Jeffrey, and not the Edinburgh editor, whose regard I propitiate.

If Jeffrey does not take any interest in this affair of the Selections," will you do me the kindness to call on Mr. Constable, and request an answer? I will not occupy your time with explaining the whole transaction-but, whatever the bookseller may say, I beg, as my friend, you will suspend your judgment till I tell you the case myself. I received from Constable the most warm assurances of the strongest personal regard; and now that I only solicit justice, and a plain single answer to my repeated letters, he refuses all answer and all explanation. My single

question is,-Does he choose the work to proceed? It is desperately hard that I cannot get this question answered. Will you drop me but a few lines as soon as you can find it convenient to take an interest in this business? and believe me, with great sincerity, your affectionate friend, T. CAMPBELL.

In explanation of the silence, so keenly felt by the Poet, I annex the following document :-"I remember my reading this letter to Jeffrey. He said that his not having written to Campbell, was owing to his having directed the proper answer to be sent by Mr. Constable; that he had never doubted this having been done, and that he would renew his injunctions-as it was a matter entirely between Constable and Campbell. As to everything else, he expressed himself with the utmost possible kindness towards the Poet; in relation to whom, so far from there being any coldness, there was nothing on his part except the warmest affection. I wrote this to Campbell, who was satisfied." H. C.

*The letter, as it stands in the text, is slightly abridged.

ET. 31.]

MOORE-LAWRENCE-SPECTRE DRUMMER.

159

Thus reassured of Mr. Jeffrey's regard, released from his previous engagement with Mr. Constable, and all his apprehensions, as to the cause of the silence, being removed, his spirits revive, and, entering on a new theme, he writes as follows:

SYDENHAM, Wednesday, January 18th, 1809.

How are you, my dear friends? and how does the keen crystal frost agree with your "robust" constitutions? I have grown lazy, addle-headed, and stupid, since you, and now even M have forsaken me! I was yesterday engaged in attempting to comfort Mrs. Hodge, but it is a puzzling subject to speak of Moore and our gallant countrymen, with comfort on our lips, and despondency at heart. Yet, after all, poor Mrs. Hodge bears up better than I expected. You have been by this time to see Don John himself. I should have liked to have witnessed your meeting his Saturnine graciousness for I know he would be gracious to you; your knowing perspective of his company-character; Mary's great delight; Mrs. aërial, uncorporeal agility of tongue, thought, looks, eyes, and movements, moving the solemn majesty of John's conversation, like galvanism, stirring the "mighty dead!" and Mr. Lawrence, like a beam of steady light, on the foreground of a Salvator Rosa!

Ask me a favour of Caroline, after giving her my kindest remembrance, to copy for me "Glenara" in her own hand. I have not a copy of it; and I am getting old now, and my memory failing; but I have a desire, besides, to have it in her hand. I have finished the stanzas of the last sheet of "Gertrude," according to their new alteration. I am tired with the poem myself; but what is that to the

* Mrs. H., mother of Major H., who fell at Waterloo. See "Lines."

tædium which others will feel! I am trying to versify my Dream about the "Spectre Drummer," with the shroud flying over his shoulders; and to introduce it in a new poem, which will be as wild and horrible as Golgotha ; but "I loves to make people afraid." I pray that next summer I may have got so much time as to be forward with it; and to have the pleasure of making you all quake in your shoes, and afraid to go to bed in the dark! Man never is but always to be blest. I now think of nothing but summer, green leaves, and the dry gravel walk-I mean independent of my ghostly roll-call-and of the pleasure of hearing Mrs. Mayow say, " Really, Mr. Campbell, you should not frighten us all with such horrible poems!" I shall answer" Madam, these are the themes of simple, sure effect!".. And now, drawing in my chin with the same dignity that appears in my profile, I shall end like Pangloss Collins-" News, pray send me some of human kind.” We have none of importance in the village.

It is discovered that my "brother poet" was some time abroad, under the orders of government. The place of his diplomacy is said to have been considerably to the south of China, amongst people who have animals among them called kangaroos. Fame does not mention the cause of his having been so publicly noticed. I suppose it may have been like the case of a gentleman, who was sent on the same expedition, in consequence of a plan to diminish. the scarcity of half-crowns. T. C.

To return to the Poets: The following letter, in which his plan of the "Specimens" is so clearly laid down, has a peculiar interest, and shows at once the sound judgment, correct taste, and ardent love of the subject, which so eminently fitted him for this undertaking.

ET. 31.]

SELECTIONS FROM THE BRITISH POETS.

161

TO JOHN RICHARDSON, ESQ.

MY DEAR RICHARDSON,

SYDENHAM, Jan. 21, 1809.

I have had a satisfactory conversation with Murray, on the subject of that Poetical Collection. Cockburn very kindly answered my letter, and enclosed one from Constable, who leaves it in my option to relinquish the engagement. . This is a jesuitical way of posturing the affair; but I don't mean to quarrel with him about words. . . . . We have done with each other, and I leave him with the satisfaction, at least, of thinking that I have saved the work, on which I mean to ground my claims to future notice before the public, from being starved or strangled under his patronage. It would be dreadful uphill work, indeed, to be supplied with books by a man who could leave my letters unanswered for five months . . . .

Our friend's view of the speculation is as much in the right spirit as could possibly be wished. He speaks of the supply of books in a manner that sets my mind entirely at rest on that important score. I shall have access, I have no doubt, to every book that will be necessary. This is to me as rejoicing as the prospect of a full harvest to the farmer. I trust in God and good books, that I shall make the work at once entertaining, and fully fraught with information. Having full confidence in my own internal resources to say a good deal of English Poetry, which has not been yet said, and equal confidence in those external resources, I hope to make the narrative and biographical part as accurate, as the critical and illustrative part will, I trust, be original and amusing.

The plan of the work is a selection of all the genuine English Poetry that can be condensed within reasonable bounds, with literary and biographical dissertations prefixed

to each of the poets. I shall admit no specimen that is not of either already acknowledged excellence, or of such excellence as, if hitherto unnoticed, I may not be able to vindicate and point out. There is much excellent poetry in our language which no collector has to this day had the good sense to insert in any compilation; and there is a considerable portion which is either unknown to the bulk of more tasteful readers, or known and admired among individuals only, and never rescued from neglect by any popular notice. The men of taste seem to keep those admired passages, like mistresses, for their own insulated attachment. I wish to see them brought before the public for general admiration. Did I ever speak to you of some valuable passages in Crashaw? These are specimens of the beauties I allude to, which it is obvious that Milton had warmed his genius with, before he wrote his Paradise Lost. Among these is the soliloquy of Lucifer :—

"Art thou not Lucifer? he to whom the droves

Of stars that gild the morn in charge were given ?—

The nimblest of the lightning-winged loves,

The fairest, and the first-born smile of Heaven?

Look, in what pomp the mistress-planet moves,
Reverently circled by the lesser seven ;

Such, and so rich the flames that from thine eyes
Oppressed the common people of the skies

And, in another place :

'What, tho' I missed my blow? yet I struck high,
And to dare something, is some victory."

One sees here the line

"Which, if not victory, is yet revenge."

and Milton, I think it can be proved, saw this in English, although it is a translation.

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