castors, and which carried him back to the wall and rebounded, of course making everybody laugh. Off went poor Campbell in a huff; and, well as I had long known, never saw him again: and I was not very sorry, for his sentimentality was too soft, and his craving for praise too morbid to let him be an agreeable companion. MARTINEAU, HARRIET, 1855-77, Autobiography, ed. Chapman, vol. I, p. 265.

His mode of life at Sydenham was almost uniformly that which he afterwards followed in London, when he made it a constant residence. He rose not very early, breakfasted, studied for an hour or two, dined at two or three o'clock, and then made a call or two. He would return home to tea, and then retire early to his study, remaining there till a late. hour; sometimes even till an early one. His life was strictly domestic: he gave a dinner-party now and then, and at some of them Thomas Moore, Rogers, and other literary friends from town were present. His table was plain, hospitable, and cheered by a hearty welcome.-REDDING, CYRUS,

1858, Fifty Years' Recollections, Literary

and Personal.

I remember being told by a personage who was both a very popular writer and a very brilliant converser, that the poet Campbell reminded him of Goldsmith-his conversation was so inferior to his fame. I could not deny it; for I had often met Campbell in general society, and his talk had disappointed me. Three days afterwards, Campbell asked me to come up and sup with him tête-à-tête. I did so. I went at ten o'clock. I stayed till dawn; and all my recollections of the most sparkling talk I have ever heard in drawing-rooms, affords nothing to equal the riotous affluence of wit, of humour, of fancy, of genius, that the great lyrist poured forth in his wondrous monologue. Monologue it was; he had it all to himself. —LYTTON, EDWARD BULWER LORD, 1863-68, Caxtoniana, Miscellaneous Prose Works, vol. III, p. 114.

He spoke with a marked Scotch accent, which added a zest, allied to humor, to the amusing anecdotes and stories which he told so well. When in this facetious mood, there was a roguish twinkle in his eye; and you could hardy conceive the touching and impressive poet to be hid behind the mantling smile and genial

chuckle.-JERDAN, WILLIAM, 1866, Men I have Known.

In ordinary society Campbell did not appear by any means to the same advantage as Jeffrey, though he possessed incomparably more genius and sensibility. The former made no attempt at display in conversation; but the occasional splendid expression, the frequent tear in the eye, bespoke the profound emotion which was felt. ALISON, SIR ARCHIBALD, 1867? Some Account of My Life and Writings, vol. I, p. 33.

The remaining glories of Poet's Corner belong to our own time and to the future. It would seem as if, during the opening of this century, the place for once had lost its charm. Of that galaxy of poets which ushered in this epoch, Campbell alone has achieved there both grave and monument, on which is inscribed the lofty hope of immortality from his own poems.-STANLET, ARTHUR PENRHYN, 1867-96, Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 318.

merely the educated habit or manner of

Had a cold, Scotch manner, but that was

his country-cautious, canny. There was sap behind the bark. If the oppression of the Poles or any other flagrant enormity was brought before him, his energy quickly flamed up. And he was also very vivacious, not to say riotous, in his cups.-PROCTER, BRYAN WALLER (BARRY CORNWALL)1874? Recollections of Men of Letters.

Campbell's career was deeply weighted in other ways. His only son, whose childhood had been beautiful beyond expression to the tender father, who felt, as young parents often do, his own child a revelation from heaven, was a life-long grief and disappointment to him, and spent most of his life in a lunatic asylum. His wife died. early; and he was left to make up to himself, as far as he could, by a hundred gentle flirtations, chiefly with ladies under the age of ten, for the absence of a woman's society, and the bright faces of children. Some of his innocent adventures in this way are at once amusing and pathetic.OLIPHANT, MARGARET O. W., 1882, Literary History of England, XVIII-XIX Century, vol. II, p. 166.

Campbell, when he did himself justice, is known to have been an interesting converser he rarely left you without having

To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.

But the graceless Hogan kenned nothing of this; he was only able to tell me that Campbell was a feeble little fellow, that he spoke with a broad Scottish accent, that he wore a wig. Poor Campbell! Poor Hogan! Hogan knew even less about Campbell than Crabbe appeared to Moore to have known about Burke.-LOCKERLAMPSON, FREDERICK, 1895, My Confidences, p. 139.

Though Campbell was a poet, he was a great contrast to my beloved Southey. You could see that Southey was a poet, the very embodiment of poetry, while Campbell looked more like a lively and intelligent man who might never have written a line in his life. I think the difference was this: Southey wrote because he could not help it, Campbell because he liked to do it. AGNEW, MARY COURTENAY, 1896, Lions in the Twenties, Temple Bar, vol. 107, p. 116.

PLEASURES OF HOPE

1799

I am not sure if Mr. Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope" be not the most poetical production of the age. From the moment of its appearance to the present moment, the reading of it has always filled me with equal admiration of its plan, its melody, and powers of execution. It is full of genius and of noble conceptions expressed in numbers at once polished and perfect.-DIBDIN, THOMAS FROGNALL, 1824, The Library Companion, p. 737, note.

Is one of the few standard heroic poems in our language. Poetic taste has undergone many remarkable changes since it appeared, but its ardent numbers are constantly resorted to by those who love the fire of the muse as well as her more delicate tracery.-GRISWOLD, RUFUS W., 1844, The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century, p. 114.

The various and magnificent range of English poetry presents no example of early excellence to equal the "Pleasures of Hope.". The laborious polish in the verses of the "Pleasures of Hope" are among the best proofs to what an

extent English is capable of being refined, and how far the capabilities of the language will go to attain in the eyes of true taste a classical and healthful longevity -but to make further comment upon the merit of that which has received the plaudit of the world for half a century would be superfluous and out of place, stamped as it is with the impress of permanent endurance. REDDING, CYRUS, 1846, Life and Reminiscences of Thomas Campbell, New Monthly Magazine, vol. 77, p. 347.

It is almost impossible to speak of it in terms of exaggerated praise; and whether taking it in parts, or as a whole, I do not think I overrate its merits in preferring it to any didactic poem of equal length in the English language. No poet, at such an age, ever produced such an exquisite specimen of poetical mastery—that is, of fine conception and of high art combined. . . . Sentiments tender, energetic, impassioned, eloquent, and majestic, are conveyed to the reader in the tones of a music forever varied-sinking or swelling like the harmonies of an Eolian lyre-yet ever delightful; and these are illustrated by pictures from romance, history, or domestic life, replete with power and beauty.

. . It is like a long fit of inspiration -a checqered melody of transcendent excellence; passage after passage presenting only an ever-varying and varied tissue of whatever is beautiful and sublime in the soul of men and the aspects of nature.— MOIR, D. M., 1851-52, Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century.

Of the nature of a prize poem, though a brilliant one.-ARNOLD, THOMAS, 186875, Chaucer to Wordsworth, p. 413.

It is true that marks of juvenility are everywhere apparent; that the diction is often redundant, and sense not always commensurate with sound. Still it is a poem of sustained rhythmical march of sentiments expressive of every note in the gamut of feeling; and of episodes, whether from history, fiction or domestic life, full of beauty, force, pathos and natural truth.

.. Perhaps there is no didactic poem in our language so well known and loved as this, if not as a whole, by its component parts. There is hardly a doubt that it will continue to be so, in spite of new schools of poetry, and poetical criticism; and that it will retain its place, as a classic, in our

literature, nobly closing that bright era of which Dryden and Pope heralded the morn, and which closed when the star of Wordsworth's genius appeared above the political horizon, to announce a new day-spring of poetry and beauty.-BATES, WILLIAM, 1874-98, The Maclise Portrait Gallery of Illustrious Literary Characters, p. 5.

Campbell's fame is secure in quotation. Many of his lines have become household words.--WELSH, ALFRED H., 1883, Development of English Literature and Language, vol. II, p. 274.

In the last year of the last century appeared Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope." The "Pleasures of Memory," published about seven years previously, had already passed through ten editions, and from Rogers the young Scottish poet seems to have caught his inspiration. It made him famous at once; yet it is difficult to say what attraction readers found in a poem full of inaccuracies and platitudes, and in which, as Hazlitt wittily says, "the decomposition of prose is substituted for the composition of poetry.' Campbell's youthful success, however, affords a striking illustration of the obvious fact that in the realms of gold" immediate popularity is no proof of sterling worth. . Yet the fact remains that Campbell's extraordinary reputation at the outset of his career was due to a poem that is comparatively worthless.-DENNIS, JOHN, 1887, Robert Southey, Introduction, pp. 12, 13.

There are flaws in Campbell's works as there were faults in his life, yet his name is associated with the finest lyrics in the English language, and no higher honour can be coveted by the most ambitious. The rather too rhetorical "Pleasures of Hope" survive, and will endure in single lines only; still it is no mean achievement or slight glory to have added even a few lines to the household speech of a people. -RAE, W. FRASER, 1890, The Bard of Hope, Temple Bar, vol. 90, p. 52.

Its success was so sudden that he was astonished, and so great that he was bewildered; for from that day forward he was, as his friend Scott remarked, afraid of the shadow that his own fame cast before him. Young persons of immature taste and abundant leisure may still recall the glittering and turgid lines of this overrated production; but no lover of its writer

cares for it now. STODDARD, RICHARD HENRY, 1891, A Box of Autographs, Scribner's Magazine, vol. 9, p. 223.

In "The Pleasures of Hope" these romantic enthusiasms were poured with much skill into the classical mould of Popian verse, suffusing without breaking its delicate contours. The literary public was captivated by a succession of impressive images, conveyed in lines of arrowy swiftness and strength. HERFORD, C. H., 1897, The Age of Wordsworth, p. 198.

Much of the success of the poem was no doubt due to the circumstance that it touched with such sympathy on the burning questions of the hour. If, as Stevenson remarks, the poet is to speak efficaciously, he must say what is already in his hearer's mind. This Campbell did, as perhaps no English poet had done before. The French Revolution, the partition of Poland, the abolition of negro-slavery these had set the passion for freedom burning in many breasts, and "The Pleasures of Hope" gave at once vigorous and feeling expression to the doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man. . . . It is not easy at this time of day to approach "The Pleasures of Hope" without a want of sympathy, if not an absolute prejudice, resulting from a whole century of poetical development.- HADDEN, J. CUTHBERT, 1899, Thomas Campbell (Famous Scots Series), p. 44.

GERTRUDE OF WYOMING

1809

We rejoice to see once more a polished and pathetic poem in the old style of English pathos and poetry. This is of the pitch of the "Castle of Indolence," and the finer parts of Spenser; with more feeling, in many places, than the first, and more condensation and diligent finishing than the latter. If the true tone of nature be not everywhere maintained, it gives place, at least, to art only, and not to affectation and, least of all, to affectation There of singularity or rudeness. are but two noble sorts of poetry-the pathetic, and the sublime; and we think. he has given very extraordinary proofs of his talents for both.-JEFFREY, FRANCIS LORD, 1809, Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming, Edinburgh Review, vol. 14, pp. 1, 19. I am very glad that Jeffrey thinks so favourably of Campbell's new poem, for his

good opinion is very essential to the poet's prosperity. Nobody will deny that it abounds in touches of a true genius; but the obscurity and embarrassment in the narrative, and the many boutsrimés which we may charge upon the impatience of his subscribers, prevent me from reading the work yet with that uninterrupted pleasure which poetry must give, or it fails. HORNER, FRANCIS, 1809, Memoirs and Correspondence, vol. I, p. 489.

The secret of Tom Campbell's defense of inaccuracy in costume and description is, that his "Gertrude," etc., has no more locality in common with Pennsylvania than with Penmanmaur. It is notoriously full of grossly false scenery, as all Americans declare, though they praise parts of the poem. It is thus that self-love forever creeps out, like a snake, to sting anything which happens, even accidentally, to stumble upon it -BYRON, LORD, 1821, Journal, Jan. 11.

We conceive that Mr. Campbell excels chiefly in sentiment and imagery. The story moves slow, and is mechanically conducted, and rather resembles a Scotch canal carried over lengthened aqueducts and with a number of locks in it, than one of those rivers that sweep in their majestic course, broad and full, over Transatlantic plains and lose themselves in rolling gulfs, or thunder down lofty precipices. But in the center, the inmost recesses of our poet's heart, the pearly dew of sensibility is distilled and collects, like the diamond in the mine, and the structure of his fame rests on the crystal columns of a polished imagination. We prefer the "Gertrude" to the "Pleasures of Hope," because with perhaps less brilliancy, there is more of tenderness and natural imagery in the former.-HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1825, The Spirit of the Age, p. 236.

The greatest effort of Campbell's genius, however, was his "Gertrude of Wyoming," nor is it ever likely to be excelled in its own peculiar style of excellence. It is superior to "The Pleasures of Hope" in the only one thing in which that poem could be surpassed-purity of diction; while in pathos, and in imaginative power, it is no whit inferior.-MOIR, D. M., 1851-52, Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the Past Half-Century.

The construction of the entire poem is

loose and incoherent. loose and incoherent. Even the love scenes, which, as Hazlitt says, breathe a balmy voluptuousness of sentiment, are generally broken off in the middle. Then he was unwise in adopting the Spenserian stanza. It was quite alien to his style; even Thomson, living long before the romantic revival, managed it more sympathetically than Campbell. The necessities of the rhyme led Campbell to invert his sentences unduly, to tag his lines for the mere sake of the rhyme, and to use affected archaisms with a quite extraordinary clumsiness. Anything more unlike the sweet, easy, graceful compactness of Spenser could scarcely be imagined. Nor are the characters of the poem altogether successful; indeed, with the single exception of the Indian, they are mere shadows. Gertrude herself makes a pretty portrait; but as Hazlitt has remarked, she cannot for a moment compare with Wordsworth's Ruth, the true infant of the woods and child-nature. HADDEN, J. CUTHBERT, 1899, Thomas Campbell (Famous Scots Series), p. 96.

SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH POETS

1819

It is the singular goodness of his criticisms that makes us regret their fewness; for nothing, we think, can be more fair, judicious and discriminating, and at the same time more fine, delicate and original, than the greater part of the discussions with which he has here presented us. It is very rare to find so much sensibility to the beauties of poetry, united with so much toleration for its faults; and so exact a perception of the merits of every particular style, interfering so little with a just estimate of all.-JEFFREY, FRANCIS LORD, 1819-44, Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, vol. II, p. 250.

Read the Poets-English, that is to say -out of Campbell's edition. There is a good deal of taffeta in some of Tom's prefatory phrases, but his work is good as a whole. I like him best, though, in his own poetry.—BYRON, LORD, 1821, Journal,

Jan. 12.

There are also several incidental critical opinions in Campbell's "Specimens" very elegantly expressed, and of a pure as well as highly cultivated taste; but there are others very careless; and some, I think, not a little prejudiced.-BRYDGES, SIR

SAMUEL EGERTON, 1824, Recollections of Foreign Travel, July 23, vol. 1, p. 258.

A mere piece of task-work for the Booksellers and a thing of scissors and paste, save the fine Introduction and a half-adozen of the little Memoirs. -GROSART, ALEXANDER B., 1869, ed., Poems of Phineas Fletcher, Essay, vol. 1. p. ccxxvi.

The essays on poetry which precedes the "Specimens" is a notable contribution to criticism, and the lives are succinct, pithy, and fairly accurate, though such a writer is inevitably weak in minor details. He is especially hard on Euphuism, and it is curious that one of his most severe thrusts is made at Vaughan, to whom he probably owes the charming vision of "the world's grey fathers' in his own "Rainbow." The most valuable portions of the essay are those on Milton and Pope, which, together with such concise and lucid writing as the critical sections of the lives of Goldsmith and Cowper, show that Campbell was master of controversial and expository prose. Despite Miss Mitford's merrymaking, in one of her letters, over the length of time spent in preparing the "Specimens," students cannot but be grateful for them as they stand. The illustrative extracts are not always fortunate, but this is due to the editor's desire for freshness rather than to any lack of taste or judgment.-BAYNE, THOMAS, 1886, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. VIII, p. 395.

THEODRIC

1824

It is distinguished accordingly by a fine and tender finish, both of thought and of diction by a chastened elegance of words and images a mild dignity and tempered pathos in the sentiments, and a general tone of simplicity and directness in the conduct of the story, which, joined to its great brevity, tends at first perhaps to disguise both the richness and the force of the genius required for its production. But though not calculated to strike at once on the dull palled ear of an idle and occupied world, it is of all others perhaps the kind of poetry best fitted to win on our softer hours, and to sink deep into vacant bosoms-unlocking all the sources of fond recollection, and leading us gently on through the mazes of deep and engrossing meditation and thus ministering to a

deeper enchantment and more lasting delight than can ever be inspired by the more importune strains of more ambitious. authors. JEFFREY, FRANCIS LORD, 1825 44, Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, vol. II, p. 447.

Campbell wrote one other long story, "Theodric" by name, which he calls "domestic," and in which he resumes the old heroic couplet (why called "heroic" it is hard to understand), stumping along as if with two wooden legs. It is a commonplace tragedy of real life prosaically related, into which a plainness of speech not usually met with in poetry is occasionally introduced, with a view no doubt to give the effect of reality and truth. Such language might have fulfilled its purpose had the story been written in prose; but being in verse of a stiff and pompous form, the effect is that of incongruity combining two affectations, an affectation of poetic elevation with an affectation of simplicity. In short, the poem is altogether unworthy of its author.-TAYLOR, SIR HENRY, 1880, The English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. IV, p. 231.

GENERAL

With a wail underneath them of tenderer sound.

-HUNT, LEIGH, 1811, The Feast of the Poets.

Have you seen Campbell's poem of "O'Connor's Child?" it is beautiful. In many parts I think it is superior to Scott. -EDGEWORTH, MARIA, 1811, To Miss Ruxton, April, Letters; vol. 1, p. 177.

If the rank of poets were to be settled by particular passages, I should place Campbell above Scott; I should predict, with more confidence, that "Lochiel," the "Exile of Erin, "and the "Mariner's Song" would endure, than I could venture to do about any other verses since Cowper and Burns I had almost said, since Gray and Goldsmith. I am sorry to hear that he is engaged on an epic poem; his genius is lyrical.-MACKINTOSH, SIR JAMES, 1811,