-the most accomplished chairs-and a highly interesting set of tongs and fenders! I hope to have the pleasure of showing you through the magnificent suite of chambers-the front one of which is actually sixteen feet long!"

"Did you see "The Last Man' in my late number? Did it immediately remind you of Lord Byron's poem of 'Darkness?' I was a little troubled how to act about this appearance of my having been obliged to him for the idea. The fact is, many years ago I had the idea of this Last Man in my head, and distinctly remember speaking of the subject to Lord B. I recognised, when I read his poem 'Darkness,' some traits of the picture which I meant to draw, namely, the ships floating without living hands to guide them-the earth being blank—and one or two more circumstances. On soberly considering the matter, I am entirely disposed to acquit Lord Byron of having intentionally taken the thoughts. It is consistent with my own experience to suppose that an idea, which is actually one of memory, may start up, appearing to be one of the imagination, in a mind that has forgot the source from which it borrowed that idea. I believe this. Nevertheless, to have given the poem to the world with a note, stating this fact, would have had the appearance of picking a quarrel with the noble bard, and this appearance I much dislike, from the kindly feeling I have towards him, in consequence of his always having dealt kindly by me. Another consideration was, that the likeness of our subjects does not seem to strike any reader of my poem so much as I expected; so that, unless charged with plagiarism, I may let the matter T. C."

rest.

On the 20th of October, Campbell announces, in sorrowful terms, that the period to which he had looked with intense anxiety* had expired; but that little, if any, benefit had resulted from the experiment to which he had resorted on behalf of his son. "Thomas," he writes with desponding brevity, "is come back to us!" and again his correspondence became tinctured, for several weeks, with the complexion of his own sad thoughts. Yet his keen and delicate sympathy in the sorrows of others was never blunted-though he often affected to think otherwise -by the severity or frequency of his own. To an intimate friend, who had just lost a sister, he writes:- "Dec. 23.-I cannot for a moment pretend to measure my grief with yours;

* See his own remarkable expression, page 152.

ET. 46.] LETTER TO HIS COUSIN-HOMER AND HERRINGS.

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but I feel that I have lost a friend, and a branch of the family dearest to my friendship. I tender you the consolation of one who had a sincere affection for her-deeply connected, in mental associations, with affection for yourself. I have been touched by your attention in communicating these tidings-melancholy as they are; but I have really no words to express how much I enter into your present feelings.-T. C."

His contributions* to the New Monthly for this year were of a superior stamp; and at their head stands his admirable poem of "The Last Man." The next letter is addressed to his cousin, Mr. Gray :

"SEYMOUR-STREET WEST, January 9, 1824.

"I love you too much, my dear Gray, not to accept a present; but I cannot be a beggar of presents; and I know you have too much delicacy to let me be so. Your procuring these for me is a real favor; for every second time that I buy a kit of herrings in London, I am cheated with a bad article; and eating a pickled herring, like reading Homer, at breakfast time, is become by long habit a thing necessary to my existence. I have no very important intelligence to communicate. Thomas is but so and so. How do you like Pyramus and Thisbet My friends would not let me put my name to it; though I say, who should not, it is the sweetest thing I ever warbled on my lyre. And now that I am my own panegyrist, I must tell you what an incorruptible Liberal I have shown myself in these corruptible times! . . I had a communication from the Secretary and several Members of the Association, offering to place my name among their Honoraries, with a hundred a year under the royal endowment. I declined accepting it. You probably know that this society is nothing else than an effort to buy the literary men of the country to what they call the cause of religion and loyalty-which may be interpreted canting and time-serving. As something of personal kindness, however, might have mixed with the choice of those who proposed me, I declined the office in civil terms. They will get few but milk-and-water men into their fraternity. Moore is blacker than myself in the great man's books; I dislike him as much as he; but I congratulated myself when the offer came,

* I find among the MS. of this autumn an elaborate review of the Hora Ionica-a congenial subject, which he treats with a perfect knowledge of its classic antiquity and the condition of modern Greece.

See New Monthly Magazine.

that it arose, in some shape, from a negative propriety on my part, of having never been a scurrilous writer. I do think that great truths and great causes may be always defended without personality. T. C."

"February 4, 1824.

. . I have found my silver box,* I need not say with what delight; and the sight of it comforts me so as to support a bad cold with more than my usual patience. Wretched catarrh were it not for thee, I think I should be to-day very happy, and not even worry myself for having behaved so like an old, or a young, child on the occasion of my false alarm. Alas, 'Men are but children of a larger growth!' as the undiscoverable poet said who was quoted in Parliament. After all, there is something excusable in my liking my litle pocket companion almost to foolishness. It was given me when my mind was comparatively young and romantic to what it is now; and though I have forgotten the exact feelings with which I first looked on your three names engraved inside, friendships are no doubt all the better for being old. Yet there is still in the early commencement and youth of our friendly feelings towards any object, a tinge of romance-a kind of gratuitous and generous prophecying that the object will never disappoint, or become indifferent to us, which has all its peculiar charm. I received this little token from you when all the compound sensation of faith, hope, and novelty was strongly operating on my mind: and my mind, I know not how, has acquired a habit of always summoning up associations more or less complacent, but always to a certain degree, soothing and complacent when I look at this token. It is true we have all had our trials in the interval of time over which it carries my memory: but I have had many happy days which I owe to you-many a hearty welcome-and never a moment's defalcation of hospitality and kind offices. It is not wonderful, therefore, that this souvenir of far by-gone days, should be an amulet of a very pleasing and touching spell to my recollection. I say this in no exaggerating state of mind, but on a very calm and fair retrospect of our whole acquaintance with each other. T. C."

February [16], 1824. I spent a delightful day yesterday at McKenzie's, where, besides Mina, there was Sir W. Congreve, who has

*For the history of this friendly souvenir, see his Letters from the Isle of Wight, 1807, Vol. I, page 465.

ET. 46.] GENERAL MINA-CONGREVE-MODERN WARFARE. 157

given me a general invitation to see him at Woolwich. Possibly your martial minds may be so far interested in the science of warlike engines, as to wish to see the practising with his rocketsas well as with a new invention-namely, the discharging of small rockets from muskets which are only four pounds weight. This invention will be a new era in military science. But don't let your humanity shudder; for philosophers say that war is always less bloody in proportion to the destructiveness of the weapons. This is a little paradoxical, to be sure; but there is no doubt that ancient battles were more bloody than modern ones.

"I admired Mina* very much, and sat next to him. His French, to be sure, is very Spanish; and he squeezes hands, and is too cordial, with every body at the very first interview. His features are rustic,-it would be wrong to call them coarse, and his appearance is more like that of a good, plain, honest man, than a high-bred soldier: but his face, I should say, is one of the most prepossessing I ever saw. The expression is so loveable, that I was at times on the point of thinking him handsome-although he resembles in a very little Madame de Staël. He has something of the fire of her eyes, to be sure, which were very fine. I may bring him down to see you. T. C." "March [15.]

"It is a mean thing, they say, to count debts amongst friends; but thinking you were in debt to me a letter, and expecting every day to hear from you, I did not write. Indeed, I lead such a life, that what can I send you unless commentaries on books which I am reading, or narrate my dreams? for, except in books and dreaming, my mind has no occupation."

“ April 11th.—I wish some of you, my friends, would come to town-particularly to look at the exhibition of the new society of British Artists. I hardly know what to think-though I trust it will be found rich and strong, according to my first conception of Haydon's chief picture. I long to converse with you about it; its coloring is certainly dropping odors-dropping wine; yet I begin to fear that the coloring is not perfect. Come, my friends, and see this hiving of our artists! I think you will own with me that it shows British talent shooting into farther directions than it has hitherto done. Phillips told me that the

* Mina, born 1782; arrived in London, November 30, 1823; obt. December, 1836.

host of young Artists ought to be called the Army of Martyrs! I have a new design upon you-I have an Italian poet, an improvisatore, to bring down. He was sent to me by Admiral Sir Grahame Moore. His case is interesting. Pepé had determined not to introduce him, for fear of troubling me; but Sir Grahame gave him a strong and particular recommendation. He had no earthly connexion with the Carbonari of Naples; but had written a line about the blessings of Freedom, and was sentenced to banishment without a trial! Sir G. Moore generously took him into his own cabin, where he was a great favorite, on account of his improvisatore talents; and the Admiral, and all his officers, I suppose, helped him liberally with money -bravo, British generosity!

T. C."

An unpremeditated visit to Sydenham, attended with some inconvenience to his friends, drew from him the following explanation and apology. The incident is very characteristic of the Poet, in his "moods of mental abstraction."

"SEYMOUR-STREET WEST, May 8, 1824.

"Yes; when I came home I reflected on the urgency and importunity with which I had pressed myself upon your hospitality. I felt very sorry that a simple solution of the difficulty had not occurred to my mind. It appears strange; but to any who knew how ill I have slept of late, and what an unsocketing my nerves have received, it would not appear strange that my memory is fallacious. I thought only of the disagreeableness of sleeping out of your house-never recollecting that the books, which are necessary at night to lull my mind into a disposition for sleep, could have been carried with very little difficulty to any lodging for the night. Had I remembered this trifling circumstance, I should not have given you all the disquiet about lodging me, which I have given you. I must have appeared very selfish; and yet I feel that it is not in my nature to be so. Pray forgive me! On very short reflection, I saw the impropriety of my having allowed one of your own kindred inmates to leave the house on my account. Do me the kindness to recall the exorbitant favor which I asked in my nervous state. It is true my disease of sleeplessness has returned; but how like infatuation it seems that I never recollected that, even sleeping at the Grayhound," I could still have had from your house plenty of books to answer the purpose of making me weary at night. In a word, though I am ashamed to own it, I really fear

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