ARTICLE X.

CAMPBELL'S GERTRUDE OF WYOMING, &c.

[Quarterly Review, May, 1809.]

WE open this volume with no ordinary impression of the delicacy and importance of the task which it imposes on us, and the difficulty of discharging it, at once with justice to the author, and to that public at whose bar we, as well as Mr Campbell, must be considered to stand. It is not our least embarrassment, that, in some respects, Mr Campbell may be considered as his own rival; and, in aspiring to extensive popularity, has certainly no impediment to encounter more formidable than the extent of his own reputation. To decide on the merit of Gertrude of Wyoming as the work of a poet hitherto undistinguished, would be comparatively easy. But we are unavoidably forced upon comparing it with Mr Campbell's former pieces; and, while our judgment is embroiled by the predilections, prejudices, and preferences, which the recollection of them has imprinted upon our imagination-there are other peculiar circumstances which enhance expectation, and increase proportion

ally the difficulty of affording it complete gratification.

The Pleasures of Hope, a poem dear to every reader of poetry, bore, amidst many beauties, the marks of a juvenile composition, and received from the public the indulgence due to a promise of future excellence. Some license was also allowed for the didactic nature of the subject; which, prescribing no fixed plan, left the poet free to indulge his fancy in excursions as irregular as they are elegant and animated. It is a consequence of both these circumstances that the poem presents in some degree the appearance of an unfinished picture. In gazing with pleasure on its insulated groups and figures, the reflection will often intrude, that an artist, matured in taste and experience, would have methodized his subject, filled up the intermediate spaces, and brought to perfection a sketch of so much promise. The public readily made every allowance that could be claimed on the score of youth-a seeming generosity often conferred on the first essays of poets, painters, and orators, but for which a claim of repayment, with usurious interest, is regularly preferred against them upon their next appearance. But the hope of improvement was, in Mr Campbell's case, hardly necessary to augment the expectation raised by the actual excellence of his first poem. The beauties of a highly polished versification-that animated and vigorous tone of moral feeling-that turn of expression, which united the sweetness of Goldsmith with the strength of Johnson-a structure of language alike remote from servile imitation of our more classical poets, and

from the babbling and jingling simplicity of ruder minstrels-new, but not singular-elegant, but not trite-justified the admirers of The Pleasures of Hope in elevating its author to a pre-eminent situation among living poets. Neither did Mr Campbell suffer the admiration excited by his first essay to subside or be forgotten. From time to time we were favoured with exquisite lyrical effusions, calculated rather to stimulate than to gratify the public appetite. The splendid poems of Hohenlinden and Lochiel, manifesting high powers of imagination, and other short performances, replete either with animation or tenderness, seemed to declare their author destined to attain the very summit of the modern Parnassus. By some, this pre-eminence was already adjudged to him; while others only adjourned their suffrage, until a more daring, extended, and sustained flight, should make good the promises of his juvenile work, and of his shorter detached poems.

It has for a considerable time been known, that a new poem, of some length, was in Mr Campbell's contemplation; and when it was whispered, that he who sung the doubtful conflict of Hohenlinden, and the carnage of Culloden, had chosen for his theme the devastation of Wyoming, expectation was raised to its height. Desire was not too suddenly quenched; and it is only after a long period of suspense that the work has been given to the public. But it is no easy matter to satisfy the vague and indefinite expectation which suspense of this nature seldom fails to excite. Each reader is. apt to form an idea of the subject, the narrative,

and the style of execution; so that the real poem is tried and censured not upon its own merits, but for differing from the preconceived dream of the critic's imagination. There are few who have not felt disappointment of a similar nature on visiting, for the first time, any spot highly celebrated for its scenery. Expectation has not only exaggerated its beauties, but often sketched a landscape of its own, which the mind unwillingly exchanges even for the most splendid reality. Perhaps, therefore, it is a natural consequence of overstrained hope, that the immediate reception of Gertrude of Wyoming should be less eminently favourable than the intrinsic merit of the poem, and the acknowledged genius of the author, appear to ensure; and perhaps, too, we may be able, in the course of our investigation, to point out other reasons which may for a season impede the popularity of a poem containing passages, both of tenderness and sublimity, which may decline comparison with few in the English language.

The tale of Gertrude of Wyoming is abundantly simple. It refers to the desolation of a beautiful tract of country, situated on both sides of the Susquehannah, and inhabited by colonists, whose primæval simplicity and hospitality recalled the idea of the golden age. In 1778, Wyoming, this favoured and happy spot, was completely laid waste by an incursion of Indians and civilized savages, under a leader named Brandt. The pretext was, the adherence of the inhabitants to the provincial confederacy; but the lust of rapine and cruelty which

distinguished the invaders was such as to add double horrors even to civil conflict.

We do not condemn this choice of a subject in itself eminently fitted for poetry; yet feeling as Englishmen we cannot suppress a hope that Mr Campbell will in his subsequent poems choose a theme more honourable to our national character, than one in which Britain was disgraced by the atrocities of her pretended adherents. We do not love to have our feelings unnecessarily put in arms against the cause of our country. The historian must do his duty when such painful subjects occur; but the poet who may choose his theme through the whole unbounded range of truth and fiction may well excuse himself from selecting a subject dishonourable to his own land.

Although the calamity was general, and overwhelmed the whole settlement of Wyoming, Mr Campbell has judiciously selected a single group as the subject of his picture; yet we have room to regret that in some passages at least he has not extended his canvass to exhibit, in the background, that general scene of tumult and horror which might have added force to the striking picture which he has drawn of individual misery.

The opening of the poem describes Wyoming in a state of more than Arcadian ease and happiness, where exiles or emigrants from all quarters of Europe met in peace, and contended only which should best adorn and improve their seat of refuge. The following stanzas comprehend this interesting description, and are at the same time a just specimen of the style and structure of the poem.