a great secret of his universal popularity. But if he did not see much more than others see, he yet saw the things or features which men in general rather take for granted, because they expect them, than actually see. It is astonishing to what an extent this mental substitution for sight prevails in our bookish time; but, with qualification to be stated, Campbell really used his own eyes. He saw as Homer saw, or as the shrewd countryman sees whose natural perceptions are not affected by conventional fictions. This earnestness even betrays him sometimes into a certain simplicity, which in his stiff language-the point which more than any other betrayed the Scot-sounds rather amusing. Who can help smiling at the description of "Young Henry Waldegrave," in the Second Part of Gertrude of Wyoming"She her lovely face

Uplift on one whose lineaments and frame

Wore youth and manhood's intermingled grace:
Iberian seemed his boot. His robe the same,

And well the Spanish plume his lofty looks became."-(St. xiii.)

He was by no means incapable in general of smiling himself at this amusing introduction of Spanish leather into the crisis of a romance; but the fact was, he, in his imagination, saw the thing, and he was too deeply engaged in the feeling of the scene to notice the incongruity. It was as a man may misspell when he is writing under strong excitement. But the most usual way in which this absence, or rather absorption, of mind is evidenced is in the extravagantly bad English in which, under stress of rhyme and feelings, separate or in combination, he ventures sometimes to indulge. What would Jeffrey have said to Wordsworth if he had talked of a "desolated panther" (G. of W., I. 17), or a “ruinous walk" (Lines on Visiting a Scene in Argyllshire). What is the meaning of a "dark unwarming shade?" (the Beech-Tree's Petition). Shade is not expected to give warmth. What is "a tree-rocked cradle ?" (G. of W., I. 23). According to ordinary rules of language, it must be a cradle rocked by a tree. The "fresh-blown air" (G. of W., II. 8) is only a trifle better. But Gertrude of Wyoming alone would supply many more expressions as awkward and unjustifiable as these. The extraordinary natural history which has conferred not only the "desolated panther," but the flamingo, the aloe, and the palm on Pennsylvania, as, in the Pleasures of Hope, the tiger on the shores of Lake Erie, has often been observed on, and the original error is probably to be explained on similar grounds. His maintaining the importations is to be referred to another feeling: it was in Campbell's way to alter and alter again, and scarce ever to be satisfied that he had corrected

Campbell's Earnestness.

319

enough, as long as the poem was on the anvil. Once off and cold, he would have no more to say to it. He was tired of ithis imagination could not, and would not, warm again to the remoulding heat.

But if his earnestness sometimes betrayed him, it was to this he owed that power of intense expression which makes his verse immortal. Others have had far wider scope of imagination; others have had far deeper philosophic insight; others, again, have achieved in far greater perfection that grace of form which he made the principal object of his artistic effort,nay, others have possessed in fuller sweetness that tenderness of feeling which was the prevalent characteristic of his genius; but no English poet has ever rendered, as he has, national sentiments in that language of passion at white heat-the passion that flings off no sparks, and makes no noise, but glows and is still -in which Campbell had the power to exhibit them. And they live, and will live. Many poets have endeavoured to fix themselves on their country's national life-it is a natural and worthy ambition-by taking up the sentiment of their epoch, and uttering it in verse. Milton did to some extent,-Dryden, Cowley, a host of others; but somehow the fashion fadeth away. We read the verses now, we acknowledge their stateliness and dignity, or their grace and felicity; but the feeling is no longer in them,-it is the caput mortuum of patriotism. Ghosts may toss up their plumed beavers or their cocked hats for all we know, as they hear us read out the sounding couplets; but our wide-awakes can stay quietly on our cool brows, and before we think of taking them off we look up and consult the weather. But though Campbell's odes are, in fact, now half a century old-a hundred ages, as it may be, and is in our case, measured by change of taste and feeling-they are as fresh and glowing as ever. They are the old wine that is better. The fashion in which his genius was inspired to clothe his sentiments is of that moulding which never grows quaint, and the temporary is lost in the permanent, as the grand arch speaks to the triumph a thousand years after its inscriptions have ceased to be legible. Who, as with arm extended and flashing eye, he now recites that noble boast

“Britannia needs no bulwark,

No towers along the steep,"

who ever thinks now that Campbell meant that it was needless to build Martello towers? which was the mode of fortification then in progress. But the bard was a prophet then, and was wiser than he knew. It belonged precisely to the simplicity and straightforwardness of the man that he should lay hold on the

VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV.

X

actual and temporary feature, and equally to his passion to fuse it, and leave it for future time simply a sparkling crystal in the granite mass.

It would be easy to carry this illustration into far greater detail, but we refrain, and with his genius as such we have on this occasion nothing to do. We have been carefully guarding our eyes from the dazzling effulgence of that great gift, in order fairly to appreciate Campbell as a man. And if our view of him be true, we have surely exhibited a man well worthy of the admiration of all those who do not retain their admiration till they find humanity in perfect symmetry. To such symmetry even, it might be maintained, Campbell's character puts forth a stronger claim than might at first appear to those who do not sufficiently examine the nature of his failings. There are failings which really flaw the nature; there are others-or they may be the same in another degree-which are only superficial. The one may be compared to the derangement of the centre of gravity, which should send the body out of its true course; the other to the clouds which may darken its surface, but have no power to affect its orbit. Campbell's weaknesses were undeniably of the latter kind; they did painfully obscure at times his happiness, but they were powerless to influence in any perceptible degree his moral constitution. We are not attempting here to salve ugly sores by conventional charities, but endeavouring to do simple justice to a human being, and to morality itself. His character, if it may be judged by the evidence of his general life, conversation, and letters, as reported, was undoubtedly in many respects at its ripest when this grievous blemish was plainest and even largest on its face. But let his frailties be granted and estimated at their heaviest, there remains enough to justify the world in the value it placed upon him,-a value shown by the fact, that, sixteen years after his death, his friends are still producing their recollections of him, and men are well-disposed to listen to them. Qualities of a rare beauty were set in him in a framework of sterling worth. If the scale of the latter was not great, the gems were of the finest water; and humanity must be much richer in noble examples than she is, before we can cease to reckon Campbell, with all his faults and failings, as other than a rare and beautiful specimen of his race.

Quakerism, Past and Present.

321

ART II.-1. Quakerism, Past and Present. By JOHN S. ROWNPost 8vo. Prize Essay.

TREE.

2. The Peculium. By THOMAS HANCOCK. Post 8vo. Prize Essay.

3. A Fallen Faith: being a Historical, Religious, and_Sociopolitical Sketch of the Society of Friends. By EDGAR SHEPPARD, M.D. Crown 8vo.

4. The Society of Friends: an Inquiry into the Causes of its Weakness as a Church. By JOSEPH JOHN Fox, Fellow of the Statistical Society. Crown 8vo.

5. Essay on the Society of Friends: being an Inquiry into the Causes of their Diminished Influence and Numbers. SAMUEL FOTHERGILL. Crown 8vo.

By

6. The Hibernian Essay on the Society of Friends, and the Causes of their Declension. By a Friend of the Friends.

7. The Quakers, or Friends; their Rise and Decline.

8. The Society of Friends; its Strength and its Weakness. 9. An Honest Confession of the Cause of Decadence in the Society of Friends, with a Glance at a Few of the "Peculiarities" of the Society. By a MEMBER.

10. Nehushtan: A Letter, addressed to the Members of the Society of Friends, on their Peculiarities of Dress and Language. 11. Essay on the Decline of the Society. "Quantum Mutatus!" 12. A Letter to a Friend: being an Examination of a Pamphlet

entitled, "The Principle of Ancient Quakerism considered with reference to the supposed Decadence of the Society of Friends.

EARLY in the year 1858, the following quaint advertisement appeared in many of our periodicals :—

"SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.-PRIZE ESSAY.

"A GENTLEMAN who laments that, notwithstanding the population of the United Kingdom has more than doubled itself in the last fifty years, the Society of Friends is less in number than at the beginning of the century; and who believes that the Society at one time bore a powerful witness to the world concerning some of the errors to which it is most prone, and some of the truths which are the most necessary to it; and that this witness has been gradually becoming more and more feeble, is anxious to obtain light respecting the causes of this change. He offers a PRIZE of ONE HUNDRED GUINEAS for the best ESSAY that shall be written on the subject, and a PRIZE of FIFTY GUINEAS for the one next in merit. He has asked three gentlemen, not members of the Society of Friends, to pronounce judgment on the Essays which shall be sent to them. They have all some acquaintance with the history of the Society, and

some interest in its existing members; and as they are likely to regard the subject from different points of view, he trusts that their decision will be impartial; that they will not expect to find their own opinions represented in the Essays; and that they will choose the one which exhibits the most thought and Christian earnestness, whether it is favourable or unfavourable to the Society, whether it refers the diminution of its influence to degeneracy, to something wrong in the original constitution of the body, to the rules which it has adopted for its government, or to any extraneous cause.

"Rev. F. D. MAURICE, Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn; Professor J. P. NICHOL, Glasgow; and Rev. E. S. PRYCE, Gravesend, have agreed to Act as Adjudicators."

More than seventy essays, we have heard, were sent in, and many of them of great length. The labour, therefore, of the adjudicators must have been great indeed. From a comparison of the selected essays with those not thought worthy of the prize, several of which have been published, we are disposed fully to acquiesce in the soundness of their decision. We have not often felt called upon to notice prize essays, although our literature has of late been more and more cumbered with these productions. Prize essays and prize poems are necessarily for the most part unworthy of publication. Very good as forming a part of an academical course, in training the young student to the use of his weapons, they seldom possess much claim to an extended existence. All great works must be written con amore. The mind is struck with an idea, it germinates, study enriches it, fancy adorns it, until, in the course of time, it is given to the world in its perfection of form and beauty. How interesting it is to be told by Gibbon, that "it was when he was musing in the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to his mind." The motive arising from the hope of L.100 is not likely to act in minds of the highest order. Writers of matured intellect and established reputation will not turn from their path to contend for such a prize, and it will too often be given to the intellectual tyro, who works without conviction, and looks only for his fee. We are disposed to depart from our rule in the case of these essays on the Society of Friends, which are written with unusual earnestness and ability, on a topic just now of peculiar interest to many. With the consent of the donor, an equal prize of 100 guineas was given to Mr Rowntree of York, and Mr Hancock of Nottingham, both names previously unheard of in the literary world. These gentlemen take up the subject from the most opposite points of view. Mr Rowntree, whose essay is written with great care and considerable force and pre