"The grand distinction of the under forms of the new school of poets is their _vulgarity_. By this I do not mean that they are coarse, but 'shabby-genteel,' as it is termed. A man may be _coarse_ and yet not _vulgar_, and the reverse. Burns is often coarse, but never _vulgar_. Chatterton is never vulgar, nor Wordsworth, nor the higher of the Lake school, though they treat of low life in all its branches. It is in their _finery_ that the new under school are _most_ vulgar, and they may be known by this at once; as what we called at Harrow 'a Sunday blood' might be easily distinguished from a gentleman, although his clothes might be better cut, and his boots the best blackened, of the two;--probably because he made the one or cleaned the other with his own hands.
"In the present case, I speak of writing, not of persons. Of the latter, I know nothing; of the former, I judge as it is found. * * They may be honourable and _gentlemanly_ men, for what I know, but the latter quality is studiously excluded from their publications. They remind me of Mr. Smith and the Miss Broughtons at the Hampstead Assembly, in 'Evelina.' In these things (in private life, at least) I pretend to some small experience: because, in the course of my youth, I have seen a little of all sorts of society, from the Christian prince and the Mussulman sultan and pacha, and the higher ranks of their countries, down to the London boxer, the '_flash and the swell_,' the Spanish muleteer, the wandering Turkish dervise, the Scotch Highlander, and the Albanian robber;--to say nothing of the curious varieties of Italian social life. Far be it from me to presume that there are now, or can be, such a thing as an _aristocracy_ of _poets_; but there _is_ a nobility of thought and of style, open to all stations, and derived partly from talent, and partly from education,--which is to be found in Shakspeare, and Pope, and Burns, no less than in Dante and Alfieri, but which is nowhere to be perceived in the mock birds and bards of Mr. Hunt's little chorus. If I were asked to define what this gentlemanliness is, I should say that it is only to be defined by _examples_--of those who have it, and those who have it not. In _life_, I should say that most _military_ men have it, and few _naval_; that several men of rank have it, and few lawyers; that it is more frequent among authors than divines (when they are not pedants); that _fencing_-masters have more of it than dancing-masters, and singers than players; and that (if it be not _an Irishism_ to say so) it is far more generally diffused among women than among men. In poetry, as well as writing in general, it will never _make_ entirely a poet or a poem; but neither poet nor poem will ever be good for any thing without it. It is the _salt_ of society, and the seasoning of composition. _Vulgarity_ is far worse than downright _black-guardism_; for the latter comprehends wit, humour, and strong sense at times; while the former is a sad abortive attempt at all things, 'signifying nothing.' It does not depend upon low themes, or even low-language, for Fielding revels in both;--but is he ever _vulgar_? No. You see the man of education, the gentleman, and the scholar, sporting with his subject,--its master, not its slave. Your vulgar writer is always most vulgar the higher his subject; as the man who showed the menagerie at Pidcock's was wont to say, 'This, gentlemen, is the _Eagle_ of the _Sun_, from Archangel in Russia: the _otterer_ it is, the _igherer_ he flies.'"