"Or cons his murm'ring task beneath her care, The maniac is pictured, wildly expecting the return of a lover, by whose death her reason has been snatch'd from her: "Oft when yon moon has climb'd the midnight sky, Surely nothing can be more pathetic than the sensation of this poor girl, lamenting that her lover lingers, and yet even in her deepest grief, prevented, by that very madness which his death has caused, from suspecting that he will return to her no more! The African chief in slavery is depicted with infinite force of feeling: : "Faint, bleeding, bound, he weeps the night away; The following lines explain themselves: "In joyous youth, what soul hath never known * "There be, perhaps, who barren hearts avow," &c. * * * * "But triumph not, ye peace-enamour'd few, "Fire, Nature, Genius, never dwelt with you! "Where rapture utter'd vows, and wept between!" * * * * * "No; the wild bliss of Nature needs alloy, An evening walk is thus poetically conceived: "The moon is up-the watch-tow'r dimly burns-.. These extracts have probably conveyed some idea of Mr. Campbell's powers for the poetry of pathos and feeling. The brilliance and variety of his imagination will perhaps appear, from this sketch of a poet contemplating nature: "There shall he love, when genial morn appears, There is not less splendour in the apostrophe to Hope: "Angel of life; thy glittering wings explore "Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles, Mr. Campbell is admirable in the description of external nature also; his descriptions have generally the benefit of association with a sentiment : 3 suddenly. Few verses have ever been written, less natural or agreeable, than the two former of the three following lines : "Yet seems it, e'en while life's last pulses run, Part III. Stanzas 28, 29, 30, 31. p. 65, 66, 67.. And with these the speech concludes. Perhaps it will be thought by those who wish to be poets at a small expence, that these little awkwardnesses and inversions are of no importance, so the feeling be but natural. It must be owned that awkwardness and inversion have precedent in their favour; but reason can never be with them: for it is obvious that, in order to make the representation of nature complete in every respect, the expression should be natural as well as the idea: and who will maintain that inversion is natural? Which of us, in expressing an ardent feeling, expresses it by transposing his words, and involving his sentences? Poetry, indeed, is privileged to step a little way beyond ordinary nature, when the licence can add fascination, or grandeur, or grace, or in any way heighten the general effect : but is any one of these desireable ends attained by the departures from nature, which are called inversions ?--Certainly not. Then assuredly inversions are quite inexcusable. Versification is the medium through which poetry is perceived: and if the medium be ruffled and turbid, every object will come distorted to the perception. In all works of art, though the design is the most material consideration, yet a natural and skilful expression is indispensably requisite to success: and the reason why so few of the numerous candidates for fame arrive at any very great eminence, is that so few possess a union of the creative and executive faculties. Mr. Campbell, in some passages of his work, has inverted so unmercifully, as to become almost unintelligible; and though the fault does not every where amount to inextricable perplexity, yet the versification is so unceasingly pinched and fettered, that the diction of the whole poem assumes a character at once hard and flat, clumsy and weak. In short, the phraseology is as obscure and ungraceful as the narrative. The reader will be able to form a tolerably fair notion of these defects, by a few passages which we have selected from a numerous series. Albert is described as a widower with his infant daughter. "Alov'd bequest and I may half impart"To them that feel the strong paternal tie, "How like a new existence to his heart "Uprose that living flow'r beneath his eye, "Dear as she was, from cherub infancy, "From hours when she would round his garden play, "To time when as the rip'ning years went by, "Her lovely mind would culture well repay, " And more engaging grew from pleasing day to day." Part I. Stanza 11. p. 12. Albert apostrophizes the deceased mother of Waldegrave: "And Julia! when thou wert like Gertrude now, The scenery of Wyoming is delineated : "But high, in amphitheatre above, " His arms the everlasting aloes threw; "As if with instinct living spirit grew, "Rolling its verdant gulphs of every hue." The poet blesses his happy groupe : Part II. Stanza 10. p. 33. "Roll on, ye days of raptur'd influence, shine! "Nor blind with ecstasy's celestial fire, "Shall love behold the spark of earth-born time expire." Part III. Stanza 1. p. 47. "And, mark the wretch, whose wanderings never knew "The wor'd's regard, that soothes, though half untrue, "Whose erring heart the lash of sorrow bore, "But found not pity when it err'd no more. "Ev'n he, at evening, should he chance to stray, Again: "Let winter come! let polar spirits sweep The next merit that shall be instanced, is the fascination with which Mr. Campbell has clothed the philosophy of his poem. In expatiating on the comparative blessings of Wisdom and Hope, he exclaims : "Can Wisdom lend, with all her heav'nly power, This last couplet is beyond praise. Of the accidental gales that may ruffle the serenity of connubial love, he thus delightfully expresses himself : "Though thy wild heart some hapless hour may miss |