CCLVII.

This friendly letter was addressed to the poet Campbell shortly before the poem of Gertrude of Wyoming' was published. Jeffrey's elaborate public criticism of the same poet soon followed. Campbell himself was captivated as much by the reviewer's tact in discovering beauty and blemish' as he was by his early and constant friendship.

Francis Jeffrey to Thomas Campbell.

Edinburgh: March 1, 1809.

I have seen your Gertrude. The sheets were sent to Alison, and he allowed me, though very hastily, to peruse them. There is great beauty, and great tenderness, and fancy in the work —and I am sure it will be very popular. The latter part is exquisitely pathetic, and the whole touched with those soft and skyish tints of purity and truth, which fall like enchantments on all minds that can make anything of such matters. Many of your descriptions come nearer the tone of 'The Castle of Indolence,' than any succeeding poetry, and the pathos is much more graceful and delicate. But there are faults too-for which you must be scolded. In the first place, it is too short-not merely for the delight of the reader-but, in some degree, for the development of the story, and for giving full effect to the fine scenes that are delineated. It looks almost as if you had cut out large portions of it, and filled up the gaps very imperfectly. There is little or nothing said, I think, of the early love, and of the childish plays of your pair, and nothing certainly of their parting, and the effects of separation on each-though you had a fine subject in his European tour, seeing everything with the eyes of a lover—a free man, and a man of the woods. It ends rather abruptly-not but that there is great spirit in the description-but a spirit not quite suitable to the soft and soothing tenor of the poem. dangerous faults, however, are your faults of diction. still a good deal of obscurity in many passages-and in others a strained and unnatural expression—an appearance of labour and hardness; you have hammered the metal in some places till it has lost all its ductility. These are not great faults, but they are blemishes; and as dunces will find them out, noodles will see them

The most

There is

when they are pointed to. I wish you had had courage to correct, or rather to avoid them, for with you they are faults of over finishing, and not of negligence. I have another fault to charge you with in private, for which I am more angry with you than for all the rest. Your timidity, or fastidiousness, or some other knavish quality, will not let you give your conceptions glowing, and bold, and powerful, as they present themselves; but you must chasten, and refine, and soften them, forsooth, till half their nature and grandeur is chiselled away from them. Believe me, my dear C., the world will never know how truly you are a great and original poet, till you venture to cast before it some of the rough pearls of your fancy. Write one or two things without thinking of publication, or of what will be thought of them—and let me see them, at least, if you will not venture them any further. I am more mistaken in my prognostics than I ever was in my life, if they are not twice as tall as any of your full-dressed children. I write all this to you in a terrible hurry—but tell me instantly when your volume is to be out.

F. JEFFREY.

CCLVIII.

Francis Jeffrey to William Empson.

Killin: August 2, 1834.

My dear E.,-This is a great disappointment, and, after all, why were you so faint-hearted after coming so far? Rain! Oh effeminate cockney, and most credulous brother of a most unwise prognosticator of meteoric changes. Though it rained in the Boeotia of Yorkshire, must it rain also in the Attica of Argyll? Why, there has not been a drop of rain in the principality of MacallumMore for these ten days; but, on the contrary, such azure skies, and calm, cœrulean waters, such love and laziness-inspiring heats by day, and such starlight rowings and walkings through fragrant live blossoms, and dewy birch woods by night; and then such glow-worms twinkling from tufts of heath and juniper, such naiads sporting on the white quartz pebbles, and meeting your plunges into every noon-day pool; and such herrings at breakfast, and haggises at dinner, and such pale, pea-green mountains, and a genuine Highland sacrament! The long sermon in Gaelic, preached

out of tents to picturesque multitudes in the open air, grouped on rocks by the glittering sea, in one of the mountain bays of those long withdrawing lochs! You have no idea what you have missed; and for weather especially, there is no memory of so long a tract of calm, dry, hot weather at this season; and the fragrance of the mountain hay, and the continual tinkling of the bright waters! But you are not worthy even of the ideas of these things and you shall have no more of them, but go unimproved to your den at Haileybury, or your stye at the Temple, and feed upon the vapour of your dungeon. When we found you had really gone back from your vow, we packed up for Loch Lomond yesterday, and came on here, where we shall stay in the good Breadalbane country till Monday, and then return for a farewell peep at our naiads, on our way to Ayrshire, and thence back to Craigcrook about the 18th. (Write always to Edinburgh.) I sent a letter to Napier for you, which he returned two days ago. After that I could not tell where to address you. I left instructions at the Arrochar post-office for the forwarding of your letters to Rice. Only two newspapers had come for you when we came away, and these I generously bestowed in my last. And now it is so hot that I cannot write any more, but must go and cool myself in the grottos of the rocky Dochart, or float under the deep shades that overarch the calm course of the translucent Lochy, or sit on the airy summit where the ruins of Finlarig catch the faint fluttering of the summer breeze. All Greek and Hebrew to you, only more melodious. Poor wretch! We have been at Finlarig and at Auchmore; both very beautiful, but the heat spoils all, as I fear it may have our salmon. God bless us, I am dyspeptic and lumbaginous, and cannot sleep, and I lay it all on the heat, when I daresay old age and bad régime should have their share. Why should not you and Malthus come down to our solemnity on the 8th September? After your long services, a fortnight's holiday could not be grudged, especially for the purpose of making you better teachers, and getting solutions to all your difficulties. I hope Mrs. Somerville will come.

I had a glimpse of my beautiful Mrs. Grant before leaving Edinburgh, and grudge such a sultana to India. Write to me soon. My Charlottes send their love in anger to you. Ever yours.

CCLIX.

In the recently published volumes of Charles Dickens' Letters the editorial comment for the year 1843 informs us that the popular novelist' was at work upon "Martin Chuzzlewit" until the end of the year, when he also wrote and published the first of his Christmas stories-"The Christmas Carol." To have received from the pen of the brilliant critic, Jeffrey, so genuine an assurance of the increasing repute and influence of his writings must have greatly flattered even this spoilt child of the public.

Francis Jeffrey to Charles Dickens.

Edinburgh: December 26, 1843. Blessings on your kind heart, my dear Dickens! and may it always be as light and full as it is kind, and a fountain of kindness to all within reach of its beatings! We are all charmed with your Carol, chiefly, I think, for the genuine goodness which breathes all through it, and is the true inspiring angel by which its genius has been awakened. The whole scene of the Cratchetts is like the dream of a beneficent angel in spite of its broad reality, and little Tiny Tim, in life and death almost as sweet and as touching as Nelly. And then the school-day scene, with that large-hearted delicate sister, and her true inheritor, with his gall-lacking liver, and milk of human kindness for blood, and yet all so natural, and so humbly and serenely happy! Well, you should be happy yourself, for you may be sure you have done more good, and not only fastened more kindly feelings, but prompted more positive acts of beneficence, by this little publication, than can be traced to all the pulpits and confessionals in Christendom since Christmas 1842.

And is not this better than caricaturing American knaveries, or lavishing your great gifts of fancy and observation on Pecksniffs, Dodgers, Bailleys, and Moulds. Nor is this a mere crotchet of mine, for nine-tenths of your readers, I am convinced, are of the same opinion; and accordingly, I prophesy that you will sell three times as many of this moral and pathetic Carol as of your grotesque and fantastical Chuzzlewits.

I hope you have not fancied that I think less frequently of you, or love you less, because I have not lately written to you. Indeed it

is not so; but I have been poorly in health for the last five months, and advancing age makes me lazy and perhaps forgetful. But I do not forget my benefactors, and I owe too much to you not to have you constantly in my thoughts. I scarcely know a single individual to whom I am indebted for so much pleasure, and the means at least of being made better. I wish you had not made such an onslaught on the Americans. Even if it were all merited, it does mischief, and no good. Besides you know that there are many exceptions; and if ten righteous might have saved a city once, there are surely innocent and amiable men and women, and besides, boys and girls enough, in that vast region, to arrest the proscription of a nation. I cannot but hope, therefore, that you will relent before you have done with them, and contrast your deep shadings with some redeeming touches. God bless you. I must not say more to-day. With most kind love to Mrs. Dickens, always very affectionately, &c.

Since writing this in the morning, and just as I was going to seal it, in comes another copy of the Carol, with a flattering autograph on the blank page, and an address in your own 'fine Roman hand.' I thank you with all my heart, for this proof of your remembrance, and am pleased to think, that while I was so occupied about you, you had not been forgetful of me. Heaven bless you, and all that are dear to you. Ever yours, &c.

CCLX.

Landor said that in Southey's letters alone could his character be read. If this be true, they reveal him as an essentially prosaic, worthy person, crammed with knowledge of books, estimable in all his social relations, but singularly dry and unsympathetic. To one or two correspondents, and notably to Miss Barker, he unbends and shows the most human side of his nature, but his letters generally contain too much information to be good as letters.

Robert Southey to Miss Barker.

Keswick: April 3, 1804. Senhora,-Perhaps you may be anxious to hear of our goings

short

on, and therefore, having nothing to say, I take up a very and ugly pen to tell you so. In a fortnight's time, by God's good will, I may have better occasion to write.