The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-05 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS
CAMPBELL. Edited by Dr. Beattie. 3 Vols.
Seldom have we periked a more attractive bio-
graphy than that of Thomas Campbell, by Dr.
Beattie. It gives us no elaborate analysis of the
poet's character, no florid eulogium upon his merits,
no ostentatious criticism upon his short-comings ; it is
not a homily, but a biography—a simple,' unpretend-
ing, truthful portrait of the poet and the man.
Thomas Campbell lives and breathes and speaks in
the pages of these volumes. Those who knew
him not personally may make his acquaintance
here, while those who possessed the privi-
lege of his friendship will thank Dr. Beattie,
as the Indian blessed the painter, for giving back the
dead. This life of Campbell fills three large volumes,
a circumstance not to be wondered at when we call
to mind the number of letters and the innumerable
anecdotes scattered over the pages. "It has been
my aim," says Dr. Beattie, " to make Campbell the
historian of his own life, as it is preserved in his
letters and other documents." "In this labour of
love," he elsewhere observes, " I have been studious
to combine the truthfulness of history with the ten-
derness of friendship. I have had to discharge a
double—often a delicate duty ; to omit nothing that
his true friends would regret to lose, to revive no-
thing that Campbell himself would have wished
forgotten." Dr. Beattie may congratulate himself
upon the successful accomplishment of this difficult
task. The poet himself could have desired no better
historian—he is here represented not only as a
genius to be admired, but as a man to be loved. His
habitual tenderness of disposition, his warm affection
for his friends, his passionate love for Poland and
her unhappy children, his zealous and enthusiastic
labour in their cause, and a thousand other evidences
of kindness and warm- heartedness render Campbell,
as portrayed by Dr. Beattie, quite as attractive as an
individual as is the author of the " Pleasures of
Hope" as a poet. Speaking of the " Pleasures of
Hope," one of the anecdotes informs us of the occasion
of that felicitous subject being selected by Campbell
for a poem. Writing to a friend, he had lamented the
weariness of solitude, and that friend in reply sent
him some lines in praise of loneliness, adding in a
bantering way, "We have now three Pleasures'
extolled by three poets—' The Pleasures of Memory,'
The Pleasures of Imagination,' and ' The Plea-
sures of Solitude'—let us enjoy the Pleasures of
Hope that we shall soon meet again !" These play-
ful lines were the happy origin of Campbell's master-
piece. We might quote a hundred similarly inter-
esting anecdotes without in any way exhausting the
treasures of these volumes. Want of space prohibits
such a proceeding, and indeed we had rather refer
our readers to Dr. Beattie, assured that they
will derive pleasure and information from his
valuable work. Dr. Beattie was with Camp-
bell to the last. After describing the sad closing scene,
the Doctor thus cordially eulogises his departed
friend :—" There lay the breathless form of him who
had impressed all sensitive hearts with the magic
influence of his genius—the hallowed glow of his
poetry—the steady warmth of his patriotism—the
unwearied labours of his philanthrophy ; the man
whom I had seen under many varieties of circum-
stance—in public, the observed of all observers—in
private, the delight of his circle— the pride of his
country—the friend of humanity; now, followed with
acclamations—now visited with sorrows—strug-
gling with difficulties, or soured with dis-
appointments ; then striving to seek repose
in exile—and here finding it in death."
This work, an actual evidence of the pleasures of
memory, is appropriately dedicated to Samuel Rogers.
It contains an engraving of Sir Thomas Lawrence's
beautiful portrait of the poet, and also a sketch of the
statue to be erected in the Poet's Corner of West-
minster Abbey, and a fac-simile of Campbell's hand-
writing. Dr. Beattie concludes his life of Campbell,
as we will close these remarks, with a very beautiful
and singularly appropriate verse from Campbell's
" Hallowed ground :"
" And is be dead. whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high ?
To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die l"

THE CLOSING SCENE. Second Series. By

the Rev. Erskine Neale.

We gladly welcome the second series of this most
valuable work. To all who may have met with the
first number it is unnecessary to say more than that
the second resembles it in animus and ability. The
" Closing Scene"—an idea happily conceived and ad-
mirably executed—contrasts Christianity and Infi-
delity by depicting the last hours of remarkable
Christians and Infidels. In order to render the lesson
complete, it is necessary to exhibit net the last hours
only, but the careers and characters to which the suf-
fering or tranquillity of those last hours may be attri-
buted. Mr. Neale has done this. He has written a very
interesting biography of each individual of whom he
has portrayed the closing scene. No lessons are like
those of example, and the readers of this volume,
standing now by the death-bed of the Christian, and
now by that of the Infidel—(coking upon this picture
and upon that, are irresistibly prompted to exclaim
with the Prophet, " Let me die th 3 death of the
righteous—let my last ens' he like his !" As an in-
stance of the singular diversity of the characters here
portrayed, we may cite two individuals now, perhaps,
for the first time, placed side by side—Mirabeau and
Jane Taylor. Jane Taylor, the loving daughter
and sister, the humble, reliant: Christian, who ex-
pired in the bosom of her family breathing the name
of her Saviour and her absent sister and Mirabeau,
of whom Talleyrand has said "he dramatised his
death"—Mirabeau who in his last moments ex-
claimed, " Perfume me ; crown me with flowers ;
environ me with music, so that I may enter sweetly
on that death from which there is no awaking
The other individuals whose closing scenes are de-
picted in this volume are as follows—we give their
names with Mr. Neale's effective epithets :—" The
Man of Taste—Beckford, of Fonthill ; the Spiritual
Father of many an earnest pastor—Rev. Charles
Simeon ; the Traitor, Assassin, and avowed Infidel—
Thistlewood ; the Retired Student—John Foster, of
Bristol ; the Merchant Prince—Edward Colston ;
the Man of Furious Passions and Faltering Creed—
Lawrence, Earl Ferrers ; a Statesman without Guile
—the late Earl Spencer; the Noble sensitively ten-
acious of his own Honour—Lord Camelford, the
duellist; the Helper of the Fallen—Elizabeth Fry;
the Diplomatist and Dissembler—Prince de Talley-
rand," and some others.

THE BRITISH POLITICAL, COMM.BR-
CIAL, ECCLESIASTICAL, AND HISTO-
RICAL GAZETTEER, TRAVELLING
ROADBOOK, AND COUNTY ATLAS.

The first and second parts of a publication under
this head have just reached us. The want of a com-
prehensive work of this kind has been generally felt
since the great change in locomotion by the con-
struction of railroads, and we have little doubt the
present undertaking will be duly appreciated, by re-
ceiving that public support to which its merits so
justly entitle it. It is, indeed, beautifully got up.
The great improvement in art will be at once seen in
the artistic excellence of the engravings, and the ex-
ecution and correctness of the maps. The varied and
useful matter of so extensive a work! must find an in-
terest for every reader, while its pictorial beauty
will render it as amusing and ornamental in the
drawing-room as it will be found useful
and instructive to the traveller. It will
contain accounts of all inhabited places, with
their statistics, means of access, &c. ; descriptions of
districts, rivers, &c., with all information that can be
procured concerning each. There will be also a glos-
sary of archaic, municipal, and ecclesiastical terms,
and other scientific names mentioned in the course of
the work. It will be compressed into sixty-five parts,
fifty of which will contain a map each. The statis-
tical and historical matter, even in the parts now
before us, must have cost much industry and labour,
and we heartily wish good ',speed to an undertaking
calculated to add so much that is useful and interest-
ing to the general stock of knowledge.

LE LIVRE DES NOMS ; being a Distinct
Arrangement of all the French Nouns as to
Gender and Termination, showing also their Plural
Formations, with the English attached. By Made-
moiselle Coralie.
Cobbett in his French Grammar declares that it is
impossible to devise any rules for ascertaining the
genders of French nouns, inasmuch as the exceptions
in many instances outnumber the nouns which con-
form to a given rule. The only method, according to
Cobbett, to be pursued is to make a list of all French
feminine nouns and all French masculine nouns, and
learn them by rote. This list has been drawn up by
Mademoiselle Coralie
in the "Livre des Noms." The
list of feminine nouns are placed first; and then the