His earliest publication, _Pauline_ (1832) was well received by
W.J. Fox in _Monthly Repository_, and in the _Athenaeum_. _Tait's
Edinburgh Magazine_ called it a "piece of pure bewilderment." See also
the brief notice in the _Literary Gazette_, 1833, p. 183. _Paracelsus_
(1835) had a similar experience; the reprint from the _Athenaeum_, 1835,
p. 640, is fairly characteristic of the rest, among which are the
articles in the _Monthly Repository_, 1835, p. 716; the _Christian
Remembrancer_, XX, p. 346, and the reviews written by John Forster for
the _Examiner_, 1835, p. 563, and the _New Monthly Magazine_, XLVI
(289-308).
Neither the favorable review of _Sordello_ (1840) in the _Monthly Rev._,
1840, II, p. 149, nor the partly appreciative article in the _Athenaeum_,
1840, p. 431, seems to warrant the well-known anecdotes relating the
difficulties of Douglas Jerrold and Tennyson in attempting to understand
that poem. The _Athenaeum_ gave the poet sound advice, especially in
regard to the intentional obscurity of his meaning. That this admonition
was futile may be gathered from the _Saturday Review's_ article (I, p.
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