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Not all reviews or reactions were so extreme, but religion remained a significantcategory of criticism even for the less hostile. Thus, the Belle Assemblée notes inCHP what was a common target for reviewers: “some relaxed ideas on religion, and akind of doubt of a future state.” 53 This sort of doubt was deemed improper by suchcommentators as George Ellis, whose expression of the standards of taste includes thecensorship of heterodoxy: “The common courtesy of society has, we think, very justlyproscribed the intrusive introduction of such topics as these [death, unlikelyimmortality, and bodily decay] into conversation”. 54Part of the reason for the reaction against unorthodox opinion lay in the equation oforthodoxy with moral behaviour, which was a common basis for objection to CHP, 55and, later, to Don Juan. Reviewing Cantos I and II for the Edinburgh Review, FrancisJeffrey announces that Byron is being aberrant both in his religious and in his politicalexpressions:Neither are his [Byron’s] religious opinions more orthodox, we apprehend,than his politics; for he not only speaks without any respect of priests, andcreeds, and dogmas of all descriptions, but doubts very freely the immortalityof the soul, and other points as fundamental.In contrast to how artistically insignificant Byron’s non-dogmatic views might seemin a later, more sceptical age, Jeffrey describes them as “some of the disadvantages”of the poem, a description which he reiterates within the same sentence. 56What is particularly noteworthy in these comments is the degree of unorthodoxywhich is being censured. The contemporary critics were not identifying any extremeheresy, only “relaxed ideas” and “doubt”.53 Belle Assemblée, 2nd Series, VI (Supplement for 1812), 349-354, RR, I, 81-86: p.351 (84).54 Ellis, Quarterly Review, VII (March 1812), 180-200, RR, V, 1984-1995: p. 198 (1994).55 Q.v. Christian Miscellany, II (June 1817), 270-277; (July 1817), 317-324, RR, II, 543-558: p. 272(545); Town Talk, III (August 1812), 217-222; (September 1812), 302-305; (October 1812), 372-377,RR, V, 2289-2297: pp.2291-2 (222); p.223 (2293).56 Jeffrey, Edinburgh Review, XIX (February 1812), 466-77, RR, II, 836-42: p.467 (837).26