poems mark his age. At an earlier time, when literature was for
the fashionable few, his subjects would have been beneath interest; but
the times had changed; education had been more diffused, and readers were
multiplied. Goldsmith's _Deserted Village_ had struck a new chord, upon
which Crabbe continued to play. Of his treatment of these subjects it must
be said, that while he holds a powerful pen, and portrays truth vividly,
he had an eye only for the sadder conditions of life, and gives pain
rather than excites sympathy in the reader. Our meaning will be best
illustrated by a comparison of _The Village_ of Crabbe with _The Deserted
Village_ of Goldsmith, and the pleasure with which we pass from the
squalid scenes of the former to the gentler sorrows and sympathies of the
latter.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.--More identified with his age than any other poet, and
yet forming a link between the old and the new, was Campbell. Classical
and correct in versification, and smothering nature with sonorous prosody,
he still had the poetic fire, and an excellent power of poetic criticism.
He was the son of a merchant, and was born at Glasgow on the 27th of July,
1777. He thus grew up with the French revolution, and with the great
progress of the English nation in the wars incident to it. He was
carefully educated, and was six years at the University of Glasgow, where
he received prizes for composition. He went later to Germany, after being
graduated, to study Greek literature with Heyne. After some preliminary
essays in verse, he published the _Pleasures of Hope_ in 1799, before he
was twenty-two years old. It was one of the greatest successes of the age,
and has always since been popular. His subject was one of universal
interest; his verse was high-sounding; and his illustrations modern--such
as the fall of Poland--_Finis Poloniae_; and although there is some
turgidity, and some want of unity, making the work a series of poems
rather than a connected one, it was most remarkable for a youth of his
age. It was perhaps unfortunate for his future fame; for it led the world
to expect other and better things, which were not forthcoming. Travelling
on the continent in the next year, 1800, he witnessed the battle of
Hohenlinden from the monastery of St. Jacob, and wrote that splendid,
ringing battle-piece, which has been so often recited and parodied. From
that time he wrote nothing in poetry worthy of note, except songs and
battle odes, with