think of the good news. The word foolishly seems amiss; but I cannot blot it out. It applies not to the cause of the happiness-for, God knows, it is a good cause-but to my own weakness in bearing good as well as bad news. In truth, I know not how to congratulate you. We suffered daily and deep anxiety in thinking of you all; but durst not write so often as we wished, for fear of being troublesome, when you must have had so many inquiries. But now, even now, that M. is recoveringwhat would I not give to hear of you daily-a single word would do-" She continues well, or better," &c. Now that my little ones are well, my first anxiety is to hear of your family; and, next to you, of General Benningeen and Buonaparte's defeat! to answer. I made a vow in Mary's sickness for her I would make a yearly pilgrimage to see you, if I should trudge it on foot to whatever quarter of England we should retire. This is not penance, indeed-but still it is a vow; and if vows, as of old, contribute to restore health, I have aided the doctor by my piety. Dear friends, it was not possible that Mary should not be secure to you; she must be so. It would not be permitted to be otherwise; she will live to be your mutual blessing. Heaven will long preserve her to you. Whenever she is able to see visitors in her usual way, pray be so kind as to let me know. I feel her recovery to be too great an event not to congratulate her in person upon the occasion. And happier shall I be to be presented to your household, than to bow at the first levee in Europe. On the state of your own mind and sufferings, and those of your family, my dear friend, I am little disposed to enter with any obtrusion of condolence. If I were so, the dignity of your grief would repress my officiousness. But the most composed and self-commanded mind may need to be reminded sickness for her recovery, that ET. 29.] CORRESPONDENCE-THE CHATTY MAN. 97 of those alleviating circumstances which friendship may suggest against unqualified despondency. In your yet delightful and amiable family, how many elements of happiness remain !-affection, union, and the exclusion of those hard circumstances, which divide and scatter families, or toss them like orphans from one another; nay, which sometimes, by fortune intervening between wishes and abilities, turn the very sweetness of consanguinity into bitterness and regret! Forgive me, if I am impertiTell me how your dear mother continues, and when I may be presented on the congratulatory visit; but that, I dare say, cannot be for a long time. Believe me, my dear friends, with joint compliments from Matilda, Yours, faithfully, nent. THOMAS CAMPBELL. To the same lady he writes again, under more serious apprehensions, and with excellent feeling : February 17th, 1807. Your note, my dear friend, continued to give us delight. Blessed be the medical hand that has restored the dear invalid. I was much rejoiced yesterday with a sight of our common friends of the village. I dined with them; and such was the heartsomeness inspired by the sight of friends, by your kind welcome note, and by the tide of my own health flowing again, that I got quite up in the buckle, and acted what Sydney Smith calls, the chatty man to perfection. . . . But I feel worse to day after a waking night, and several warnings of an old presentiment that I shall not be a Methuselah. But what of that? Pray do not allude to my ever delirious whining about myself in your notes; for I am glad, for Matilda's sake, to pass off for colds and little ailings, what I feel threatening to be more serious. I care not much to attain the age of my forefathers. I bless God I shall leave a portfolio for Matilda and the boys to live on, should my sleepless nights be quieted soon and everlastingly. That is a blessing unspeakable. It makes me easy as to the future. I know not why I choose thus to exchange thoughts with you, unless it be that your aversions and likings are so like my own that I feel you truly to be my fellow creature. The verses I have transcribed. They will not have the least value, unless the circumstances under which they were written be explained. They relate directly and solely, indeed, to the most venerable of mankind; they were written from the contemplation of his character-from the impulse which his benign and beautiful countenance occasioned; but they are not applicable as the testimony of my veneration for him, which, in justice to my own feelings, and in justice to his inestimable memory, I wish to give to the world, as exclusively his tribute. That must be the task of another hour. The case is, I was engaged about the time of the afflicting intelligence in a poem, where a character, such as his, is one of the most important :—the description of serenity in mature life—of that composure which is not the result of indifference but of the fire, fervour, and sensibility of earlier life, subdued and sweetened by reflection. Such were the traits which I thought I saw in his countenance. His mouth most peculiarly appeared to me to indicate extreme sensibility; his front seemed to have the stamp of a proud and delicate sense of honour, which, I may speak freely, must have made his feelings in youth vehement, and strongly determined to their objects. But in his age, I think I see him smiling on this world with love for all that deserved his love, and with pity for all that deserved it not: ET. 29.] ALBERT OF WYOMING-THE ORIGINAL. How reverend was that face, serenely aged, As Etna's fires grow dim before the rising day.* 99 I trust you will sufficiently understand that I should be ill-satisfied to consider this accidental allusion-although from the heart to be a just or fair tribute to the dear departed worth, of which, instead of a portrait, they scarcely give a line or a touch. By a stranger they would not be regarded as, perhaps, even sufficiently respectful. I am ashamed to say so much of a few feeble lines-but everything regarding him derives importance from the subject. * * * * * I must bring you "The Castle of Indolence" in my pocket since you have not read it, if you now read cheerful things. The children are well-Matilda quite well. To hear of you is great joy to us both. Believe me ever faithfully T. CAMPBELL. yours, P.S.-Joy to you on the accession of a new branch to the house of Courtenay.+ If she drew her paternal blood from Leonidas, she would be the better to have a mixture of the dear blood of the Mayows. * Compare this with the same admirable stanza in "Gertrude," of which the two closing lines are so remarkable. + Alluding to the marriage of one of Mr. Mayow's daughters to the late Right Hon. T. P. Courtenay, P. C., brother of the Earl of Devon. From common-place transactions we are now suddenly introduced to what may be considered an event in the Poet's life. The deed was followed by an immediate dispatch to Mr. Richardson in the following words: “I killed an enormous snake to-day, which I mean to keep as a trophy of my own valour. In the act of slaying this Python, habited as I was in my old black pantaloons, third-best boots, and second-best wig, with my beard unshaven, I looked for all the world like the Apollo de Belvidere!"-This announcement is accompanied by a grotesque sketch of the recent encounter. On the right is the snake, half uncoiled; the sting protruding, and in the very act to strike. On the left stands the Poet, crowned with bays, in an attitude of calm defiance, and making a left-handed blow on the crested head of his antagonist. His own costume is ornamented, as described, by shreds and patches, in Grubstreet fashion. At his feet flows a stream, inscribed with "Helicon." In the back ground is Parnassus, crowned with a temple; a Pegasus in full career, and his rider falling headlong to the earth. At the gate of the temple are three Muses; the first playing on the cymbals, the second displaying a scroll of Fame, and the third in the dress of a young musicante, seated at a modern pianoforte! At the base of the hill stands another figure, the Poet, in the character of Apollo, his head encircled with rays; while on either hand, figures of Fame and Victory, each with a long trumpet applied to her mouth, are proclaiming to the world the gallant achievement of the morning. It is pleasing to notice, even at some length, these playful, though mute sallies of humour, and to imagine with what glee he committed to paper this caricature of his deeds, making it, perhaps, an interlude between two of the fine stanzas of his "Gertrude,"-dulce est desipere in loco. |