n by fancy combined
With the vanishing phantoms of love and delight,
Abandon my soul, like a dream of the night,
And leave but a desert behind.

Be hush'd, my dark spirit! For wisdom condemns
When the faint and the feeble deplore;
Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems
A thousand wild waves on the shore!
Through the perils of chance, and the scowl of disdain,
May thy front be unalter'd, thy courage elate!
Yea! even the name I have worshipp'd in vain
Shall awake not the sigh of remembrance again:
To bear is to conquer our fate.

Of a similar description are his "Lines on revisiting a Scottish
River."[6]

[6] See MIRROR, No. 257.

Mr. Campbell contributes but little to the pages of the New Monthly
Magazine: still, what he writes is excellent, and as we uniformly
transfer his pieces to the _Mirror_, we need not recapitulate them.
The fame of Campbell, however, rests on his early productions, which,
though not numerous, are so correct, and have been so fastidiously
revised, that while they remain as standards of purity in the English
tongue, they sufficiently explain why their author's compositions are
so limited in number, "since he who wrote so correctly could not be
expected to write much." His Poetical pieces have lately been collected,
and published in two elegant library volumes, with a portrait esteemed
as an extremely good likeness.

A contemporary critic, speaking of the superiority of Campbell's minor
effusions, when compared with his larger efforts, observes, "His genius,
like the beautiful rays of light that illumine our atmosphere, genial
and delightful as they are when expanded, are yet without power in
producing any active or immediate effect. In their natural expansions
they sparkle to be sure, and sweetly shine; but it is only when
condensed, and brought to bear upon a limited space or solitary object,
that they acquire the power to melt, to burn, or to communicate their
fire to the object they are in contact with." Another writer says, "In
common with every lover of poetry, we regret that his works are so few;
though, when a man has written enough to achieve immortality, he cannot
be said to have trifled away his life. Mr. Campbell's poetry will find
its way wherever the English language shall be spoken, and will be
admired wherever it is known."

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INDEX TO VOL. XIV.

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