in the drama of life, which is the more affecting because so few look upon it with interest. We sigh at the fragility of personal renown, and pity the enthusiasm that seems doomed to "make idols and to find them clay." Then how enviable appear those who are gathered to the kings of thought, far in the unapparent," the young poet who died in the freshness of his life, and the aged bard who seasonably retreated to the sequestered haunts of nature, and breathed his last far from the busy world where the echo of his fame yet lingered! We are chiefly pained, in the opposite case, at the difficulty of associating the author with his works, the written sentiment with the ordinary talk, the poet with the man, when we are thus brought into habitual contact with the social effigy of genius. We are also mortified at the inconsistency of feeling which leads men to guard and cherish an architectural fragment, and yet interpose no wise and charitable hand to preserve from sacrilege "creation's masterpiece, the poet soul;" which expends such hero-worship upon the distant and the dead, but holds up no shield between the greatness at their side and the indifferent or perhaps malicious gaze of the world. Modern philanthropy has furnished asylums for almost all the physical and moral ills to which flesh is heir; but the award of celebrity apparently cancels the obligations of society towards the gifted. If improvident, as is usually the case, poverty and neglect are often their lot in age; and if prosperous in circumstances, but bereft of near and genial ties, they are homeless, and consequently reckless.

Instances of private sensibility to claims like these, not only felt but realized with beautiful zeal, are indeed recorded to the honor of our common nature; and such benefactors as Mrs. Unwin, the friend of Cowper, and the Gilmans, at whose house Coleridge died, will live in honor when more ostentatious almoners are forgotten. Let us congratulate ourselves that we are seldom among the witnesses of the social decadence of our favorite English authors. Freshly to us yet beams their morning fame; we know them only through their works, and death has but canonized what love had endeared. There is no dreary interlude between the glorious overture and the solemn finale. Their garlands, to our vision, press unwithered brows. The music of their

names has never lost its spirit-stirring cadence; when uttered, memorable and eloquent passages recur, as "at the touch of an enchanter's wand." We think of Byron as he describes himself in his romantic pilgrimage, not as he appeared at Holland House and Drury. Shelley's memory is undimmed by the air of a chancery court, and remains as lofty, pure, and ethereal, as his funeral pyre; and Burns we never saw performing excise duties. But of all the modern poets of Great Britain, the one whose memory we could have least suffered to be desecrated was Campbell; and we rejoice to have known him as the bard of Hope, and not as Tom Campbell, especially as his correspondence exhibits his eminent title to poetical character as well as genius, and repudiates the shallow gossip which drew such superficial portraits of him in later years.

We find in these letters that Campbell the man was worthy of Campbell the poet; and that the ideal we had cherished of the author of Gertrude and Hohenlinden was essentially true to nature. The manner in which he has been dealt with, even by literary men, and especially by social detractors, is only another illustration of the humiliating truth that "Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame." Our view of the character of distinguished persons is three-fold: that derived from the deeds or writings upon which their fame rests, the report of contemporaries, and their own memoirs and letters. Between the first and last there is usually some essential harmony, but the intermediate link in the chain of evidence seldom coïncides with either. The decease of a renowned person is followed by the publication of his life, and recently it has been the wise and just custom to rely as far as possible on the testimony of the subject, rather than the opinions of the biographer.

The result is that the misrepresentations and partial glimpses afforded by rumor and ambitious scribblers give way before the direct and authentic revelation of facts and personal correspondence, and we enjoy the high satisfaction of reconciling the man and the author, and the assurance that the sentiment and tone which originally endeared to us the one were truly embodied in the other. How different is the view now cherished of Burns, Byron, Keats, and Lamb, from that prevalent before we were

fully admitted to a knowledge of their trials, habits, temptations, and ways of feeling and acting, by the record of sorrowing friends, and the appearance of their familiar and confidential letters! In consideration of the inveterate tendency to exaggerate and distort the simple facts of a marked career, it would seem not only excusable but requisite for those who have won the peculiar sympathy or admiration of the world, to write an autobiography. Such a work, undertaken in the spirit and executed with the frank good-nature which belong to those of Cellini, Alfieri, Goldoni, and we may add, as a recent instance, the fragments of Southey and Haydon, are better portraits to bequeath than the formal and incomplete lives too often substituted by the zeal of friendship or the enterprise of authors.

Next to a good autobiography, however, the best service which can be rendered departed genius is to bring together and unite by an intelligent and genuine narrative such personal memorials as most clearly represent the man as he was. However unambitious, the task is one of sacred responsibility, due not less to the enthusiasm which cherishes, than to the gifts which hallow, posthumous renown. We can then trace the elements of character as developed in boyhood, estimate the influence of education and circumstances, and recognize the domestic and social life of those whose personal reputation may have appeared incongruous with their permanent fame; thus realizing the process and the principle of their eminence. It is not eulogy which we require; that, if deserved, is apparent in the deeds or words which have become a passport to glory; it is facts, sentiments, familiar illustrations, whereby to judge for ourselves of the man whose name is indissolubly associated in our minds with the inspiration of heroism and poetry. The characters of a poet and a man of letters are so often blended in literary memoirs as to appear identical, but their distinctness in nature is marked by inevitable traits. Seldom has the difference between the two been more clearly indicated than in the biography of Campbell; and the illustration is more emphatic from the fact that we are admitted to his experience and opinions through familiar correspondence.

The grand peculiarity of the poetic nature is faith in sentiment of some kind, obedience to its inspiration, delight in its utterance,

and loyalty to its dictates. Neither time, nor interest, nor logic, suffice to exhaust or modify this vital principle. Where it fails to triumph over these, it is evidently inadequate to justify the title of bard, minstrel, poet, or whatever name we apply to those upon whose minds its influence is pervading and instinctive. To infuse the life of his own spirit, the glow of his personal emotion, into thought and language, is the characteristic of the poet. His words differ from those of other men chiefly by virtue and a magnetic quality. They appeal to consciousness rather than understanding, to the entire soul instead of the exclusive intellect. Hence they have power to stir the blood, linger on the ear, excite the imagination, and warm the heart. On the other hand, the man of letters can only grasp the technicalities of the art and wield the machinery of verse. As youth decays, as circumstances alter, as public taste varies, the enthusiasm which, at first, gave a temporary fire to his rhythmical writing, is subdued to such a degree as to render his so-called muse a very flexible and hackneyed creature-the mere effigy of what she once promised to be. The genuine poet, on the contrary, strives in vain to reconcile himself to the mechanical drudgery of the pen; is coy of an art whose real excellence he has too keenly felt to be satisfied with any "counterfeit presentment;" and lives on, wedded by an eternal affinity to the love of his youth, although he may have outgrown all relation to it but that of veneration and remembrance. The few gems of the latter outlive the mines opened by the former; scintillations of lyric fire, radiated from an earnest heart and generated by its native warmth, beam on like stars in the firmament; while the elaborate productions of tasteful and learned industry "fade into the light of common day." Only a felicitous passage, a theme accidentally enlivened by an impulse from individual life, redeems the ingenious and diffuse metrical composition from oblivion; but the spontaneous product of an inspired mind becomes a household and a national treasure.

Campbell's early life gave promise of this healthful endowment of the poetic faculty. He was a devoted student, and, although constantly bearing off prizes, won and retained the love of his companions. They once owed a holiday to his rhymed petition, and such instances of the loving exercise of his talents were of

frequent occurrence. His success at college was eminent in Greek; and the temperament of genius was evinced in the extreme alternation of his moods. Although often in high spirits, when his deeper feelings became enlisted, gravity ensued. He made the most obvious progress both in facility and power of expression, as we perceive by the gradual improvement in the style of his letters and occasional verses. But the most satisfactory indication of his poetical gifts we find in the ardor, constancy, and generous faith, of his sentiments. In friendship, domestic intercourse, literary taste, and the observation of nature, there was evident, from the first, an enthusiasm and sensibility which gave the fairest promise as they brought him into vital relation with these sources of moral and sentient experience.

The early correspondence of few poets has a more truthful charm and graceful warmth. It reveals his heart and confirms the tenor of his poems. His visits to the Highlands a residence of some months in Germany, and the study of the literature of the latter country, with the society of Edinburgh, all combined, at this most susceptible and enthusiastic period, to inform, excite, and chasten his mind. Thus enriched and disciplined, with the most limited pecuniary resources, and the greatest uncertainty as to what career he should adopt, the young poet was singularly exposed to the impressions of a period, when even the insensible and unenlightened were aroused to interest in public affairs, the welfare of society, and the progress of mankind. It was an epoch of war and of philanthropy, of revolution and experiment, of the most infernal tyranny and the noblest self-devotion. The overthrow of slavery was then first agitated; Poland and Greece heroically struggled, and the martyrdom of the former was achieved. The elements of civil society were deeply moved; the cause of truth and liberty inspired fresh championship, and the wrongs of humanity made themselves felt. At this time he meditated emigrating to America, where one of his brothers was already established.

It is a curious fact that several of the distinguished modern poets of England - among them Coleridge, Southey, and Keats

entertained similar views; and it is an equally curious speculation to imagine how such a course would have modified their