great gifts and great acquirements and ought not to be alone remembered in his final accounting with the public. We have said enough of these faults on former occasions; and shall not enter again at large upon the invidious task of classing or illustrating them. If we were to express them all in one word-that word should be childishness;—and indeed it is very curious to trace the effects of this quality in all the departments of his poetry.

His taste in description is as remarkably childish, as his powers of execution, in this branch of his art, are rare and admirable. Every thing, in his pictures, is gaudy and glittering, and fantastically exaggerated and contrasted. His landscapes are full of coloured light, and gems, and metallic splendour; and sparkle with such portentous finery, as to remind us of the old-fashioned grottos and shell-work of the last generation, or the gilded caverns and full-lighted transparencies of the opera-house. His excessive love of the marvellous and gigantic is a symptom not less decisive; and his delineations of persons and of affection are still more strongly marked with the same infantine character. He seems to think grown men and women too corrupt and hardened for poetical purposes; and, therefore, all his interesting personages lisp like sucklings; and his unamiable ones are, as nearly as possible, such sort of monsters as nurses imagine to frighten naughty boys into obedience. There is little other passion in his poetry, than what arises from the natural affection of fathers and daughters, or brothers and sisters; and from that calm, pure, subdued sort of love which may be indulged by dutiful children under the immediate inspection of their parents. All their pleasures, and pastimes, and occupations, too, are evidently borrowed from the same age of innocence;-and the picture of society that is offered to us rarely extends beyond the domestic privacy of a small secluded family.

We do not say, that all this may not be very sweet and interesting,-or even that Mr. Southey does not often make us feel how very beautifully it may be represented;-but the tone is too weak to strike with sufficient force on the ear of an ordinary reader; and is by far too uniform not to pall upon any one who is doomed to pursue it through a series of long poems. There is no variety of human character in all Mr. Southey's productions. Men are never brought forward to contend with men in the management of great affairs; or to display those social or lofty qualities by which they are enabled, in real life, to attach or to command their fellows. If Mr. Southey wants a living instance of the value of such elements, we would remind him of the signal success with which Mr. Scott has given the strong interest of reality to his most fanciful delineations, by this perpetual interposition of intelligible motives and familiar principles; and has, at the same time, imparted a spirit, and force, and variety to his pictures, by keeping his readers perpetually engaged with events and persons that bear a character of historical importance; instead of soothing them, like the author before us, with the virtues and affections, as well as the marvels and legends of the nursery. All this, however, would have been greatly more tolerable, if the poet had condescended to assume the lowly tone that is suitable to such subjects and feelings. If he had been contented to leave the loftier regions of the Epic to more potent and daring spirits, and addressed himself to youths and virgins in soft and unambitious strains, we have no doubt that he would soon have found a fit and willing audience, and been left, by those who were careless of such themes, to pursue them in his own circle without let or molestation. But he has imprudently challenged the attention of a far wider and less tractable auditory;—he has come with his whistle, and his

gilded book of fairy tales, into the assemblies of bearded men, and audibly undervalued all other instruments and studies. The kind of conceit, indeed, and arrogance, that is visible in this author and his associates, is still more provoking than their childishness,-or rather, is that which makes their childishness so offensive. While gravely preferring the tame vulgarity of our old ballads, to the nervous and refined verses of Pope or Johnson, they lay claim, not to indulgence, but to admiration; and treat almost the whole of our classical poets with the most supercilious neglect; while they speak in an authoritative tone of the beauties of George Wither and Henry More. With such ludicrous auxiliaries, they wage a desperate war on the established system of public taste and judgment,-and waste their great talents in an attempt, the success of which is as hopeless as it would be lamentable, and which all their genius cannot save from being ridiculous. The last unfortunate accompaniment of Mr. Southey's childishness is the perpetual artifice and effort that is visible in every part of his performances. We do not mean to say, that he has not great facility of diction, and copiousness of imagery; but there is always too apparent a resolution to make the most of every thing-a kind of rhetorical exaggeration (according to his own notions of rhetoric)—a determination to miss no opportunity of being fine and striking-and an anxiety to present every thing, great or small, under the most imposing and advantageous aspect. The general principle, no doubt, is highly laudable, and, we suppose, is common to all who write for glory; but what we complain of is, that it is by far too visible, and too indiscriminately indulged, in the works of this author. If there be any room or apology whatever for a description, it is sure to be thrust in-elaborately finished and extended to a vast length; and if any striking sentiment or event is about to be brought forward, such a note of preparation is sounded, and so much care taken to ensure it a favourable and conspicuous introduction, as to give the reader rather a distressing impression of the labour the author has bestowed on his composition, and of the great value he attaches even to the meanest of his ingredients.

It is difficult for us to believe, that Mr. Southey has ever rejected or suppressed any idea that he thought might be introduced with the smallest prospect of success; or has ever regarded any of so little importance, as to deserve only a slight and incidental notice. In his poetry, therefore, we have not a selection of the thoughts and images that have occurred to him: but we seem to have them all—and to have them all dilated and worked up with nearly the same fond and indiscriminate anxiety. He seems, in short, to have as excessive a love for his own genius as Övid, or the long-winded Spaniards and Italians of the sixteenth century; and to think as little of sparing his readers any thing which his own reading or reflection had once suggested to his imagination. The effect of all this is, not only to make his poetry very diffuse, and to give it a general air of heaviness and labour, but to deprive his felicities of their greatest grace, and to render his failures inexpiable.

There is nothing so charming in poetry, as that appearance of perfect ease and carelessness which makes the result, perhaps of long study, appear like the spontaneous effusion of a superior or inspired mind; and at once raises the reader, as it were, into the society of a higher order of beings, whose common language and habits of thought bear a stamp of vigour and sublimity far above the reach of ordinary mortals. This charm, however, is destroyed, the moment that we are permitted to look behind the scenes, and to catch a peep of the operose and toilsome machinery by which the

effect is produced. Nor can any secret be of more importance for a poet to keep from his readers, than that of the time he has spent, and the difficulties he has encountered, in the course of his composition. This maxim, we think, was well understood by the older writers; among whom it is rare to find any marks of extraordinary pains, either to introduce or to bring out their favourite images or conceptions. We do not speak of the labour occasionally bestowed, and visibly enough, on their diction or versification; but, with reference to the more substantial qualities of thought and fancy, we think there are few poets of established character who can be reproached, in any considerable degree, with the fault we impute to Mr. Southey. On the contrary, it will be found, that almost all their beauties appear to have been produced by accident; and that their fine passages are both brought in and concluded, with an apparent unconsciousness of their superior merit. They are neither introduced with any sort of parade, nor dwelt upon with any protracted complacency. They open quietly upon the eye of the reader as he advances and disappear again long before he is satiated with beholding them. He is never diverted from his path to catch a striking view of them: nor made to linger in its windings till all their sweetness is exhausted.

The practice of Mr. Southey, and of many other modern writers of inferior note, is directly the reverse of this; nor indeed is there any fault more characteristic of our modern poetry, and perhaps of our literature in general, than the offensive anxiety that our authors are continually showing to make the most of their talents and their materials-to miss no occasion to astonish and transport the reader,-and to take special care that nothing which they think beautiful or important shall pass unobserved, or be dismissed till its merits have been fully pointed out, and made apparent to the most negligent and inattentive. It is this miserable trick of over-rating the importance of all our conceptions, that has made our recent literature so intolerably diffuse and voluminous. No man, for example, has now the forbearance to write essays as short as Hume's, even if he had talents to make them as good; nor will any one be contented with stating his views and arguments in a popular and consise manner, and leaving them to their fate; but we must have long speculative introductions-illustrations and digressions-objections anticipated and answered-verbose apologies, at once fulsome and modest -practical inferences-historical deductions and predictions as to the effect of our doctrines, or the neglect of them, on the fate of men, and of the universe, in all time coming. In poetry, again, a great part of our modern authors seem equally averse to throw away the rubbish of their imaginations; and when they do hit upon any thing which seems to them of more than ordinary value, never fail to exert themselves notably to ensure the reader's attention to it. It is introduced either with startling abruptness, or slow and pompous preparation; and is turned into all possible lights, and repeated in all possible forms, and with every possible encouragement and suasory to admiration. The consequence of all which is, that the whole spirit, lightness, and nature of the thought is extinguished; and the reader left oppressed with a sense of fatigue, heaviness, and confusion.

But if this tone of perpetual effort and ambition prove so injurious to the effect of the very passages in which a poet is most successful, it is a thousand times worse where he experiences any failure or miscarriage. If a man says a dull thing in a low tone and quiet manner, it is very likely to escape notice,-and is almost sure to escape derision ;-but if he utter an inconceivable stupidity in an emphatic and arrogant accent, and after taking great

pains to prepare his hearers for something very impressive,the ridicule is irresistible, and its effect scarcely ever to be got over. Now, the poets who are at so much trouble to force all their bright thoughts on the notice of their readers, sometimes mistake for a bright thought what appears to others purely nonsensical or affected; and thus give rise to associations that are neither very favourable to their reputation, nor very easily dissolved. Where there is no visible effort, though there may be dulness, there can scarcely be failure; and the reader who is not gratified, may still retain his faith in the taste and judgment of the author,-and impute his want of brilliancy to an intractable subject, or a moment of negligence or inattention: but, the instant that he fails in a strenuous and open attempt on his admiration, there is an end to apology and toleration ;-there is then evident proof of weakness, where a feat of strength was intended,—and of open and irreconcilable differences as to the fundamental articles of his mystery. In our classical poets, accordingly, though there is abundance of flat passages, we scarcely recollect any instance of egregious failure. In Mr. Southey and Mr. Wordsworth, and in the German dramatists whom they seem to copy, we meet with them perpetually nor is it possible, even for great genius and originality, to prevent the combination of childishness with an unremitting effort at force and sublimity, from producing passages which chill the unwary reader with a mixture of shame, provocation, and compassion.*

CAMPBELL. +

We rejoice once more to see a polished and pathetic poem, in the old style of English pathos and poetry. This is of the pitch of the Castle of Indolence, and the finer parts of Spenser; with more feeling, in many places, than the first, and more condensation and diligent finishing than the latter. If the true tone of nature be not every where maintained, it gives place, at least, to art only, and not to affectation-and, least of all, to affectation of singularity or rudeness.

Beautiful as the greater part of this volume is, the public taste, we are afraid, has of late been too much accustomed to beauties of a more obtrusive and glaring kind, to be fully sensible of its merit. Without supposing that this taste has been in any great degree vitiated, or even imposed upon, by the babyism or the antiquarianism which have lately been versified for its improvement, we may be allowed to suspect, that it has been somewhat dazzled by the splendour, and bustle, and variety of the most popular of our recent poems; and that the more modest colouring of truth and nature may, at this moment, seem somewhat cold and feeble. We have endeavoured, on former occasions, to do justice to the force and originality of some of these brilliant productions, as well as to the genius (fitted for much higher things) of their authors-and have little doubt of being soon called upon for a renewed tribute of applause. But we cannot help saying, in the

*For reviews of Southey's other works, see Vol. i. p. 63. Vol. vii. p. 1. Vol. xi. p. 31. Vol. xxii. p. 447. Vol. xxv. p. 1. Vol. xxvi. p. 441. Vol. xxviii. p. 151. Vol. xxxv. p. 422. Vol. 1. p. 528.

Gertrude of Wyoming, a Pennsylvanian Tale; and other Poems. By Thomas Campbell.— Vol. xiv. p. 1. April, 1809.

mean time, that the work before us belongs to a class which comes nearer to our conception of pure and perfect poetry. Such productions do not, indeed, strike so strong a blow as the vehement effusions of our modern Trouveurs; but they are calculated, we think, to please more deeply, and to call out more permanently, those trains of emotion, in which the delight of poetry will probably be found to consist. They may not be so loudly nor so universally applauded; but their fame will probably endure longer, and they will be oftener recalled to mingle with the reveries of solitary leisure, or the consolations of real sorrow.

There is a sort of poetry, no doubt, as there is a sort of flowers, which can bear the broad sun and the ruffling winds of the world,-which thrive under the hands and eyes of indiscriminating multitudes, and please as much in hot and crowded saloons, as in their own sheltered repositories; but the finer and the purer sorts blossom only in the shade, and never give out their sweets but to those who seek them amid the quiet and seclusion of the scenes which gave them birth. There are torrents and cascades which attract the admiration of tittering parties, and of which even the busy must turn aside to catch a transient glance; but " the haunted stream" steals through a still and a solitary landscape; and its beauties are never revealed, but to him who strays, in calm contemplation, by its course, and follows its wanderings with undistracted andun impatient admiration. There is a reason, too, for all this, which may be made more plain than by metaphors.

The highest delight which poetry produces, does not arise from the mere passive perception of the images or sentiments which it presents to the mind, but from the excitement which is given to its own eternal activity, and the character which is impressed on the train of its spontaneous conceptions. Even the dullest reader generally sees more than is directly presented to him by the poet; but a lover of poetry always sees infinitely more; and is often indebted to his author for little more than an impulse, or the key-note of a melody, which his fancy makes out for itself. Thus, the effect of poetry depends more on the fruitfulness of the impressions to which it gives rise, than on their own individual force or novelty; and the writers who possess the greatest powers of fascination, are not those who present us with the greatest number of lively images or lofty sentiments, but who most successfully impart their own impulse to the current of our thoughts and feelings, and give the colour of their brighter conceptions to those which they excite in us. Now, upon a little consideration, it will probably appear, that the dazzling, and the busy and marvellous scenes which constitute the whole charm of some poems, are not so well calculated to produce this effect, as those more intelligible delineations which are borrowed from ordinary life, and coloured from familiar affections. The object is, to awaken in our minds a train of kindred emotions, and to excite our imaginations to work out for themselves a tissue of pleasing or impressive conceptions. But it seems obvious, that this is more likely to be accomplished by surrounding us gradually with those objects, and involving us in those situations, with which we have long been accustomed to associate the feelings of the poet, than by startling us with some tale of wonder, or attempting to engage our affections for personages, of whose character and condition we are little able to form any conception. These, indeed, are more sure than the other to produce a momentary sensation, by the novelty and exaggeration with which they are commonly attended; but their power is spent at the