Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 14, No. 407, December 24, 1829», страница 2

DIRGE OF WALLACE

 
They lighted a taper at the dead of night,
And chanted their holiest hymn;
But her brow and her bosom were damp with affright
Her eye was all sleepless and dim!
And the lady of Elderslie wept for her lord,
When a death-watch beat in her lonely room,
When her curtain had shook of its own accord;
And the raven had flapp'd at her window-board,
To tell of her warrior's doom!
 
 
Now sing you the death-song, and loudly pray
For the soul of my knight so dear;
And call me a widow this wretched day,
Since the warning of God is here!
For night-mare rides on my strangled sleep:
The lord of my bosom is doomed to die:
His valorous heart they have wounded deep;
And the blood-red tears shall his country weep,
For Wallace of Elderslie!
 
 
Yet knew not his country that ominous hour,
Ere the loud matin bell was rung,
That a trumpet of death on an English tower
Had the dirge of her champion sung!
When his dungeon light look'd dim and red
On the high-born blood of a martyr slain,
No anthem was sung at his holy death-bed;
No weeping was there when his bosom bled—
And his heart was rent in twain!
 
 
Oh, it was not thus when his oaken spear
Was true to that knight forlorn;
And the hosts of a thousand were scatter'd like deer,
At the blast of the hunter's horn;
When he strode on the wreck of each well-fought field
With the yellow-hair'd chiefs of his native land;
For his lance was not shiver'd on helmet or shield—
And the sword that seem'd fit for Archangel to wield,
Was light in his terrible hand!
 
 
Yet bleeding and bound, though her Wallace wight
For his long-lov'd country die,
The bugle ne'er sung to a braver knight
Than Wallace of Elderslie!
But the day of his glory shall never depart,
His head unentomb'd shall with glory be balm'd,
From its blood-streaming altar his spirit shall start;
Though the raven has fed on his mouldering heart,
A nobler was never embalm'd!
 

From Argyleshire, where his residence was not a protracted one, Campbell removed to Edinburgh. There he soon became introduced to some of the first men of the age, whose friendship and kindness could not fail to stimulate a mind like that of Campbell. He became intimate with the late Dugald Stewart; and almost every other leading professor of the University of Edinburgh was his friend. While in Edinburgh, he brought out his celebrated "Pleasures of Hope," at the age of twenty-one. It is perhaps not too much to say of this work, that no poet of this country ever produced, at so early an age, a more elaborate and finished performance. For this work, which for twenty years produced the publishers between two and three hundred pounds a year, the author received at first but £10, which was afterwards increased by an additional sum, and by the profits of a quarto edition of the work. By a subsequent act of the legislature, extending the term of copyright, it reverted again to the author; but with no proportional increase of profit. Campbell's pecuniary circumstances are said to have been by no means easy at this time and a pleasant anecdote is recorded of him, in allusion to the hardships of an author's case, somewhat similar to his own: he was desired to give a toast at a festive moment when the character of Napoleon was at its utmost point of disesteem in England. He gave "Bonaparte." The company started with astonishment. "Gentlemen," said he, "here is Bonaparte in his character of executioner of the booksellers." Palm, the bookseller, had just been executed in Germany, by the orders of the French.

After residing nearly three years in Edinburgh, Campbell quitted his native country for the Continent. He sailed for Hamburgh, and there made many acquaintances among the more enlightened circles, both of that city and Altona. At that time there were numerous Irish exiles in the neighbourhood of Hamburgh, and some of them fell in the way of the poet, who afterwards related many curious anecdotes of them. There were sincere and honest men among them, who, with the energy of their national character, and enthusiasm for liberty, had plunged into the desperate cause of the rebellion two years before, and did not, even then, despair of freedom and equality in Ireland. Some of them were in private life most amiable persons, and their fate was altogether entitled to sympathy. The poet, from that compassionate feeling which is an amiable characteristic of his nature, wrote The Exile of Erin, from the impression their situation and circumstances made upon his mind. It was set to an old Irish air, of the most touching pathos, and will perish only with the language.

Campbell travelled over a great part of Germany and Prussia—visiting the Universities, and storing his mind with German literature. From the walls of a convent he commanded a view of part of the field of Hohenlinden during that sanguinary contest, and proceeded afterwards in the track of Moreau's army over the scene of combat. This impressive sight produced the Battle of Hohenlinden—an ode which is as original as it is spirited, and stands by itself in British literature. The poet tells a story of the phlegm of a German postilion at this time, who was driving him post by a place where a skirmish of cavalry had happened, and who alighted and disappeared, leaving the carriage and the traveller alone in the cold (for the ground was covered with snow) for a considerable space of time. At length he came back; and it was found that he had been employing himself in cutting off the long tails of the slain horses, which he coolly placed on the vehicle, and drove on his route. Campbell was also in Ratisbon when the French and Austrian treaty saved it from bombardment.

In Germany Campbell made the friendship of the two Schlegels, of many of the first literary and political characters, and was fortunate enough to pass an entire day with the venerable Klopstock, who died just two years afterwards. The proficiency of Campbell in the German language was rendered very considerable by this tour, and his own indefatigable perseverance in study. His travels in Germany occupied him thirteen months; when he returned to England, and, for the first time, visited London. He soon afterwards composed those two noble marine odes, The Battle of the Baltic, and Ye Mariners of England, which, with his Hohenlinden, stand unrivalled in the English tongue; and though, as Byron lamented, Campbell has written so little, these odes alone are enough to place him unforgotten in the shrine of the Muses.

In 1803 the poet married Miss Sinclair, a lady of Scottish descent, and considerable personal beauty, but of whom he was deprived by death in 1828. He resided at Sydenham, and the entire neighbourhood of that pleasant village reckoned itself in the circle of his friends; nor did he quit his suburban retreat until, in 1821, literary pursuits demanded his residence in the metropolis. It was at Sydenham, in a house nearly facing the reservoir, that the poet produced his greatest work, Gertrude of Wyoming, written in the Spenserian stanza. About the same time Campbell was appointed Professor of Poetry in the Royal Institution, where he delivered lectures which have since been published. He also undertook the editorship of Selections from the British Poets, intended as specimens of each, and accompanied with critical remarks.³

Soon after the publication of his "Specimens," he revisited Germany, and passed some time in Vienna, where he acquired a considerable knowledge of the Austrian court and its manners. He remained long at Bonn, where his friend, W.A. Schlegel, resides. Campbell returned to England in 1820, to undertake the editorship of the New Monthly Magazine, and coupled with his name, it has risen to a very extensive circulation. In 1824, Campbell published his "Theodric, a Domestic Tale," the least popular of his works.

By his marriage Campbell had two sons. One of them died before attaining his twentieth year; the other, while in the University of Bonn, where he was placed for his education, exhibited symptoms of an erring mind, which, on his return to England soon afterwards, ripened into mental derangement of the milder species. After several years passed in this way, during which the mental disease considerably relaxed, so that young Campbell became wholly inoffensive, and his father received him into his house. The effect of this upon a mind of the most exquisite sensibility like the poet's, may be readily imagined: it was, at times, a source of the keenest suffering.

We must now allude to an event in Campbell's life, which will ensure him the gratitude of ages to come: we mean as the originator of the London University. Four years before it was made public, the idea occurred to him, from his habit of visiting the Universities of Germany, and studying their regulations. He communicated it at first to two or three friends, until his ideas upon the subject became matured, when they were made public, and a meeting upon the business convened in London, which Mr. Campbell addressed, and where the establishment of such an institution met the most zealous support. Once in operation, several public men of high talent, headed by Mr. Brougham, lost not a moment in forwarding the great and useful object in view. The undertaking was divided into shares, which were rapidly taken; but Mr. Campbell left the active arrangements to others, and contented himself with attending the committees. With unexampled rapidity the London University has been completed, or nearly so, and Campbell has had the satisfaction of seeing his projected instrument of education almost in full operation in less than three years after he made the scheme public. Although one of the most important,⁴ this is not the only public-spirited event of this description, in Mr. Campbell's life; for he was instrumental in the establishment of the Western Literary Institution, in Leicester Square; and at the present time he is, we believe, in conjunction with other eminent literary men, organizing a club to be entitled the Literary Union, whose lists already contain upwards of 300 men of talent, including Sir Walter Scott and all the principal periodical writers of the day.

Campbell, as has already been observed, was educated at Glasgow, and received the honour of election as Lord Rector, three successive years, notwithstanding the opposition of the professors, and the excellent individuals who were placed against him; among whom were the late minister Canning, and Sir Walter Scott. The students of Glasgow College considered that the celebrity of the poet, his liberal principles, his being a fellow-townsman, and his attention to their interests, entitled him to the preference.

In person, Mr. Campbell is below the middle stature, well made, but slender. His features indicate great sensibility; his eyes are particularly striking, and of a deep blue colour; his nose aquiline; his expression generally saturnine. His step is light, but firm; and he appears to possess much more energy of constitution than men of fifty-two who have been studious in their habits, exhibit in general. His time for study is mostly during the stillness of night, when he can be wholly abstracted from external objects. He is remarkable for absence of mind; is charitable and kind in his disposition, but of quick temper. His amusements are few; the friend and conversation only; and in the "flow of soul" there are few men possessing more companionable qualities. His heart is perhaps one of the best that beats in a human bosom: "it is," observes a biographer, "that which should belong to the poet of Gertrude, his favourite personification."