Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/141

Rh all the ardour of a first and undiminished love to the production of "Gertrude of Wyoming," which at length was published in London in 1809. It was much that it should have fully sustained the fame that had been acquired by the "Pleasures of Hope;" but it did more—it evinced equal poetical power, with a more matured judgment and better taste. Jeffrey, that prince of critics, who had seen the work while passing through the press, thus characterized its excellencies:—"There is great beauty, and great tenderness and fancy in the work, and I am sure it will be very popular. The latter part is exquisitely pathetic, and the whole touched with those soft and skyish tints of purity and truth, which fall like enchantment on all minds that can make anything of such matters. Many of your descriptions come nearer the tone of 'The Castle of Indolence' than any succeeding poetry, and, the pathos is much more graceful and delicate." After this commendation, which has been fully borne out by the admiration of the public for more than forty years, the talented critic introduces the emphatic "," and proceeds to specify the faults which he found in "Gertrude of Wyoming;" and these, also, were such as the world has continued to detect. It consisted too much of finished episodes rather than a continuous poem. The language was still overlaboured, as if he had "hammered the metal in some places till it had lost all its ductility." These were faults, or blemishes, so inseparable from the mind of Campbell, that they were part and parcel of his intellectual existence, and he could only have abandoned them by relinquishing his individual identity. After this affectionate chastisement, Jeffrey adds, "Believe me, my dear C., the world will never know how truly you are a great and original poet, till you venture to cast before it some of the rough pearls of your fancy. Write one or two things without thinking of publication, or of what will be thought of them, and let me see them, at least, if you will not venture them any further. I am more mistaken in my prognostics than I ever was in my life, if they are not twice as tall as any of your full-dressed children." In the same volume were published several smaller poems, some of which had previously appeared before the public. Among these were "Lochiel" and "Hohenlinden," the first characterized by the "Edinburgh Review" as the most spirited and poetical denunciation of woe since the days of Cassandra, and the second, as the only representation of a modern battle which possesses either interest or sublimity; and "Ye Mariners of England," and the " Battle of the Baltic," two songs that have justly ranked their author as the naval Alcæus of Britain. In a subsequent edition of "Gertrude," which appeared in the following year, the volume was enriched by the addition of "O'Connor's Child," the best, perhaps, of all his minor poems. Its origin was in the highest degree poetical. A little flower called "Love lies bleeding," grew in his garden, and the sentiments which it inspired, as he looked at it in his morning walks, gathered and expanded into the most beautiful of his ballads.

With a new task thus ended, relaxation was necessary; and with such an increase to his poetical reputation, it was natural that the society of Campbell, on re-entering the world, should be courted with renewed eagerness. Amidst the many introductions to the most distinguished of the day, there were two that gave him especial pleasure: the one was to Mrs. Siddons, the "Queen of Tragedy;" the other, to Caroline, Queen of Great Britain. He was now also to appear in a new literary capacity. This was as a lecturer on poetry at the Royal Institution, a task for which, perhaps, no poet of this period, so prolific of distinguished V.