m, for the last, best hopes of man. Let that be his excuse and his
epitaph!

[Footnote A: This Essay was written just before Lord Byron's death.]

[Footnote B:

"Don Juan was my Moscow, and Faliero
My Leipsic, and my Mont St. Jean seems Cain,"
_Don Juan_, Canto. XI.]

[Footnote C: This censure applies to the first Cantos of DON JUAN much
more than to the last. It has been called a TRISTRAM SHANDY in rhyme: it
is rather a poem written about itself.]

* * * * *

MR. CAMPBELL AND MR. CRABBE.

"Mr. Campbell may be said to hold a place (among modern poets) between
Lord Byron and Mr. Rogers. With much of the glossy splendour, the
pointed vigour, and romantic interest of the one, he possesses the
fastidious refinement, the classic elegance of the other. Mr. Rogers, as
a writer, is too effeminate, Lord Byron too extravagant: Mr. Campbell is
neither. The author of the _Pleasures of Memory_ polishes his lines till
they sparkle with the most exquisite finish; he attenuates them into the
utmost degree of trembling softness: but we may complain, in spite of
the delicacy and brilliancy of the execution, of a want of strength
and solidity. The author of the _Pleasures of Hope_, with a richer and
deeper vein of thought and imagination, works it out into figures of
equal grace and dazzling beauty, avoiding on the one hand the tinsel of
flimsy affectation, and on the other the vices of a rude and barbarous
negligence. His Pegasus is not a rough, skittish colt, running wild
among the mountains, covered with bur-docks and thistles, nor a tame,
sleek pad, unable to get out of the same ambling pace, but a beautiful
_manege_-horse, full of life and spirit in itself, and subject to the
complete controul of the rider. Mr. Campbell gives scope to his feelings
and his fancy, and embodies them in a noble and naturally interesting
subject; and he at the same time conceives himself called upon (in these
days of critical nicety) to pay the exactest attention to the expression
of each thought, and to modulate each line into the most faultless
harmony. The character of his mind is a lofty and self-scrutinising
ambition, that strives to reconcile the integrity of general design with
the perfect elaboration of each component part, that aims at striking
effect, but is jealous of the means by which this is to be produced.
Our poet is not averse to popularity (nay, he is tremblingly alive to