ART. III. The Pleafures of Hope, with other Poems. By Thomas Campbell. 12mo. 3s. 6d. Mundell, Edinburgh; Longman, and Wright, London. 1799.

So uncommon a degree of merit appears in the firft and principal of these Poems, that we cannot let it pafs without particular notice. This diftinction is, from us, the more valuable, because the author is apparently tainted with principles which we cannot ever approve. But he is very young. Report fays fo, and many circumstances confirm it; and if the generous zeal for liberty runs a little wild in a youthful and very ardent mind, there is great hope that maturer age will correct this, as well as other luxuriances of early life, and reduce it within the limits of right reafon. Let him continue to abhor Defpotifm, properly fo called. Greybeards as we are, we will hate it with him, as much as he can defire. But let him hate it under republican forms, as much as under unlimited monarchies. Let him lament the fate of Poland. Who that deferves the name of a free-man, will not lament it? But when he fees things in their true light, he will hardly idolize Kofciufko. Let him, among the Pleasures of Hope, reckon that of seeing the extension of just government and rational freedom among men; but let him beware of the cant of Condorcet and Godwin, into which, if he does not completely fall in fome paffages of this Poem, he at least approaches fo near to it, as to authorize the fufpicion, that as yet his mind has not attained fufficient vigour to reject it.

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The Pleafures of Hope are furely as good a fubject for a rifing poet, as can well be chofen. It is the very effence of genius (as is not forgotten in this Poem) to form ideal scenes of future gratification; which, if not at all deftined to be realized, confer, for the time, an actual happiness by anticipa tion; and thus fnatch from fate even more than it defigns to give. This fubject is treated by Mr. Campbell with much genius, and, in general, with good judgment; certainly with a very fingular fplendour and felicity of verfification. There is, however, a material diftinction to be made between the first part and the fecond. There is no comparison between the polifh and perfection of the two; the clearness of the ftyle, and of the tranfitions (most effential points of good writing) and every thing that raises the writer of the first far above the generality of his contemporaries. We fhould conceive the fecond part to be an after-thought. Perceiving that he had omitted the moft material object of Hope, the hope of a future

future life, the author wrote perhaps the fecond part for the fake of leading the reader to it. But he bestowed lefs care, and exercised lefs judgment in performing this fecond task; poffibly from weariness, poffibly from a pardonable, though injudicious impatience, to lay the compofition before the public, The first part gives us little occafion for any but the most pleafing exercife of our duty, that of commending, The opening has great spirit and beauty.

"At fummer eve, when heav'n's aërial bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whofe funbright fummit mingles with the fky?
Why do thofe cliffs of fhadowy tint appear
More fweet than all the landfcape fmiling near?-
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

Thus, with delight, we linger to furvey
The promis'd joys of life's unmeafur'd way;
Thus, from afar, each dim-discover'd scene
More pleafing feems than all the past hath been;
And every form, that fancy can repair

From dark oblivion, glows divinely there." P. 3.

The following description of the effect of Hope, before & battle, is vigorous and able.

"Friend of the brave! in peril's darkest hour,
Intrepid Virtue looks to thee for power;

To thee the heart its trembling homage yields,
On ftormy floods, and carnage-cover'd fields,
When front to front the banner'd hofts combine,
Halt ere they close, and form the dreadful line,
When all is still on Death's devoted foil,
The march-worn foldier mingles for the toil;
As rings his glittering tube, he lifts on high
The dauntlefs brow, and fpirit-fpeaking eye,
Hails in his heart the triumph yet to come,

And hears thy ftormy mufic in the drum!" P. 9.

The peculiarly energy of Hope, in its operations on youthful genius, to which we have already alluded, is expreffed with excellent effect in a paffage, which we fhall infert at large. "Congenial Hope! thy paffion-kindling power How bright, how ftrong, in youth's untroubled hour! On yon proud height, with Genius hand in hand,

I fee thee light, and wave thy golden wand.

"Go, Child of Heav'n! (thy winged words proclaim) 'Tis thine to fearch the boundless fields of fame!"

Qu.? Is there not fome error of the prefs in this word? Rev.

Lo!

Lo! Newton, Prieft of Nature, fhines afar,
Scans the wide world, and numbers ev'ry ftar!
Wilt thou, with him, myfterious rites apply,
And watch the fhrine with wonder-beaming eye?
Yes, thou fhalt mark, with magic art profound,
The speed of light, the circling march of found;
With Franklin grafp the lightning's fiery wing,
Or yield the lyre of Heav'n another ftring.

"The Swedish fage admires, in yonder bow'rs,
His winged infects, and his rofy flow'rs;
Calls from their woodland haunts the favage train
With founding horn, and counts them on the plain-
So once, at Heav'n's command, the wand'rers came
'To Eden's fhade, and heard their various name.

"Far from the world, in yon fequefter'd clime,
Slow pass the fons of Wisdom, more fublime;
Calm as the fields of Heav'n, his fapient eye
The lov'd Athenian lifts to realms on high,
Admiring Plato on his fpotlefs page,
Stamps the bright dictates of the Father fage:
• Shall Nature bound to Earth's diurnal fpan
The fire of God, th' immortal foul of man?'

"Turn, Child of Heav'n, thy rapture-lighten'd eye
To Wifdom's walks, the facred Nine are nigh:
Hark! from bright fpires that gild the Delphian height,
From ftreams that wander in eternal light,

Rang'd on their hill, Harmonia's daughters fwell
The mingling tones of horn, and harp, and shell;
Deep from his vaults, the Loxian murmurs flow,
And Pythia's awful organ peals below,

"Belov'd of Heav'n! the fmiling Mufe shall shed
Her moonlight halo on thy beauteous head;
Shall fwell thy heart to rapture unconfin'd,
And breathe a holy madness o'er thy mind,
I fee thee roam her guardian pow'r beneath,
And talk with fpirits on the midnight heath;
Inquire of guilty wand'rers whence they came,
And ask each blood-ftain'd form his earthly name;
Then weave in rapid verfe the deeds they tell,
And read the trembling world the tales of hell.
"When Venus, thron'd in clouds of rofy hue,
Flings from her golden urn the vefper dew;
And bids fond man her glimmering noon employ,
Sacred to love, and walks of tender joy;
A milder mood the goddess fhall recall,
And foft as dew thy tones of mufic fall;
While Beauty's deeply-pictur'd finiles impart,
A pang more dear than pleasure to the heart-
Warm as thy fighs fhall flow the Lesbian strain,
And plead in Beauty's ear, nor plead in vain.

" OF

"Or wilt thou Orphean hymns more facred deem,
And steep thy fong in Mercy's, mellow stream;
To penfive drops the radiant eye beguile-
For Beauty's tears are lovelier than her fmile;-
On Nature's throbbing anguish pour relief,
And teach impaffion'd fouls the Joy of Grief?

"Yes; to thy tongue fhall feraph words be giv'n,
And pow'r on earth to plead the cause of Heav'n;
The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone,
That never mus'd on forrow but its own,
Unlocks a generous ftore at thy command,
Like Horeb's rocks beneath the prophet's hand.
The living lumber of his kindred earth,
Charm'd into foul, receives a fecond birth;
Feels thy dread pow'r another heart afford,
Whofe paffion-touch'd harmonious ftrings accord
True as the circling fpheres to Nature's plan;
And man, the brother, lives the friend of man!

"Bright as the pillar rofe at Heav'n's command,
When Ifrael march'd along the defert land,
Blaz'd through the night on lonely wilds afar,
And told the path-a never-fetting ftar:
So! heav'nly Genius, in thy course divine,

Hope is thy ftar, her light is ever thine." P. 12.

Some expreffions in this paffage are to be claffed among the felicities of inventive genius, being at once juft, novel, and very highly poetical; fuch as "the circling march of found," and this line,

"Or yield the lyre of Heav'n another string."

The allufion has fome obfcurity, but it has still more beauty, and therefore is worth investigation. We must not, however, omit to remark, that march, though excellently applied in the expreffion juft noticed, is among the cant terms of the day, and is fo ufed in other parts of this Poem. Thus,

"The march of Genius, and the pow'rs of man." V. 424. And,

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to found the march of time." P. ii, v. 316.

In the paffage juft cited, are a very few weak or dubious expreffions. Thus, for "His winged infects," fome more comprehensive epithet is greatly wanted. In v. 140, "their various name," can hardly be tolerated for "their various names." The couplet,

Rang'd

Rang'd on their hill, Harmonia's daughters fwell
The mingling tones of horn, and harp, and shell,

is highly beautiful. In v. 176, “O'rphean," fhould be "Orphéan. In a very beautiful paffage, beginning at v. 225, on the hopes of an unhappy mother refpecting her infant, "her little fon," affords another infance of a weak epithet.

The

verfes included between 1. 263 and 276, are rather obfcure, and their application to the fubject, though just, not sufficiently marked. It should be pointed out at v. 269, or those that follow; perhaps thus,

"In hope he views a friend or child restor'd,

Smile at his blazing hearth and social board."

Penury cannot, with good effect, be shortened to a diffyllable, as at v. 301. Very heartily do we wish that the author's ideas. of improvement, if he does not borrow them from the perfectibility school, may be realized; and we have a much better intimation than from that quarter, that fuch a period will probably arrive; not from the miracles of human reafon, but from the extenfion of Chriflian Faith. On thofe terms, we readily fay with him,

"Come, bright Improvement! on the Car of Time,

And rule the fpacious world from clime to clime:
Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore,

Trace every wave, and culture every shore."

We admire alfo his fentiments, as well as his verfification,

in the following apostrophe :

"Where barb'rous hordes on Scythian mountains roam,
Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet fhall find a home;
Where'er degraded Nature bleeds and pines,
From Guinea's coaft to Sibir's dreary mines,
Truth shall pervade th' unfathom'd darkness there,

And light the dreadful features of defpair:-
Hark! the ftern captive fpurns his heavy load,
And asks the image back that Heaven bestow'd!
Fierce in his eye the fire of valour burns,

And, as the flave departs, the man returns!" P. 27.

The ten lines, beginning v. 393, are exquifitely spirited and good. The first part concludes with a fanciful view of the tenth Avatar (according to the mythology of India, which Mr. Maurice has fo well explained) coming to avenge the wrongs of the Eaft.

When poetry is wrought up to a high degree of polish, there is always fome danger, particularly in the prefent times, left affectation fhould infinuate itself instead of refinement.