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ET. 31.]

CRITICISMS-MINOR POEMS-WYOMING.

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The description of the battle itself is in the same spirit of homely sublimity, and worth a thousand stanzas of thunder-shrieks-shouts-tridents-and heroes." The two ballad-pieces, composed at Sydenham, are considered favourable specimens of his powers in a new line of exertion: "Glenara" is quoted entire; but the other, "Lord Ullin's Daughter," is allowed to be the more beautiful.

The judgment thus pronounced on the genius and influence of Campbell's poetry, has never been reversed. The discriminating taste of the critic, however, though captivated with the beauties of the poem, did not overlook those incidental blemishes from which no human composition is exempt. The narrative was considered obscure and imperfect; various passages were thought incorrect, or almost unintelligible; but the "constraint and obscurity of the diction" were explained as the result "of too laborious an effort at emphasis and condensation." Such, indeed, was the fact; labouring to be at once concise and brilliant, he became obscure; yet no author, perhaps, ever benefited less by public criticism. He had an almost superstitious dread of retouching anything after it was printed; and thus, though perfectly sensible of his error, the blemishes and beauties of the poem hold nearly the same relative position in the last, as they did in the first edition.The former, however, are only slight inadvertences, and, in company with the latter, may pass unobserved; but others are more obvious that, for example, where he introduces into Pennsylvanian landscape various animal and vegetable productions peculiar to the Old World. This, though a mere oversight, was still "a sin against natural history;" but numerous editions of the poem

* Glenara has been noticed, Vol. I., page 184; but it is only in The Family Legend of Joanna Baillie, that the wild and romantic tradition has been rendered immortal.

having been called for, and no objections stated against the panthers,* flamingoes, and aloes, which he had made to figure in the woods and lawns of Wyoming, his poetic colony was allowed to retain quiet possession of the new settlement; at least, until

"the evil Manitou that dries

Th' Ohio woods consumes them in his ire . ."-Stan. XVII.

The reviewer "closes the volume with feelings of regret for its shortness, and of admiration for the genius of its author," adding, "There are but two noble sorts of poetrythe pathetic and the sublime; and we think he has given very extraordinary proofs of his talents for both."

"We wish any praises or exhortations of ours had the power to give him confidence in his own great talents; and hope earnestly that he will now meet with such encouragement as may set him above all restraints that proceed from apprehension, and induce him to give free scope to that genius, of which we are persuaded that the world has hitherto seen rather the grace than the riches."

These sentiments were cordially shared by other, though less weighty authorities; and so liberally was the poem quoted, that nearly every stanza was pointed out as an example of "melting pathos," "polished diction," or some other characteristic of poetical excellence. Whatever had been said of "The Pleasures of Hope," was repeated with increased emphasis in praise of "Gertrude ;" and it was admitted on all hands, that, in the path of genuine poetry, the author had made another important step, and established new claims to admiration.

The reception given to the poem in America was cordial and flattering. "It contains," says an elegant writer of the New Country, "passages of exquisite grace and ten

* I am just informed by an American friend, Mr. S., that the Poet is right as to the Panther.-August, 1847.

T. 31.] CLOSE OF THE REVIEW-APOLOGY TO BRANDT. 185

derness; others of spirit and grandeur; and the character of Outalissi is a classic delineation of one of our native savages a stoic of the woods, a man without a tear.' What gave this poem especial interest in our eyes, and awakened a strong feeling of good-will towards the author, was that it related to our own country, and was calculated to give a classic charm to some of our own home scenery."

It may easily be imagined that praise in such a strain, and from such high sources, was not lost upon the sensitive author. The grateful confidence it inspired, became a new stimulus to ambition; and he resolved, by a more lofty and sustained effort, to verify the predictions of his critic. The theme which had long dwelt in his mind,* and on which he was now desirous to concentrate all his force, was the struggle for Scottish independence in the thirteenth century. The hero was to have been Wallace, the "Knight of Ellerslie"-whose glorious deeds and ignominious death were intended to have been the groundwork of an epic poem. By what obstacles he was diverted from his purpose will be seen hereafter; but, delayed from month to month, and from year to year, the subject was at length abandoned.

Before quitting this portion of the work, I am bound to notice an unfortunate mistake in the text of Gertrude, which caused much pain to a respectable citizen of Wyoming, and no little regret to the Poet himself. The mistake, so justly complained of, was the epithet applied to one of the characters in the poem-" the monster Brandt "thereby inflicting a severe stigma upon a man who, in reality, had served the cause of honour and humanity. Nothing could exceed Campbell's surprise and regret, on being made fully sensible that the name he had consigned

* See Vol. I., page 202, projected "Queen of the North, 371."

to infamy in his poem, was, in fact, that of a man whose life and conduct had entitled him to respect and gratitude. Convinced that he had been totally misled in his delineation of the Indian chief-one of Nature's noblemen-he took instant measures to repair the injury-so far as it could be repaired. After a personal interview with the son of Brandt, then in London, he publicly retracted his mistake, and caused the following note to be inserted in every subsequent edition of his poems, where, in justice to his memory, every aspersion was withdrawn, and "the name of Brandt" pronounced to be "a pure and declared character of fiction." +

"I took the character of Brandt, in the poem of Gertrude, from the common histories of England, all of which represented him as a bloody and bad man-even among savages-and chief agent in the horrible desolation of Wyoming. Some years after this poem appeared, the son of Brandt, a most interesting and intelligent youth, came over to England, and I formed an acquaintance with him, on which I still look back with pleasure. He appealed to my sense of honour and justice on his own part, and on that of his sister, to retract the unfair aspersions, which, unconscious of their unfairness, I had cast on his father's memory. He then referred me to documents which completely satisfied me that the common accounts of Brandt's cruelties at Wyoming were gross errors; and that, in point of fact, Brandt was not even present at that scene of desolation . . . Had I known this when I was writing my poem, Brandt should not have figured in it as the hero of mischief. It is but bare justice to say thus much of a Mohawk Indian, who spoke English eloquently, and was thought capable of writing a history of the Six Nations. I ascertained, also, that he often strove to mitigate the cruelty of Indian warfare. The name of BRANDT, therefore, remains in my poem as a pure and declared character of fiction.”—T. C.

+ But "why, after so frank an apology," it was asked, "did he suffer the name to remain in the text?" Because "its suppression would have involved him in the necessity of reconstructing several stanzas; and if the reason was but indifferent, the rhyme was good."

CHAPTER VII.

O'CONNOR'S CHILD.

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HAVING adverted to this new epoch in the Poet's life with as much brevity as the subject would admit, I return to the narrative of his private and literary career, upon which the reception of his new poem appears to have exercised an important influence. Though withdrawn from the busy world in his retirement at Sydenham, “the genius of Campbell, like a true brilliant, flashed occasionally on the public eye in a number of exquisite little poems." The theme of his next piece was suggested by seeing a flower in his own garden, called love-lies-bleeding;" and to this trivial circumstance we are indebted for the exquisite story of "O'Connor's Child." It was written during the autumn, finished in December, sent to press in January, and came out with another edition of Gertrude, early in the spring. It is superfluous to say that this deeply pathetic poem fully sustained, if it did not advance, the reputation acquired by Gertrude; and was considered, by good judges, as the most highly finished of all his minor pieces. It is the only poem, perhaps, in which the author has repeated himself. I allude to the lines

"Sweet was to us the hermitage

Of this unploughed, untrodden shore;

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