reminded of John Burnet's charming engraving on small scale, and the larger mezzotint by Cousins. Sir Thomas knew the poet intimately, and drew him over and over again. There is the delicate portrait which he made for the Cadell Gallery, where the engraver has done scant justice to the original; and there is another, I am reminded, on a smaller scale from which the generous artist had a plate engraved at his own expence, the impressions from which were all signed with his autograph, and sold for the poet's benefit.
The lines which I have cited seem to leave little in the way of criticism. Still, among the pieces which posterity will not willingly let die, must be included that exquisitely perfect gem, "The Soldier's Dream;" the fine ode, recited by Mr. Young at the farewell dinner to J. P. Kemble, in 1817;[1] the passionate and plaintive "O'Connor's Child";—the "diamond of his casket of gems," as "Delta" Moir has it; "Reullura"; "The Last Man," with its sublime, if faulty, conception (Charles Swain has written a worthy pendant, "The First Man," and we must not forget "The Last Man" of Thomas Hood[2]); the touching story of "Gertrude," with its Arcadian grace; the Claude-like exordium of the "Pleasures of Hope," which, with its many fine episodes, will float the poem down the surface of the stream of Time.
Criticism,—the ultimate judgment of the world— is conversant with merit in the abstract, and has no consideration for the accidents,—thus always injudicious to plead, as self excusatory,—of age, sex, or worldly position. But individuals and contemporaries may be permitted to remember that the "Pleasures of Hope" appeared first in 1799, when its author was only twenty-two years of age, and be led to consider it accordingly, what it undoubtedly is, a very remarkable instance, in such a case, of successful mastery over the form and spirit of poetical expression. It is true that marks of juvenility are everywhere apparent; that the diction is often redundant, and sense not always commensurate with sound. Still, it is a poem of sustained rhythmical march; of sentiments expressive of every note in the gamut of feeling; and of episodes, whether from history, fiction or domestic life, full of beauty, force, pathos and natural truth. In the words of Moir, "the heart is lapped in Elysium, the rugged is softened down, and the repulsive hid from view; Nature is mantled in the enchanting hues of the poet's imagination, and life seems but a tender tale set to music." Perhaps there is no didactic poem in our language so well known and loved as this, if not as a whole, by its component parts. There is hardly a doubt that it will continue to be so, in spite of new "schools" of poetry, and poetical criticism; and that it will retain its place, as a classic, in our literature, nobly closing that bright era of which Dryden and Pope heralded the morn, and which closed when
- ↑ This interesting event is commemorated in a volume entitled An Authentic Narrative of Mr. Kemble's Retirement from the Stage, including Farewell Address, Criticism, Poems, etc., with an Account of the Dinner given at the Freemason's Tavern. June 27, 1817, etc, (London, 1817, 8vo.) What a banquet! Lord Holland occupied the chair, and proposed the health of the actor, who himself returned thanks; Fawcett replied for the English Performers of Covent Garden, and Talma for the French Stage; Benjamin West responded for the Royal Academy; Horace Twiss for Mrs. Siddons; John Flaxman for himself as the designer of the Vase; while Matthews and Incledon charmed the guests with their vocal efforts.
- ↑ "The Last Man by Campbell, Hood, and Byron," Blackwood's Magazine, vol xxi. p. 54.
