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BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

No. CCLXXXVI. AUGUST, 1839.

VOL. XLVI.

OUR POCKET COMPANIONS.

CALL them, rather, our Bosom Friends for we have them one and all by heart; and, as we shut our eyes in solitude, be it in parlour twilight or mountain gloom-at a word, at a wish, it is gradually overflowing with spiritual music, divinely intermingled with its own mysterious echoes!

The word even now happened to be -HOPE. It slid into our soul like an angel's whisper, and forthwith,

" In long procession calm and beautiful," were deploying before our inward eye multitudes of harmonious images along

the mental heaven-within our inward ear a continuous succession of hymns, and odes, and elegies-the birth of genius, inspired by that immortal Passion-and eternized by song.

"Her faithful Knight fair Una brings
To House of Holiness;
Where he is taught Repentance, and
The way to heavenly bliss."

Silent as our shadow, with them we walk in reverence through those peaceful courts and look upon the faces of the loveliest Two of all the Spirits that dwell on this side of Heaven.

"Thus as they 'gan of sondrie thinges devise,
Loe! two most goodly virgins came in place,
Ylinked arme in arme, in lovely wise;
With countenance demure, and modest grace,
They number'd even steps, and equall pace:
Of which the eldest, that Fidelia hight,

Like sunny beams threw from her christall face,
That could have dazed the rash beholder's sight,
And round about her head did shine like Heaven's light.

"She was arraied all in lilly white,

And in her right hand bore a cup of gold,
With wine and water fill'd up to the height,
In which a serpent did himselfe enfold,
That horrour made to all that did behold;
But she no whitt did chaunge her constant mood:
And in her other hand she fast did hold

A book, that was both sign'd and seal'd with blood;
Wherein darke things were writt, hard to be understood.

"Her younger sister, that Speranza hight,
Was clad in blew that her beseemed well;
Not all so chearefull seemed she of sight
As was her sister; whether dread did dwell

NO, CCLXXXVI. VOL, XLVI,

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Or anguish in her hart, is hard to tell;
Upon her arme a silver anchor lay,
Whereon she leaned ever, as befell;
And ever up to Heaven, as she did pray,

Her stedfast eyes were bent, ne swarved other way."

It seems as if they and Una had been friends even from her very childhood -that she had often visited before that

"Ancient house not far away, Renowned through the world for sacred lore, And pure unspotted life;"

for, soon as they recognise one an-
other,

"Many kind speeches they between them
spend;
And greatly joy, each other for to see!"

And then, " at Una's meek request," they turn themselves to the Knight"Who fair them quites as him beseemed best,

And goodly 'gan discourse of many a noble gest."

Fidelia and Speranza heard him speak-but of "mobler gests" than of mortal prowess, he was about to hear in the house of Holiness.

"Now when their wearie limbes with kindly rest,
And bodies were refresht with dew repast,
Fayre Una 'gan Fidelia fayre request,
To have her knight into the schoolhouse plaste,
That of her heavenly learning he might taste,
And heare the wisedom of her wordes divine.
She graunted; and that knight so much agraste,
That she him taught celestiall discipline,

And open'd his dull eyes, that light mote in them shine.

"And that, her sacred booke, with blood ywritt,
That none could reade except she did them teach,
She unto him disclosed every whitt;
And heavenly documents thereout did preach,
That weaker witt of man could never reach;
Of God, of grace, of justice, of free-will,
That wonder was to hear her goodly speach;
For she was hable with her wordes to kill

And rayse againe to life the hart that she did thrill.

" And, when she list poure out her larger spright,
She would commaund the hasty sunne to stay,
Or backward turne his course from Heven's hight:
Sometimes great hostes of men she could dismay;
Dry-shod to passe she parts the floods in tway;
And eke huge mountains from their native seat,
She would commaund themselves to bear away,
And throw in raging sea with roaring threat:
Almightie God her gave such powre and puissance great,

"The faithfull knight now grew in little space,
By hearing her, and by her sister's lore,
To such perfection of all heavenly grace,
That wretched world he 'gan for to abhore,
And mortall life 'gan loath as thing forlore;
Greeved with remembrance of his wicked wayes,
And prickt with anguish of his sinnes so sore,
That he desired to ende his wretched dayes:
So much the dart of sinfull guilt the soule dismayes!

"But wise Speranza gave him comfort sweet,
And taught him how to take assured hold
Upon her silver anchor, as was meet;
Els had his sinnes so great and manifold
Made him forget all that Fidelia told."

That is, in good truth, Sacred Poetry -call it Scripture for it is Bibleborn.

And now we hear the strain of another great Christian Poet-humbler perhaps at first-yet winning its way into the depths of the heart, "with amplest power to soften and subdue"and finally uplifting us heavenward to an assured home. How simple-how strong-how beautiful those few lines of Cowper on Life!

"Transient indeed, as is the fleeting hour,
And yet the seed of an immortal flower;
Design'd, in honour of His endless love,
To fill with fragrance the abodes above.
No trifle, howsoever short it seem,
And, howsoever shadowy, no dream ;
Its value, what no thought can ascertain,
Nor all an angel's eloquence explain."

And for its woes what remedy? One, he says,

"Not hid in deep profound, Yet seldom sought where only to be found; While passion turns aside from its due scope The enquirer's aim that remedy is HOPE."

He tells us-in words that lie somewhat confused but intelligible in our memory-that the Creator condescends to write in inextinguishable characters

"His names of wisdom, goodness, power, and love, On all that bleoms below, or shines above." In them may be read all his gracious attributes; and now again the Natural Theology of the bard distinctly rearranges itself in our mind, and we rejoice to recite to ourselves-and, Christian brother or sister, to theethe elevating words

"If led from earthly things to things divine, His creature thwart not the august design; Then praise is heard instead of reasoning

pride,

And captious cavil and complaint subside.
Nature, employ'd in her allotted place,
Is handmaid to the purposes of grace;
By good vouchsafed, makes known superior
good,

And bliss not seen, by blessings understood : That bliss, reveal'd in Scripture, with a glow

Bright as the covenant-ensuring bow,
Fires all his feelings with a noble scorn
Of sensual evil, AND THUS HOPE IS BORN!"

These surely are noble lines-and the world-wearied heart rests beneath their shadow, as of a rock.

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Lines and half lines of profound significance and some of them in their beauty most pathetic-rise up and pass away, leaving a blessing behind them, and often to re-appear! Thus Hope! let the wretch who has once been conscious of thy joy, declare that all which this earth contains

"Were light, when weigh'd against one smile of thine."

Or, when the Poet speaks of the joy that

"Invades, possesses, and o'erwhelms the soul

Of him whom Hope has with a touch made whole!"

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-yet visionary both with dreams like realities, and realities like dreams! You have by heart the glorious opening of the Poem. Gaze on it, along with these two pictures-and know with what wondrous facility genius can brighten and shadow forth the lights and glooms of life by those of nature -a union in which the Beautiful is felt to be the Sublime.

Fear not that we are about to indite a critique on Campbell. You know that we never in all our days indited a critique on any great Poet. No philosophical critic, thank Heaven! are we; though we have read the Stagyrite. But from the golden urn of the Inspired we devoutly seek to draw light; and have no higher aim than to let it fall at times on the pages of Maga, in illustration of the Fair, the Good, and the True.

Therefore, bear with us for a time, while we animadvert, in a kindly spirit, on a critique on the Collected Works of Campbell, indited by a philosophical critic in the highest of our Periodicals -the Quarterly Review.

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Mr Campbell," he says, "has here comprised, within the modest compass of a single volume, the whole of his poetical works. When the writings of a well-known author are thus collected and republished, the question naturally arises, not how they will be received by a contemporaneous public-for this has already been decided but what respect they are likely to obtain at the hand of posterity-what place will be allotted to them in the abiding literature of the. country? In an honest attempt to determine this question, the critic cannot do otherwise than judge by the highest standard of excellence. Calling to mind whatever is of old and acknowledged repute in the kind of literature in which the new aspirant for fame has laboured, he must submit his writer, not to a comparison with living rivals, but to a competition with the picked champions-the laurelled victors of all preceding ages. He must applaud as if within hearing of a jealous antiquity. He must be permitted to escape from the glare which falls on present reputation. In criticism, as in higher matters, it is only by receding into the shadows of the past, that the eye becomes susceptible to the faint outlines which futurity extends."

On this formidable announcement of the critic's intentions, we wish to offer a few remarks.

In the first place, there seems to be implied in the words "comprised, within the modest compass of a single volume, the whole of his poetical works," an insinuation that Mr Campbell's muse has not been very prolific. "Within the modest compass of a single volume," however, are comprised nearly three hundred well-filled pages of poetry-containing, we should suppose, more than double the number of lines written by Gray, Collins, and Thomas Warton. At the side of the multitudinous works of most of the other true poets of this age, Campbell's shrink into small size indeed; but they afford specimens, neither few nor short, of many kinds of poetical composition. It may be true that his taste is too fastidious-but it is not true that his genius is confined, any more than it is true that the authors of The Elegy, and the Ode to the Passions, had not souls formed in "the pomp and prodigality of heaven," though all their immortal compositions are comprised "within the modest compass" of a hundred pages. Compared with the best English poets of his own class-and a noble class it is-Campbell is a voluminous

writer.

Secondly, it seems to us that there is something insidious in giving the go-by, so lightly, to the reception of Campbell's poetry " by a contemporaneous public." A little further on, the critic enters into a very ingenious and finely-written explanation of the " many causes which assist in giving celebrity to a living poet, whose name may, nevertheless, be destined to pass away with the generation that praised and delighted in him;" and though such causes cannot be intended to apply in their full force to Mr Campbellfor the critic does not deny him the gift of genius-and genius is deathless -yet either they are intended to apply to him so far, or they are impertinently introduced, with much formality, into an elaborate disquisition on his genius, in which " an honest attempt is made to determine what place will be allotted to them in the abiding literature of the country."

Thirdly, we think that the critic ought, after his array of " causes which assist in giving celebrity to a

living poet, whose name may, nevertheless, be destined to pass away with the generation that praised and delighted in him," to have said or shown how many of them have operated-and to what degree-more especially in favour of Campbell's fame. For it kindled at once into a blaze-and has continued to burn with a strong and steady light for forty years-not only uneclipsed, but unobscured, all through one of the most glorious eras of English poetry.

Fourthly, the critic, to prevent misconception on the one hand, and, on the other, to make his estimate more philosophical, ought to have entered far more fully than he has done into an examination of the nature of the power which Campbell's poetry confessedly possesses over " a contemporaneous public" - that it might have been seen whether it was likely to endure, or to pass away with the causes or circumstances of the times that may have contributed to its transient triumph.

But, fifthly, we respectfully submit to the critic's consideration, whether or no it be perfectly fair to select Campbell from the host of living poets - or but lately dead and subject the claims of his genius to " respect at the hands of posterity," to a test which has not been applied in the same Journal to the reputation of any of his illustrious brethren. Why fix on him to undergo a trial to which neither Crabbe, nor Rogers, nor Southey, nor Wordsworth, nor Coleridge, nor Scott, nor Moore, nor any other " prevailing poet," has yet therein been brought? Nay, of almost all of them, the works have been written of_and well written of-in a style of criticism as different as may be from that on which we are now letting drop a few remarks, currente calamo; yet they have all received respect from a contemporaneous public." The same causes-independently of, and over and above their own intrinsic meritsmust have operated in their favour too, and helped to elevate them to a place in the esteem of this generation far higher than they may occupy in that the next, or ever again in the hearts of men born ages after they have been laid in the dust. Compare the spirit of the many critiques on Coleridge, so prodigal of praise and lavish of eulogy and we blame them

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