Torijos who was entrapped and butchered by order of Ferdinand VII. at Malaga, used to be a guest there, and many other distinguished men. While busy with his diplomatic duties, Goristiza-properly Don Manoel Eduardo Goristiza y Cepada-employed himself in the composition of his noted comedy, Contijo pan y cebollo, the hint for which was perhaps taken from a piece of M. Scribe. His writings previously published in old Spain, and so popular in Madrid, were entitled Indulgencia para todos, followed by Don Dieguito; las costumbres de antano and Tal cual para cuel. Don Manoel was a relation of the late General Alava, the friend of the Duke of Wellington. The general, who was laid up by an accident in London, happened to have Goristiza with him one day when the duke called: General Alava introduced him, adding," he has been a fool, I fear, in the cause of liberty." The duke bowed, but his countenance did not express any great mark of satisfaction at hearing such a character of the stranger, at least the party introduced fancied as much. The amenity, hospitality, and interesting conversation of Don Manoel can never be forgotten by those who shared them. He was one of the most remarkable writers that contributed to the magazine, but his papers lost their sharpness by translation, and he wrote in French to make his meaning clearer. Campbell, less acquainted with the Spanish dramatic writers than he wished, had known something of Moratin personally. He censured him for having badly imitated Molière in his Mogigata, but Goristiza undeceived him in this respect. He was not before aware in what regard the chief excellences of the then living poet* consisted, nor that he was a reformer of the Spanish dramatic school. Being told that Moratin was viewed with a jealous eye by the Spanish government on account of the French under Joseph Bonaparte having made him librarian in Madrid, and that his exile was voluntary, he remarked that it would soon have been compulsory, since a reform in letters might be dangerous to the strongest ally of the Holy Allies-ignorance. Campbell repeated that he acquired from Goristiza the settlement of many doubts in regard to the writers of Spain, Cervantes, and I think he stated the poet Lopez de Vega, respecting whom Lord Holland had given him considerable information. I well remember Campbeli's surprise on Goristiza informing him beyond a doubt of the literary fecundity of Lopez de Vega, which he had himself doubted, and Calderon's labour too after the period of threescore years and ten, extraordinary antipodes to his own scanty toils. Many were the laughs about Quevedo and his scheme to satirise the living through the dead. "He scandalised no person," said Campbell, "only the 'damned' and therefore no living individual could feel his work a satire; his wit, to me so great, must in his own country be deemed inimitable; in the midst of monks, friars, and absolute kings, his boldness equalled his wit."

Goristiza thought he had never been estimated high enough even in Spain. One series of Goristiza's papers begun in 1824. They treated of the Spanish theatre, and, being written by the successor of the distinguished Moratin, are well worthy of note, and may be regarded as the best authority in the English language on the modern Spanish stage.

He left Spain, resided at Bordeaux for several years, then went to Paris, where he died in 1828, and was buried in Pére la Chaise. See New Monthly, vols. x. and xi. Article "Spanish Theatre."

It was seldom the poet amused himself by turning punster, and when he happened to make the attempt he generally endeavoured to manufacture his puns of the species better characterised by absurdity than wit. A little circumlocution in their character was sure to be discoverable. When he lived in Upper Seymour-street West, those who knew his house must have observed that it adjoined an archway leading to some mews. He had promised certain verses of his own on a particular day, and true to appointment brought them over the way himself. No sooner was he seated than he said, taking the lines from his pocket, "These are the last I shall bring you."

"How so?"

"You must supply yourself; you are twice as good a poet as I am." "I don't comprehend."

Why I have only one muse and you have two."

It was singular enough that almost in sight of his house, but in Lower Frederick-street, Connaught-place, mine should have had a mews, too, not only adjoining my house as in his own case, but there was a second nearly opposite Eastward's in the same street. I accused him of having been the twelvemonths during which I had lived in the same place in concocting the pun, or he would have promulgated it before, which he stoutly denied.

He was greatly attached to Glasgow, and said he had passed happy youthful hours there. His early associations were all with it, and yet he had worked hard, so that its recollection, he said, had a mixture of toil and enjoyment; it was a city to him "flowing with syllogisms and ale."

Irving, the celebrated Scotch preacher, called upon him one day, for what purpose he could not conjecture, as he thought that strange being never quite compos mentis, while all London was running after his wild

sermons.

"What can he want with me ?" said Campbell, a discussion upon divinity with a backslider like myself would be as idle as talking of fluxions to Sir William Curtis."

The renowned preacher had merely called to inquire for the address of a friend whom Campbell knew-at least such was Irving's statement to Mrs. Campbell. I called just at the same time.

"Were you not alarmed, Mrs. Campbell, to see the wild-looking being come into the drawing-room? he might make a convert of your husband."

"O, no," she replied, "he is inconvertible."

Never insensible to female beauty, and fond of the society of women, it was singular that Campbell, the poet of sentiment and imagery, should have written little or nothing breathing of ardent affection. It is doubtful whether he ever experienced love in its intensity; whether a subdued feeling of attachment, an almost feminine tenderness of regard did not with him occupy the place of strong natural passion. In his works there is an artificial rather than a natural dealing with the attachment to the There is the mild and beneficent sunshine without its warmth. "Were I but an Asiatic !" he exclaimed one evening at a rout where there were a number of lovely women.

sex.

"Why, Campbell ?"

"Because so many beautiful women make one think of the advantages of a faith that sanctions polygamy," he replied, laughing.

He once heard a lady arguing strongly against the commonly received belief as to the divinity of the second person of the Trinity.

"She only argues as she feels," said the poet, "anthropomorphism is natural where mortal man is most in estimation."

It was necessary to witness the poet when he was busy in his study, or taken up with literary composition, in order to judge of the weight the task seemed to impose upon him. He always sought retirement for the work of composition, when he would sometimes sit, at others stand at his labour. For prose he generally perfected the complete sentence in his mind before he committed it to paper, whence it became a greater effort of memory in the construction than if he had written, and afterwards altered or corrected it.

Unless when he had previously signified, as I have before said, his desire to remain perfectly uninterrupted by any person whatever, which was seldom understood in regard to myself, I entered his study. If I saw him busy; I took a chair and a book until his more immediate occupation was concluded. In the meanwhile he would continue his labour, now sitting, now walking up and down the room, sometimes with his pipe-for out of his study he never smoked-as if he wanted something stimulating to continue his task. Now he would stop to indite a sentence, or walk leisurely to his books for a reference, his library, when he lived in Seymour-street, being tolerably large. In a morning, when he could not smoke, I have again and again seen him uncover a tobacco-box, which generally stood upon his table, and taking a small quantity of that which he used for smoking, introduce it into his mouth, chew it for a few minutes, and then, as if it were too powerful for him, cast it under the grate. So much did he seem to lack a species of stimulus while pursuing his avocations. It must be observed that this was not a habit, but appeared to be adopted in the same way as students take coffee to enable them to prolong their attention to their labours.

Campbell rarely copied his prose manuscript, but sent it to press as it was first written out. It was different with his poetry, which he generally wrote out in a very fair, neat hand. From his habit of rendering his sentences perfect as he proceeded, he was so long in their completion that they sometimes, though rarely, seemed to be in a slight degree disjoined from their predecessors. There were times when he wrote as the ideas arose, in a considerable hurry, and then his manuscript was hurried and nearly unintelligible ;-this was more particularly the case when he wrote under indisposition. He would sometimes take it into his head to rule black-lead lines on paper for the purpose of copying out his poetry, but this was by no means a uniform rule, but rather the result of a momentary fancy, since he could hardly be said to act by a fixed rule in any thing connected with his literary compositions. Procrastination was too common with the poet; he would promise it by such a time if I would come and dine or take tea with him. He was generally punctual when he knew that only a couple of days were wanting of the latest period at which his manuscript could be admitted, though sometimes the printer went to press without his contribution, which lay over for the following month. It was the custom to get the printer to leave a certain number of pages blank upon his account, and thus his own was the last part of the magazine printed, though generally the first article. It was always necessary to keep some short paper, or a page or two of verse,

ready to aid in filling up the vacancy, when his contribution fell short of the expected quantity.

It was perfectly easy to proceed in such a business with the poet when his peculiarities were understood. To put him out of his way even slightly was an effectual obstacle to the fulfilment of the required duty. His appointments were generally kept with punctuality, which might seem anomalous with his habits in literary labour, to which he would only adhere fitfully and by starts, sometimes he could not be got to attend to the simplest work, and would evade it by all sorts of devices; but he was not the less exemplary in intention where he chanced to fail. He reflected that he put another person to inconvenience by any lapse of the kind, and no man was more considerate about annoying others. Whenever he chanced to cause inconvenience to any one it arose out of that habit of abstraction or of forgetfulness, which has already been alluded to.

The conduct of the editorship of the magazine was not at all calculated to spur Campbell to literary exertion. He had acquired as much fame as he could well expect to obtain; he had a conviction that he should not be able to excel his former efforts, and that the chance of any accession of reputation was very problematical; his pecuniary cravings were satisfied by the emolument, for he was not at all inclined to look at literature as a means of amassing wealth, well knowing that in this country intellect has no chance of gaining more than a daily competency, it being also esteemed a secondary thing. He was satisfied with an income sufficient for his moderate wants, and preferred as much of the indolence of a literary life as he could contrive to maintain. Age did not change this feeling for a better, unfortunately.

Sir Walter Scott wondered that Campbell, who was possessed of so much genius of the highest character, did not do more. It was hardly possible for one of a temperament so entirely different to account for the conduct of the poet in this respect. Scott was a man of exceedingly strong constitutional endurance. He felt none of the shrinking delicacy which accompanies a bodily frame attuned to the most exquisite vibrations -sensitive beyond belief, and exceedingly regardful of a literary reputation, already secured, as he was well aware, upon a permanent basis. This is no imaginary conclusion. It was not, as Scott supposed, that the poet was afraid of the "shadow his own fame cast before him." Such a circumstance would not account for the degree of negligence he showed in his specimens of the poets, nor for lapses of a similar character that occurred in other articles from his pen. He was by nature a poet, whose muse was propitious only at her own pleasure, on some casual impulse, some unforeseen attraction from an enamoured object, singing in so elevated a manner, and from this very cause singing with so much more power and energy than she would have done had her voice been continually on the stretch. Man is not formed according to the ideal images of his kind, nor are the peculiarities of his disposition or his mental bias to be discriminated and fixed upon every imaginary hypothesis that is framed for him in the mind of another.

There was a species of caprice, rather, perhaps, irresolution in the conduct of the poet at times, not at all inconsistent with the character sometimes ascribed to genius. He would start of a sudden into the country for the sake of a temporary solitude. He wrote me one day,

"I want to be alone for a short time, there is no being by oneself in London. I am going off to Sydenham in the first instance, there I shall

be until Thursday" (this was Monday). "I wish my address to be kept a profound secret-you shall hear when I go to plant myself in other quarters."

He set out accordingly, altered his mind on the way, and went somewhere into Kent, writing to Mrs. Campbell, to her surprise, from a place near Canterbury, and came back to town, his letter not preceding him more than twenty-four hours. He would sometimes set out on a visit from which he had anticipated much pleasure, get tired in a couple of days, and want an excuse to return, when he never failed to write to me and request I would give him an excuse on the score of the magazine and business. The ruse of the magazine was thus frequently played off. He once went on a visit to Sir Thomas Dyer. He was certain he should stay some days, and as Mrs. Campbell went with him, he ordered all letters to be sent to me to keep, open, and do with as I deemed necessary. Of his whims in this respect the following extract of a letter affords a specimen :

"I believe I must leave you to correct this dull essay on the London College, yet if I could have a re-proof it would be desirable. I have left you my address at General Dyer's. If any paper or letter comes to you for me, with a coronet seal and a card enclosed, have the goodness to send it for me to -, office, Whitehall. Any other forward to Sir Thomas Dyer's, or retain at your pleasure. Only send for me back imperatively by the first of the month, for I wish myself back already."

M. DE KERATRY, peer of France, in one of those picturesque orations which the French are in the habit of delivering over the grave of departed genius, most feelingly and appropriately remarks, that now that religion has poured forth its holy prayers over the coffin of the illustrious dead, and that it has prayed to the Almighty to pardon its creature the faults and imperfections which are inseparable from human weakness; it is permitted to literature to express its regrets at the loss of the inimitable actress, who constituted for so many years the glory and the fortune of French comedy.

The date of this great actress's birth may now be revealed. So long as Mademoiselle Mars was alive, it would have been ungallant to dwell upon such details, for that eminent lady took infinite pains to forget the fatal date. Only seven years ago, as Mademoiselle de Belle Isle, she appeared on the long-relinquished boards as a young girl, with a small foot, a plump hand and arm, a charming smile, and an enchanting voice. Only seven or eight years ago Mademoiselle Mars, being summoned as a witness before a court of justice, answered, upon the president asking her

* Suggestions respecting a plan for the London University † Underlined to show how I was to understand it.