paying a last tribute of respect to the merits of this admired genius. Since Campbell's decease, a full-length statue, by Mr. W. C. Marshall, has been finished, and is proposed to be erected in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey. We close this short sketch of the career of this gifted individual, by a few quotations from his own words at the age of sixty-one, recorded in Reminiscences of the Poet by Members of his Family. He spoke frequently, if led to it, of his feelings while writing his poems. When he wrote the "Pleasures of Hope," fame, he said, was every thing in the world to him: if any one had foretold to him then, how indifferent he would be now to fame and public opinion, he would have scouted the idea. He said he hoped he really did feel, with regard to his posthumous fame, that he left it, as well as all else about himself, to the mercy of God. "I believe when I am gone, justice will be done to me in this way-that I was a pure writer. It is an inexpressible comfort, at my time of life, to be able to look back and feel that I have not written one line against religion or virtue." Another time, speaking of the insignificance which in one sense posthumous fame must have, he said, "When I think of the existence which shall commence when the stone is laid above my head,-when I think of the momentous realities of that time, and of the awfulness of the account I shall have to give of myself, how CAN literary fame appear to me but as-nothing. Who will think of it then? If, at death, we enter on a new state of eternity, of what interest beyond his present life can a man's literary fame be to him? Of none-when he thinks most solemnly about it." "Farewell! if 'tis the muse's boast to crown With deathless fame, and virtue meets renown; ANALYSIS OF PART I. THE Poem opens with a comparison between the beauty of remote objects in a landscape, and those ideal scenes of felicity which the imagination delights to contemplate-the influence of anticipation upon the other passions is next delineated-an allusion is made to the well-known fiction in Pagan tradition, that, wher all the guardian deities of mankind abandoned the world, Hope alone was left behind-the consolations of this passion in situations of danger and distress-the seaman on his watch-the soldier marching into battle-allusion to the interesting adventures of Byron. The inspiration of Hope, as it actuates the efforts of genius, whether in the department of science, or of taste-domestic felicity, how intimately connected with views of future happiness-picture of a mother watching her infant when asleep-pictures of the prisoner, the maniac, and the wan derer. From the consolations of individual misery a transition is made to prospects of political improvement in the future state of society-the wide field that is yet open for the progress of humanizing arts among uncivilized nations-from these views of amelioration of society, and the extension of liberty and truth over despotic and barbarous countries, by a melancholy contrast of ideas, we are led to reflect upon the hard fate of a brave people recently conspicuous in their struggles for independence-description of the capture of Warsaw, of the last contest of the oppressors and the oppressed, and the massacre of the Polish patriots at the bridge of Prague-apostrophe to the self-interested enemies of human improvement-the wrongs of Africa—the barbarous policy of Europeans in India-prophecy in the Hindoo mythology of the expected descent of the Deity to redress the miseries of their race, and to take vengeance on the violators of justice and mercy. |
