hardly find out that Henry has disappeared, till suddenly he re-appears; though this very re-appearance is one of the most important events in the whole work. The breaking out of hostilities, too, is a very material circumstance; and yet it is not without great difficulty that the reader collects, how the war has arisen, or who are the contending parties. The death of Gertrude is a fact of still higher consequence; but the manner of that death is so carelessly left to conjecture, that at this day it is a generally disputed point, whether she be slain by the same volley which destroys her father, or by a subsequent discharge, or in what other way. Nor, at last, is any thing declared concerning the fate of Henry and Outalissi, who have resolved on warlike revenge against the destroyers; but with more than the abruptness of a German drama, the curtain is dropt upon the agitated groupe, and every thing abandoned to the imagination of the public. No doubt, a prosaic, lawyer-like accuracy of narration is an error to be most studiously avoided; but of late, an alarming multitude of authors have affected a negligent grace, and left half their story to be guessed. It is impossible too decidedly to discourage a fashion that abridges the writer's trouble, by increasing that of the reader. Those classes of poetry which come under the head of the Enigma, appear to be the only kinds of composition, where the author has any right to an exclusive property in his own meaning.

The skilful delineation of character is a virtue that may atone for many errors; but Mr. Campbell has no such redemption. Outalissi indeed is pourtrayed with boldness and great effect; but his portrait is not so properly the sketch of an individual's character, as the personification of a people's manners. It is certainly a most picturesque description of the Indian tribes in general; but, having no peculiarity in its air, no individuality to make it original and distinct, the admiration that it deserves must be paid to it for other merits

than characteristic drawing. The rest of the personages are merely amiable and insipid.

Many deficiencies, that could not have been absolutely justified, might at least have been overlooked, if the principal agents had been thrown into impressive situations of dramatic effect. There are three passages, where scenes of this nature appear to have been designed: the first is the recognition of Waldegrave, on his return to Wyoming -the second is the recognition of Outalissi, on his annunciation of the invaders

and the third is the death of Albert and his daughter. The recognitions, and the deaths, of principal characters, have often been successfully employed, in plays and in narratives, to excite curiosity and sympathy; but now, repetition has weakened their effect at best, and Mr. Campbell has not made the most ingenious use even of their remaining capability to please. As to his recognitions, they excite no emotion whatever and even the pathos of Gertrude's dying words, which seems to have been designed for the main effect of the poem, is almost extinguished by the unskilful contrivance of the circumstances that occasion her destruction. This catastrophe is made simply a matter of accident: not such an accident as is brought about by any dramatic concatenation of causes, but the sort of accident that we daily read of in the newspapers, which happens by mere ill-luck.

If there had been any thing of concertment, or of particular motive in the heroine's destruction-if, for instance, she had been represented as having rejected some lover, who should have unintentionally slain her in aiming at his rival Henry-in short, if any contrivance had prepared the way, and enabled the reader to perceive, on looking back, that the event was at all in the natural course of things, the poem might have left some impression on the heart. But little interest can arise from the main events, when they are so loosely appended to the extremity of the plot, that whether or not they had happened, the story would still have been equally

coherent. A great part of the pleasure communicated by an artfully-contrived catastrophe, arises from the gratification of a long suspense. But a mere sudden accident has produced no suspense; no one has said to himself, How will the embarrassment end? for there has been no embarrassment to a single personage of the drama-the difficulties do not begin, till the occurrence of the very casualty that ends them.

Accidents, therefore-though quite allowable in the complication of an interest-are never to be admired in its de velopement, unless they fairly arise out of previous occurrences, and then they are more properly called incidents than accidents. They then partake of motive in the agent, or of concertment in the poet, as well as of pure external chance. Those few symmetrical narratives which have continued, and will continue to flourish amid the successive decay of their clumsy competitors, afford complete illustrations of this principle. One example will suffice, which is preferred, because it springs from a countryman of Mr. Campbell. It is in the Douglas of Mr. Home. Douglas dies by one of those accidents that are properly termed incidents; an accident arising from the previous occurrences of the play. The unfortunate misconception of his patron, the innocent tenderness of his mother, and the natural and progressive hatred of his enemy, all create anxiety and suspense in the spectator, and all prepare the way for this melancholy event. The very causes that excite our affection for his character, lead at last to the blow that destroys him.-Physicians have declared, that men are born with the seeds of their mortal diseases: and thus should the previous events of a narrative contain the principle of its catastrophe.

Even though the final situation of this poem had been constructed as ably as it is unskilfully, there would still be reason to regret the want of little previous circumstances, calculated to enliven the tale. Such circumstances, though not directly, yet very powerfully, contribute to the effect of any

great situation, by the interest that they diffuse over the characters concerned. There must be as little need to dwell upon the importance of diffusing a strong interest over the principal agents of a great situation, as to enlarge on the various influences by which previous incident may invest those agents with such an interest: it must be quite sufficient to remind an author of the general fact, that his agents will recom mend themselves infinitely more by what they themselves do, than by any thing that his warmest zeal can say for them.

Let it be observed, that the dramatic skill of which the necessity has been thus inculcated, must by no means be confounded with a theatrical manner: for dramatic effect is then only to be admired, when it is perfectly consistent with the simplest and purest nature.

It has been attempted to set up an apology, for this poem's deficience in the great requisites here recommended : and, strange to say, the tone, in which some defenders of Gertrude have hitherto proceeded, has been-not excuse, but triumph. They declare that, though this very quiet kind of poem be not calculated to strike the most strongly, yet it is likely to please the most deeply, and to be the longest admired. But a poem is not like a philosophical work, which, at its first appearance, may be misunderstood by ignorance, and abused by bigotry, and distorted by prejudice, and so completely overwhelmed with all sorts of rubbish, that the clearing hand of that great improver, time, is indispensable to the placing of its merits in a fair point of view: a poem, in these days, when once it has become known, has no obstacles to overcome: if it can ever please at all, it may reasonably be expected to please on the first reading; if it fails then, it is not very likely to obtain any second chance of pleasing. A fine poem indeed will, for a very long time, continue to display new beauties on each new examination; but no poem can be called fine, which does not display beauties enow at the first perusal to induce a second.

Some have said that Gertrude does display beauties enow to induce a second perusal, if the reader have but sufficient sensibility to enjoy pathetic charms, and sufficient patience to search for merits that are not self-evident. It is perfectly undeniable, that no pathetic poem can succeed with an insensible reader; but as to the patience that can justly be expected, there will probably be a considerable difference of opinion. May it not even be truly affirmed, that patience is a favour which no poet has the smallest right to calculate upon? The reader, to be sure, must lend himself readily: he should always be accessible when merit comes to call upon him; but he is not bound to exercise his patience by travelling to look after merit.

It is true that, in general, where poetical beauties are highly enjoyed, there is some exercise performed by the intellects of the reader. The mode of that exercise appears to have been much misrepresented in a late defence, no less sophistical than ingenious, of Mr. Campbell's poem: and as the arguments on this subject must determine the value, not only of Gertrude, but of numberless analogous works, it may not be improper to say a few words on the nature of the enjoyment which Poetry affords.

In the defence alluded to, it is stated that "the highest delight which Poetry produces, does not arise from the mere passive perception of the images or sentiments which it presents to the mind, but from the excitement which is given to its own eternal activity, and the character which is impressed on the train of its spontaneous conceptions.". It is added, that "the object is, to awaken in our minds a train of kindred emotions, and to excite our imaginations to work out for themselves a tissue of pleasing conceptions."From which reasonings it is presently inferred, that such a poem as Gertrude is preferable to a work which agitates the reader with a more direct and potent operation.

That the sum of our pleasure is completed, not merely from