William Gifford

William Gifford 1756-1826, English journalist and critic. He was editor (1797-98) of the Anti-Jacobin and first editor (1809-24) of the archconservative Quarterly Review. Although perceptive, his critical writings are frequently marred by harsh and short-sighted opposition to young and "radical" poets. His most famous poems are The Baviad (1794) and The Maeviad (1795), satirizing the English Della-Cruscans . He translated Juvenal (1802) and Persius (1821) and edited the works of Massinger, Jonson, and John Ford.

Gifford, William (1756–1826), published two satires, The Baviad (1791) and The Maeviad (1795), the first directed against the Della Cruscan school of poetry, and the second divided between the Della Cruscans and the contemporary drama. In 1797–8 he was editor of the Anti-Jacobin and in 1809 the first editor of the Quarterly Review. He bitterly attacked most of the young innovating writers of the time; e.g. he wholly altered the warm tone of Lamb's essay on Wordsworth's The Excursion and published J. W. Croker's virulent attack on Keats's Endymion. His character and inadequacies are mercilessly exposed by Hazlitt in The Spirit of the Age. He translated the satires of Juvenal (1802) and of Persius (1821), and edited the works of Massinger, Jonson, Ford, and Shirley.