the greasy-fisted Clarindas of the city.

I had not been many minutes in the room, when there suddenly came up to the spot in which I and my friend stood, a small thin man, with a remarkably cunning and withered face, eyes cold and glassy, like those of a dead haddock, a brown wig neatly fitted on, a blue coat, not of the newest, with brass or gilt buttons, and a buff waistcoat. He had no gloves, and his hands were coarse and wrinkled. His eyebrows were thick and slightly grey, and though the lines of the face denoted an inner man of much sagacity and shrewdness, their outward expression was the most vacant and unmeaning in the world; and it was painful to look and think how heartbroken must be the spirit that animated so cold and cynical a countenance. The wan light of the features was to the purple fire of youth and heartiness what the dull, and misty exhalations of the fens' are to the enchanting lustre of the stars. There was something remarkably mean and vulgar in his face; the lips were thin and the reverse of juicy or joyous; but the brow was good though not high, or indicative of great mental power; and he came into the room with more of a smirk than became a person of his years, and with an evident contempt for the company which he was about to join. He singled out my friend immediately, apparently glad to find a gentlemen present, approached and accosted him; and when the first greetings were over, the former electrified me by introducing me as "a distinguished friend of Poland," to MR. THOMAS CAMPBELL.

I

I was quite unprepared for this. had never seen Campbell before, and Sir Thomas Lawrence's picture, on which I had often gazed with delight, had given me the idea of a noble and eminently handsome looking manone of the gallant cavalier ministrels of old, who were equally beloved by the muses and the ladies; and wonderful indeed was the contrast between this imaginary portrait and the miserable dwarf who stood beside me, and in whose brow I recognized the stiffness of some humble Scotch dominie, rather than the fine courtesy of a great English poet who had moved in the highest circles, and

in the highest had been a luminary. I was so astonished indeed that I could scarcely mumble out an ordinary expression of satisfaction at the introduction, and we three stood for almost a minute in as awkward a posture as possible.

We first talked about the company. Campbell looked about, and gave that cynical smile which I have so often seen playing over his countenance. "Patrons of Polish bravery and gallantry," said he, with a curl of the lip. "They come here from their counters and shopboards to gratify their own vanity, and not to assist the brave men of Warsaw. In an hour you will overhear in every circle where two or three young and old women are met- Did you see the lord?' 'I danced with Lord Stuart.' 'Look at that impudent thing, Miss Jones, how she is staring at cousin Mary waltzing with the lord.' In a word, all their talk will be about a lord, and in particular the lord who gets up this ball. If there were not a live lord at the bottom of this gathering, the gathering would never grow to its present size. Englishmen love two things more than any people in the world-a lord and a bully; and they will truckle to both in proportion as they are lorded over and bullied." He then said to me, "have you ever been here before?" I said "no," and added that my opinions of the company were nearly in accordance with his own. "The hall is a fine one," he replied. "We shall have a concert to-night-plenty of Italian singing." This was said with an inimitable sneer. I asked him whether he did not like Italian music. "Just as much," he replied, "as I like Italian poetry-a sweetmeat thing of sugar and trash, pleasant to taste, but no one ever enjoyed a meal of it." I ventured to name Dante Alighieri. "He was a man," said Campbell; "but you will be surprized to hear that I never read a line of the Divina Commedia. I am too indolent. It is a schoolboy task, and I would as soon think of sitting down to Nonnus or Aristotle, as to Dante. To understand the latter, would require more labour than the pleasure would be worth. His grand thoughts may be golden apples of song, but they must be got by vanquishing a dragon. I have often flitted about

"Byron wrote these with a bottle of gin under his vest." I asked him whether he had not ever looked into the translation of Dante, by the Rev. Mr. Cary. He answered with scorn-" Cary was a good-for-nothing beef-devouring parson who could not appreciate Dante. I would rather break stones than read his horrible halting verses. For a man who cares for poetry, Dante is worth learning Italian for better worth the toil of acquiring a new language, than that most lugubrious and dull jester, Cervantes, to read whom in the original, poor old Lord Camden devoted his dotage. I have not read a book these twenty years, nor had the heart to read it." I asked him did he not think there was a resemblance between Byron and Dante, and might not that account for the superior spirit of the former's song, whenever the illustrious ministrel of Florence was mentioned? He answered, "there was a slight resemblance-a very, very slight resemblance. Dante was in heart and soul a gentleman; Byron was in heart and soul a blackguard, immensely vain, vulgar, bullying, ignorant, and mendacious. Even in the affair of their wives, see how differently the two men behaved. Dante had the misfortune to be wedded to one of the vilest shrews in Italy. She led him a dog's life-a life of the most odious domestic tyranny; she was a firebrand, a fury, a breathing Alecto. Yet Dante never once alludes to the matter, and his works are as silent about her as if she had never existed." "Nay," cried I, "don't you remember the line in the Inferno, canto xvi. in which one of the damned souls, Jacopo Rusticci, says

"La fiera moglie, piu ch' altro, mi mioce.
More than aught else my furious wife annoys me."

This has been generally supposed to allude to Dante's own wife." "I never," replied Campbell, "heard the remark made, and I never heard of the line before, and I believe Dante to have been too fine a gentleman to allude to it. He would never have done so mean a thing, nor would he have descended still lower, and written a satire upon a chambermaid-the unfortunate Mrs. Charlment. Byron, who did this, reviled his wife in a hundred different ways-in squibs, in the papers, epigrams here and there, and finally in the Donna Inez of Don Juan. All his songs about his domestic sorrows were mere humbug; he wanted to impose on the public and get them on his side: had he done so, he would have shown the demon within him. If ever a man was inspired by diabolism, it was Lord Byron. Madame de Staêl said of him, C'est un demon,' and she knew him well. Every thing, they say, has two handles; Lord Byron always laid hold of the worst. I will tell you a story illustrative of this. Once at Lord Holland's, where Mackintosh, Horner, Lord Gower, and many others were present, I happened to stand for some time in one of the saloons with Lord Byron. He had got a letter from Madame de Staêl a few days before, in which the baroness had been fantastically complimentary on a note to the Bride of Abydos, highly laudatory to herself, and returned his lordship's praises with interest. Lord Byron brought this note in his pocket, and had the miserable bad taste to show it about to the company, and to extol Corinne above all Greek and Roman fame. I was rather disgusted, and as I was sure his lordship had never read a line of the novel, I gave him a character of it, by no means eulogistic, but true. Lord Byron seemed to think it envy or pique, or I know not what, for he said—' Mr. Campbell, you would not say so if you had got a note of this kind,' holding it up.

Don't you think flattery a delightful incense?' Soon after, Lord Holland brought into the room a censer filled with some composition of the same kind as that used in the Roman Catholic service, and seeing us, he said, here, I have brought you some incense.' Carry it to Lord Byron,'

6

said I; he is used to it.' He was dreadfully annoyed. He assumed one of his terrible scowls, and did not resume his good temper for the rest of the night; nor did he speak to me for a long while after. Dante had none of this small, paltry moodiness; yet there was, as you say, a kind of resemblance. Dante was in love with

Beatrice, the object of a hopeless passion; Byron loved, or pretended to love (for in truth he loved nothing but himself), Miss Chaworth, afterwards Mrs. Musters, who died-as a poet's mistress should die (this was said with a bitter sneer)—in a mad-house. Both were unfortunate in marriage; both were kicked out of their native places, politics having had as much to do with the expulsion of Dante, as libels on the Prince Regent, and their subsequent reaction through the press, had to do with the exile of Lord Byron; both were fond of military glory, but Dante fought in the field, hand to hand and foot to foot, giving and getting many a hard knock; Byron, like a carpet warrior, hid himself in a barrack at Missolonghi, and never fired a shot or brandished a sword in anger in his life. Both were men of unrestrained passions, and banished to hell or purgatory such individuals as annoyed them; the first committing his persecutors to the eternal flames of hell; the last manacling down poor Doctor Southey, in his notorious and abominable Vision of Judgment."

All this was delivered slowly and gravely, without the least animation or life. All the words were perfectly studied, and every sentiment seemed well weighed before delivery. The information conveyed was slight, but it nevertheless aroused curiosity, and attracted attention to hear Campbell speak thus of his great cotemporary. I subsequently found that this was not his habit-that it was only on rare occasions and to very few he spoke in this way, and that it was not until certain magical causes intervened that his tongue let out any of the treasures of his brain. He was, perhaps, the most icy-hearted man that ever lived, wrapping himself up in selfishness as in a robe which he rarely laid aside, thoroughly indifferent to the opinion of this person or to the comfort of hat, or to any earthly thing but his

own beloved ease. So early as 1806, only four years after his first arrival in London, a pension of £184 a year, payable out of the Scotch excise, was conferred upon him at the instance it is said, of Fox, who did not, however, live to carry his wishes into effect. His successors, who wanted to enrol a rhymer in their pay, fulfilled the secretary's intentions, and for thirtyeight years the poet drew his annuity with a precision worthy of a retired statesman. To one of Campbell's few wants, this was a perfect competence, and it rendered him always independent of booksellers. He dined at home perhaps less than any man in London, for to the last his company was courted by the highest and noblest in the land. He was like a grand temple old and ruined, but some breathings of the divinity still lingered round it, and rendered it sacred in men's eyes.

During the whole of our conversation I took the most accurate notice of the poet. My first impressions were all strengthened on further examinations. I do not think that he possessed much original genius, but he had been a hard worker, and he polished to the utmost perfection the scanty droppings of golden ore which brightened the stream of his intellect. Years before his death it had been completely exhausted, and he was but the "shade of a hero who had been." He spoke mechanically, more because he was expected to say something, than from any apparent pleasure in delivering his opinion. He sometimes indulged in a grim smile, but a hearty burst of laughter, I am persuaded, never crossed his countenance. It was not made indeed for a laughing animal, for the extreme thinness of the lips rendered it unpleasing to look at. It was for this reason that Sir Francis Chantrey, whom money could almost induce to do any thing, absolutely refused to pourtray Campbell's face in marble. In vain did Lord Holland and various other lords and ladies importune the sculptor-in vain were the most tempting offers made to him. Chantrey obstinately refused to model the poet, and posterity will be ignorant for ever of the real appearance of Campbell, except from Maclise's picture and this typographical sketch. Maclise has, however,

scarcely done justice to the consummate meanness and cunning of the features. In Fraser's Magazine there is an etching of Campbell-a good resemblance, but too noble in the forma tion of the head. The bard is represented in the last stage of ebriety. "That infernal vagabond, Chantrey," said Campbell, "would have parted with his own soul for money, but he would not carve my bust. He thought the latter more precious than the first."

The inundation of company separated us for some time, and when we again met it was in a private room to which my friend had the privilege of entrée, and where champagne was flowing about in delightful abundance. Campbell stood in a corner with a flask, not of champagne, but of potent brandy by his side, and of this he had evidently made many deep potations, I never saw a man who appeared to enjoy his drink with more intense satisfaction than Campbell; he drained glass after glass slowly and solemnly as if he loved to prolong the pleasure of swallowing it, and reminded me of that famous epicure who wished his throat were as long as a crane's for the purpose of greater gratification at his meals. Yet did not the spirit of brandy infuse any lustre into the careworn countenance before me. It had a contrary effect, making it more stupid than beforegiving to the eye the wandering imbecile expression so painful to contemplate. I stood by him for some time before he appeared to recollect me. At length he said:

"I like your enthusiasm about Dante." (I don't remember that I had expressed any." What do you think of Petrarch?" I said, I had not read many of the sonnets, but was rather disappointed with those which I had read; they were mere boudoir trifles. "You are right," he replied, “quite right; Petrarch was a detestable donkey, and though I have edited his memoirs I say it. The fellow must have been mad, or a fool, orja liar. The latter is the most probable. There really was no such person as Laura. She is throughout a type of the laurel for which he panted, and all the romance about his hopeless passion is rank falsehood from the beginning to the end. It is more charitable to him to suppose him a liar than the puling ass we must believe him to be, if we

credit the story of his love for this fat woman with a large family for such a number of years. I don't mean to cast any reflection on Petrarch for this device. Our own Cowley who was a perfectly virtuous man adopted a similar deceit, and pretended to all the world that he was dying for love. Nor did he confine his particulars on the subject to lie-creating poetry, but he put them forth in plain matter of fact prose. I have never read the love poems of either, without repeating from Homer :

Βασκ ιθι ουλε Ονειρά.

A dream-a cold and sickly dream of passionate feelings and hopes. The late Duchess of Devonshire was an ardent admirer of Petrarch. I once saw the copy of that poet which belonged to her Grace, and oddly enough, some reference in it made a note to my essay on English poetry. I shall show it to you some time or other." Soon after Campbell showed me the note in question, and said that the references to Spenser and Surrey were in the hand-writing of the duchess. The note was as follows:

"In one of Spenser's hymns on love and beauty he breathes this platonic doctrine. :

"Every spirit as it is most pure And hath in it the more of heavenly light, To it the fairer body doth procure To habit in, and it more fairly dight With cheerful grace and amiable sight; For of the soul the body form doth take, For soul is form, and doth the body make.'

"So also Surrey to his fair Geraldine :

"The golden gift that nature did thee give,
To fasten friends and feed them at thy will,
With form and favour taught me to believe
How thou art made to show her greatest skill,'

"This last thought was probably suggested by the lines in Petrarch, which express a doctrine of the Platonic school, respecting the idea or origin of beauty:

"In qual parte del ciel', in quale idea
Era l' esempio onde natura tolse,
Quel bel viso leggiadro, in che ella volse
Mostrar quaggiù, quantò lassì poten.""

I repeated to him Lord Byron's opinion of Petrarch. "I detest the Petrarch so much that I would not be the man even to have obtained his Laura which the metaphysical whining dotard never could." I did this de