Page images
PDF
EPUB

his talents. But Lord John Russell has justly remembered by all. They are equally the delight characterised this weakness in Moore as being of the cottage and the saloon, and, in the poet's wholly free from envy. It never took the shape own country, are sung with an enthusiasm that of depreciating others that his own superiority will long be felt in the hour of festivity, as well might become conspicuous. His love of praise as in periods of suffering and solemnity, by that was joined with the most generous and liberal imaginative and warm-hearted people. dispensation of praise to others--he relished the works of Byron and Scott as if he had been himself no competitor for fame with them.' Ill success might have tinctured the poet's egotism with bitterness, but this he never knew; and such a feeling could not have remained long with a man so constitutionally genial and light-hearted.

When time shall have destroyed the remembrance of Moore's personal qualities, and removed his works to a distance, to be judged of by their fruit alone, the want most deeply felt will be that of simplicity and genuine passion. He has worked little in the durable and permanent materials of poetry, but has spent his prime in enriching the stately structure with exquisite ornaments, foliage, flowers, and gems. Yet he often throws into his gay and festive verses, and his fanciful descriptions, touches of pensive and mournful reflection, which strike by their truth and beauty, and by the force of contrast. Indeed, one effect of the genius of Moore has been, to elevate the feelings and occurrences of ordinary life into poetry, rather than dealing with the lofty abstract elements of the art. The combinations of his wit are wonderful. Quick, subtle, and varied, ever suggesting new thoughts or images, or unexpected turns of expression-now drawing resources from classical literature or the ancient fathers-now diving into the human heart, and now skimming the fields of fancy-the wit or imagination of Moore (for they are compounded together) is a true Ariel, 'a creature of the elements,' that is ever buoyant and full of life and spirit. His very satires 'give delight and hurt not.' They are never coarse, and always witty. When stung by an act of oppression or intolerance, he could be bitter or sarcastic enough; but some lively thought or sportive image soon crossed his path, and he instantly followed it into the open and genial region where he loved most to indulge. He never dipped his pen in malignity. For an author who has written so much as Moore on the subject of love and the gay delights of good-fellowship, it was scarcely possible to be always natural and original. Some of his lyrics and occasional poems, accordingly, present far-fetched metaphors and conceits, with which they often conclude, like the final flourish or pirouette of a stage-dancer. He exhausted the vocabulary of rosy lips and sparkling eyes, forgetting that true passion is ever direct and simple-ever concentrated and intense, whether bright or melancholy. This defect, however, pervades only part of his songs, and those mostly written in his youth. The Irish Melodies are full of true feeling and delicacy. By universal consent, and by the sure test of memory, these national strains are the most popular and the most likely to be immortal of all Moore's works. They are musical almost beyond parallel in words-graceful in thought and sentiment-often tender, pathetic, and heroic-and they blend poetical and romantic feelings with the objects and sympathies of common life in language chastened and refined, yet apparently so simple that every trace of art has disappeared. The songs are read and

'Tis the Last Rose of Summer.

'Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone;
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,

Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem ;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,

When friendships decay,
And from love's shining circle
The gems drop away!
When true hearts lie withered,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit

This bleak world alone?

The Turf shall be my Fragrant Shrine.
The turf shall be my fragrant shrine;
My temple, Lord! that arch of thine;
My censer's breath the mountain airs,
And silent thoughts my only prayers.
My choir shall be the moonlight waves,
When murmuring homeward to their caves,
Or when the stillness of the sea,
Even more than music, breathes of Thee!

I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown,
All light and silence, like thy Throne !
And the pale stars shall be, at night,
The only eyes that watch my rite.
Thy heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look,
Shall be my pure and shining book,
Where I shall read, in words of flame,
The glories of thy wondrous name.

I'll read thy anger in the rack

That clouds awhile the day-beam's track ;
Thy mercy in the azure hue

Of sunny brightness breaking through!

There's nothing bright, above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that glow,
But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of thy Deity!

There's nothing dark, below, above,
But in its gloom I trace thy love,
And meekly wait that moment, when
Thy touch shall turn all bright again!

JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE.

In 1817, Mr Murray published a small poetical volume under the eccentric title of Prospectus and Specimen of an intended National Work, by

William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket in Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers. Intended to comprise the most Interesting Particulars relating to King Arthur and his Round Table. The world was surprised to find, under this odd disguise, a happy imitation of the Pulci and Casti school of the Italian poets. The brothers Whistlecraft formed, it was quickly seen, but the mask of some elegant and scholarly wit belonging to the higher circles of society, who had chosen to amuse himself in comic verse, without incurring the responsibilities of declared authorship. To two cantos published in the above year, a third and fourth were soon after added. The poem opens with a feast held by King Arthur at Carlisle amidst his knights, who are thus introduced:

They looked a manly generous generation; Beards, shoulders, eyebrows, broad, and square, and thick,

Their accents firm and loud in conversation,
Their eyes and gestures eager, sharp, and quick,
Shewed them prepared, on proper provocation,
To give the lie, pull noses, stab and kick;
And for that very reason, it is said,

They were so very courteous and well-bred.

My dear, you might recover from your flurry,
In a nice airy lodging out of town,
At Croydon, Epsom, anywhere in Surrey;
If every stanza brings us in a crown,
I think that I might venture to bespeak
A bedroom and front-parlour for next week.

Tell me, my dear Thalia, what you think ;
Your nerves have undergone a sudden shock;
Your poor dear spirits have begun to sink;
On Banstead Downs you 'd muster a new stock,
And I'd be sure to keep away from drink,
And always go to bed by twelve o'clock.
We'll travel down there in the morning stages;
Our verses shall go down to distant ages.
And here in town we 'll breakfast on hot rolls,
And you shall have a better shawl to wear;
These pantaloons of mine are chafed in holes ;
By Monday next I'll compass a new pair:
Come now, fling up the cinders, fetch the coals,
And take away the things you hung to air;
Set out the tea-things, and bid Phoebe bring
The kettle up. Arms and the Monks I sing.
Near the valley of the giants was an abbey, con-
taining fifty friars, fat and good,' who keep for
a long time on good terms with their neighbours.
Being fond of music, the giants would sometimes

In a valley near Carlisle lived a race of giants; approach the sacred pile, attracted by the sweet and this place is finely described :

Huge mountains of immeasurable height
Encompassed all the level valley round
With mighty slabs of rock, that sloped upright,
An insurmountable and enormous mound.
The very river vanished out of sight,
Absorbed in secret channels under ground;
That vale was so sequestered and secluded,
All search for ages past it had eluded.

A rock was in the centre, like a cone,
Abruptly rising from a miry pool,
Where they beheld a pile of massy stone,
Which masons of the rude primeval school
Had reared by help of giant hands alone,
With rocky fragments unreduced by rule:
Irregular, like nature more than art,
Huge, rugged, and compact in every part.

A wild tumultuous torrent raged around,
Of fragments tumbling from the mountain's height;
The whistling clouds of dust, the deafening sound,
The hurried motion that amazed the sight,
The constant quaking of the solid ground,
Environed them with phantoms of affright;
Yet with heroic hearts they held right on,
Till the last point of their ascent was won.

The giants having attacked and carried off some ladies on their journey to court, the knights deem it their duty to set out in pursuit ; and in due time they overcome those grim personages, and relieve the captives from the castle in which they had been immured:

[blocks in formation]

sounds that issued from it; and here occurs a beautiful piece of description:

Oft that wild untutored race would draw,
Led by the solemn sound and sacred light,
Beyond the bank, beneath a lonely shaw,
To listen all the livelong summer night,
Till deep, serene, and reverential awe
Environed them with silent calm delight,
Contemplating the minster's midnight gleam,
Reflected from the clear and glassy stream.

But chiefly, when the shadowy moon had shed
O'er woods and waters her mysterious hue,
Their passive hearts and vacant fancies fed
With thoughts and aspirations strange and new,
Till their brute souls with inward working bred
Dark hints that in the depths of instinct grew
Subjective-not from Locke's associations,
Nor David Hartley's doctrine of vibrations.
Each was ashamed to mention to the others
One half of all the feelings that he felt,

Yet thus for each would venture: Listen, brothers,
It seems as if one heard Heaven's thunders melt
In music!'

Unfortunately, this happy state of things is broken up by the introduction of a ring of bells into the abbey, a kind of music to which the giants had an

insurmountable aversion :

The solemn mountains that surrounded
The silent valley where the convent lay,
With tintinnabular uproar were astounded
When the first peal burst forth at break of day:
Feeling their granite ears severely wounded,
They scarce knew what to think or what to say;
And-though large mountains commonly conceal
Their sentiments, dissembling what they feel,
Yet-Cader-Gibbrish from his cloudy throne
To huge Loblommon gave an intimation
Of this strange rumour, with an awful tone,
Thundering his deep surprise and indignation;
The lesser hills, in language of their own,
Discussed the topic by reverberation;
Discoursing with their echoes all day long,
Their only conversation was, 'ding-dong.'

These giant mountains inwardly were moved,
But never made an outward change of place;
Not so the mountain giants (as behoved
A more alert and locomotive race);
Hearing a clatter which they disapproved,
They ran straight forward to besiege the place,
With a discordant universal yell,

Like house-dogs howling at a dinner-bell.

This is evidently meant as a good-humoured satire against violent personifications in poetry. Meanwhile a monk, Brother John by name, who had opposed the introduction of the bells, has gone, in a fit of disgust with his brethren, to amuse himself with the rod at a neighbouring stream. Here occurs another beautiful descriptive passage: A mighty current, unconfined and free, Ran wheeling round beneath the mountain's shade, Battering its wave-worn base; but you might see On the near margin many a watery glade, Becalmed beneath some little island's lee, All tranquil and transparent, close embayed; Reflecting in the deep serene and even

Each flower and herb, and every cloud of heaven ;

The painted kingfisher, the branch above her,
Stand in the steadfast mirror fixed and true;
Anon the fitful breezes brood and hover,
Freshening the surface with a rougher hue ;
Spreading, withdrawing, pausing, passing over,
Again returning to retire anew :

So rest and motion in a narrow range,
Feasted the sight with joyous interchange.

Brother John, placed here by mere chance, is apprised of the approach of the giants in time to run home and give the alarm. Amidst the preparations for defence, to which he exhorts his brethren, the abbot dies, and John is elected to succeed him. A stout resistance is made by the monks, whom their new superior takes care to feed well by way of keeping them in heart, and the giants at length withdraw from the scene of action. It finally appears that the pagans have retired in order to make the attack upon the ladies, which had formerly been described—no bad burlesque of the endless episodes of the Italian romantic poets.

It was soon discovered that the author of this clever jeu d'esprit was the Right Honourable John Hookham Frere, a person of high political consequence, who had been employed a few years before by the British government to take charge of diplomatic transactions in Spain in connection with the army under General Sir John Moore. The Whistlecraft poetry was carried no further; but the peculiar stanza (the ottava rima of Italy), and the sarcastic pleasantry, formed the immediate exemplar which guided Byron when he wrote his Beppo and Don Juan; and one couplet

Adown thy slope, romantic Ashbourn, glides
The Derby dilly, carrying six insides-

It

became at a subsequent period the basis of an allusion almost historical in importance, with reference to a small party in the House of Commons. Thus the national poem attained a place of some consequence in our modern literature. is only to be regretted that the poet, captivated by indolence or the elegances of a luxurious taste, gave no further specimen of his talents to the world.

For many years Mr Frere resided in Malta, in

the enjoyment of a handsome pension, conferred for diplomatic services, of £1516 per annum, and at Malta he died on the 7th January 1846, aged seventy-seven. In the Life of Sir Walter Scott, there are some particulars respecting the meeting of the declining novelist with his friend, the author of Whistlecraft. We there learn from Scott, that the remarkable war-song upon the victory at Brunnenburg, which appears in Mr Ellis's Specimens of Ancient English Poetry, and might pass in a court of critics as a genuine composition of the fourteenth century, was written by Mr Frere while an Eton school-boy, as an illustration on one side of the celebrated Rowley controversy. We are also informed by Mrs John Davy, in her diary, quoted by Mr Lockhart, that Sir Walter on this occasion repeated a pretty long passage from his version of one of the romances of the Cidpublished in the appendix to Southey's quartoand seemed to enjoy a spirited charge of the knights therein described as much as he could have done in his best days, placing his walkingstick in rest like a lance, "to suit the action to the word." We may here redeem from comparative obscurity a piece of poetry so much admired by Scott :

[ocr errors]

The gates were then thrown open,

and forth at once they rushed, The outposts of the Moorish hosts

back to the camp were pushed;

The camp was all in tumult,

and there was such a thunder

Of cymbals and of drums,

as if earth would cleave in sunder. There you might see the Moors

arming themselves in haste,

And the two main battles

how they were forming fast; Horsemen and footmen mixt,

a countless troop and vast. The Moors are moving forward,

the battle soon must join,

، My men, stand here in order, ranged upon a line! Let not a man move from his rank before I give the sign.' Pero Bermuez heard the word,

but he could not refrain, He held the banner in his hand,

he gave his horse the rein; 'You see yon foremost squadron there, the thickest of the foes,

Noble Cid, God be your aid,

for there your banner goes! Let him that serves and honours it, shew the duty that he owes.' Earnestly the Cid called out,

'For Heaven's sake be still!'

Bermuez cried, 'I cannot hold,'

so eager was his will. He spurred his horse, and drove him on amid the Moorish rout:

They strove to win the banner,

and compassed him about. Had not his armour been so true,

he had lost either life or limb; The Cid called out again,

'For Heaven's sake succour him!' Their shields before their breasts, forth at once they go,

Their lances in the rest

levelled fair and low; Their banners and their crests waving in a row,

[blocks in formation]

the champion of Bivar;
Strike amongst them, gentlemen,
for sweet mercies' sake!'

There where Bermuez fought

amidst the foe they brake;
Three hundred bannered knights,
it was a gallant show;

Three hundred Moors they killed,
a man at every blow:

When they wheeled and turned,

as many more lay slain,
You might see them raise their lances,
and level them again.
There you might see the breast-plates,
how they were cleft in twain,
And many a Moorish shield

lie scattered on the plain.
The pennons that were white

marked with a crimson stain,

The horses running wild

whose riders had been slain.

In 1871, the Works of Frere, in Verse and Prose, and a Memoir by his nephews, were published in 2 vols.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

on every new edition of two thousand copies, and
allowed him, in 1803, to publish a quarto subscrip-
tion-copy, by which he realised about £1000. It
was in a 'dusky lodging' in Alison Square, Edin-
burgh, that the Pleasures of Hope was composed;
and the fine opening simile was suggested by the
scenery of the Firth of Forth as seen from the
Calton Hill. The poem was instantly successful.
The volume went through four editions in a
twelvemonth. After the publication of the first
edition, 154 lines were added to the poem. It
captivated all readers by its varying and exquisite
melody, its polished diction, and the vein of gener-
ous and lofty sentiment which seemed to embalm
and sanctify the entire poem. The touching and
beautiful episodes with which it abounds con-
stituted also a source of deep interest; and in
picturing the horrors of war, and the infamous
partition of Poland, the poet kindled up into a
strain of noble indignant zeal and prophet-like
inspiration.

Oh, bloodiest picture in the book of Time!
Sarmatia fell, unwept, without a crime;
Found not a generous friend, a pitying foe,
Strength in her arms, nor mercy in her woe!
Dropped from her nerveless grasp the shattered spear,
Closed her bright eye, and curbed her high career :
Hope, for a season, bade the world farewell,
And Freedom shrieked-as Kosciusko fell!
The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there;
Tumultuous Murder shook the midnight air-
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow,
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below;
The storm prevails, the rampart yields a way,
Bursts the wild cry of horror and dismay!
Hark! as the smouldering piles with thunder fall,
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call!
Earth shook, red meteors flashed along the sky,
And conscious Nature shuddered at the cry!

THOMAS CAMPBELL was born in the city of Glasgow, July 27, 1777. He was of a good Highland family, the Campbells of Kirnan, in Argyllshire, who traced their origin from the first Norman lord of Lochawe. The property, however, had passed from the ancient race, and the poet's father carried on business in Glasgow as a merchant or trader with Virginia. He was unsuccessful, and in his latter days subsisted on some small income derived from a merchants' society Traces of juvenility may be found in the Pleasures and provident institution, aided by his industrious of Hope-a want of connection between the differwife, who received into their house as boarders ent parts of the poem, some florid lines and young men attending college. Thomas received imperfect metaphors; but such a series of beautia good education, and was distinguished at the ful and dazzling pictures, so pure and elevated a university, particularly for his translations from tone of moral feeling, and such terse, vigorous, the Greek. The Greek professor, John Young, and polished versification, were never perhaps pronounced his translation of part of the Clouds before found united in a poem written at the age of Aristophanes the best version that had ever of twenty-one. Shortly after its publication, Campbeen given in by any student. He had previously bell visited the continent. He sailed from Leith received a prize for an English poem, an Essay on for Hamburg on the 1st of June 1800; and prothe Origin of Evil, modelled on the style of Pope. ceeding from thence to Ratisbon, witnessed the Other poetical pieces, written between his four- decisive action which gave Ratisbon to the French. teenth and sixteenth year, evince Campbell's The poet stood with the monks of the Scottish peculiar delicacy of taste and select poetical dic- college of St James, on the ramparts near the tion. He became tutor in a family resident in the monastery, while a charge of Klenau's cavalry island of Mull, and about this time met with his was made upon the French. He saw no other 'Caroline of the West,' the daughter of a minister scenes of actual warfare, but made various excurof Inveraray. The winter of 1795 saw him again sions into the interior, and was well received by in Glasgow, attending college, and supporting him- General Moreau and the other French_officers. self by private tuition. Next year he was some It has been generally supposed that Campbell time tutor in the family of Mr Downie of Appin, was present at the battle of Hohenlinden, but it also in the Highlands; and this engagement was not fought until some weeks after he had completed, he repaired to Edinburgh, hesitated left Bavaria. During his residence on the Danube between the church and the law as a profession, and the Elbe, the poet wrote some of his exquisite but soon abandoning all hopes of either, he em- minor poems, which were published in the Mornployed himself in private teaching and in literary ing Chronicle newspaper. The first of these was work for the booksellers. Poetry was not ne- the Exile of Erin, which was suggested by an glected, and in April 1799 appeared his Pleasures incident like that which befell Smollett at Boulogne of Hope. The copyright was sold for £60; but-namely, meeting with a party of political exiles for some years the publishers gave the poet £50 who retained a strong love of their native country.

the New Monthly Magazine, which he edited for ten years (from 1820 to 1830); and one of these minor poems, the Last Man, may be ranked among his greatest conceptions : it is like a sketch by Michael Angelo or Rembrandt. Previous to this time the poet had visited Paris in company with Mrs Siddons and John Kemble, and enjoyed the sculpture and other works of art in the Louvre with such intensity, that they seemed to give his mind a new sense of the harmony of art-a new approach,' he says, 'to the presence of the Apollo Belvidere, added to my sensations, and all recollections of his name in classic poetry swarmed on my mind as spontaneously as the associations that are conjured up by the sweetest music.' In 1818 he again visited Germany, and on his return the following year, he published his Specimens of the British Poets, with biographical and critical notices, in seven volumes. The justness and beauty of his critical dissertations have been universally admitted; some of them are perfect models of chaste yet animated criticism. In 1820 Mr Campbell delivered a course of lectures on poetry at the Surrey Institution; in 1824 he published Theodric and other Poems; and, though busy in establishing the London University, he was, in 1827, honoured with the graceful compliment of being elected lord rector of the university of his nativecity. This distinction was continued and heightened by his re-election the following two years. He afterwards made a voyage to Algiers, of which he published an account; and in 1842 he appeared again as a poet. This work was a slight narrative poem, unworthy of his fame, entitled The Pilgrim of Glencoe. Among the literary engagements of his latter years, was a Life of Mrs Siddons, and a Life of Petrarch. In the summer of 1843, he fixed his residence at Boulogne, but his health was by this time much impaired, and he died the following summer, June 15, 1844. He was interred in Westminster Abbey, his funeral being attended by some of the most eminent noblemen and statesmen of the day, with a numerous_body_of private friends. In 1849 a selection from his correspondence, with a life of the poet, was published by his affectionate friend and literary executor, Dr Beattie, himself the author of various works, and of some pleasing and picturesque poetry.

Campbell's Exile' was a person named Anthony M'Cann, who, with Hamilton Rowan and others, had been concerned in the Irish rebellion. So jealous was the British government of that day, that the poet was suspected of being a spy, and on his arrival in Edinburgh, was subjected to an examination by the sheriff, but which ended in a scene of mirth and conviviality. Shortly afterwards, Campbell was received by Lord Minto as a sort of secretary and literary companion-a situation which his temper and somewhat demo-visual power of enjoying beauty. Every step of cratic independence of spirit rendered uncongenial, and which did not last long. In this year (1802) he composed Lochiel's Warning and Hohenlinden -the latter one of the grandest battle-pieces in miniature that ever was drawn. In a few verses, flowing like a choral melody, the poet brings before us the silent midnight scene of engagement wrapt in the snows of winter, the sudden arming for the battle, the press and shout of charging squadrons, the flashing of artillery, and the final scene of death. Lochiel's Warning being read in manuscript to Sir Walter (then Mr) Scott, he requested a perusal of it himself, and then repeated the whole from memory-a striking instance of the great minstrel's powers of recollection, which was related to us by Mr Campbell himself. In 1803 the poet repaired to London, and devoted himself to literature as a profession. He resided for some time with his friend, Mr Telford, the celebrated engineer. Telford continued his regard for the poet throughout a long life, and remembered him in his will by a legacy of £500. Mr Campbell wrote several papers for the Edinburgh Encyclopædia-of which Telford had some share-including poetical biographies, an account of the drama, &c. He also compiled Annals of Great Britain from the Accession of George III. to the Peace of Amiens, in three volumes. Such compilations can only be considered in the light of mental drudgery; but Campbell, like Goldsmith, could sometimes impart grace and interest to task-work. In 1806, through the influence of Mr Fox, the government granted a pension to the poet-a well-merited tribute to the author of those national strains, Ye Mariners of England, and the Battle of the Baltic. In 1809 was published his second great poem, Gertrude of Wyoming, a Pennsylvanian Tale. The subsequent literary labours of Mr Campbell were only, as regards his poetical fame, subordinate efforts. The best of them were contributed to

* A similar amount was bequeathed to Mr Southey, and, with a good-luck which one would wish to see always attend poets' legacies, the sums were more than doubled in consequence of the testator's estate far exceeding what he believed to be its value. Thomas Telford (1757-1834) was himself a rhymester in his youth. He was born on poetic ground, amidst the scenes of old Scottish song, green hills, and the other adjuncts of a landscape of great sylvan and pastoral beauty. Eskdale, his native district-where he lived till nearly twenty, first as a shepherd, and afterwards as a stone-mason-was also the birthplace of Armstrong and Mickle. Telford wrote a poem descriptive of this classic dale, but it is only a feeble paraphrase of Goldsmith. He addressed an epistle to Burns, part of which is published by Currie. These boyish studies and predilections contrast strangely with the severer pursuits of his after-years as a mathematician and engineer. In his original occupation of a stone-mason, cutting names on tombstones (in which he excelled, as did also Hugh Miller), we can fancy him cheering his solitary labours with visions of literary eminence; but it is difficult to conceive him at the same time dreaming of works like the Menai Bridge or the Pont-cy-sylte aqueduct in Wales. He had, however, received an early architectural or engineering bias by poring over the plates and descriptions in Rollin's history, which he read by his mother's fireside, or in the open air while herding sheep. Telford was a liberal

minded and benevolent man.

In genius and taste Campbell resembles Gray. He displays the same delicacy and purity of sentiment, the same vivid perception of beauty and ideal loveliness, equal picturesqueness and elevation of imagery, and the same lyrical and concentrated power of expression. The diction of both is elaborately choice and select. Campbell has greater sweetness and gentleness of pathos, springing from deep moral feeling, and a refined sensitiveness of nature. Neither can be termed boldly original or inventive, but they both possess sublimity-Gray in his two magnificent odes, and Campbell in his war-songs or lyrics, which form the richest offering ever made by poetry at the shrine of patriotism. The general tone of his verse is calm, uniform, and mellifluous-a stream of mild harmony and delicious fancy flowing through the bosom-scenes of life, with images. scattered separately, like flowers, on its surface, and beauties of expression interwoven with itcertain words and phrases of magical power

« PreviousContinue »