ABSTRACT
Jeffrey had reviewed The Giaour in very favourable terms in the Edinburgh Review for July 1813, commenting on its fragmentary structure, the quality of the verse, and the character of the hero; but his review of The Corsair and The Bride of Abydos is a more sustained attempt at analysing the nature of Byron's appeal for contemporary readers. His cyclical theory of taste and his view of romantic primitivism should be contrasted with Thomas Love Peacock's dismissive account in The Four Ages of Poetry (1820).
