Having stated that Bacon was frequently incorrect in his citations from history, I have thought it necessary in what regards so great a name (however trifling), to support the assertion by such facts as more immediately occur to me. They are but trifles, and yet for such trilles a school-boy would be whipped (if still in the fourth form); and Voltaire for half-a-dozen similar errors has been treated as a superficial writer, notwithstanding the testimony of the learned Warton:-" Voltaire, a writer of much deeper research than is imagined, and the first who has displayed the literature and customs of the dark ages with any degree of penetration and comprehension." For another distinguished testimony to Voltaire's merits in literary research, see also Lord Holland's excellent Account of the Life and Writings of Lope de Vega, vol. i. p. 215, edition of 1817. Voltaire has even been termed a "shallow fellow," by some of the same school who called Dryden's Ode "a drunken song; "a school (as it is called, I presume, from their education being still incomplete) the whole of whose filthy trash of Epics, Excursions, &c. &c. &c., is not worth the two words in Zaïre," Vous pleurez," tor a single speech of Tancred:-a school, the apostate lives of whose renegadoes, with their tea-drinking neutrality of morals, and their convenient treachery in politics-in the record of their accumulated pretences to virtue can produce no actions (were all their good deeds drawn up in array) to equal or approach the sole defence of the family of Calas, by that great and unequalled geniusthe universal Voltaire. I have ventured to remark on these little inaccuracies of the greatest genius that England, or perhaps any other country, ever produced," I merely to show our national injustice in condemning generally the greatest genius of France for such inadvertencies as these, of which the highest of England has been no less guilty. Query, was Bacon a greater intellect than Newton? CAMPBELL. Being in the humour of criticism, I shall proceed, after having ventured upon the slips of Bacon, to touch upon one or two as trifling in the edition of the British Poets, by the justly celebrated Campbell. But I do this in good will, and trust it will be so taken. If anything could add to my opinion of the talents and true feeling of that gentleman, it would be his classical, honest, and triumphant defence of Pope, against the vulgar cant of the day, and its existing Grub Street. The inadvertencies to which I allude areFirstly, in speaking of Anstey, whom he accuses of having taken "his leading characters from Smollett. Dissertation I. "Il est trop vrai que l'honneur me l'ordonne, Que je vous adorai, que je vous abandonne, Que je renonce à vous, que vous le désirez, Anstey's Bath Guide was published in 1766. Smollett's Humphrey Clinker (the only work of Smollett's from which Tabitha, &c. &c. could have been taken) was written during Smollett's last residence at Leghorn in 1770"Argal," if there has been any borrowing, Anstey must be the creditor, and not the debtor. 1 refer Mr. Campbell to his own data in his Lives of Smollett and Anstey. Secondly, Mr. Campbell says in the Life of Cowper (note to page 358, vol. vii.) that he knows not to whom Cowper alludes in these lines, "Nor he who, for the bane of thousands born, Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn." The Calvinist meant Voltaire, and the church of Ferney, with its inscription" Deo erexit Voltaire." Thirdly, in the Life of Burns, Mr. Campbell quotes Shakspeare thus, "To gild refined gold, to paint the rose, Or add fresh perfume to the violet." This version by no means improves the original, which is as follows "To gild refined gold, to paint the li'y, To throw a perfume on the violet," &c.-King John. A great poet quoting another should be correct; he should also be accurate, when he accuses a Parnassian brother of that dangerous charge "borrowing: " ณ joet had better borrow anything (excepting money) than the thoughts of another-they are always sure to be reclaimed; but it is very hard, having been the lender, to be de nounced as the debtor, as is the case of Anstey versus Smollett. As there is "honour amongst thieves," let there be some amongst poets, and give each his due, none can afford to give it more than Mr. Campbell himself, who, with a high reputation for originality, and a fame which cannot be shaken, is the only poet of the times (except Rogers) who can be reproached (and in him it is indeed a reproach) with having written too little. Ravenna, Jan. 5, 1821. Page 542, col. 1. "Which taken at the flood,'-you know the rest."] See Shakspeare, Julius Caesar, act iv. sc. iii. Page 542, col. 2. "Who lent his lady to his friend Hortensius."] Cato gave up his wife, Martia, to his friend Hortensius; but, on the death of the latter, took her back again. This conduct was ridiculed by the Romans, who observed, that Martia entered the house of Hortensius very poor, but returned to the bed of Cato loaded with treasures. PLUTARCH, Page 543, col. 1. "A Highland welcome' all the wide world over."] See Waverley. Page 543, col. 2. "In his monastic concubine of snow."] "The blessed Francis, being strongly solicited one day by the emotions of the flesh, pulled off his clothes and scourged himself soundly being after this inflamed with a wonderful fervour of mind, he plunged his naked body into a great heap of snow. The devil, being overcome, retired immediately, and the holy man returned victorious into his ceil." See BUTLER'S Lives of the Saints. Page 544, col. 1. "The tyrant's wish, 'that mankind only had.""] Caligula-See Suetonius. "Being in a rage at the people, for favouring a party in the Circensian games in opposition to him, he cried out, I wish the Roman people had but one nock.'" Page 544, col. 2. "He went forth with the lovely Odalisques."] The ladies of the seraglio. Page 545, col. 1. "Who with the brightest Georgians might compare."] "It is in the adjacent climates of Georgia, Mingrelia, and Circassia, that nature has placed, at least to our eyes, the model of beauty, in the shape of the limbs, the colour of the skin, the symmetry of the features, and the expression of the countenance; the men are formed for action, the women for love."--GIBBON. Page 545, col. 1. "They would prefer to Padisha or Pacha."] Padisha is the Turkish title of the Grand Signior. "But Thy most dreaded instrument Is man array'd for mutual slaughter; WORDSWORTH'S Thanksgiving Ode. "Was printed Grove, although his name was Grose."] A fact: see the Waterloo Gazettes. 1 recollect remarking at the time to a friend:- There is fame! a man is killed, his name is Grose, and they print it Grove." I was at college with the deceased, who was a very amiable and clever man, and his society in great request for his wit, gaiety, and "Chansons à boire." Page 559, col. 1. "The antiquarians who can settle time."] See General Valancey and Sir Lawrence Parsons. Page 559, col. 1. "Tis pity that such meaning should pave hell.'"] The Portuguese proverb says, that "hell is paved with good intentions."" Page 559, col. 2. "By thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon!"] Gunpowder is said to have been discovered by this friar. Page 564, col. 1. "That you and I will win St. George's collar."] A Russian military order. Page 567, col. 2. "Humanity would rise, and thunder 'Nay!'"] Query, Ney-Printer's Devil. Page 567, col. 2. "And Europe's Liberator'-still enslaved."] Vide Speeches in Parliament, after the battle of Waterloo. Page 568, col. 2. "But heaven,' as Cassio says, 'is above all.'"] See Othello. Page 569, col. 1. "I've heard them in the Ephesian ruins howl."] In Greece I never saw or heard these animals: but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. Page 569, col. 2. "Because he could no more digest his dinner."] He was killed in a conspiracy, after his temper had been exasperated by his extreme costivity to a degree of insanity. Page 570, col. 2. "And had just buried the fair-faced Lanskoï."] He was the grande passion of the grande Catherine. See her Lives under the head of" Lanskoj." Page 571, col. 1. "Bid Ireland's Londonderry's Marquess show."] This was written long before the suicide of that person. Page 571, col. 1. "Oh thou 'teterrima causa' of all 'belli.'"] Hor. Sat. lib. i. sat. iii. To wit, the Deity's; this is perhaps as pretty a pedigree for murder as ever was found out by Garter King at Arms. What would have been said, had any free-spoken people discovered such a lineage? Page 572, col. 1. "The Dee, the Don, Balgounie's brig's black wall."] The brig of Don, near the" auld toun" of Aberdeen, with its one arch, and its black deep salmon-stream be low, is in my memory as yesterday. I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote, the awful proverb which made me pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with childish delight, being an only son, at least by the mother's side. The saying as recollected by me was this, but I have never heard or seen it since I was nine years of age: "Brig of Balgounie, black's your wa', Wi' a wife's ae son, and a mear's ae foal, Page 575, col. 1. "With his Agrarian laws, the high estate."] Tiberius Gracchus, being tribune of the people, demanded in their name the execution of the Agrarian law; by which all persons possessing above a certain number of acres were to be deprived of the surplus for the benefit of the poor citizens. Page 575, col. 2. "But getting nigh grim Dante's 'obscure wood.'"] "Mi retrovai per un selva oscura.”—Inferno, Canto 1. Page 576, col. 1. "Oh for a forty-parson power to chant."] A metaphor taken from the forty-horse power" of a steam-cngine. That mad wag the Reverend Sydney Smith, sitting by a brother clergyman at dinner, observed afterwards, that his dull neighbour had a "twelve-parson power" of conversation. Page 576, col. 1. "To strip the Saxons of their hydes, like tanners"] "Hyde."-I believe a hyde of land to be a legitimate word, and, as such, subject to the tax of a quibble. Page 577, col. 1. "Was given to her favourite, and now bore his."] The empress went to the Crimea, accompanied by the emperor Joseph, in the year-1 forget which. Page 577, col. 2. "Which gave her dukes the graceless name of 'Biron.""] In the Empress Anne's time, Biren, her favourite, ss sumed the name and arms of the "Birons" of France which families are yet extant with that of England There are still the daughters of Courland of that namei one of them I remember seeing in England in the blessed year of the Allies (1814)-the Duchess of S.-to whom the English Duchess of Somerset presented me as a namiesake. Page 578, col. 1. "The greatest number flesh hath ever known."] St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins were still extant in 1816, and may be so yet, as much as ever. Page 581, col. 1. "And so knowing?"] The advance of science and of language has rendered it unnecessary to translate the above good and true English, spoken in its original purity by the select mobility and their patrons. The following is a stanza of a song which was very popular, at least in my early days: "On the high toby-spice flash the muzzle, Then your Blowing will wax gallows haughty, That her Jack may be regular weight." If there be any gemman so ignorant as to require a traduction, I refer him to my old friend and corporeal pas tor and master, John Jackson, Esq., Professor of Pugilism; who, I trust, still retains the strength and symmetry of his model of a form, together with his good-humour and athletic as well as mental accomplishments, Page 582, col. 1. "St. James's Palace, and St. James's Hells.""] "Hells," gaming-houses. What their number may now be, in this life, I know not. Before I was of age I knew them pretty accurately, both "gold" and "silver." 1 was once nearly called out by an acquaintance, because when he asked me where I thought that his soul would be found hereafter, I answered, "In Silver Hell" Page 583, col. 1. "Spirit would name, and therefore even I won't anent."]"Anent" was a Scotch phrase meaning "concerning"-" with regard to:" it has been made English by the Scotch novels; and, as the Frenchman said, "* If it be not, ought to be English." Page 583, col. 2. "The milliners who furnish drapery Misses.""] "Drapery Misses."This term is probably anything now but a mystery. It was, however, almost so to me when I first returned from the East in 1811-1812. It means a pretty, a high-born, a fashionable young female, well instructed by her friends, and furnished by her milliner with a wardrobe upon credit, to be repaid, when married, by the husband. The riddle was first read to me by a young and pretty heiress, on my praising the "drapery" of the "untochered" but "pretty virginities' (like Mrs. Anne Page) of the then day, which has now been some years yesterday; she assured me that the thing was common in London; and as her own thousands, and blooming looks, and rich simplicity of array, put any suspicion in her own case out of the question, I confess I gave some credit to the allegation. If necessary, authorities might be cited; in which case I could quote both "drapery" and the wearers. Let us hope, however, that it is now obsolete. Page 584, col. 1. Page 600, col. 2. "Should have a hook, and a small trout to pull it."] It would have taught him humanity at least, This sentimental savage, whom it is a mode to quote (amongst the novelists) to show their sympathy for innocent sports and old songs, teaches how to sew up frogs, and break their legs by way of experiment, in addition to the art of angling, the cruelest, the coldest, and the stupidest of pretended sports. They may talk about the beauties of nature, but the angler merely thinks of his dish of fish; he has no leisure to take his eyes from off the streams, and a single bite is worth to him more than all the "Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle."] scenery around. Besides, some fish bite best on a rainy "Divinæ particulum auræ." Page 584, col. 2. "And Centaur Nessus garb of mortal clothing."] "Illita Nesseo tibi texta veneno."-OviD, Epist. ix. Page 585, col. 1. "In mind, a sort of sentimental bogle."] Scotch for goblin. Page 587, col. 1. "Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain ?"] The Descamisados. Page 588, col. 1. "And Mitford in the nineteeth century."] See Mitford's Greece. "Græcia Verax." His great pleasure consists in praising tyrants, abusing Plutarch, spelling oddly, and writing quaintly; and what is strange, after all his is the best modern history of Greece in any language, and he is perhaps the best of all modern historians whatsoever. Having named his sins, it is but fair to state his virtues-learning, labour, research, wrath, and partiality. I call the latter virtues in a writer, because they make him write in earnest. day. The whale, the shark, and the tunny fishery have somewhat of noble and perilous in them; even net fishangling!-No angler can be a good man. ing, trawling, &c., are more humane and useful. But One of the best men I ever knew, -as humane, delicate-minded, generous, and excellent a creature as any in the world,-was an angler: true, he angled with painted flies, and would have been incapable of the extravagances of I. Walton." The above addition was made by a friend in reading over the MS.-"Audi alteram partem."-I leave it to counterbalance my own observation. Page 603, col. 2. "And never craned, and made but few 'faux pas.""] Craning.-"To crane" is, or was, an expression used to denote a gentleman's stretching out his neck over a hedge, "to look before he leaped:"-a pause in his "vaulting ambition," which in the field doth occasion some delay and execration in those who may be immediately behind the equestrian sceptic. "Sir, if you don't choose to take the leap, let me!"-was a phrase which generally sent the aspirant on again; and to good purpose: for though "the horse and rider" might fall, they made a gap through which, and over him and his steed, the field might follow. Page 603, col. 2. "Ask'd next day, ' If men ever hunted twice?""] Sco his Letters to his Son. Page 604, col. 2. "Go to the coffee-house, and take another."] In Swift's or Horace Walpole's letters I think it is mentioned that somebody, regretting the loss of a friend, was answered by an universal Pylades: "When I lose one, I go to the Saint James's Coffee-house, and take another." I recol. lect having heard an anecdote of the same kind. Sir W. D. was a great gamester. Coming in one day to the club of which he was a member, he was observed to look melancholy. "What is the matter, Sir William?" cried Hare, of facetious memory, "Ah!" replied Sir W., "I have just lost poor Lady D."-"Lost! What at? Quinze "Great Socrates? And thou, Diviner still."] As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say that I mean, by Diviner still," CHRIST. If ever God was man or man God-he was both. I never arraigned his creed, but the use, or abuse-made of it. Mr. Canning one day quoted Christianity to sanction negro slavery, and Mr. Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ crucified that black men might be scourged? If so, he had better been bora a Mulatto, to give both colours an equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation. Page 611, col. 1. "When Rapp the Harmonist embargo'd marriage."] This extraordinary and flourishing Germ in colony in America does not entirely exclude matrimony, as the "Shakers" do; but lays such restrictions upon it as prevents more than a certain quantum of births within a certain number of years; which births (as Mr. Hulme observes) generally arrive "in a little flock like those of a fariner's lambs, all within the same month perhaps." These Harmonists (so called from the name of their settlement) are represented as a remarkably flourishing, pious, and quiet people. See the various recent writers on America Page 611, col. 1. "Nor canvass what so eminent a hand' meant."] Jac Tonson, according to Mr. Pope, was accustomed to call his writers "able pens," "persons of honour," and especially "eminent hands." Vide Correspondence, &c. & c. Page 612, col. 1. "Of Brutus at the pageant of Tiberius."] See Tacitus, b. vi. Page 613, col. 1. "(There's fame)-young partridge fillets, decked with truffles."] A dish à la Lucullus." This hero, who conquered the East, has left his more extended celebrity to the transplantation of cherries (which he first brought into Europe), and the nomenclature of some very good dishes:-and I am not sure that (barring indigestion) he has not done more service to mankind by his cookery than by his conquests. A cherry-tree may weigh against a bloody laurel: besides, he has contrived to earn celebrity from both. Page 613, col. 1. Page 616, col. 1. "If from a shell-fish or from cochineal." The com position of the old Tyrian purple, whether from a shellfish, or from cochineal, or from kermes, is still an article of dispute: and even its colour-some say purple, others scarlet: I say nothing. Page 619, col. 1. "Was much consoled by his own repartee."] I think that it was a carpet on which Diogenes trod, with"Thus I trample ou the pride of Plato!"-"With greater pride," as the other replied. But as carpetrare meant to be trodden upon, my memory probably mis gives me, and it might be a robe, or tapestry, or a tablecloth, or some other expensive and uncynical piece of furniture. Page 619, col. 1. "To soothe our ears lest Italy should fail."] I remember that the mayoress of a provincial town, somewhat surfeited with a similar display from foreign parts, did rather indecorously break through the applauses of an intelligent audience-intelligent, I mean, as to music -for the words, besides being in recondite languages (it was some years before the peace, ere all the world had travelled, and while I was a collegian), were sorely dis guised by the performers: - this mayoress, I say, broke out with, Rot your Italianos! for my part, I loves a simple ballat!" Rossini will go a good way to bring most people to the same opinion, some day. Who would imagine that he was to be the successor of Mozart? lowever, I state this with diffidence, as a licge and loyal admirer of Italian music in general, and of much of Rossini's; but we may say, as the connoisseur did of painting, in "The Vicar of Wakefield," "that the pic ture would be better painted if the painter had taken more pains." Page 620, col. 1. "For Gothic daring shown in English money"] "Ausu Romano ere Veneto" is the inscription (and well inscribed in this instance) on the sea walls between the Adriatic and Venice. The walls were a republican work of the Venetians; the inscription, I believe, imperial; and inscribed by Napoleon the First. It is time to continue to him that title-there will be a second by and by, "Spes altera mundi," if he live; let him not defeat it like his father. But, in any case, he will be preferable to Imbeciles. There is a glorious field for him, if he know how to cultivate it-Napoleon, Duke of Reichstadt, died at Vienna, July 22, 1832-to the disappoint ment of many prophets. He had just completed his twenty-first year.] "And champion him to the utmost-' he would keep it."] "Rather than so, come, fate, into the list, "They err-'tis merely what is call'd mobility."] In French" mobilité." I am not sure that mobility is English; but it is expressive of a quality which rather belongs to other climates, though it is soinetimes seen to a great extent in our own. It may be defined as an excessive susceptibility of immediate impressions-at the same time without losing the past; and is, though some times apparently useful to the possessor, a most painful and unhappy attribute. Page €23, col. 1. "Draperied her form with curious felicity!"] "Curiosa felicitas."-PETRONIUS ARBITER Page 624, col. 1. "A noise like to wet fingers drawn on glas"] See the account of the ghost of the uncle of Prince Charles of Saxony, raised by Schroepfer-" Karl-Karl-was willst du mit mir?" Page 624, col. 2. "Should cause more fear than a whole host's identity."] "Shadows to-night Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, INDEX. The titles of the principal pieces are printed in SMALL CAPITALS, and the first line of every A spirit pass'd before me, 67. A year ago, you swore, fond she! 72. Abencerrage, 134. Granada's flower,' 80. Aberdeen, George Hamilton Gordon, fourth Earl of; 100. Aberdeen, 'the auld toun' of, 668. Abernethy, John, the eminent surgeon, 576. Absent or present, still to thee, 54. Absent friend. See Friend. Abydos. See Bride of Abydos. Acheron, 153. Acherusla's lake,' 152; its present name, 640. Achilles, him who felt the Dardan's arrow,' 201. Alex- ander's race round his tomb, 652-3. The unshorn Acroceraunian mountains, 175. Acropolis, the, Minerva's Temple, 148, 638. Actium, 152, 640. Lost for Cleopatra's eyes,' 542. Adams, John, the drunken carrier, epitaph on. 41. 635. Alexander I. of Russia, the coxcomb Czar,' 134. The Alfieri, Vittorio, quotation from, 168. His last resting- Alhama, ballad on the conquest of, 40. Ali Pacha of Yanina, Albania's chief,' 152, 153, 640. Alla Hu!' explanation of, 191, 651. Almogava. See Boscan. Alpinula. See Julia Alpinula. Alps, description of the, 163. Al Sirat, 'the Bridge of Breath,' 189, 650. his crown to follow woman,' 47. Ambition in his 'Ambracia's Gulf, where once was lost a world for wo- Amitié: l'amour sans ailes,' 32. Amulets universally believed in by the Orientals, 202. And thou art dead, as young and fair, 52. 'Anent,' 583; its meaning, 669. Angelo, Michael, last resting-place of, 173. His statue 654. Angiolini's 'breast of snow,' 97 Anstey's Bath Guide,' error of poet Campbell relative Anteros and Eros, story of the raising of, 297, 659. Antinous, character of the death of, 638. Antony, Mark, who lost the world for love,' 459. Slave Apennines, the infant Alps, 175. Apollo plucks me by the ear,' 522. Belvidere, the, Lord of the unerring bow,' 182. Apparitions, belief in, 616. Appetite, prophetic eye' of, 533. Applause, popular, the glorious meed of,' 518. Archidamus and the grave of valour,' 659. Archimedes and his point d'appui,' 607. Ardennes, forest of, 159. Its historical associations, 646. Argo, the merchant-ship,' 606. Argus, Ulysses' dog, modern contrast to, 514. Argyle Rooms, goings on at the, 97, 630. Argyro Castro, fate of the l'acha of, 653. |