"I was going on in flourishing health, till some three weeks ago, when I was so infatuated as to let one of those insane men, the phrenologists, take a cast of my head, in cold plaster. I was very ill when Dr. Beattie called; but he would not prescribe till I agreed to go out with him to his pleasant villa, at Hampstead, and remain under his care. His society, and that of his wife and sister, have been to me a sort of moral med icine, they are such kind, amiable, and happy people. Beattie has been a fortunate man. He married a charming woTheir home is a little picture of paradise! . I cannot describe to you how they have tended your brother's health. man. * * * * * * T. C." Much of the ensuing month was spent in correspondence with dramatic friends, on the characters personated by Mrs. Siddons, during her long and brilliant career. Most of the opinions and recollections thus obtained, are now incorporated with the "Life;" but the following communication, from Godwin, dated October 18, will interest the reader : "In Mrs. Siddons's performance of Portia, there was a most striking fascination in her manner of exhibiting what she had to do in the fifth Act. The scene is merely a light one of the perplexity into which she throws Bassanio, by persisting that he had given his ring to a woman, and not to a man. This would appear almost nothing from a female of a gamesome and rattling character, and would have made little impression; but Mrs. Siddons had a particular advantage, from the gravity of her general demeanor; and there was something inexpressibly delightful in beholding a woman of her general majesty condescending for once to become sportive. There was a marvellous grace in her mode of doing this; and her demure and queen-like smile-when, appearing to be most in earnest, she was really most in jest gave her a loveliness that it would be in vain for me to endeavor to find words to express. W. G." The "biography" was now finally revised-in several places re-cast; and to the Poet's nervous anxiety to render it worthy of the subject, and of his own reputation, may be attributed much of that ill health which was now almost habitual. Nor was this the only anxiety: "to clear off some old debts, he had adopted a rigid economy," denying himself various little indulgences, which long habit had rendered necessary to his comfort; and, with that keen sense of honor which formed a distinctive feature in his character, the grand object of his life was to quit his score," and recover his independence. * Mrs. Beattie died at Brighton, June 13, 1845, a twelvemonth after attending the Poet's death-bed, at Boulogne, June 15, 1844. ET. 56.] HAMPSTEAD A FRIEND IN DISTRESS. 295 In November, he writes: "I have been again obliged to go out and take my bed at the house of my kind, dear physician, at Hampstead. . . ." There, as usual, he recovered his health and spirits; and, returning to town, took lodgings at 18 Old Cavendish-street. To minister to a friend in distress, as I have said, either by personal visits or pecuniary aid, was to Campbell a real luxury. As an example: "Nov. 26th," he says, "I have been dining to-day in a strange place, namely, a spunging-house! You will not, of course, suppose that I was the spungee in any other sense than that I had to pay for my own dinner as well as that of my dear incarcerated friend. It is poor ***, the secretary of Prince C. Your friends, the Whigs, made him consul at but recalled him at the instance of your more particular friend, Princess L-n. To recall him was to ruin him; for he had to buy a drosky, value 1007., for his express duties as a consul. He returned to London, and was arrested for the price of the carriage! Count V. will soon send money from Paris to liberate him; but meanwhile, his friend, M'K., myself, and others, are obliged to do duty, day about, in visiting the poor fellow, and paying for his room, as well as the numberless extortions for everything he eats, drinks, and enjoys. The monster who keeps this iniquitous house makes 2000l. a-year out of his wretched victims! I paid, to-day, for a dinner to two of us, the moderate sum of fifteen shillings! These abuses, it may be trusted, will be at last done away with.. T. C." ... Hitherto, as he confesses, "the Biography" was incomplete; but at last, by frequent communications with Mr. Bartley and others, he had "settled the pestiferous doubts which had long haunted him regarding the manner in which Kemble and Mrs. Siddons acted in King Lear."* * In all the prompt-books of Drury Lane he found the old story of Cordelia in love with Edgar and the skinned eels-old Lear and Cordelia being unmercifully supposed to live. Mr. Bartley assured him that never in town or country, (and he had been thirty years on the stage) had he seen King Lear performed otherwise than according to the perversion (by Nahum Tate) of Shakspeare's play." "I satisfied myself," he says, "that there was no earthly reason to suspect, from the prompt-books, that the true Shakspearian tragedy was ever played in the last century, or even in this, till Kean made an attempt to restore it on the London boards. Dr. Sigmond, however, told me that, although in London he always saw .... So deeply interested was Campbell in his subject, and so scrupulous in weighing the testimony offered, that it was still the absorbing task of every day. But if this year must be considered poetically barren, it was in consequence of devoting himself so exclusively to the Tragic Muse, that his service to the others was neglected. the false copy played, yet he remembered, about seventeen or eighteen years ago, having seen the true Shakspearian play performed at Bath. He noticed the peculiarly fine effect of Lear's expiring on the stage, after he has said to his attendant-Pray, sir, undo this button! Bartley was so interested that he called in an old player, and his testimony was, that always, in his memory, Edgar and Cordelia were lovers; and that the plot ended happily. But Young," he adds, "is to be in town next week, and from him I expect a full solution of this perplexity. T. C." ET. 56.] POETICAL RETROSPECT-PARIS. 297 CHAPTER XI. POETICAL RETROSPECT-PARIS. HAVING already adverted to his fugitive poetry, I shall now endeavor to lay before the reader a brief notice of those pieces which, within the last ten years, had appeared with the name and sanction of the author. These, though few, and produced at various intervals, were all of standard merit, and still maintain their popularity. Ever since his return from Germany in 1820, the leisure, so necessary for poetical composition, was continually interrupted by more urgent, but far less congenial labors. He became a reviewer of the poems of others, when he should have added to the number of his own. Whatever he wrote, during his connexion with "The New Monthly" and "The Metropolitan," was written hurriedly. If a subject was proposed for the end of the month, he seldom gave it a thought until it was no longer possible to delay the task. He would then sit down in the quietest corner of his chambers; or, if quiet was not to be found in town, he would start off to the country, and there, shut in among the green fields, complete his task. If the subject was congenial, and finished to his own satisfaction, he returned to his friends in apparently renewed health and spirits; but, if at all distrustful of its merits, he became nervously apprehensive of its reception by the public; and under this impression, much that might have added to his fame, appears to have been hastily defaced, thrown away, or left in fragments, with an expressive "cætera desunt." The coldness with which "Theodric" had been received by his private friends, and the faint impression it made on the public taste, were facts very mortifying to the Poet's sensitive mind; and the feeling was painfully increased by a conviction, cherished to the last, that the sentence pronounced on that poem was unfair. He confidently predicted that the day would yet arrive, when 66 Theodric," ," after surviving the shafts of criticism, would obtain a steady popularity. This remains to be proved; but, without concurring either with the author, or in the verdict of the critics, there are beauties in that poem which I humbly think have been greatly overlooked--beauties which, had he given to the world nothing more, would have insured him a name and reputation among the poets. The genius of Campbell took so lofty a position at the first soar, that in every successive flight, whatever did not literally surpass, was pronounced to fall short of his former efforts. He was his own rival; and they who had admired, and wept over, "The Pleasures of Hope" and "Gertrude of Wyoming," were unmoved by the "domestic," simple pathos of "Theodric." The "Rhenish Baron," already alluded to, was probably, of the two poems, the prior conception, and, though afterwards rejected, gave rise to the story of "Theodric." The subjects, however, differ so considerably as to evince little, if any, resemblance between their respective characters.* * The following passage, taken at random, may serve as a specimen :— the Abbot's mien was high, And fiery black his persecuting eye; And swarthy his complexion-void of bloom, His bigotry itself had something gay, A tiger's strength-exuberant even to play. make him serious! and how trivial then Was all the gravity of other men Compared to his! At the High Mass, you saw Its faith, and stunn'd the reasoning powers of man; Was kindled by the flash it left behind. Wild legends, relics, things grotesque and naught, With more than earthly pomp: and Bernard raised |