzle me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Washington Irving : 'Knickerbocker'
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 January 1825: 'I never could read the "Sketch Book," nor, what d'ye call it? "Knickerbocker." Mr. Irving has a charming English style, formed by a careful and affectionate study of Addison, perhaps a little too much sweetened; and so polished that, although the surface is proportionably bright, it is nothing but surface. I can no more go on all day with one of his books than I could go on sucking a sugar-plum. The "American Dutchmen" I do not understand at all; an historical account of such people might be entertaining, but, without any means of distinguishing how much is fiction and how much truth, these stories tire and puzzle me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Washington Irving : The American Dutchmen
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 January 1825: 'I never could read the "Sketch Book," nor, what d'ye call it? "Knickerbocker." Mr. Irving has a charming English style, formed by a careful and affectionate study of Addison, perhaps a little too much sweetened; and so polished that, although the surface is proportionably bright, it is nothing but surface. I can no more go on all day with one of his books than I could go on sucking a sugar-plum. The "American Dutchmen" I do not understand at all; an historical account of such people might be entertaining, but, without any means of distinguishing how much is fiction and how much truth, these stories tire and puzzle me.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Horace Walpole : 'Letters to Mr Mason' vol 1
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 7 May 1828: 'I return, having read through, the first volume of "Horace Walpole's Letters to Mr. Mason" [discusses text further] [...] [These letters] are the least amusing of Walpole's. The reason is that he and Mason had at this time no [italics]common[end italics] acquaintance, and no [italics]common[end italics] topic, but Mason's "Life of Gray" [discusses further]."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Thomas Moore : Life of Byron (vol 2)
John Wilson Croker to John Murray (1831), on the second volume of Moore's Life of Byron: 'No doubt there are longeurs, but really not many. The most teasing part is the blanks, which perplex without concealing [comments further].'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Book
Leigh Hunt : The Tatler
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 21 January 1831: 'I return you the "Tatler" that you lent me. I think Mr. Hunt makes more of Moore's letters than they deserve. I certainly wish that Moore had not flattered him so much, but we should recollect that Moore and Mr. Hunt were at that day fellow labourers in a party [...] Party is much the strongest passion of an Englishman's mind [..] There is not one of us who does not tolerate partizans whom one would indignantly reject as ordinary acquaintances. So that, on the whole, I look with a very excusing eye on the flummery with which Moore thought fit to feed the vanity of the weekly critic. As to his present opinions of the man, I suppose they are the correct ones, but I know neither him nor his works, except "Rimini."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wilson Croker Print: Serial / periodical
Leigh Hunt : Rimini
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 21 January 1831: 'I return you the "Tatler" that you lent me. I think Mr. Hunt makes more of Moore's letters than they deserve. I certainly wish that Moore had not flattered him so much, but we should recollect that Moore and Mr. Hunt were at that day fellow labourers in a party [...] Party is much the strongest passion of an Englishman's mind [..] There is not one of us who does not tolerate partizans whom one would indignantly reject as ordinary acquaintances. So that, on the whole, I look with a very excusing eye on the flummery with which Moore thought fit to feed the vanity of the weekly critic. As to his present opinions of the man, I suppose they are the correct ones, but I know neither him nor his works, except "Rimini."'
