With these stanzas the curtain is dropped over the dead and the mourners, and the poem is concluded. Before we proceed to any general examination of "Gertrude of Wyoming," we think it necessary to intimate to our readers, that it is by no means owing to deficiency of wit, on our own part, that we have conducted them in sober sadness from the beginning to the end of Mr Campbell's affecting tale. We are perfectly aware, that, according to the modern canons of criticism, the reviewer is expected to show his immense superiority to the author reviewed, and, at the same time, to relieve the tediousness of narration, by turning the epic, dramatic, moral story before him into quaint and lively burlesque. We had accordingly prepared materials for caricaturing "Gertrude of Wyoming," in which the irresistible Spanish pantaloons of her lover were not forgotten-Albert was regularly distinguished as old Jonathan-the provincial troops were called Yankiedoodles-and the sombre character of the Oneyda chief was relieved by various sly allusions to "blankets, strouds, stinkubus, and wampum;" and having thus clearly demonstrated to Mr Campbell and to the reader, that the whole effect of his poem was as completely at our mercy as the house which a child has painfully built with a pack of cards, we proposed to pat him on the head with a few slight compliments on the ingenuity of his puny architecture, and dismiss him with a sugar-plum, as a very promising child indeed. But however prepared we came to quiz what is no otherwise ridiculous than because serious and pathetic, our hearts recoiled from the disingenuousness of the task. We shall ever be found ready to apply the lash of ridicule to conceit, presumption, or dulness; but no temptation to display our own wit, or to conciliate popularity, shall prompt us to expose genius to the malignant grin of envious folly, or, by low and vulgar parody, to derogate from a work which we might strive in vain to emulate. We return from this digressive apology to the merits and defects of Gertrude of Wyoming, which have this marked singularity, that the latter intrude upon us at the very first reading, whereas, after repeated perusals, we perceive beauties which had previously escaped our notice. We have indeed rather paradoxically been induced to ascribe the most obvious faults to the same cause which has undoubtedly produced many of the excellences of the poem,-to the anxious and assiduous attention, which the author has evidently bestowed upon it before publication. It might be expected that the public would regard with indulgence those imperfections which arise from the poet's diffidence of his own splendid powers, and too great deference to the voice of criticism. In some respects, however, public ta ste, like a fine lady, "stoops to the forward and the bold ;" and that his judges may enjoy the childish superiority of condemning an over-laboured attempt to give them pleasure. Let no reader suppose that we recommend to imitation the indiscreet, and undaunted precipitation with which another popular poet is said to throw his effusions before the public with the indifference of an ostrich as to their success or failure. To sober criticism the fault of him who will not! do his best is greater than the excess of over caution, as the sin of presumption is greater than that of spiritual despondency. Carelessness is also a crime of deeper dye when considered with reference to its effects upon public taste; for the habit of writing loosely is particularly captivating to the fry of young scribblers, and we are in danger of being deluged with rhapsodical romances by poets who would' shrink from the attempt of imitating the condensed, polished, and laboured stanzas of Gertrude of Wyoming. But considered with reference not to the ultimate reputation, but to the immediate popularity of the author, it is dangerous to allow the public to suppose that they have before them the work upon which, after the most solicitous and anxious exertion, he is willing to stake his poetical character. A spirit of contradiction, which animates the mass of mankind, impels them to depreciate that which is presented as the chef d'œuvre of the artist; and the question is no longer whether the work be excellent, but whether it has attained that summit of excellence on which no poet ever was or ever will be placed by his contemporaries. We have hitherto only considered the labour bestowed upon "Gertrude of Wyoming" as an impediment to the flow of popularity which has in the present day attended poems of a ruder structure. But the public taste, although guided in some degree by caprice, is also to a certain extent correctly grounded upon critical doctrine; and the truth is, that an author cannot work upon a beautiful poem beyond a certain point, without doing it real and irreparable injury in more respects than one. It is, in the first place, impossible to make numerous and minute alterations, to alter the position of stanzas, to countermarch and invert the component parts of sentences, without leaving marks of their original array. The epitaph of the Italian Valetudinary will apply as well in poetry as in regimen; and it may be said of many a laboured effort of genius, "Stava bene, ma per star meglio, sto qui." There are in "Gertrude" passages of a construction so studiously involved, that nothing but the deepest consideration could have enabled the author to knit the Gordian knot by which his meaning is fettered, and which unfortunately requires similar exertion of intellect ere it can be disentangled. An ordinary reader is sometimes unable and always unwilling to make such an effort, and hence the volume Вако? obscure Some of the introductory stanzas have their beauties thus obscured, and afford rather a conjectural than a certain meaning. We allude to the second in particular. Similar indistinctness occurs in the construction of the following sentence:—, "But high in amphitheatre above His arms the everlasting aloe threw : Breathed but an air of heaven, and all the grove The idea here is beautiful, but it is only on reflection that we discover "Yet say! for friendly hearts from whence we came Again, in altering and retouching, inverting and condensing his stanzas, an author will sometimes halt between his first and his latter meaning, and deviate into defects both of sense and grammar. Thus in the Oneyda's first song we have— แ Sleep, wearied one! and in the dreaming land Lastly, and above all, in the irksome task of repeated revision and reconsideration, the poet loses, if we may use the phrase, the impulse of inspiration; his fancy, at first so ardent, becomes palled and flattened, and no longer excites a correspondent glow of expression. In this state of mind he may correct faults, but he will never add beauties; and so much do we prefer the stamp of originality to tame correctness, that were there not a medium which ought to be aimed at, we would rather take the prima cura, with all its errors and with all its beauties, than the over-amended edition in which both are obliterated. Let any one read the most sublime passage in Shakspeare an hundred times over without intermission, it will at length convey to the tired ear neither pathos nor sublimity, hardly even an intelligible idea. Something analogous to this occurs to every poet in the melancholy task of correction. The Scythians, who debated their national affairs first in the revel of a festival, and afterwards during a day of fasting, could hardly experience a greater sinking of spirit in their second consultation, than the bard, who, in revising the offspring of moments of enthusiastic feeling, experiences that "The dear illusion will not last, The era of enchantment's past." Then occur the doubtful and damping questions, whether the faded degree to its dictates, or have power to communicate to others a portion of the impulse which produced them? Then comes the dread of malignant criticism; and last, but not least tormenting, the advice of literary friends, each suggesting doubts and alterations, till the spirit is corrected out of the poem, as a sprightly boy is sometimes lectured and flogged, for venial indiscretions, into a stupid and inanimate dunce. The beautiful poem of "Lochiel," which Mr Camp-bell has appended to the present volume as if to illustrate our argument exhibits marks of this injudicious alteration. Let us only take the last lines, where, in the original edition, the champion declares, that even in the moment of general rout and destruction, "Though my perishing ranks should be strew'd in their gore, Like ocean-weeds heap'd on the surf beaten shore, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field, and his feet to the foe! And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look proudly to heaven from the death-bed of fame." The whole of this individual, vigorous, and marked picture of the Highland chieftain lying breathless amid his broken and slaughtered clan a picture so strong, that we even mark the very posture and features of the hero-is humbled and tamed, abridged and corrected, into the following vague and inexpressive couplet: "Lochiel Shall victor exult in the battle's acclaim, Or look to yon heaven from the death-bed of fame." If the pruning knife has been applied with similar severity to the beauties of "Gertrude of Wyoming," the hatchet of the Mohawk Brandt himself was not more fatally relentless and indiscriminate in its operations. The book contains, besides "Gertrude of Wyoming," several smaller pieces. Two beautiful war odes, entitled "The Mariners of England" and "The Battle of the Baltic," afford pleasing instances of that short and impetuous lyric sally in which Mr Campbell excels all his contemporaries. Two ballads, "Glenara" and "Lord Ullin's Daughter,”—the former approaching the rude yet forcible simplicity of the ancient minstrels, the latter upon a more refined plan,conclude the volume. They are models in their several styles of composition. Mar.65. ARTICLE XI. THE BATTLES OF TALAVERA. A POEM. [By the Right Hon. J. W. CROKER. Quarterly Review, November, 1809.] THERE is no point in which our age differs more from those which preceded it, than in the apparent apathy of our poets and rhymers to the events which are passing over them. From the days of Marlborough to those of Wolfe and Hawke, the Tower and Park guns were not more certain proclaimers of a victory, than the pens of contemporary bards. St James's had then its odes, and Grub Street poured forth its ballads upon every fresh theme of national exultation. Some of these productions, being fortunately wedded to popular tunes, have warped themselves so closely with our character, that to love liberty and roast beef is not more natural to an Englishman, than to beat time to "Steady, boys, Steady," and "Rule Britannia." Our modern authors are of a different cast; some of them roam back to distant and dark ages; others wander to remote countries, instead of seeking a theme in the exploits of a Nelson, an Abercromby, or a Wellesley; others amuse themselves with luscious sonnets to Bessies and Jessies; and all seem so little to regard the crisis in which we are placed, that we cannot help thinking they would keep fiddling their allegros and adagios, even if London were on fire, or Buonaparte landed at Dover. We are old-fashioned men, and are perhaps inclined to see, in the loss and decay of ancient customs, more than can reasonably be traced from them; to regard, in short, that as a mark of apathy and indifference to national safety and glory, which may only arise from a change in the manner of expressing popular feeling. Be that as it may, we think that the sullen silence observed by our present race of poets, upon all themes of immediate national concern, argues little confidence in their own powers, small trust in the liberal indulgence of the public to extemporaneous compositions, and, above all, a want of that warm interest in such themes as might well render them indifferent to both considerations. Lord Wellington, more fortunate than any contemporary English general, whether we regard the success or the scale of his achievements, has been also unusually distinguished by poetical commemoration; and as his exploits form |