I am inclined to believe that the more popular form of the
‘Elegant
Extracts’ is the best adapted for our work. It is surely a fair
competition in which we shall start, with that ill-constructed but as I
understand very saleable compilation. With respect to the form of the work,
however, I feel myself an incompetent adviser. I am confident enough in my
power to make the merit of the book independent of its form. Its title I should
call ‘The Selected Beauties of British Poetry, with lives of the Poets
and Critical Dissertations. By T. C.,’ &c. This titlepage, however,
may be arranged at our leisure. I begin with Chaucer, and continue through the whole succession of English
Poets to the last of our own day. Many lives, and of course criticisms annexed
to these lives, will be included which are not found in any preceding
collection. Many anonymous Poems must also be inserted, with merely a notice of
the name to which they are attributed, upon grounds too uncertain to admit of a
Biography.
| CAMPBELL’S ‘LIVES OF THE POETS.’ | 329 |
My Biographies I mean to be short, but I dare say you will remember that shortness is not always incompatible with being satisfactory. By short I don’t mean scanty. Where the merit of the Poet is not very interesting, I will endeavour to make his biography more interesting. Extreme accuracy I trust I shall always attain—indeed, with the prospect of such aid as you are so kind as to promise me, I need not fear falling into errors with the industry I propose to exert. At the same time I do not promise you a book of antiquarian dissertation. I mean to exert the main part of my strength on the merits and writings of each Poet as an Author, not on discoveries of little anecdotes, and of his residence and conversation as a man, unless such things are striking, and can be obtained without sacrificing the great object of my efforts, viz. to make a complete body of English Poetical Criticism. The Poets are all to be reviewed in their chronological succession, but both in my preface and in my biographies I mean to class the minor poets in the different orders of their general merit and particular characteristics. To the great Poets, such as Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Dryden, Pope and Thomson, I devote a separate and elaborate disquisition, treating them as they deserve, like great writers, having nothing in common but their greatness.
I mean to devote a year exclusively to this effort. It is not
my part to say any more than I have said (I hope it will not appear immodestly)
on my own competency to the task. I shall only add that I have written a good
deal on the subject matter of it, and read and thought a great deal more.
Independent of my duty as a fair dealer, which I trust would always deter me
from performing a task in a slovenly manner, where the capital of an
| 330 | MEMOIRS OF JOHN MURRAY |
