A POET OF BATTLE
By S. K. RATCLIFFE
THOMAS CAMPBELL died just one hundred years ago—on June 15th, 1844. Near the close of his life he asserted that his share in founding the University of London was the only important event in his life's history. This self-estimate was by no means accurate. His countrymen knew of other notable events, and the Poles honoured him for his aid.as the Greeks honoured Byron ; he was an invaluable friend, when Poland became the lost nation of Europe. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century his standing was above that of all contemporary poets save only Scott and Byron. Certain lyrics of his bear the mark of immortality, and, conspicuously, he was the poet-citizen of his day. Born in Glasgow, Thomas Campbell left the University there at nineteen, with an enviable reputation. Thirty years later he was chosen Lord Rector against the weight of the professors. He defeated Canning, and was twice re-electegd with enthusiasm ; among the Poets of that epoch he was easily the best public speaker. The Pleasures of Hope had placed him, at twenty-two, in the front rank. Such acclaim seems today astonishing ; but in 1799 there were no young poets visible to the relatively large public then calling for them ; the Lyrical Ballads were unnoticed. A few months later, like his seniors Wordsworth and Coleridge, Campbell made a long stay in Germany, writing while away several of his best short poems. On his return he married a cousin, set up house by Sydenham Common, became an admired member of the dominant literary set in London and, still under thirty, was granted a civil-list pension of £200. He entered then upon the arduous life, which Southey and
Hazlitt knew well, of a hard-driven man of letters. Sir Walter Scott, asked by Washington Irving why Campbell in poetry was so frugal, replied that he was afraid of the shadow cast by his own early fame. This was only a part of the explanation. True, Campbell had almost no creative energy, but he was always sunk in bread-labour. He was devoted to his mother's family, as to his own, and, by reason of unfailing generosity and lack of practical sense, he was seldom free from financial worry.
He looked back on tfic seventeen years at Sydenham as his happiest period. In 182o, on becoming editor of the New Monthly, he returned to town, and thereafter was a Londoner. The magazine was successful, despite Campbell's muddled habits. He was saved by his wife, and contributors of the finest sort were at hand. It was during a second visit to Germany, in 1820, that he began to think about a University for London. If the idea came to him from Bonn, it was in Berlin later that he gave attention to buildings and methods. He was quick in gaining support. Brougham, the Mills and others were with him, and by 1827, thanks to his vision and action, the University was in being.
The cause of Poland was a lifelong passion with him. When he penned his celebrated bad line Kosciusko was a fresh memory. In 183o the Polish rising was crushed by a barbaric Tsardom. Campbell's fervour reawoke and took positive shape. He formed an association of the Friends of Poland and spent himself in their service for nine years. From first to last he was a poet who gave far more to Freedom than his songs.
There would seem to be little room for difference of opinion about the bulk of Campbell's poetry. Who among us can find pleasure in The Pleasures of Hope, although single lines will sways be in the common speech? It is not a good reflective poem. It is derivative, poor in structure and not without passages of rhetorical nonsense. Gertrude of Wyoming (a lovely title, though the poet did not know how the accent fell in America) is stamped upon by George Saints- bury, who was a warm admirer of Campbell's best, as the clumsiest caricature of the Spenserian stanza. That judgement is mistaken. Uninspired the verse is, but not clumsy. Gertrude's story is a sentimental tragedy, too condensed to be clear. Welcomed with rapture in 1809, it can have very few responsive readers today. Jeffrey, by the way, was not wrong in telling Campbell that his excessive care for finish and polish was fatal. He was incapable of passing an untidy line, and yet he could allow absurd errors, such as the tigers on Lake Erie's shore, to stand uncorrected.
The group of famous short poems takes us into a wholly different world. Lochiel's Warning and Lord Ullin's Daughter belong, of course, to their time, but they will not be forgotten. It is arguable that Campbell touched his highest moment in The Last Man, and one thing, assuredly, was done in that poem ; it proved that no beat is more perfectly suited to the cadence and the noble mono- syllables of our English tongue than that of the measure so often and rightly employed between Smart's Song to David, Cowper's Castaway, and Hodgson's Song of Honour.
There remain the three incomparable battle-pieces. It is curious that the British people, profuse in lyric expression and ever at war, should own so small a quantity of first-rate battle verse. Copen- hagen 14o years ago is not for us a proud memory, but Campbell's Baltic is undeniable ; Ye Mariners of England is the anthem of an island race, and all anthologists have recognised the uniqueness of Hohenlinden. They have not minded the visual rhyme in its final word, and in 1800 no one could forecast the ironic sound of " Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave! " The poem, it may be noted, was rejected by the Greenock Advertiser as not being up to the editor's standard. It could perhaps be cited in support of Goethe's view that the classic note was clearer in Campbell than in any other English poet of the half-century.
His career was that of a very successful Scot in London. But his happiness was shattered by domestic sorrow, loneliness and a personal weakness that increased with suffering. The last of his many mistakes was made in 1843, when he gave up his London house and retired to Boulogne, where he died after twelve months of weakness and pain. His funeral in Westminster Abbey was said to be the most imposing since Addison's.
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