| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 225 |
BARRON FIELD, had written
some remarks upon the sonnets of Shakspeare.
Campbell could not agree with him in his views
of these much-debated productions and set about controverting them. Sometimes he would
suffer opinions at war with his own to be promulgated out of pure indolence, at others he
would kindle, take up his pen, get one third through a reply, or criticism, and then fling
away all he had begun. In the present instance he completed his article and published it, but he did not publish the
article on account of which he wrote, and therefore the public had at the time no means of
estimating
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“I have said that the addition which these sonnets afford to
our knowledge of Shakspeare, is insignificant as
an index to his biography, and I shall not feel the assertion falsified, though I
should see persons of more ingenuity than I can pretend to, eliciting many brilliant
conjectures from their contents. I can only say that I have outlived all taste for
conjectural biographies, and that the truths brought to view by these effusions seem to
me to be neither numerous nor momentous. We learn from them that
Shakspeare had a friend to whom he was devotedly attached (the
nature of his language to that friend I shall by and by consider), and a poetical
mistress, who, not satisfied with inroads on the poet’s heart, carried her
conquests even to that of his friend, and made Shakspeare
sonnetise on his jealousy of too much tenderness subsisting between them. It appears,
however, that he never broke with his friend on this account, so that his love-passion
must have been a humbler sort of lodger in his heart, that could put up without either
the whole or the best of its apartments. Other casual moods of his mind are expressed
with an air of sincerity, which I deny not to be interesting as insulated records of
his feelings, though I still refuse them the character of new or indicative importance
to his history. He speaks to his friend, in certain passages, with extreme modesty as
to his own poeti-
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Campbell’s judgment on this question in his better days, must not be confounded with his work on Shakspeare, at a later period. The above much-debated question can have nothing further nor better said of it than is said in these observations, by one who was a poet himself, and therefore a judge of a poet’s feelings and objects.
As might be conjectured from the character of his poem of “Gertrude,” and his natural bearing
in regard to the master passion, Campbell was distinguished more for
the tender than the ardent. There was no ardour in his delineations of love, all was gentle
and subdued. He once asked me which of the French poets I preferred. I replied Corneille, but that I was not fond of French poetry.
Racine, he observed was his favourite, and there
were some passages in his tragedies which were of unequalled tenderness and yet perfectly
natural. I did not dispute that
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“I know that is the case with people in general,” replied the poet, “but Racine is so sweet while not wanting in strength that I give him the preference.”
I observed that I had an advantage over him in one respect, I had seen Talma in Orestes and Duchenois acting together in his pieces. I had seen the latter in Hermione. Still there was a want of power in the language and sentiment. They did not affect me, as the works of some other dramatic writers did.
He observed that the tenderness of Racine was unequalled even in Shakspeare. He supposed that I objected to the lack of excitement and want of strength which were abundantly compensated in his view by the perfection of that in which other writers were deficient, and in which Corneille, who in some respects soared higher, could not equal his rival. In his view there was something peculiarly graceful in the drama of Racine. Did I object to his regularity and adherence to the rules of the classic drama as understood in France?
I replied not at all—that I could not set myself
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“I do not speak critically—Racine and even Metastasio are most grateful to my feelings.”
“But is not the last tame?”
“I do not know how it is,” replied the poet, “but I prefer the calm beauties which I find in such writers beyond those which are more exciting.”
“I should not have thought that from the writer of ‘Hohenlinden.’“
“That was a sudden thing, brief, thrown off as it were by accident when the spirit moved—a moment of intoxication felt by us all at times.”
“Now I can comprehend your preference for Racine,” I observed, “when such verses as ‘Hohenlinden’ are the exception.”
It was singular that Campbell should have shown such a preference for the French poets, while I never heard him exalt in any way the poets of Germany. At the same time he would plunge over head and ears into Teutonic metaphysics. This was, perhaps, owing to his early study of the Scotch metaphysicians, who are an incubus on a poet, and restrain his flight from the earth. An educated Scotchman is rarely light and easy in what he does.
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Of Göthe, Lessing or Schiller, I never heard a word, but of Kant more than enough. The Scotch in such studies, especially those educated in the universities, are, like their preachers, for ever ready to divide a speech or a sermon into a couple of dozen heads and to subdivide each into as many more. Their men of genius too exhibit symptoms of a kind of oxidation which dims the polish of the poetic product, and stiffens that which should be lithe. Those who have read some of Campbell’s prose will discover what is meant, and readily credit that the source of its derivation is not from the inspiration of the muse, but from the mode in which Calvinistic syllogisms have been inculcated from the days of John Knox to the late preacher Irving. Campbell bore the taint in common with his countrymen, only much ameliorated by circumstances and the poetic spirit. It has the evil of shutting up the muse’s wings—or sewing them up as housewives sew up those of some kinds of poultry, so that their flight shall be hampered. Here Burns had an advantage over many of his countrymen, in that he never chopped their favourite logic, in a native university, but stood alone, his muse a chartered libertine.
During the year 1829, and beginning of 1830, the New Monthly had sustained the loss of many of its earlier and
more valuable contributors. Some who had greatly aided in raising
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It was not less singular than true, that while several of the old
writers made good novelists,
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Hazlitt, one of the best writers in periodicals of
the day, died this year. If a love of the better
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Campbell, whose inertness made him incapable of
acting with vigour under any circumstances, as usual still left things to take their
course. True he observed, authors of high success in one department of literature are not
often so in another. Of which truth he might himself have been quoted as an example. The
consequence was that the stream flowed as it listed. Papers written by what may be styled
“trade” writers were continually inserted in consequence, and in 1830 the
practice was carried to a considerable extent. These papers were generally anonymous, and
had therefore to rest upon innate merit for their effect with the public. The result was,
that they made no way. Had the authors’ names been affixed, the public would perhaps
have thought them excellent, and the author’s name not the quality of the writing,
might have decided their merit. There were writers of considerable popularity whose
contributions were inserted that were as meritorious as any they had produced. This was not
their fault. A literary reputation had been too frequently made for those who would never
have possessed one otherwise, by means of newspaper paragraphs; and good and bad being
confounded, the public never ceased to judge thus
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When interest in the conduct of a work flags, and there is a feeling that the customary time and labour are hopelessly bestowed upon it under the consciousness of a wrong system, it generates a feeling of indifference in the management. The poet had long shown this state of mind, for with him it had been the natural course of things after the novelty of the excitement had subsided, even within the first year of the editorship. Under circumstances similar to these, the work proceeded through the best part of 1830, or until the October number, when the present narrator’s connection with it ceased, and in December Campbell resigned his ten years’ editorship.*
|
* Campbell had gone on with little or none of the troubles of the publication for nearly ten years. All at once he had it flung upon his own shoulders, and an incident occurred which I have given elsewhere. The poet is said to have stated his resignation to have taken place because “it was impossible to continue editor without interminable scrapes and a law-suit now and then.” It was strange then that he could be editor for nearly ten years without any scrapes or law-suits? The truth was, I should not have let the poet’s attack on Sheldrake appear, for he had only told the truth about Glennie. I should have reasoned with him upon its violence, and he would have withdrawn it. Singular enough there were two Sheldrakes, and |
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“I could not go on comfortably as we did formerly,” said the poet, when he had quitted.
|
Glennie had blundered, mistaking one for the other. “When I returned to the publisher the articles in my hand, on quitting my post, I think for the October number, there was one for which Colburn had pressed me, being “about Lord Byron.” I called on Campbell with it in my pocket, for Byron was a subject I did not like to pass myself. It was the last time, and I gave up the paper to the publisher with other MSS:— “‘Going to see Campbell I had put it in my pocket. The article had nothing objectionable except that it reflected in some degree on a Dr. Glennie, a Dulwich schoolmaster, whom Campbell happened to know, but in his careless way not recalling the acquaintanceship, paid no attention to the fact. When the article appeared, this Glennie wrote to Campbell, and as the poet thundered against Hazlitt, without reflection in Northcote’s affair, so he attacked Sheldrake. The latter threatened an action for libel. Campbell then inserted a species of apology, making the matter a ‘mistake.’ I did not see the apology till some time afterwards. I thought I had had quite enough of the work. ‘Moore’s Life of Byron,’ p. 44, Vol. i. chancing to cross me, I found Sheldrake had stated nothing but the truth and that Glennie had really committed the error of taking one man for another.’—Redding’s Recollections,” Vol. ii. When Campbell found himself in a scrape he made any excuse to get out of it. It would have taken a new actor in the editorial drama a good while to know the poet’s way without the fate of Dubois. Nothing would have induced me to go back, and Campbell, when he resigned, would not return without me. He wrote me that when Colburn and Co. sent and offered him terms to return, ‘I refused the Editorship principally because I could not have you for my coadjutor.’”—Private Letter. |
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“And as to the state finances?”
“Devil take the finances. It is something to be free, if a man has but a shirt and carpet-bag. Don’t damp our jubilee?”
In this way the poet joked, and I believe felt, in giving up his editorship, almost without labour, and 500l. a year, as if he had really flung off a burthen equal to the Old Man of the Mountain. We dined together the same day, and he inquired what was to be done now we were both out of Mr. Colburn’s Paradise. He was never in better spirits than he was that day over his wine. Did I not think he could travel about with an electrical machine, and turn lecturer to Lord Brougham’s mechanical corps? I replied how will you tramp with the machine on your back—you can neither ride nor drive.
“True,” said the poet, “I must learn how to manage the instrument.”
“You have thrown philosophy in my teeth of old,” I observed, “and now it must stand you in some stead—you had better take a magic lantern.”
“I never thought of that,” he replied,
“there would be less call upon the mind that way, and in consequence, in the
way of the world, much more profit. Then we could have our old friends painted on the
glasses, and in spite of Colburn, we might
‘publish them.’ This, ladies and gen-
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“Goldsmith travelled with his flute.”
“Yes, but the magic lantern would be a more complex thing, and people would have a higher opinion of an optical illusion. The black art always had a majority of admirers.”
“Yes, I see the Sieur Campbell posted in large letters at the corners of the streets, a new Katerfelto conjuring for his bread.”
“Then,” he said, “I could make ballads but
not set them nor sing them—that I cannot do like Moore.” When the man of the world would have been thinking of
profit and loss, and have merged his hilarity in sulkiness about future gains to the same
amount, the poet was as lively as a child let out of school. It is true, for a poet he was
still independent, but he thought only of the present, and of his imaginary, rather than
his real, emancipation. He talked of a visit to the Continent and of numerous literary
projects he had conceived, which never had an existence out of the “ideal” of
that moment. Then wandering from this to other topics he almost got out of humour, because
I said, after all, the classical authors bequeathed by
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“You will not be convinced of anything,” said the poet;” “your philosophy is stoical. You are incredulous. You have no value for the noblest specimens of human character the world has produced. You have your own hard notions about all.”
“Pardon me. There was no assault made upon the glorious characters of antiquity. Let us keep to the point, whether the works of the classic authors left to us contributed anything of moment to the public liberty of modern times.”
“Here the poet, as was his custom, no longer argued, but asserted that the classics had greatly contributed to spread civil freedom; that it could not be otherwise, because they advocated it—that I loved paradox, and had not reflected enough upon the subject.”
“My dear fellow,”said he, “the classic writers left to us devoured their foster-fathers, the monks, those fat rascals to whom we are indebted for them, they destroyed the monkery that preserved them, and that was doing much for freedom.”
“I thought common-sense and Martin Luther did more.”
“Poh!” said he, “it was here monk against
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Galt had just got into some difference with Sir J. C. Hobhouse in regard to Lord Byron, where he was in the wrong. In the course of the discussion, Campbell strangely chose to append to a letter from Galt the excuse, such as it was, for the appearance of what was after all true, in the paper, regarding Dr. Glennie. The poet had a prejudice against Galt. Some articles written by the latter needing explanation, Galt came to the present writer, in Berners Street, rather than call upon his countryman. Galt had made current, wholly without foundation, that Campbell had first published “The Pleasures of Hope” by subscription, and had re-asserted it.*
Sir J. C. Hobhouse’s accusation was a similar instance of Galt’s misrepresentation, respecting himself and Byron. I did not much like Galt, and as I left the publication while the dispute was going on, and our interviews were strictly confined to business, so they quietly terminated.
This, or the preceding year, Campbell lost his sister, Elizabeth, in Edinburgh.
In the September number of the last year of his editorship, the poet wrote a review of Hughs’ “Travels in Greece and Albania.” Here he got upon his old and favourite theme. On reading it, the supposition of its being the production of the author of the letter to Moore about Byron, or
* See ante, Vol. i. p. 31. |
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In the December of the same year he wrote his last contribution. It was entitled “Thoughts and Facts respecting the Civilization of Africa.” His muse had been silent, as if anticipating the change. The colonization of Africa was a favourite subject with him. He adverted in it to Algiers, which he had at the moment little idea of visiting four years afterwards, and perhaps it led the way to his desire for seeing that country. He took his text from a publication of Jules Planat, upon the regeneration of Egypt. In this paper he somewhat overvalued the influence of the French with Mohammed Ali, miscalculating their policy, which had shown itself adverse to the conciliation of the inhabitants whenever they attempted settlements. But Campbell was the sanguine friend of freedom in all he put forth, and if his zeal were too lively at times, it was never misdirected. His heart always beat with the generous and the just. He never compromised with right policy, and even the excesses of an honest spirit are outpourings hallowed by the good.
It may be well to enumerate the contributions
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The poet having refused to return to the work he had edited, his
refusal roused the ire of the proprietor, who exhibited his spleen in language by no means
becoming. Campbell, though grossly ill-treated, did
not seem to resent it as he would have done in his better days; or perhaps the reflection
that he was under some pecuniary obligations still to Colburn and Co. restrained him. I quote the “Athenæum,” which made some just and impartial remarks
upon the subject. The offensive matter was on a commentary upon the poet’s successor.
“Has he yet to learn that every literary man is a gentleman, until he has done
something to forfeit the name, and the rank and respect which attach to it? That something, indeed, is a fine and subtle thing—subtle and
fine according to the delicacy of men’s minds. For ourselves, we should have
feared to accept the editorship of the New
Monthly, after the ’few words with the public’ on the retirement
of Mr.
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 247 |
Most of his short criticisms, given to me by himself, and noticed in the double-column pages, were hurriedly and loosely executed, so that his own neat hand was scarcely to be recognised in them. His manuscript was good or bad, according to the humour of the moment. When he lost a particular friend, he would now and then give out a few lines of his own regarding him, to be introduced into the obituary. This did not occur half-a-dozen times. He did not take the least interest in the articles inserted in the small print relative to distinguished characters of the hour who had become deceased. It is doubtful if he ever read them, unless his attention was directed to them, his natural indolence getting the better of his curiosity.
There was one excellence in the New Monthly
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Before taking leave of the editorship it may not be amiss to state that Campbell wrote a critique incog, upon Byron’s “Werner,” founded, it will be remembered, on one of Miss Lee’s “Canterbury Tales.” Byron’s avowal of having borrowed from them, will be borne in mind.
Campbell was of opinion Byron had added little either to the merit or invention displayed in the
story of “Werner.” He
animadverted on the different fates of Miss Lee and
Byron, in regard to the public—the fates of Cæsar with a temple, and Pompey without a tomb. As to the story of “Werner,” to quote his own words, “It is in many respects so fine
a story, that if the public has not had the good taste to know it already, they
scarcely deserve the complaisance of its being now told to them, even in order to
gratify their just interest in a work of Lord Byron. While we
pronounce it, on the whole, a striking and fine story, we nevertheless cannot pretend
to be blind to the peculiarity of taste and genius which it evinces. Lord
Byron conveys in his preface, and we are fully inclined to believe him,
that it may be said to contain the germ of much that he has written since perusing the
story, and before he dramatised it. It guides us to see
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“This tragedy of Lord
Byron is in some respects a less pleasing production than the story of
Miss Lee. She softens the transition of
characters in prose details, which, prolix as his lordship is in particulars, he cannot
so well graduate in blank verse. Miss Lee brings forward Josephine, their common heroine, more fully towards the
close of the catastrophe, than Lord Byron does, and by her mild
and amiable character, considerably softens the pain of our compassion. It may be asked
what Lord Byron has added to Miss Lee’s
materials? Certainly, in many passages, a good deal of beautiful poetical language and
imagery—nothing, however, to the creation of character, except one young woman,
Ida—and nothing, upon the whole, to the
pleasurable interest of the story. It is with no irreverence for Lord
Byron’s genius, but in justice to Miss Lee,
to say that she appears to be sometimes more interesting in her
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Campbell then quoted the “Canterbury Tales,” vol. iv. p. 186—“German’s Tale”—and Miss Lee’s “Conrad” (Lord Byron’s “Ulric”) and compared the passage in Lord Byron’s tragedy, beginning: “Ulric, before you dare despise your father,” to—“You turn aside. I did so.” See Byron’s “Werner.”
One of the passages of Miss Lee’s original, on which Byron improved, quoted by Campbell, alluded to the festival in Prague, which Ida, speaking, thus describes:—
“———never have I dreamed Of aught so beautiful—the flowers; the boughs; The banners; and the nobles and the knights; The gems; the robes; the plumes; the happy faces; The coursers and the incense; and the sun Streaming through the stained windows—even the tombs Which look’d so calm; and the celestial hymns, Which seemed as if they rather came from heaven Than mounted there; the bursting organ’s peal, Rolling on high like an harmonious thunder; The white robes, and the lifted eyes; the world |
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At peace, and all at peace with one another— Oh! my sweet mother!"” |
Criticisms or notices of Byron’s works as they appeared, were written generally by myself, or others. Campbell wrote only the above, on “Werner,” and, until now, that he did so was unknown except to myself. I have given it, because it is a copy of his feeling towards Byron—free from petty jealousy; and towards Miss Lee, whom he knew, and what he has stated carries the stamp of truth. I have also printed it, because Byron and Campbell belong to posterity in the time when true poetry will revive.
From the period when the poet left the New Monthly Magazine he survived fourteen years, which were perhaps as eventful as any portion of his life, for they saw him still a widower and they included a period in which great changes took place in his habits as well as bodily health.
He joined a society of the friends of Poland, planned by Mr. Bach. There were many motives which urged him to be
hearty in this cause. Mr. Bach, who was honorary secretary to that
society, said that he had seen the poet cry like a child, when drawing up some of the
papers in behalf of that despoiled people. In the chambers still occupied by this
gentleman, there is an attic to which the poet used to steal for the purposes of study, out
of all chance of intrusion. In this
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The committee rooms were at the Sussex Chambers, Duke Street, St. James’s, and no one could be more ardent than Campbell was in the Polish cause—it was almost a mania. When Prince Czartorisky, and the old Polish poet, Niemcevitz, came to this country, exiles, Campbell had been one of the first to call upon them. Afterwards, hastening back to the Literary Union, he proposed a private dinner to both exiles, and about twenty friends set down their names. The invitation was given by Campbell personally, and accepted. He then became busy in preparing for the occasion, when he received a message from the Prince, declining the honour if it could be in any way construed into a political matter. It was a curious trait in Campbell’s character, that he shirked anything he thought difficult or troublesome, or anything which forced him to make a request to set a crooked affair right, while he grasped at the credit of what hardly belonged to him. He therefore came to me—
“You are one going to meet the prince?”
“Yes.”
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“I am afraid he will not come—he has written to say he cannot join us, if the dinner can be construed into a political one. Had you not better see him at once. I wish you would go and talk to him upon the subject.”
“I have had no introduction to him yet.”
“No matter, go in all our names, persuade him that the party is really a private one, of only about twenty in number.”
He urged me so much, and made such excuses about himself, that I
consented to go to Holles Street, where the Prince was lodging, and talk to him on the
point, I found him alone, and after a little conversation, assuring him that we had nothing
political in our constitution as a body, he finally agreed to come and dine. The Prince, a
much younger man then, was of a very superior carriage, every way worthy his noble house.
He spoke with clearness of enunciation, his manner was pleasing yet dignified. When I left
him I could not help thinking of the old caricature of the Polish cow; and asking Campbell if he recollected it, he replied in the negative,
when I observed he ought to refresh his memory with reading in relation to the period of
the infamous partition, and the doings of those who ruled Europe by “the right
divine to govern wrong.” I told him the story, and he made good use of it.
Under Louis XV. in France, while Russia, Prussia and
Austria,
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Mr. Hunter Gordon engaged to act gratuitously as a working secretary to the Polish committee, and being somewhat lax in his duties, Campbell, who was certainly a little fast on the Polish subject, was forced to do his work. In consequence, having received an invitation to dinner he replied:—
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“‘My dear and worthy friend,’ as Chancellor Bach would say, you must excuse me for not dining with you to-day, for I am engaged in drawing up our manifesto, and in doing other work, that more properly belongs to that long, grinning mountain cat—your friend G——,
(Here there was an attempt at drawing a cat, more like a crocodile.)
“Give my best love to your wife,
This was written in one of his playful humours.
At another time he asked me to sound Prince
Cimitilli as to whether he would ask the Duke of
Sussex to place his name on the list of members of the Literary Union. I
objected, that as he himself would that day at dinner, meet the Prince, he was more fitted
to ask the question than I was, a simple individual. No, he hoped I would do it. He gave me
reasons why he should not do it. I then said I would undertake it. When the dessert came
on, the poet, on the name of a party being mentioned, whom he did not like, began to
censure him in a most violent manner, before persons, some of whom would infallibly carry
off the vituperation to the party censured. I had no means of preferring the
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When I told Campbell the result, he replied all he had said at the table was true, and it could not be helped. Any one but the poet would have been conscious of such a result, if he had reflected. However it may appear, I am convinced that the cause was that mauvaise honte he had never quite shaken off from his youth upwards, for he was not always easy about requests to great people.
Another of his peculiarities was pleading poverty when not called for
by circumstances. No one ever pleaded it more when it was real, it became a common thing
with him when groundless.
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