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. of singularity or rudeness. . There 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. 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, 182544, 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

To the famed throng now paid the tribute due,

Neglected genius! let me turn to you. Come forth, O Campbell! give thy talents scope;

Who dares aspire if thou must cease to hope? -BYRON, LORD, 1809, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

Campbell, for Hope and fine war-songs renown'd,

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.

The exquisite harmony of his versification is elaborated, perhaps, from the "Castle of Indolence" of Thomson, and the serious pieces of Goldsmith; and it seems to be his misfortune, not to be able to reconcile himself to any thing which he cannot reduce within the limits of this elaborate harmony. This extreme fastidiousness, and the limitation of his efforts to themes of unbroken tenderness or sublimity, distinguish him from the careless, prolific, and miscellaneous authors of our primitive poetry; while the enchanting softness of his pathetic passages, and the power and originality of his more sublime conceptions, place him at a still greater distance from the wits, as they truly called themselves, of Charles II. and Queen Anne. -JEFFREY, FRANCIS LORD, 1811-44, Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, vol. II, p. 295.

Byron's and Scott's "Poems" (I have read) and must admire, though you recollect, we used to give Campbell a decided preference, and I still think, with justice. -CARLYLE, THOMAS, 1814, To Robert Mitchell, Oct. 18; Early Letters, ed. Norton, p. 90.

Mr. Campbell always seems to me to be thinking how his poetry will look when it comes to be hot-pressed on superfine wove paper, to have a disproportionate eye to points and commas, and dread of errors of the press. He is so afraid of doing wrong, of making the smallest mistake, that he does little or nothing. Lest he should wander irretrievably from the right

path, he stands still. He writes according to established etiquette. He offers the Muses no violence. If he lights upon a good thought he immediately drops it for fear of spoiling a good thing. When he launches a sentiment that you think will float him triumphantly for once to the bottom of the stanza, he stops short at the end of the first or second line, and stands shivering on the brink of beauty, afraid to trust himself to the fathomless abyss. Tutus nimium,timidusque procellarum. His very circumspection betrays him. The poet, as well as the woman, that deliberates, is undone. He is much like a man whose heart fails him just as he is going up in a balloon, and who breaks his neck by flinging himself out of it when it is too

I understand that Mr. Thomas Campbell has in some newspaper in a paltry refutation of some paltry charge of plagiarism regarding his paltry poem in the paltry Edinburgh touched the egg of my last man -the gentleman is completely addled.BEDDOES, THOMAS LOVELL, 1825, To Thomas Forbes Kelsall, Letters, p. 55.

I wonder often how Tom Campbell, with so much real genius, has not maintained a greater figure in the public eye than he has done of late. The Magazine seems to have paralyzed him. The author, not only of the "Pleasures of Hope," but of "Hohenlinden," "Lochiel," &c., should have been at the very top of the tree. Somehow he wants audacity, fears the public, and what is worse, fears the shadow of his own reputation. He is a great corrector too, which succeeds as ill in composition as in education. Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce, and many an original composition corrected into mediocrity. Tom ought to have done a great deal more: his youthful promise was great.-SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1826, Journal, June 29; Life by Lockhart,ch.lxxi. Campbell, whom Freedom's deathless Hope endears.

-ELLIOTT, EBENEZER, 1829, The Village Patriarch, Book iv.

What the devil did you mean by classing Campbell and one Pollok together in your

toast at the St. Andrew's dinner? Your wine must have been detestable. No sensible man like yourself could have made such a remark under the influence of

Can

champagne or Scottish whiskey. Campbell and Pollok. Hyperion to a satyr! Pray can you repeat without a book six lines of the "Course of Time?" If so, you have a very good memory badly employed. you not repeat without book every line which Tom Campbell has published? If not, you have never been as happy a man as you ought to have been.-HALLECK, FITZ-GREENE, 1831, Letter to James Lawson, Life and Letters, ed. Wilson, p. 349.

I should not omit this opportunity to mention that the Greenock paper was established by a Mr. John Davidson, a connexion with whom was afterwards formed by Mr. Thomas Campbell, the poet, in his marriage. Mr. Davidson was a very

worthy, illess bodie, and he has in my opinion the merit of first shewing with how little intellectual ability a newspaper may be conducted. I say not this in malice, but in sober sadness; for when Campbell wrote his "Battle of Hohenlinden," I got an early copy, which I sent to Mr. Davidson to be inserted, but he with a sage face afterwards told me, that it was not worthy of a place in his paper.-GALT, JOHN, 1833, Autobiography, vol. I, p. 52.

The conversation here turned upon Campbell's poem of "Gertrude of Wyoming, "as illustrative of the poetic materials furnished by American scenery.

He (Scott) cited several passages of it with great delight. "What pity it is," said he, "that Campbell does not write more, and oftener, and give full sweep to his genius." He has wings that would bear him to the skies; and he does, now and then, spread them grandly, but folds them up again, and resumes his perch, as if he was afraid to launch away.. "What a grand idea is that," said he, "about prophetic boding, or, in common parlance, second sight'Coming events cast their shadows before.'

The fact is," added he, "Campbell is, in a manner, a bugbear to himself. The brightness of his early success is a detriment to all his further efforts. He is afraid of the shadow that his own fame casts before him."-IRVING, WASHINGTON, 1835, Abbottsford.

Dinner at Rogers's. Almost over when I arrived. Company: Wordsworth, Landseer, Taylor, and Miss R. A good deal of talk about Campbell's poetry, which they were all much disposed to carp at and depreciate, more particularly Wordsworth. I remarked that Campbell's lesser poems, his sea odes, &c., bid far more fair, I thought, for immortality than almost any of the lyrics of the present day; on which they all began to pick holes in some of the most beautiful of these things.-MOORE, THOMAS, 1837, Diary, Aug. 10; Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence, vol. VII, p. 197.

Do not start if I tell you that in my poor opinion Campbell is a much better poet than Petrarch. I do not say a better; I say a much better.-LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE, 1842, Some Letters of Walter Savage Landor, The Century, vol. 35, p. 520.

What lauding sepulchre does Campbell want? 'Tis his to give, and not derive renown. What monumental bronze or adamant, Like his own deathless lays can hand him down?

SMITH, HORACE, 1844, Campbell's Funeral.

In yon Minster's hallow'd corner, where the bards and sages rest,

Is a silent chamber waiting to receive another guest.

Tears along mine eyes are rushing, but the proudest tears they be,

Which in manly eyes may gather, -tears 'twere never shame to see;

Tears that water lofty purpose; tears of welcome to the fame

Of the bard that hath ennobled Scotland's dear and noble name.

-MARTIN, SIR THEODORE, 1844, The Interment of Thomas Campbell.

critical illustration. Campbell's poetry has little need of His chief merit is rhetorical. There is not vagueness of mysticism in his verse. The scenes and feelings he delineates are common to human beings in general, and the impressive style with which these are unfolded, owes its charm to vigor of language and forcible clearness of epithet. Many of

his lines ring with a harmonious energy, and seem the offspring of the noblest enthusiasm. This is especially true of his martial lyrics, which in their way are unsurpassed.-GRISWOLD, RUFUS W., 1844, The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century, p. 114.

Campbell possessed a noble nature, but its impulses were checked by an incurable laziness. He "dawdled" too much over his long compositions. The curse of his life was a pension of two hundred pounds. The capacity of the man is best displayed in those burning lyrics, which were called forth by the events of his time. When his soul was roused to its utmost, it ever manifested great qualities. His poems, generally, will probably live. Had

Campbell written "Childe Harold," it would have cost him ten years more labor than it did the author, and would not have been half as long.-WHIPPLE, EDWIN P., 1845, English Poets of the Nineteenth Century, American Review, July; Essays and Reviews.

I looked at the life of Campbell by a foolish Dr. Beattie; a glorious specimen of the book-making of this age. Campbell