All his energies were required to secure contributions from the best writers; or to put in what is technically called the plumbs—that is, point, satire, or virulence—into such as required it, so as to aim at destroying that monopoly in the martyrdom of books hitherto enjoyed by the literary butchers of Edinburgh. The refusal however was couched in terms satisfactory to the reverend friend of the poet:
Though not successful in your application to Mr. Gifford, I think myself indebted for the trouble you have taken to make it so. I should have been well satisfied if so able a man had undertaken to write Mr. Mason’s life; he is so competent, from genius, knowledge, and taste, to execute it well . . . I will thank you to mention, when you see him, that I am obliged by his answer to your application; and gratified by the sentiments of a man of genius and taste, relative to Mr. Mason.
Hitherto we have seen Gifford only in his blander moods—bent on being amiable in return for the assistance cordially rendered to his studies by a stranger. But these were weaker moments—the tiger assuming the bleat of the lamb. The gall in his system lay too near the surface not to ooze through the thin layer of suavity upon the smallest provocation.
Malone, it will be remembered, had confessed to Mr. Whalley twenty years before, that he had no taste for the productions of Ben Jonson; that he had doubts whether his professions of friendship for Shakspeare were sincere. In this he was not singular, as several of the biographers and writers of the time had arrived at a similar conclusion. But
