not—with this one critique on Campbell—so cold and chary—and it will be allowed by all, that either the one poet has had dealt to him more, or the other poet less than justice.
Finally, the critic has not done what he pledged himself to do with the poetry of Campbell. He has not examined his pretensions to immortality, "in competition with the picked champions—the laurelled victors—of all preceding ages." He has not examined his pretensions at all—either in themselves positively, or relatively to those of the "great heirs of fame" who have succeeded to their inheritance. Be the genius of Campbell what it may, you will seek for its character in vain through the few disparaging pages of that critique; and certainly, of all "honest attempts to determine a question," we never read one so indifferent to data.
Let us, therefore, strictly examine the judgment so authoritatively pronounced on the genius and achievements of this most delightful poet.
After speaking of him with high praise, and in felicitous language, as a writer who, "having adopted the same compact and lucid style of composition as Pope's, has frequently attained the same species of excellence," and "at least secured an immortality of quotation," the critic goes on to say—"But if Mr Campbell has frequently rivalled his master in the flow of his verse, and the elegance and force of his illustrations, he cannot be said to share in that keen and vigorous sense, and that penetrating observation of mankind, which distinguish our great Poet of Society. Neither has he frequently risen into those higher regions of poetical enthusiasm from which Pope was confessedly remote." This is most unfair; Pope is "our great Poet of Society"—taking society in the limited signification here assigned to it—Campbell is not; and yet his genius is here depreciated, because it does not exhibit qualities for which nobody would look in such poetry as his, and which could not have been exhibited there, without utter destruction of its vital spirit! That "Pope is confessedly remote from the higher regions of poetical enthusiasm," is worse than a rash assertion. He has frequently risen into those higher regions—and so has Campbell in many a glorious flight. And there, their genius, if you choose it, may be compared; but whether you agree with us or no in that assertion, it is not possible for you to disagree with us in this: that it is the height of injustice to seek to detract from the genius of the poet of the Pleasures of Hope, and Gertrude of Wyoming, and Ye Mariners of England, and Lochiel's Warning, because they do not display "that keen and vigorous sense, and that penetrating observation of mankind which distinguish our great Poet of Society"—forsooth—in his Satires and his Rape of the Lock; for the Essay on Man"—a philosophical poem of the highest order—does not seem to fall under the above description; but if it do, the injustice to Campbell is just as great as if it had been objected to him that his powers were not of the same kind as Milton's.
The critic continues—"We know not whether it will be considered as an advantage or a disgrace, that in an age of philosophical poets, Campbell is without boast or appearance of philosophy. His verse bears no trace of anxious meditation; nor does his heart seem ever to have been implicated in that suspense and vicissitude of feeling that await on speculative enquiry. But as poetry is addressed to the generality of mankind, this absence of a profounder strain of meditation than they are disposed to follow, may be regarded as no fair objection, or viewed even as a circumstance fortunate to his fame." Finely and truly said—in the general—nor have we any serious objection to make to the spirit of such a passage. But we may be allowed to observe, that Campbell wrote his Pleasures of Hope at a time when, so far as we know, there was not a philosophical poet within the Four Seas—and pray, where are they now? An age of philosophical poets! Why, except Wordsworth, not one of them all deserves the name. Age of pseudo-philosophical poetasters, would be nearer the mark. True that his "verse bears no trace of anxious meditation"—why should it? But sentiments such as his, "so tender and true"—emotions, deep and high, carrying us with them as they sink or soar—were all the birth of Thought—of Thought "not implicated in that suspense and vicissitude of feeling
