William Gifford

William Gifford, "the British Juvenal," was the son of a glazier who went to sea and served an apprenticeship to a shoemaker before, supported by William Cooksley, a surgeon, attending Exeter College, Oxford (B.A. 1782). Gifford pilloried the Della Cruscans in the Baviad and Maeviad and contributed to the Anti-Jacobin (1797-98). The first editor of the Quarterly Review (1809-24), Gifford probably wrote the infamous review of Keats's Endymion (1818). Gifford's translation of Juvenal was frequently reprinted.

TEXT RECORDS:

1791The Baviad.

PUBLICATIONS:

The baviad. 1791.
The maeviad. 1795.
The anti-jacobin [joint editor]. 1797, etc.
Epistle to Peter Pindar. 1800.
The satires of Juvenal translated. 1802.
An examination of the strictures of the Critical reviewers on the translation of Juvenal. 1803.
Works of Ben Jonson, ed. Gifford. 9 vols, 1816.
The Satires of Persius translated. 1821.
The illiberal! verse and prose from the north! 1822.
Autobiography. 1827.
Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, ed. L. Rice-Oxley. 1924.

PROFILE AND
ASSOCIATES:

English
Anglican

Ashburton Free School
Exeter College Oxford

artisan
tutor
essayist
editor
translator
poet

The Sun
The Anti-Jacobin
Quarterly Review

Rev. William Beloe
George Canning
John Wilson Croker
George Ellis
John Hookham Frere
Bp. Reginald Heber
Rev. Francis Hodgson
William Jerdan
William Maginn
Edmond Malone
John Murray
Sir Walter Scott
Robert Southey
John Taylor Esq.
Elizabeth Trefusis
Francis Godolphin Waldron

REFERENCE:

DNB; NCBEL.

David Rivers, Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798); "William Gifford, Esq." Weekly Magazine [Philadelphia] 4 (27 April 1799) 84-85 [from Rivers]; "Peter Pindar and the Author of the Baviad" European Magazine 38 (August 1800) 86-88; "William Gifford" Monthly Mirror 14 (September 1802) 147-51 [portrait]; "Memoirs of William Gifford by himself" Port Folio [Philadelphia] 2 (25 September, 2 October 1802) 299-300, 308-09; "Memoirs of William Gifford" Gentleman's Magazine 72 (October 1802) 897-99; "Mr. Gifford" Port Folio [Philadelphia] 3 (21 May 1803) 164-65; "Biographical Sketch of William Gifford" Monthly Anthology [Boston] 1 (December 1803-February 1804) 63-70, 110-16, 161-70; Peter L. Courtier, ed., Lyre of Love (1806); Biographia Dramatica (1812); "William Gifford" The Champion (9 July 1814) 223; . Wedderburn Webster, "Letter to Gifford" Morning Post (19 December 1816);Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816); "William Gifford" in New Monthly Magazine 10 (October 1818) 235-39 [portrait]; "The Editor of the Quarterly Review" The Examiner (14 June 1818) 378-79; "The Three Asses. William Gifford" The Examiner (6 January 1822) 4; Leigh Hunt, Ultra-Crepidarious: a Satire on W. Gifford (1823); Robert Watt, Bibliotheca Britannica (1824); William Hazlitt, "Mr. Gifford" in Spirit of the Age (1825); "William Gifford, Esq." Mirror of Literature 5 (1825) 218-19; A New Biographical Dictionary of 3000 Cotemporary Public Characters (1825); "Hunt and Gifford" Nic-Nac 4 (14 January 1826) 12-14; Living Poets of England: Specimens of the Living British Poets (1827); obituary in Morning Chronicle (2 January 1827); obituary in Literary Gazette (6 January 1827) 9; obituary in Literary Chronicle 9 (6 January 1827) 9-10; obituary in Gentleman's Magazine 97 (February 1827) 105-12 [portrait]; "Mr. Gifford" Monthly Magazine NS 3 (February 1827) 167-73; obituary in New Monthly Magazine NS 21 (March 1827) 125-27; obituary in Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature NS 1 (March 1827) 222-23; "Memoir of William Gifford, Esq." Imperial Magazine 9 (April 1827) 305-20 [portrait]; "Anecdotes of the Private Life of William Gifford" Literary Gazette (9 June 1827) 362-64; "William Gifford, Esq." Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction 9 (13 January 1827) 21-22; "Memoir of William Gifford" Literary Magnet NS 3 (1827) 142-52; The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most Eminent Persons (1832-34); Allan Cunningham, "Literature of the Last Fifty Years" Athenaeum (November-December 1833) 852, 892; William Jerdan, Men I have Known (1866) 237-42; Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844); Allibone, Critical Dictionary of English Literature (1858-71; 1882); William Edward Winks, in Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers (1883); Foster, Alumni Oxon (1887-91); Samuel Smiles, Memoirs of John Murray (1891); David Masson, "The Story of Gifford and Keats" The Nineteenth Century 31 (1892); Wright, West-Country Poets (1896) 201-02; P. W. Clayden, Rogers and his Contemporaries 2 vols (1889); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05); C. W. Previte Orton, Political Satire in English Poetry (1910); Walter Graham, Tory Criticism and the Quarterly Review (1921); J. Longaker, The Della Cruscans and William Gifford (1924); Roy B. Clark, William Gifford (1930); Kenneth Hopkins, Portraits in Satire (1958); Renwick, OHEL (1963); ; Tim Burke, in Eighteenth-Century English Labouring-Class Poets (2003); Michael Gamer, "'Bell's Poetics': The Baviad, the Della Cruscans, and the Book of The World" in The Satiric Eye, ed. Steven E. Jones (2003) 31-35.

COMMENTARY RECORDS
for William Gifford:

1.	1792  Anonymous, "The Modern Poets" Morning Chronicle (17 January 1792).
2.	1793  Anonymous, in "The Literary Assassin" The Oracle (9 August 1793).
3.	1796  Thomas James Mathias, in Pursuits of Literature (1796; 1800) 135 & n.
4.	1797  Anonymous, in "The Author of the Baviad and Maeviad" The True Briton (4 August 1797).
5.	1797  George Dyer, in The Poet's Fate, a Poetical Dialogue (1797) 28-29 &n.
6.	1800  Anonymous, "The Pindarick Scuffle" Bath Journal (8 September 1800).
7.	1800  Nestor, "The Rival Bards" Morning Chronicle (6 September 1800).
8.	1800  Anonymous, "Literary Fracas" The Morning Chronicle (23 August 1800).
9.	1800  Anonymous, "A Rencontre: Gifford and Peter Pindar" The Morning Chronicle (19 August 1800).
10.	1800  Anonymous, "Literary Fracas" The Morning Post (19 August 1800).
11.	1800  Anonymous, "Peter Pindar and Mr. Giffard" The Morning Post (23 August 1800).
12.	1801  Alexander Thomson, in The British Parnassus, at the Close of the Eighteenth Century (1801) 55-56 & n.
13.	1802  Joseph Dennie, "Miscellany: William Gifford" Port Folio [Philadelphia] 2 (12 June 1802) 179.
14.	1803  Richard Nares to Thomas Percy, April 1803; Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the XVIII Century (1817-58) 7:602.
15.	1803  J. C. H., "To William Gifford, Esq. on his Translation of Juvenal" Gentleman's Magazine 73 (February 1803) 156.
16.	1807  Thomas Campbell, 6 July 1807; in William Beattie, Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell (1849) 2:110.
17.	1807  Lady Anne Hamilton, in Epics of the Ton (1807) 273 & n.
18.	1808  Richard Mant?, in The Simpliciad (1808) 10.
19.	1808  Walter Scott to William Gifford, 25 October 1808; Lockhart, Life of Scott (1837-38; 1902) 2:95-96.
20.	1808  Elizabeth Trefusis, "Valentine to William Gifford" The Sun (11 August 1808).
21.	1808  William Herbert, Review of Gifford's Massinger; Edinburgh Review 12 (April 1808) 99-119.
22.	1809  Lord Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809); Poetical Works, ed. E. H. Coleridge (1898-1904) 1:363 & n.
23.	1809  Robert Southey to William Gifford, 6 March 1809; Life and Correspondence (1849-50) 3:221-23.
24.	1810  J. G., "Lines, most respectfully inscribed to William Gifford, Esq." Poetical Magazine 4 (1810) 15-16.
25.	1812  Anonymous, in "The Rejected Bards" The Satirist 11 (November 1812) 379 & 382n.
26.	1813  Edward Thurlow, in Poems (1813) appendix, p. 101.
27.	1813  Lord Byron to William Gifford, 18 June 1813; Letters and Journals, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (1898-1901) 2:221-22.
28.	1814  Leigh Hunt, in Feast of the Poets (1814) 57-61 n.
29.	1814  John Gwilliam, "To W****** G*******, a celebrated Critic of the Nineteenth Century" Bower of Bliss (1814) 238-47.
30.	1815  George Ticknor; Journal Entry, 19 June 1815; Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor (1876) 1:58.
31.	1816  John Taylor Esq., "To William Gifford, Esq. on his Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson" The Sun (7 August 1816).
32.	1816  John Murray to Lord Byron, 12 September 1816; Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir of John Murray (1891) 1:365-67.
33.	1817  Anonymous, "On the Rise and Progress of Popular Disaffection" The News (15 June 1817) 190.
34.	1818  Francis Hodgson, in Childe Harold's Monitor (1818) 54.
35.	1818  James Hogg to John Murray, 11 August 1818; Smiles, in A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir of John Murray (1891) 2:6.
36.	1818  Anonymous, in "The Editor of the Quarterly Review" The Examiner (14 June 1818) 378.
37.	1820  Anonymous, "Botany Bay" Morning Chronicle (8 January 1820).
38.	1820  John Taylor Esq., "To William Gifford, Esq." The Sun (24 July 1820).
39.	1822  William Maginn to William Blackwood, 30 July [1822?].; Margaret Oliphant, William Blackwood and his Sons (1897) 1:397.
40.	1823  John Wilson, et. al., in Blackwood's Magazine (March 1823); Noctes Ambrosianae, ed. Mackenzie (1854) 1:286.
41.	1823  John Taylor Esq., "Sonnet, to William Gifford, Esq." The Sun (29 September 1823).
42.	1825 ca.  Henry Mackenzie, Anecdotes and Egotisms, 1825 ca.; ed. Thompson (1927) 158.
43.	1825  William Hazlitt, "Mr. Gifford" The Spirit of the Age: or Contemporary Portraits (1825) 279-302.
44.	1827  Walter Scott, 17-18 January 1827; The Journal of Sir Walter Scott, 1825-32 (1891) 340-42.
45.	1827  John Taylor Esq., "To the Memory of the Late William Gifford, Esq." Gentleman's Magazine 97 (January 1827) 63.
46.	1827  Author of Hist. and Lit. Tour, "William Gifford, a Biographical and Literary Sketch" Living Poets of England: Specimens of the Living British Poets (1827) 1:1-4.
47.	1829  Anna Brownell Jameson, "Heroines of Modern Poetry" Loves of the Poets (1829; 1857) 513-14.
48.	1830  Thomas Babington Macaulay, in "More's Life of Byron" (1830); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 5:34.
49.	1831  Richard Polwhele, in Biographical Sketches in Cornwall (1831) 2:61-62.
50.	1832  John Taylor Esq., in Records of my Life (1832) 2:279-81, 374-78.
51.	1833  Allan Cunningham, in "Biographical and Critical History of the Literature of the last Fifty Years" The Athenaeum (November-December 1833) 892.
52.	1834  Samuel Egerton Brydges, in Autobiography (1834) 1:148-49.
53.	1837  Robert Southey to Edward Moxon, 19 July 1837; Life and Correspondence (1849-50) 6:336.
54.	1850  Leigh Hunt, in Autobiography of Leigh Hunt (1850) 1:257.
55.	1856  Walter Savage Landor, 1856; Forster, Landor, a Biography (1869) 569.
56.	1858  Cyrus Redding, in Fifty Years' Recollections (1858) 1:68-71.
57.	1873  Joseph Devey, "Classical School. Gifford" A Comparative View of Modern English Poets (1873) 136-44.
58.	1882  Epes Sargent, in Harper's Cyclopaedia of British and American Poetry (1882) 248.
59.	1891  Samuel Smiles, "George Ellis" A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir of John Murray (1891) 1:127-38.
60.	1898  Rowland E. Prothero, in Byron, Letters and Journals, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (1898-1901) 1:198-99n.

BIOGRAPHY RECORDS
for William Gifford:

1.	1798  David Rivers, in Literary Memoirs of Living Authors (1798) 1:205-06.
2.	1802  William Gifford, Autobiographical Memoir, 1802; Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (1831) 6:14-28.
3.	1806  Peter L. Courtier, in Lyre of Love (1806) 2:112-14.
4.	1816  Anonymous, in Biographical Dictionary of Living Authors (1816) 127-28.
5.	1827  Anonymous, "Anecdotes of the Private Life of William Gifford" Literary Gazette (9 June 1827) 362-64.
6.	1832  William Clarke and Robert Shelton Mackenzie, in The Georgian Era: Memoirs of the most eminent Persons who have flourished in Great Britain (1832-34) 3:405-07.
7.	1844  Robert Chambers, in Cyclopaedia of English Literature (1844; 1850) 2:292-94.
8.	1883  William Edward Winks, "William Gifford" Lives of Illustrious Shoemakers (1883) 75-88.
9.	1898  W. H. K. Wright, in West-Country Poets (1898) 201-02.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(commentary records)

1.	1791  Robert Burns:   William Gifford, in The Baviad (1791) 45.
2.	1791  Edward Bysshe:   William Gifford, in The Baviad (1791) 27.
3.	1791  Bertie Greatheed:   William Gifford, in The Baviad (1791; 1797) 25.
4.	1791  Edward Jerningham:   William Gifford, in The Baviad (1791; 1827) 14-16.
5.	1791  Robert Merry:   William Gifford, in The Baviad (1791) 9-15.
6.	1791  John Oldham:   William Gifford, in The Baviad (1791) 45.
7.	1791  Mary Robinson:   William Gifford, in The Baviad (1791) 7-8.
8.	1797  William Parsons:   William Gifford, in Baviad and Maeviad (1797) 9-12 & n.
9.	1797  John Williams:   William Gifford, in Baviad and Maeviad (1797) 34-37.
10.	1800  Dr. John Wolcot:   William Gifford, in Epistle to Peter Pindar, 1800; True Briton (9 July 1800).
11.	1806  Philip Massinger:   William Gifford to Henry Drury, 1806; Memoir of Francis Hodgson (1878) 1:75-77.
12.	1807  Rev. Francis Hodgson:   William Gifford to Francis Hodgson, 1807; Memoir of Francis Hodgson (1878) 1:77-80.
13.	1812  Charles Lamb:   William Gifford to Robert Southey, 13 February 1812; Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir of John Murray (1891) 1:200-01.
14.	1816  John Aubrey:   William Gifford, in Works of Ben Jonson (1816); Moulton, Library of Literary Criticism (1901-05) 2:452.
15.	1819  Lord Byron:   William Gifford to John Murray, 1 July 1819; Smiles, A Publisher and his Friends: Memoir of John Murray (1891) 1:403-04.

AUTHOR AS CRITIC:
(biography records)

1.	1802  William Gifford:   William Gifford, Autobiographical Memoir, 1802; Nichols, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century (1831) 6:14-28.