Thomas Gifford

“ It is indeed very beau- tiful in parts, and one gladly welcomes such a sunset succeeding the overcast afternoon, as showing that the great light which had been clouded was by no means extinguished, that the genius of the brave old poet could still triumph ere it sank into the night of death; but I can hardly concur in the measureless praise of Gifford, who was perhaps less qualified to judge a purely poetical drama than one abounding in keen observation, satirical humour, and masculine eloquence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She rose, and sauntered carelessly to the door.
"I dote on motors," she said. "Nothing pleases me better than to go out in my own alone. I am coming to see your steed, Captain. The rooms are so hot here that I have a great mind to run away with it."
Gifford murmured something about the honour and pleasure. There was no vehicle to be seen in the dark street besides the gleaming mass of brass and steel that quietly simmered by the pavement.
"A beauty!" the Countess exclaimed, "And the same action as my own. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Among other persons I brought letters to Gifford, the satirist, but never saw him till yesterday. Never was I so mistaken in my anticipations. Instead of a tall and handsome man, as I had supposed him from his pictures, a man of severe and bitter remarks in conversation, such as I had good reason to believe him from his books, I found him a short, deformed, and ugly little man, with a large head sunk between his shoulders, and one of his eyes turned outward, but withal one of the best-natured, most open, and well-bred gentlemen I have met. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Edith Morriston smiled, and to Gifford it was the most fascinating smile he had ever seen. "Only let me know how I can serve you," he said, his pulses tingling.
"I am thinking of my brother," she replied, in a tone so friendly that it neutralized the rather damping effect of the words. "He is worrying over this business more than one who does not know him well would think. I had an idea, Mr. Gifford, that you might help us by, in a way, standing between us, so far as might be possible, and this Mr. Gervase Henshaw. He stays at your hotel, does he not?" ”

“ 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. ”

“ Life’s Decay. Sonnet LXXIII. A LETTER TO WILLIAM GIFFORD, ESQ. William Gifford (1756–1826) , the son of a glazier, after a neglected childhood, during which he was at one time apprenticed to a shoemaker, entered Exeter College, Oxford, through the kindness of a friend, and graduated in 1782. His two satires, The Baviad (1791) and The Mæviad (1795) , were published together in 1797, and his translation of Juvenal, upon which he had been working since he left Oxford, in 1802. He became editor of The Anti-Jacobin (1797) , and was the first editor (1809–1824) of The Quarterly Review. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ Soon after he was dangerously wounded in the trenches, and his right arm amputated, for which he was promoted and received a number of decorations. He afterward served throughout the campaign of 1860, in China. [3]
Lord Gifford, though too young for service dating so far back, and of such slender figure that he looks more like a university student than like a soldier, was the hero of the Ashantee War, who led his men through forest and jungle, in the face of the savage foe, to the capture of Coomassie, for which he received the Victoria Cross, the proud distinction of a British soldier. ”

“ I do not, however, believe but that he will continue to do what he has been used to do for the Review; indeed, unless he makes the newspaper business his excuse, he stands completely pledged to me to adhere to that.
But with reverence be it spoken, even this does not seem to me a matter of very great moment. On the contrary, I believe that his papers in the Review have (with a few exceptions) done the work a great deal more harm than good. I cannot express what I feel; but there was always the bitterness of Gifford without his dignity, and the bigotry of Southey without his bonne-foi. ”

“ 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." ”

“ His bitter opposition to Radicals and his onslaughts on new writers, conspicuous among which was the article on Keats’s Endymion, called forth Hazlitt’s Letter to W. Gifford in 1819. His connexion with the Review continued until within about two years of his death, which took place in London on the 31st of December 1826. Besides numerous contributions to the Quarterly during the last fifteen years of his life, he wrote a metrical translation of Persius, which appeared in 1821. Gifford also edited the dramas of Ben Jonson in 1816, and his edition of Ford appeared posthumously in 1827. ”

“ He was better known as a scholar than as an ecclesiastic. On 24 April 1889 Gifford resigned his archdeaconry, and retired to Arlington House, Oxford, where he continued his studies to the last. In 1903 he was elected an honorary fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. He died in London on 5 May 1905.
Gifford married (1) in 1844, Anne, daughter of John Yolland of Plymouth; (2) in 1873, Margaret Symons, daughter of Francis Jeune, bishop of Peterborough and sister of Francis Henry Jeune, baron St. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On 5 March 1826 he acknowledged ‘a splendid and costly proof of affection,’ apparently of a pecuniary nature, presented to him by Canning, in which Lord Liverpool and John Hookham Frere had taken part. Gifford seems to have been of penurious habits. He left the bulk of his savings, amounting to 25,000l., to the Rev. Mr. Cookesley, son of his first patron, the lease of his house to the widow of his friend Hoppner, the painter to whom the ‘Baviad’ was dedicated, other sums to the poor of Ashburton, and 2,000l. to found two exhibitions at Exeter College. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ John's College, Oxford, 28 April 1775, becoming a student of Lincoln's Inn at the same time. By the age of twenty-three he had run through his fortune, and found it expedient to retire to France in 1781 or 1782, and to change his name to Gifford. According to one account he became the delight of the British embassy at Paris; an apparently more authentic narrative (Gent. Mag. 1818, i. 403) states that he never went to Paris at all, but lived at Lille and Rouen. About 1788 he returned to England, and soon became known as an active writer upon the government side. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the end, Mercury dooms the ugly boot to take the semblance of a man, and the satire closes with its painful metamorphosis into Gifford. The poem is not without cleverness, but it is chiefly remarkable for a savage tone which is not, we think, repeated elsewhere throughout the writings of Hunt. The allusions to Gifford's relations, nearly half a century earlier, to that Earl Grosvenor who first rescued him from poverty, the well-deserved scorn of his intolerable sneers at Perdita Robinson's crutches:
Hate Woman, thou block in the path of fair feet ”

“ 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. ”