"

Bright as the pillar rose at Heaven's command,

When Israel march'd along the desert land,

Blazed through the night on lonely wilds

afar, And told the path-a never-setting star : So, heavenly Genius, in thy course divine, HOPE is thy star, her light is ever thine."

Can you now admit, with the critic, "That in this catalogue there is not one circumstance which could be selected as a manifest violation of probability; and yet the reader feels throughout that it is a collection of topics gathered from remote sources, not the result of a strong realization in the poet's mind?" Can you now tolerate his insulting interrogatory"There is here much skilful verse, but is there one glow of honest enthusiasm?" It is " instinct with spirit." Why should Campbell alone, of all our poets, be blamed for personifying Hope? It surprises and grieves us to hear a Quarterly Reviewer ask, "Was Mr Campbell's imagination so inextricably involved in the mythology of Greece, that he could not put into her mouth an address to the young poetical aspirant somewhat nearer to our feelings than such as this?" Are " Wisdom's walks," the " sacred Nine," the " Delphian height," "Harmonia's daughters," the " Loxian murmurs," "Pythia's awful organ," all remote from his feelings - and from those of all the young poetical aspirants now musing by the Isis and Cam? Then, we need say nothing of the unfairness of selecting eight lines from eighty, to prove that Mr Campbell's imagination was "so inextricably involved in the mythology of Greece." They who, like the Quarterly Reviewer, care nothing about the mythology of Greece, may behold in that splendid passage, as it now moves before them in "long resounding march and energy divine," crowds of glorious images awakening thoughts and sentiments most ennobling to humanity - and most " auspiciously" flowing from the lips of Hope, as she stands " on yon proud height," hand in hand with Genius, " the child of

Heaven!"

"The next theme is the Hope of a poor but reputable couple, who trust that their rising offspring will one day relieve their anxieties and administer to their wants. Who does not wish

that the hope may be realized? but who that had the wish would talk of Hybla sweets, and bloomy vines,' and bid prophetic Hope' tell the solicitous parent,

'Tell, that when silent years have pass'd away,

That when his eye grows dim, his tresses grey,

These busy hands a lovelier cot shall build,

And deck with fairer flowers his little field,

And call from Heaven propitious dews to breathe Arcadian beauty on the barren heath.'

So far the Reviewer; but the whole passage is short, so let us quote the whole.

Arcadian beauty on the barren heath; Tell, that while Love's spontaneous smile endears

The days of peace, the sabbath of his years, Health shall prolong to many a festive hour The social pleasures of his humble bower."

What care you now for the critic's sneer ? "A poor but reputable couple!" They were so-but "something more;" and as the Husband and Father was " a scholar and a gentleman," and a dear friend of Mr Campbell's, it was natural and proper, and graceful, and not a little affecting, for the Poet to represent Hope as breathing encouragement into the sufferer's heart in language with which he had been familiar from boy. hood, and which continued to be spoken to him by some of the best. beloved books in the little library which his wife would not suffer him to sell even though the quartern loaf was at eighteenpence, and the scrag of mutton in proportion. may say with truth and beauty that his hope lights its torch at nature's funeral pile,' inasmuch as the prior conflagration of the earth is a necessary condition of his felicity. But the poet is not speaking here of the grounds of a present hope he is celebrating the duration of the sentiment itself and in doing this he has converted the hope of immortality into an immortal hope. The expectation of an eternal life cannot surely be said to survive when that eternal life has itself commenced. The hope of immortality passes away with that terrestrial scene which it cheered and illuminated; it does fade, for it is lost in fruition; and, instead of lighting 'her torch at nature's funeral pile,' Hope might with more accuracy have been represented as throwing her now useless torch upon that pile, to be consumed with the rest of the world to which it belonged."

Please to observe, that there is no troubled passion in the passage-that the young poet is contemplating not a miserable scene-of utter wretchedness -but the "sacred home of Hymenean joy," clouded with care, but not deprived of sunshine. With such a mood, poetical imagery is not unaccordant and fancy embellishes at her own pleasure the song of hope. "The wedded pair of love and virtue" are not located in any county-on this or that side of the Tweed. What if their dwelling be in a land of vines? "Hybla sweets" is a pardonable prettyism; and prettyisms are often found in the poetry of natural sentiment. As for Arcadian beauty," the word is a lovely one, and legitimate-and nothing forbids the application of it to any sweet spot on the surface of the earth, especially if it has been won from the barren wilderness by the happy labour of contentment.

"The subject most effectively treated in this portion of the poem, is the Hope of the poor maniac for the return of her shipwrecked lover-an expectation perpetually disappointed, and perpetually revived. As the feel. ings of such an individual come rarely under observation, and must remain with most of us a subject only for the imagination, the departure from truth -if any such there be is not readily detected, and the topic affords scope for the harmonious numbers and tender generalities of the poet."

Poor widow'd wretch! 'twas there she wept in vain,

Till memory fied her agonizing brain ;But mercy gave, to charm the sense of woe, Ideal peace, that truth could ne'er bestow; Warm on her heart the joys of fancy beam, And aimless HOPE delights her darkest dream.

Oft when yon moon has climb'd the midnight sky,

And the lone sea-bird wakes its wildest ery,

Piled on the steep, her blazing fagots burn,

To hail the bark that never can return; And still she waits, but searce forbears to

Was ever praise so cautiously and sparingly doled out? "The departure from truth if any such there be is not readily detected." Is there or is there not? Answer.

Thy joyous youth began-but not to fade.

When all the sister planets have decay'd;

When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,

the gale That wafts so slow her lover's distant sail; ; She, sad spectatress, on the wintry shore, Watch'd the rude surge his shroudless corse that bore,

Knew the pale form, and shrieking in Clasp'd her cold hands, and fix'd her mad dening gaze;

There is something, but very little, in the remark on, "when soul to soul, and dust to dust return"-soletitpass not without due commendation of the critic's acuteness; but we cannot allow to pass the elaborate attempt to demolish the glorious close of the poem. It is a complete failure, as a few words will show. The poet has not "converted the hope of immortality into an immortal hope." The critic has blindly fallen into several mistakes-and, in the first place, he has attached to the word "eternal" a meaning which, in this passage, it does not bear. Hope is rightly said by Campbell to be "eternal," because it began with the music of the spheres, and continued amid their ruins. All poetry is full of such passionate exaggerations-and we could cite a thousand instances where this very word "eternal" is applied to transitory objects at the very moment of their extinction. Let one suffice: Young, when describing the Last Day, says, "There, undermined, down rush th' eternal hills!"

Further and emphatically-"The expectation of an eternal life cannot surely be said to survive when that eternal life has itself commenced." But it has not commenced "Nature's funeral pile" is a-blaze, but it is not yet consumed; if it were, Hope could not light her torch in the dead ashes. Time still is-and the material uni.

verse; and "Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below." Hope, undismayed amid the "wrack of matter and the crash of worlds," smiles serenely as Faith. But she is not yet lost in fruition

"For wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow;"

and Hope is Hope, though on the verge of heaven.

Expunged, therefore, be these words" Hope might with more accuracy have been represented as throwing her now useless torch upon that pile, to be consumed with the rest of the world to which it belonged." The refutation of all that the critic has been saying, lies in these his own words "to be consumed." While there is life there is Hope. Hope is Hope as long as she has a hand to hold a torch-or a torch to be held ;to fling it into the fire would have been the act of Despair.

A word with John A. Heraud, Esq., author of "The Oration on Coleridge," &c. &c. In a " Lecture on Poetic Genius as a Moral Power," delivered at the "MILTON Institution," occurs this portentous paragraph:

"We have now to do with the poets who exercise activity. Being, we have said, must act-in the neuter and passive, we have detected its eternal operation. But it operates in Time also, and is diligent in reference to sensible ultimates. It is here that the third class of poets are active. POPE and CAMPBELL and Rogers are anxious only for the sensuous formthe channel of expression in which their thoughts shall flow. They prefer Act in its lowest spheres to Being in any. Unconscious of the neuter, and despising the passive, they interpose a set form of speech, and, to do them justice, never dream of publishing themselves for men inspired. If they approach the purlieus of the Eternal and the Ideal, they are sure to blunder. Hence Campbell, at the conclusion of his poem, lights the torch of Hope at nature's funeral pyre-an error of which any theologian might have admonished him. False and injurious predicator of a state when Faith shall be lost in sight, and in which Hope can have no part; since Hope requires Time for its condition, and has no place in Eternity I Such poets as these, are the votaries of the sensuous Present only_what they remember and what they anticipate, belong both to this present lifescarcely to the classical past, and little indeed to the theological future. The best of them is rather an essayist on criticism, than an essayer in poetry."

As we may have something to say . of this "Lecture," and eke of the "Oration on Coleridge" another day, we shall now merely remark that the world will not think the worse of Pope, Campbell, and Rogers, because they " never dream of publishing themselves for men inspired." Men inspired need not take that trouble; for sooner or later and a few years are of no moment they will be numbered with the greater or lesser prophets. Men not inspired, but puffed up, may publish themselves for Isaiahs, and yet find themselves in the Balaam Box.

passions of mankind. That quite imaginary personage,

The Stoic of the woods, the man without a tear,'

is, for the same reason that we gave when speaking of the love-lorn maniac, a fortunate subject for his powers. It is a blemish in the piece that the story, which is sufficiently simple, should have been told in so obscure and abrupt a manner, that the reader is perplexed, and his attention distracted, in putting together

the few incidents of which it is com

posed."

It may be very sinful "to despise the passive;" but we cannot think it a serious misfortune to any man

be unconscious of the neuter." Be that

as it may, "John A. Heraud, Esq.," who has often " published himself for a man inspired," is here guilty of a gross offence to Campbell. His whole Lecture is a series of plagiarisms-as we, at our leisure, shall show-and he must steal even his insults. But the Quarterly Reviewer always writes like a gentleman-here Mr Heraud does not; and, servilely adopting another man's error, he pompously emits it as his own truth. He talks of the "purlieus of the Eternal," and the Last Day, as confidently as of the purlieus of Epping Forest, and the Day of the Hunt. We see the curl of contempt on Campbell's poetic lips-and in his poetic eye the smile of disdain.

"Gertrude of Wyoming," continues the Quarterly Reviewer, "is a more equal and better sustained effort, but contains fewer of those separable passages of mingled terseness and beauty, which form the charm of the Pleasures of Hope. The verse is extremely melodious, and a hue of tenderness is suffused over the whole. The scene it presents is one of almost pastoral simplicity; the feelings dealt with are few, and of no complicated nature; and the characters introduced are such as re quire no peculiar powers of discrimination. The theme is well adapted to a poet more accomplished in the mechanism of his art, than versed in the

that of which the absence is noticed as a defect. The character of the poem, however, would have been, on the whole, not ill expressed in the above passage, but for the captious and carping qualifyings that make praise almost look like censure. the sweet and bitter waters-as they issue from different sources-keep their own channel: with such mixture there is no refreshment in the cup.

Let

"The Stoic of the woods, the man without a tear"

is not "quite an imaginary personage." Outalissi is Logan AmericoIndianized by genius into the ideal - but not out of the sphere of our deepest human sympathies.

“And I could weep; '-the Oneyda chief His descant wildly thus begun: 'But that I may not stain with grief The death-song of my Father's son."

True to nature! - 'tis a creation of the highest poetry and ruthful in. deed are the events that wring out such tears

"He bids me dry the last the first-
The only tears that ever burst
From Outalissi's soul!"

It may be "that the characters introduced are such as require no peculiar powers of discrimination"-Gertrude is no witch-Albert no wizard. But her we love and him we reverence. These are the best-the holiest of emotions-whether felt in peace and joy, or in grief and pity.

"But Thee! my Flower, whose breath was given

By milder genii o'er the deep,
The spirits of the white man's heaven
Forbid not thee to weep:-
Nor will the Christian host,
Nor will thy Father's spirit grieve,
To see thee, on the battle's eve,
Lamenting, take a mournful leave
Of her who loved thee most:
She was the rainbow to thy sight!
Thy sun-thy heaven-of lost delight!"

"It will not be expected that we should examine each of the smaller poems which complete the volume of Mr Campbell's works. The best of his lyrical effusions are so well known, and their merits so vividly appreciated, that nothing would remain to us but the not very grateful task of moderating the applause bestowed on them. We certainly do not acquiesce in the opinion that on these will rest the future fame of Campbell, or that the genius of this poet is peculiarly lyrical. A daring freedom and a boldness of manner sit but ill upon our careful and polished writer; there wants in all these productions-halfsong, half-ode_that appearance of spontaneous effusion which hurries on the sympathy of the reader; the judgment is satisfied, or at least silenced, when the feeling remains cold; and we oftener think that we ought to kindle, than experience the glow itself."

"

No mention is made by name-no farther allusion to "Ye Mariners of England," "The Battle of Hohenlinden," " The Battle of the Baltic," or "Lochiel's Warning," &c.; but on Theodoric" certainly Mr Campbell's least successful poem-though " we would willingly have said nothing"-we do, nevertheless, pronounce judgment in a full page of contemptuous vituperation. It was hardly worth the critic's while; we remember something of the sort in Maga many years ago - Posterity will not care for Theodoric any more than the contemporaneous public. Camp. bell pitched his pipe on too feeble a

NO, CCLXXXVI, VOL. XLVI,

key-the tune he played, though it had its pleasant turns, was monotonous: his instrument is the lyre-or the "Spartan fife."

In what ode-from Pindar to Collins inclusive-is there "the appearance of spontaneous effusion?" Why should there be? Campbell did not start up from his chair and suddenly sing out, " Ye Mariners of England!" -nor did he desire to "hurry on the sympathy of the reader." His soul was in a state of exalted calm, contemplating the naval power of England-and the presiding spirit of his Ode is that of sedate grandeur. The Battle of the Baltic is a magnificent naval ballad but there is no hurry" there (the more hurry the less speed) -any more than there was " hurry in the Fleet approaching the batteries

"As they drifted on their path
There was silence deep as death;
And the boldest held his breath

"And like reapers descend to the harvest of death,"

is one of the greatest lines ever written; and yet of such a colloquy it is averred "that the judgment is satisfied, or at least silenced, when the feeling remains cold; and we oftener think we ought to kindle, than experience the glow itself!"

The scrimp quotations given are from the "Last Man," and "On leaving a Scene in Bavaria." Both compositions are praised-and justly; but, though both are fine in their way, they are far from being among Campbell's best; and as the " Last Man," an inconceivable idea-lies open to attack on all sides, he gets a cut or two from the critic, though not on a vital part. So little conversant with Campbell's poetry is his critic, that of the "Lines on leaving a Scene in Bavaria," he says, "we never met with it before, except in a newspaper some eight or ten years ago!!"

Is the critic aware of the existence

L