Gifford

“ The rector shook his head ruefully. "Denner has two trout. Fate was against me. Any fishing about Lockhaven, Gifford? Ward do any?"
Gifford laughed. "He only fishes for men," he said. "He devotes himself to it day and night. Especially of late; his fear of hell-fire for other people's souls has seemed to take great hold on him."
"Gad!" said Dr. Howe. "He's a queer fellow."
"He's a good fellow," Gifford answered warmly. "And as to his belief, why, you believe in hell, don't you, doctor?" ”

“ In death the face was placid, intelligent, without ignoble lineation—the face of the man they had known at college. Weigall and Gifford had had no time to comment there, and the afternoon and evening were full; but, coming forth from the house of festivity together, they had reverted almost at once to the topic.
"I cherish the theory," Gifford had said, "that the soul sometimes lingers in the body after death. During madness, of course, it is an impotent prisoner, albeit a conscious one. Fancy its agony, and its horror! ”

“ She quickened her steps as she turned away in the direction of Master Gifford's house, but she felt a hand laid on her arm.
'I am speaking to one Mistress Gifford, methinks.'
'Yes, sir,' Mary said, her courage, as ever, rising when needed. 'What is your business with me?'
'I am sent on an errand by one you know of as Ambrose Gifford—called by us Brother Ambrosio. He lies sick unto death in a desolate village before Zutphen, and he would fain see you ere he departs hence. There is not a moment to lose; you must come at once. ”

“ Ward," Gifford explained. But John scarcely heard him; his people's comfort, their morality almost,—for poverty meant deeper sin to most of them,—was burning up in those great square piles of planks.
"Men," he shouted, "men, the engine! To the river! Run! run!"
"Nothing can be done," Gifford said, as the crowd broke, following the preacher, who was far ahead of all; but he too started, as though to join them, and then checked himself, and went back into the deserted street, walking up and down, a self-constituted patrol.
Almost every man had gone to the river. ”

“ Again Gifford's tone gave a check to Kelson's enthusiasm.
It was with a more serious face that he replied, "Muriel Tredworth, the best girl in England. I hope, my dear Hugh, you are not going to say you don't think so."
"Certainly not," Gifford answered promptly. "I never saw or heard of her before to-night."
Kelson laughed uncomfortably. A man in love and in the flush of acceptance wants something more than a lukewarm reception of the news. "I'm glad to hear it," he responded dryly. "From your tone one might almost imagine that you knew something against Muriel." ”

“ His disregard for external show was the more remarkable, as a contrary feeling is generally observable in persons who have risen from penury to wealth. But Gifford was a gentleman in feeling and in conduct, and you were never led to suspect he was sprung from an obscure origin except when he reminded you of it by an anecdote relative to it. And this recalls one of the stories he used to tell with irresistible drollery, the merit of which entirely depended on his manner. ”

“ What right have you to question my leaving Ashurst?"
"No right," Gifford said calmly.
"Why don't you speak out like a man?" Forsythe demanded with a burst of rage, striking the table with his fist. "What do you mean by your damned impudence? So you dare to question my conduct to Lois Howe, do you?—you confounded prig!"
"Be silent!" Gifford said between his teeth. "Gentlemen do not introduce the name of a woman into their discussions. You forgot yourself. It is unnecessary to pursue this subject. ”

“ GIFFORD, ADAM, Lord Gifford (1820–1887) , lord of session and founder of the Gifford lectureships, eldest son of James Gifford and his wife, Catherine Ann West, was born at Edinburgh on 29 Feb. 1820. His father, who had risen from a comparatively humble position, became treasurer and master of the Merchant Company, an elder in the Secession church, and a zealous Sunday-school teacher. His mother was vigorous in body and mind, and a very independent thinker. ”

“ The words are mere doggerel, but they would appeal to Gifford, as they have appealed to many a Devonshire apprentice, and often in his garret he may have hummed over the pathetic air as he thought of the kind young face that alone in Exeter had smiled on him.
The darkest hour precedes the dawn. ”

“ The Anti-Jacobin and the editing of divers English classics put Gifford still higher; and when the Quarterly Review was established in opposition to the Edinburgh, his appointment (1809) to the editorship, which he held almost till his death (he gave it up in 1824 and died in 1826) , completed his literary position. Gifford is little read nowadays, and a name which was not a very popular one even on his own side during his lifetime has, since the triumph of the politics and of some of the literary styles which he opposed, become almost a byword for savage and unfair criticism. ”

“ It was not in human nature that William Gifford should withhold his hand from turning out some neat lines taking off the sanctimonious and pretentious cobbler, and so revenging himself for slights and insults many. It is not in human nature that he should refrain from showing this product to his fellow apprentices. It is not in human nature that some sneak among them should not apprise the master or that master's son of what the sullen, discontented lad had done. ”

“ Having taken a glimpse of the work accomplished by William Gifford as a critic, a scholar, and an editor in the latter years of his life, let us turn to look at his circumstances in boyhood and youth, when, as a miserable cobbler’s apprentice, he began to yearn after knowledge and to cherish ambitious dreams. The contrast between the first and last scenes in the drama of life could hardly be more wonderful than that which is presented in the history of the man who passed from the cobbler’s stool to the editor’s chair. ”

“ If Gifford could see me by this fireside, where, like Nicodemus, one candle suffices me in a large room, he would see a man in a coat 'still more threadbare than his own' when he wrote his 'Imitation,' working hard and getting little—a bare maintenance, and hardly that; writing poems and history for posterity with his whole heart and soul; one daily progressive in learning, not so learned as he is poor, not so poor as proud, not so proud as happy. ”

“ She laughed. "So far that I now share with Muriel Tredworth the suspicion of knowing all about the tragedy."
"Hardly that," Gifford replied with a smile. "There can be no cause for that fear. By the way," he added more seriously, "I owe you an account of my failure to gain any information for you with regard to Mr. Gervase Henshaw's plans."
"He is not communicative?" Miss Morriston suggested casually.
Gifford shook his head. "No, I am never able to get hold of him. In fact, it seems as though he rather makes a point of avoiding us. And if we do meet, he is vagueness and reticence personified." ”

“ Gifford is the most obliging and well-meaning man alive, and that he is perfectly ready to be instructed in those points of which his seclusion renders him ignorant; and all that I wish and mean is, that we should strive to open clearly the view which is so obvious to us—that our first number must be a most brilliant one in every respect ”

“ Hugh, Smerdon, the master of the school on whose succession I had calculated, died and was succeeded by a person not much older than myself, and certainly not so well qualified for the situation.”
Poor Gifford! hard, indeed, was thy lot; an orphan without friends, helpers, or sympathizers, having no proper leisure or means for study or recreation, and even the little pleasure and profit wrung from a few ciphering books and doggerel verses snatched away by cruel hands; trodden down like a worm in the mire, and every particle of talent and ambition threatened with extinction! ”

“ As to there being an adequate reason for alarm Gifford was not inclined to question, since he quite realized that this man Henshaw might easily constitute himself a grave annoyance to the Morristons. A clever girl like Edith Morriston, more sensitive than to a casual observer would appear, had naturally recognized this danger and was anxious to have the man, with his, perhaps, none too scrupulous methods, held in check; and to this service Gifford was only too happy to devote himself, glad beyond measure that the opportunity had been given him by the girl who had filled his thoughts. ”

“ The olive-colored eyes gleamed, and a flickering flush came and went in the thin cheeks, but the girl answered shyly and guardedly, as her wont was.
"I don't know, ma'am; I have never seen any. I like this one. It is the country; isn't it?"
Mrs. Brierly smiled.
"Yes; it is the country as Gifford, the man who made the picture, saw it. Country means ploughed fields and potatoes to some people, and paradise to others. I think you could find Gifford's country, Ruthy." ”

“ What’s the matter with Gifford? Why don’t he whip her up? He’s going to lose the inside place in a minute. Go on, Claribel! Shake her up, Varunas! Give it to her!”
Frank Cahoon was yelling similar advice. Bob Griffin turned impatiently. “Keep your hair on, Tom,” he ordered. “Gifford knows what he’s doing. Watch him. He’s been holding her in every foot of the way so far. Don’t worry,” he whispered in Esther’s ear. “He’ll let her out when the time comes. We’ll beat ’em at the finish.”
Esther was close to tears. “Oh, we must! We must!” ”

“ WILLIAM GIFFORD William Gifford, the satirist, was born at Ashburton in April, 1756. His father’s name was Edward, and he says that his great-grandfather “was possessed of considerable property at Halsbury, a parish in the neighbourhood of Ashburton.” There is no such parish, but there is the manor of Halsbury that belonged to the Giffords or Giffards in the neighbourhood of Bideford, in Parkham parish. ”

“ Gifford ejaculated fervently.
"You don't congratulate me," his friend returned with a touch of suspicion.
Gifford forced a laugh. "My dear Harry, you have taken my breath away. You deserve the best wife in the kingdom, and I sincerely hope you have got her," he said, not very convincingly.
His half-heartedness, not too successfully masked, evidently struck Kelson. "One would hardly suppose you thought so," he said in a hurt tone. "I wish," he added warmly, "if there is anything at the back of your words you would speak out. I should hope we are old friends enough for that." ”

“ Sports and merry-making were quite as much out of harmony with Mary Gifford's feelings as they were with her stepmother's, but, in the due observance of Sunday, as in many other things, the extreme Puritan failed to influence those around them by their harsh insistence on the letter which killeth, and the utter absence of that spirit of love which giveth life. ”

“ At Grosvenor's house Gifford proceeded with his ‘Juvenal,’ which, however, did not appear until 1802, when the autobiography from which the preceding facts are taken was given in the preface. Gifford first became known by the two satires, the ‘Baviad’ (1794) and the ‘Mæviad’ (1795) , published together in 1797. Gifford attacks the so-called Della Cruscans, a small clique of English at Florence, including Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Merry, and other scribblers, who published poems in a paper called ‘The World’ under such signatures as ‘Anna Matilda.’ They were so silly as to be too small game for satire. ”

“ Having attained an university education by private benevolence, and arrived at noble and powerful patronage by a circumstance purely accidental Mr. Gifford possessed advantages which few in humble life dare hope, and fewer aspire to achieve. He improved his learned leisure and patrician aid, till, in 1802, he published his translation of Juvenal, with a dedication to earl Grosvenor, and the preceding memoir. ”

“ In 1809 he published his ‘Outlines of Mineralogy’ (2 vols. 8vo, Oxford) , which were reviewed by Dr. Thomas Thomson of Edinburgh in the ‘Quarterly Review’ (vol. ii.) in an article which Gifford, the editor, altered in some parts as being ‘very splenetic and very severe, and much too wantonly so.’ Gifford added: ‘Kidd is a modest and unassuming man, and is not to be attacked with sticks and stones like a savage’ (Smiles, Memoir of John Murray, i. 162) . ”

“ Her goods were seized by a creditor, ‘C.,’ who was also William's godfather. The infant was sent to the almshouse, and ‘bound to a husbandman.’ William Gifford, when his own prospects improved, did his best to help his brother. The boy was sent to sea, but died soon afterwards. Meanwhile the godfather, C., under the pressure of Ashburton sentiment, which held that he had sufficiently paid himself, sent William Gifford to school, where he began to show taste for arithmetic. C. soon tired of the expense, and sent Gifford to work on a farm. ”

“ Howe.
"I don't believe," Gifford responded, smiling, "that that would distress John Ward at all."
"Apparently not," said the rector significantly.
"He loves her too much," Gifford went on, "to think of himself apart from her; don't you see? They are one; what difference does it make about the money?" ”

“ In December 1811 Murray sent Gifford a present of 500l., which may be considered evidence that the periodical had begun to pay. Gifford's services were entirely editorial, and no article wholly from his own pen ever appeared in the 'Quarterly.' The overthrow of Napoleon and the disappointment of the whigs' expectations under the regency were favourable circumstances for the 'Quarterly,' which went on prospering, until in 1817 Southey could write of Murray, 'The "Review" is the greatest of all works, and it is all his own creation ”