Page images
PDF
EPUB

in the union of the graces of society and literature | not a regular history of the revolution, but rather with the genius of philosophy, not surpassed by many among men."

[ocr errors]

a collection of penetrating observations and curious details, recorded in the true spirit of historic imparAfter the restoration of the Bourbons, Mad. de tiality, and therefore a most valuable treasure to Stael returned to France. She stood high in the future historian. The scope of the book, in Louis XVIII.'s favor, who was well qualified to accordance with her warm admiration through life enjoy and appreciate her powers of conversation; of the English constitution, is to show that France and he gave a substantial token of his regard by requires a free government and a limited monarchy. the repayment of two millions of francs, which the The catalogue of her works is closed by the treasury was indebted to her father's estate. At Euvres Inédites published in 1820, of which the the return of Napoleon, she fled precipitately to principal is "Ten Years of Exile." They are Coppet. She was too generous to countenance collected in an edition of eighteen volumes 8vo., the gross abuse lavished on the fallen idol; and published at Paris, in 1819-20, to which the "Nosome sharp repartees, at the expense of the time- tice sur le Caractère et les Ecrites de Mad. de servers of the day, seem to have inspired Napoleon Stael," by Mad. Necker de Saussure, is prefixed. with a hope that he might work on her vanity to The leading feature of Mad. de Stael's private enlist her in his service. He sent a message, that character was her inexhaustible kindness of temper; he had need of her to inspire the French with con- it cost her no trouble to forgive injuries. There stitutional notions: she replied, "He has done for seems not to have been a creature on earth whom twelve years without either me or a constitution, she hated, except Napoleon. "Her friendships and now he loves one about as little as the other." were ardent and remarkably constant; and yet she Concerning the last three years of her life, our had a habit of analysing the characters, even of information is very scanty. She had contracted a those to whom she was most attached, with the second marriage, with M. Rocca, a young officer, most unsparing sagacity, and of drawing out the who, after serving with distinction in the French detail and theory of their faults and peculiarities, army in Spain, had retired, grievously wounded, with the most searching and unrelenting rigor; to Geneva, his native place. For an account and and this she did to their faces, and in spite of their apology for this much-censured and injudicious most earnest remonstrances. It is impossible for connexion, the date of which we have not found me to do otherwise,' she would say; if I were specified, but which should seem to have been pre-on my way to the scaffold, I should be dissecting vious to her flight to Coppet, since Rocca accom- the characters of the friends who were to suffer panied her on the occasion, we must refer to Mad. with me upon it.'" Though the excitement of Necker de Saussure. It appears by her statement mixed society was necessary to her happiness, her (and this is a material consideration in estimating conversation in a tête à tête with her intimate friends the extent of the lady's weakness,) that though she is said to have been more delightful than her most must have been more than forty, and the gentleman brilliant efforts in public. She was proud of her was twenty years younger, she had inspired Rocca powers, and loved to display and talk of them: but with a devoted and romantic passion. "Je l'ai- her vanity was divested of offensiveness by her canmerai tellement," he said to one of his friends, dor and ever-present consideration of others. Of her "qu'elle finira par m'épouser," and he kept his errors we would speak with forbearance; but it is word. A less distinguished woman might have due to truth to say that there were passages in her contracted a marriage in which the disparity of life which exposed her to serious and well-founded years was greater, at a slight expense of wonder- censure. As a daughter and mother she displayed ing and ridicule; but probably Mad. de Stael felt sedulous devotion, and the warmest affection. that the eyes of the world were upon her, and that Though never destitute of devotional feeling, her any weakness would be eagerly seized by her ene-notions of religion in youth seem to have been very mies; and, perhaps, had a natural dislike to resign | vague and inefficient. But misfortune drove her a name which she had rendered illustrious. She sensitive and affectionate temper to seek some stay, judged ill the secrecy was the worst part of the which she found nothing on earth could furnish; affair. The union, though generally believed to and in later years, her religion, if not deeply learned, exist, was not avowed until the opening of her was deeply felt. Of this, the latter portion of Mad. will, which authorised her children to make her Necker de Saussure's work will satisfy the candid marriage known, and acknowledged one son, who reader. And though her testimony to the truth was the fruit of it. The decline of M. Rocca's and value of religion were for the most part indihealth, which never recovered the effect of his rect, we may reasonably believe that it was not wounds, induced her to take a second journey to ineffective. "Placed in many respects in the Italy in 1816. At that time, her own constitution highest situation to which humanity could aspire, was visibly giving way. She became seriously ill possessed unquestionably of the highest powers of after her return to France, and died, July 14, 1817, reasoning, emancipated in a singular degree from the anniversary of two remarkable days of her prejudices, and entering with the keenest relish life. These were, the commencement of the into all the feelings that seemed to suffice for the French revolution, and the day on which, by en- happiness and occupation of philosophers, patriots, tering Russia, she finally escaped from Napoleon. and lovers, she has still testified that without reliM. Rocca survived her only half a year. He died gion there is nothing stable, sublime or satisfying: in Provence, January 29, 1818. and that it alone completes and consummates all to which reason and affection can aspire. A genius like hers, and so directed, is, as her biographer has well remarked, the only missionary that can work any permanent effect upon the upper classes of society in modern times-upon the vain, the learned, the scornful and argumentative, who stone the Prophets, while they affect to offer incense to the Muses." "(-Ed. Review, No. LXXI.)

:

Mad. de Stael's last great work, which was published after her death, is entitled "Considérations sur les principaux Evénemens de la Révolution Française," a book, says Mackintosh, "possessing the highest interest as the last dying bequest of the most brilliant writer that has appeared in our days, the greatest writer, of a woman, that any age or country has produced." That it was left unfinished is the less to be regretted, because it is

LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 22.-12 OCTOBER, 1844.

CONTENTS.

Correspondence Ireland and France-France and America,

1. Recollections of Thomas Campbell,

2. Correspondence of Edmund Burke,

[ocr errors]

3. El Morenito, a rough sketch in the Pyrenees,

4. Anglican Cathedral at Jerusalem, .

5. English Education in China,

6. The Glorious Fourth of July, at Philadelphia,

7. My Captivity in Russia,

8. Reminiscences of Bernadotte,

9. The Romance of a Swan's Nest,

10. The Execution of Montrose,

11. American Manners and British Critics,

12. The Gambler's Last Stake,

13. A Spanish Criminal Case,

14. Life of Frederic William III.,

15. Chinese Emigration,

16. Tahiti, Ireland, Egypt,

17. A Dish of Glory,

[ocr errors]

18. Planting and Managing Roots of Grape Vines, 19. Model Farms in Ireland and Scotland,

20. Cultivation of the Currant,

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]

587

[ocr errors]

Hood's Magazine,

599

Asiatic Journal,

[ocr errors][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]

21. MISCELLANY.-Calvinistic Methodist Emigrants, 604-Burial Societies-Italy-Capt. Warner, 608-Schoolmasters in Scotland-Commemoration of Purcell-Recreation for the Working Classes-Presence of Mind-Vegetable Diet-Mogador, 613-Rubbish of Egyptian Cities-Cave in Ireland, 618-Fighting Missionaries-Democracy and Judicial Dependence, 622-Statue of Goethe-Irish Repealers-Coöperation-West IndiesRobert Owen-Dr. Dalton, 630-Death from Disappointment, 631-Will of Sir Hudson Lowe-Dreaming of my Mother, 635-Statue of Bishop Cheverus, 636-Mournful Mother, 637-Curious Plant-Agricultural Colony at Algeria, 640.

22. SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.-Paris Academy of Sciences-Soda and Coffee-Astronomical Discovery-Railway Pilots-Lord Rosse's Telescope-Scientific Congress at MilanNew Locomotive Power-Sparrows, 638.

23. OBITUARY.-Rev. Francis Carey-Mozart's Son-Lord Keane, 639.

CORRESPONDENCE.

631

633

634

636

637

"It was likely, in all appearance, that England would want the lion heart and stout arm of Ireland, and she could easily procure both the one and the other, -not by the means of the plausible hypocrisy and sweet words of Sir Robert Peel, but by the substantial instrumentality of doing justice to the Irish."

Mr. T. M’Nevin, another speaker, expressed absolute distrust of the professious and promises of the premier at the close of the session, with which, how

This number is a very good one: the biographical notices of Burke, Bernadotte and Campbell will be attractive. Each of these names might serve as a subject for Mr. Macaulay.-The Life of the King of Prussia, whose sufferings under Napoleon endeared him so much to his people, is the ever, most of the Irish members of Parliament testimore interesting as coming from one of his sub-fied high satisfaction. The material business of the jects. English Education in China, and Chinese Emigration, show two different means of introducing the knowledge and religion of Europe into that vast empire.

The excavations made at Jerusalem may interest even more readers than will be attracted by the history of the superstructure.

We copy the following, dated 25 August, from the excellent Paris correspondent of the National Intelligencer.

Our Paris press seemed to forget Mr. O'Connell, until the quarrel about Tahiti and Morocco bore promise of war. Then the Liberator and the situation of Ireland were brought into the calculation of results. At the meeting of the Repeal Association, in Dublin, on the 1st, the son of O'Connell, Daniel, Jr., who serves as his mouthpiece, referred to the lowering aspect of the political horizon in these

[blocks in formation]

meeting was this paragraph:

"He could state it to be the opinion of Mr. O'Connell, that the association should take steps to get as many persons as possible, not being already pledged teetotallers, to take the abstinence pledge for a limited period; that is, until the repeal of the union.. Mr. O'Connell had consulted Father Mathew, who approved of the limited plan for those who would not take the pledge for life. Four of Mr. O'Connell's grandsons had already taken it in the limited shape, and Mr. S. O'Brien, upon his return from the country, would probably shape a motion for an aggregate meeting at Clontarf, or some other suitable vicinity, to administer the Repeal Total Abstinence Pledge.' He also knew that Mr. O'Connell concurred in another suggestion of Mr. S. O'Brien, to have another pledge taken, as universally as possible, against the consumption of tobacco in any shape until the repeal of the union. That pledge, if universally, or even generally taken, would have a great effect upon the minds of British statesmen in favor of doing justice to Ireland. He knew that it was the intention of

Mr. O'Connell himself, upon the 30th of May, 1845, | tional advantages. They are, he says, mere vaporto institute a pledge for the non-consumption of excisable articles in Ireland, and also a pledge for the non-use of any article not of Irish manufacture. All these pledges would be upon the same footing as the total abstinence pledge."

Father Mathew probably thought that the pledge until the repeal was quite equivalent to the other, even for the youngest teetotaller. Perhaps the Association thought that the new pledge would increase the earnestness of many for repeal as the term of their abstinence. The vow against tobacco is meant to lessen the British revenue, but was the more favored, we may presume, as the plant comes from slaveholding states. Notwithstanding the extent of pauperism and starvation in Ireland, Mr. O'Connell and his fellow-prisoners have consented to feed most luxuriously from voluntary supplies.

:

spouts, organs of pride, passion, delirium; instead of sentinels of reason, justice, humanity, and civilization. His close connexion with the ministry, like that of the Journal des Debats, lends additional weight to such language as the following:

"We shall not lose our time in opposing calculation to calculation, in casting up the number of our ships, in making notes of the hatreds suspended over the head of England in the various quarters of the globe, in enumerating the Irish and the Chartists, who would increase the chances of an invasion of England. No! All this is wretchedly ridiculous, and we leave these labors to radical writers. But we will say, that for England, as much as for France, war would be a calamity, of the consequences of which no one can define the limits. If it be true that order would be disturbed in France, that our new-born dynasty would be endangered, that our railroads would remain unfinished—that Paris, that great seat of industry, would be deserted by foreigners, and that with them employment, profit, and wealth would depart; that every branch of our national industry would receive a rude shock; it is equally true, that on the day when the flames of war should break forth, the voice of O'Connell, now smothered, would be heard

aristocracy pay dear for the aid it might lend. You would sow disorder and uneasiness amongst us, but you would not produce a revolution. Go to! neither you nor we, nor any portion of Europe, have anything to gain by a war. All of us have need of order, undisturbed industry, and stability, and we all depend upon each other. The first cannon-ball you fire against us will strike all Europe to the heart."

Our journals furnish every day magnificent estimates of French resources for a death-struggle with Great Britain. The revolutionary National is boastful, confident, and unscrupulous beyond all. Privateering forms one of its chief reliances-free of course from all restraint of law or mercy. You will readily receive a translation of a part of its text touching foreign aid. The number of the 20th instant says:— "We must not positively count on the secondary na-aloud; the element of democracy would make the vies of Europe. They may unite with us in destroying the common enemy, but that is not certain. If, however, we turn our eyes to the other side of the Atlantic, we shall see a nation for whom France lavished her treasure and blood, and that nation, no doubt, will discharge her sacred debt. The United States, whose growth we hail, will always find in France a powerful and glorious ally on the other hand, they have everything to fear from the pretensions, jealousy, and resentments of Great Britain. Gratitude and policy, then, would cause them to espouse our quarrel with fervor. Success would not be distant nor doubtful. Swarms of privateers, in concert with the French, would cut up English commerce in every sea, on every coast. Meanwhile, the American ships of war, though few, yet bravely and skilfully managed, would not remain idle. If, against all probability, the government of the United States should fail us, we shall fight alone for the liberty of the seas, and reap the honor of having won freedom and equality for all the secondary powers. What we have said about American privateers would remain true, though the government should be recreant; those vessels would take letters of marque from the French government. American merchants would perceive this arming against England to be so lucrative that they could not forego so easy an expedient of enriching themselves by ruining too their old rivals. We French would construct numberless war-steamers in all our channel ports; some fine day, after a violent storm had completely swept the channel, we should throw fifty thousand soldiers on undefended points of the British coast. Such a debarkation and its results are a matter of mere time or opportunity." This is a faint specimen of the National's flourishes. Your government and people will, in any event, adhere to the WASHINGTON policy, and justify the complaint of other French organs-that you act only on your own particular grievances-in your own immediate questions. The letter of marque morality you can scarcely adopt; you may be assured that there is not more good will towards you here than elsewhere in Europe. A majority of the British cabinet and of the press are hostile; yet your merits and faculties are far better understood and appreciated in Great Britain than in France. The Paris Globe is edited in -chief by a frank, ready, gifted writer, GRANIER DE ·CASSAGNAC, author of various books of repute, and particularly of the two good volumes on the French and Spanish West Indies. He ridicules and reprehends the papers of both Paris and London for their wild war-whoop, and their prodigious array of na

The newspapers have betrothed the King of Saxony's youngest daughter, one of the prettiest, most amiable and accomplished of princesses, to the Duke of Bourdeaux; and this alliance they assign as the king's reason for not crossing from London to Paris. A suitable match for the duke occupies constantly the thoughts of the Council of Legitimists. He must have male progeny to prevent Louis Philippe or any of his lineage from becoming rightful possessor of the throne. While that monarch has still two fine sons to be married, it would be doubly ungracious in any dynasty, north or south, to prefer the pretender. The Gazette de France is an oracle for a large number of the Legitimists. I was struck with the liberality of the terms which it employed, on the 21st instant, in regard to Louis Philippe's sons: "These young princes serve France with devotedness: it is a felicity, a luck, which Heaven has granted them; it is a just matter of envy for others; they comprehend this luck of their situation. It does them credit thus to understand and improve their opportunity." Another leading print of the opposition observes: "The king's sons popularize the dynasty, while the cabinet's do the reverse." Another suggests that disorder in the succession, or weakness in the regency, may ensue from either of the younger becoming more distinguished by feats of arms, and consequently more dear to the nation, than the Duke of Nemours. The opposition blow the trumpets lustily for the Prince de Joinville, with the hope of turning him to account. Louis Philippe pushes all his sons forward in the public service-the more, in reference to the position of the Duke of Bourdeaux. According to the Constitu tional, the organ of the Left Centre, the Emperor Nicholas cannot win favor in Germany, in spite of every effort by money and caresses with the chief politicians and journals. Therefore, no northern alliance is now possible. The recent visit of the King of Prussia to Vienna, and the known cordiality between the three potentates, may warrant a different conclusion. It is now surmised that the determination to wage war with Morocco, and the possible consequence of a rupture with England, occasioned the ministerial change of plan with the trans-atlantic steamers.

From Frazer's Magazine.

CAMPBELLIANA.

also by subscription, to which I was a subscriber." When this was shown to Campbell, by Mr. MaI WISH to write about Thomas Campbell in the crone, just before the publication of the book, the spirit of impartial friendship: I cannot say that I poet's bitterness knew no bounds. "He's a dirty knew him long, or that I knew him intimately. I blackguard, sir," said Campbell; "and, sir, if Mr. have stood, when a boy, between his knees; he Galt were in good health, I would challenge him: has advised me in my literary efforts, and lent me I feel disposed to do so now, the blackguard." books. I have met him in mixed societies-have "What's to be done?" said Macrone; "the book supped with him in many of his very many lodg- is printed off, but I will cancel it, if you like." ings have drunk punch of his own brewing from Here the heading of the chapter, "A Two-penny his silver bowl-have mingled much with those Effusion," attracted Campbell's attention, and his who knew and understood him, and have been at thin, restless lips quivered with rage. "Look

all times a diligent inquirer, and, I trust, recorder here, sir," said Campbell, “look what the dirty of much that came within my immediate knowl- blackguard's done here!" and he pointed to the edge about him. But let me not raise expectation words "A Two-penny Effusion." Two cancels too highly: Mr. Campbell was not a communica- were then promised, and the soothed and irritated tive man; he knew much, but was seldom in the poet wrote with his own hand the following short mood to tell what he knew. He preferred a smart account of his early efforts :-" Campbell began saying, or a seasoned or seasonable story; he his poetical career by an Ossianic poem, which trifled in his table-talk, and you might sound him was published by his school-fellows, when he was about his contemporaries to very little purpose. only thirteen. At fifteen, he wrote a poem on the Lead the conversation as you liked, Campbell was Queen of France, which was published in the sure to direct it a different way. He had no arrow-Glasgow Courier. At eighteen, he printed his flights of thought. You could seldom awaken a Elegy called Love and Madness; and at twentyrecollection of the dead within him; the mention one, before the finishing of his twenty-second year, of no eminent contemporary's name called forth a The Pleasures of Hope." sigh or an anecdote, or a kind expression. He Before Campbell had recovered his usual serendid not love the past-he lived for to-day and for ity of mind, and before the ink in his pen was well to-morrow, and fed on the pleasures of hope, not dry, who should enter the shop of Messrs. Coch the pleasures of memory. Spence, Boswell, Haz-rane and Macrone, but the poor offending author, litt, or Henry Nelson Coleridge, had made very little of his conversation; old Aubrey, or the author of Polly Peacham's jests, had made much more, but the portrait in their hands had only been true to the baser moments of his mind; we had lost the poet of Hope and Hohenlinden in the coarse sketches of anecdote and narrative which they told and drew są truly.

Thomas Campbell was born in Glasgow, on the 27th of July, 1777, the tenth and youngest child of his parents. His father was a merchant in that city, and in his sixty-seventh year when the poet (the son of his second marriage) was born. He died, as I have heard Campbell say, at the great age of ninety-two. His mother's maiden name was Mary Campbell.

Mr. Galt. The autobiographer was on his way home from the Athenæum, and the poet of "Hope," on his way to the Literary Union. They all but met. Campbell avoided an interview, and made his exit from the shop by a side-door. When the story was told to Galt, he enjoyed it heartily. Campbell," said Galt, " may write what he likes, for I have no wish to offend a poet I admire ; but I still adhere to the two-penny effusion as a true story."

66

On quitting the Glasgow University, Mr. Campbell accepted the situation of a tutor in a family settled in Argyllshire. Here he composed a copy of verses printed among his poems on the roofless abode of that sect of the Clan Campbell, from which he sprung. The lines in question are barren of promise-they flow freely, and abound in pretty similitudes; but there is more of the trim garden breeze in their composition, than the fine bracing air of Argyllshire.

He did not remain long in the humble situation of a tutor, but made his way to Edinburgh in the winter of 1798. What his expectations were in Edinburgh no one has told us. He came with part

Mr. Campbell was entered a student of the High School at Glasgow, on the 10th of October, 1785. How long he remained there no one has told us. In his thirteenth year he carried off a bursary from a competitor twice his age, and took a prize for a translation of The Clouds of Aristophanes, pronounced unique among college exercises. Two other poems of this period were The Choice of Paris and The Dirge of Wallace. When Galt, of a poem in his pocket, and acquiring the friendin 1833, drew up his autobiography, he inserted a ship of Dr. Robert Anderson, and the esteem of short account of Campbell. 66 Campbell," says Dugald Stewart, he made bold to lay his poem Galt, "began his poetical career by an Ossianic and his expectations before them. The poem in poem, which his school-fellows published by sub-question was the first rough draft of The Pleasures scription, at two-pence a-piece;' my old school- of Hope. Stewart nodded approbation and Anfellow, Dr. Colin Campbell, was a subscriber. derson was all rapture and suggestion. The poet The first edition of The Pleasures of Hope was listened, altered and enlarged-lopped, pruned,

was without a poet. Campbell became the lion of Edinburgh. "The last time I saw you," said an elderly lady to the poet one day, within our hear

ing about with a Suwarrow jacket."
said Campbell, "I was then a contemptible puppy."
"But that was thirty years and more," remarked
the lady. "Whist, whist," said Campbell, with
an admonitory finger, "it is unfair to reveal both
our puppyism and our years."

and amended, till the poem grew much as we now see it. The fourteen first lines were the last that were written. We have this curious piece of literary information from a lady who knew Camping, "was in Edinburgh; you were then swaggerbell well, esteemed him truly, and was herself "Yes," esteemed by him in return. Anderson always urged the want of a good beginning, and when the poem was on its way to the printer, again pres ed the necessity of starting with a picture complete in itself. Campbell all along admitted the justice of the criticism, but never could please himself with what he did. The last remark of Dr. Anderson's roused the full swing of his genius within him, and he returned the next day to the delighted doctor, with that fine comparison between the beauty of remote objects in a landscape, and those ideal scenes of happiness which imaginative minds promise to themselves with all the certainty of hope fulfilled. Anderson was more than pleased, and the new comparison was made the opening of the new poem.

"At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thus, with delight we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus from afar, each dim-discovered scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been;
And every form that Fancy can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there."

There is a kind of inexpressible pleasure in the very task of copying the Claude-like scenery and repose of lines so lovely.

With Anderson's last imprimatur upon it, the poem was sent to press. The doctor was looked upon at this time as a whole Willis' Coffee-house in himself; he moved in the best Edinburgh circles, and his judgment was considered infallible. He talked wherever he went, of his young friend, and took delight, it is said, in contrasting the classical air of Campbell's verses with what he was pleased to call the clever, home-spun poetry of Burns. Nor was the volume allowed to want any of the recommendations which art could then lend it. Graham, a clever artist-the preceptor of Sir David Wilkie, Sir William Allan, and John Burnet-was called in, to design a series of illustrations to accompany the poem, so that when The Pleasures of Hope appeared in May, 1799, it had every kind of attendant bladder to give it a balloon-waft into public favor.

All Edinburgh was alive to its reception, and warm and hearty was its welcome. No Scotch poet, excepting Falconer, had produced a poem with the same structure of versification before. There was no Sir Walter Scott in those days; the poet of Marmion and the Lay was only known as a modest and not indifferent translator from the German: Burns was in his grave, and Scotland

If the poet's friends were wise in giving the note of preparation to the public for the reception of a new poem, they were just as unwise in allowing Campbell to part with the copyright of his poems to Mundell, the bookseller, for the small sum of twenty guineas. Yet twenty guineas was a good deal to embark in the purchase of a poem by an untried poet and when we reflect that Mundell had other risks to run-that paper and print, and above all, the cost of engraving, were defrayed by him-we may safely say, that he hazarded enough in giving what he gave for that rare prize in the lottery of literature, a remunerating poem. We have no complaint to make against the publisher. Mundell behaved admiraably well, if what we have heard is true, that the poet had fifty pounds of Mundell's free gift for every after edition of his poem. Our wonder is, that Dr. Anderson and Dugald Stewart allowed the poet to part with the copyright of a poem of which they spoke so highly, and prophesied its success, as we have seen, so truly.

I have never had the good fortune to fall in with the first edition of the Pleasures of Hope, but learn from the magazines of the day, that several smaller poems, The Wounded Hussar, The Harper, &c., were appended to it. The price of the volume was six shillings, and the dedication to Dr. Anderson is dated "Edinburgh, April 13, 1799."

I have often heard it said, and in Campbell's life-time, that there was a very different copy of the Pleasures of Hope, in MS., in the hands of Dr. Anderson's family, and I once heard the question put to Campbell, who replied with a smile, "Oh dear, no; nothing of the kind. The alterations which the poem underwent by Anderson's advice, may have given rise to a belief that the poem was at first very unlike what we now see it. It was said of Campbell, that by the time

"His hundred of gray hairs
Told six-and-forty years,"

he was unwilling to remember the early attentions
of Dr. Anderson. He certainly cancelled or
withdrew the dedication of his poem to Dr. An-
derson, and this is the only act of seeming unkind-
ness to Dr. Anderson's memory which we have
heard adduced against him. But no great stress
is to be laid on this little act of seeming forgetful-
ness. He withdrew, in after-life, the dedication
of Lochiel to Alison, whose Essay on Taste, and

« PreviousContinue »