There was, in the age of the great poets of the early nineteenth century, a considerable growth of underwood. Among the more conspicuous plants are Thomas Campbell and Thomas Moore. Campbell (1777-1844) was born and bred at Glasgow. His first verses, "The Pleasures of Hope," in rhyming heroic couplets, appeared in a poetic dearth (1799) and were fair samples of a kind of poetry which was near its death. His "Gertrude of Wyoming" was pathetic (1809), few have even heard of his "Pilgrimage of Glencoe," and Campbell lives by short spirited things, "Hohenlinden," "Ye Mariners of England," "Of Nelson and the North," "Lochiel, Lochiel, Beware of the Day," and the longer piece which displays the resolution and fortitude of "The Last Man" in a very pleasing light. Campbell lived by ordinary writing, critical and editorial. He was a scrupulous, almost a timid corrector of his own verses. A draft for, one of his great naval songs, in the library at Abbotsford, is much longer and not nearly so good as the published version. Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) was a man of wealth, and the friend of men of letters, especially of Byron, through as many generations as Nestor reigned over. His "Italy" (1822) se sauve sur les planches, on the plates by Turner.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852) had greater intelligence, vivacity, agility, an endearing if trivial lyric note of his own, and plenty of witty banter. His songs were meant to be sung, and were sung to the accompaniment of the piano, or the Harp of Erin. He was born in Dublin, was barely 20 when he translated Anacreon, or the poems that were attributed to Anacreon, while his "Poems by Thomas Little" were more than Anacreontic. A duel with the editor of the "Edinburgh Review," Jeffrey, would have advertised him better if Byron had not spoken of the pistols as leadless; Byron and he, thereafter, became bosom friends (see Byron's Correspondence, in which he tells whom he has been kissing). As the biographer of the noble poet, Moore's asterisks are not often successful in wrapping the facts in a mystery. By "Irish Melodies" (1807) Moore chiefly lives; "The Twopenny Postbag," being "topical" and dealing in Whig witticisms, cannot be popular with an age in which few have read "The Rovers," "The Loves of the Triangles," and the other classical drolleries of the "Anti-jacobin" (mainly by Ellis, Frere, and Canning). Not to have read these is to be deficient in liberal education. "Lalla Rookh," Oriental stories in verse, was welcomed almost as eagerly as Byron's "Giaour," "Lara," and similar romances of the land of the cypress and myrtle. The "Life of Byron" (1830) was also, though hampered by disputes and the burning of Byron's Memoirs, a great success, but neither then nor now can a complete view of Byron's life be given. Moore enjoyed his reputation and social opportunities in his own day, but the competition of the great contemporary and of later poets has injured his laurels.
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803-1849) was at the opposite pole from Moore as a man and a poet. Educated at Charterhouse and Pembroke, Oxford, he made poetry his main object in a lonely and dissatisfied life, always struggling with a chaotic tragedy in the most sombre Elizabethan manner, "Death's Jest Book, or the Fool's Tragedy". He could not satisfy himself with it; chaotic it remains, but it contains beautiful passages, and, among other admirable lyrics, he produced—
If there were Dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
His letters, though frequently morbid, are often interesting. He died abroad, dubiously sane. What is poetic in the mass of Beddoes's writings is true poetry.
It is not possible here to do more than mention Thomas Hood (1799-1845) whose abundant animal spirits and puns were, and if any one cares to look into his facetious works still are, highly entertaining. His "Plea of the Midsummer Fairies" is in a serious vein, and though it has much charm, it never was appreciated. "The Song of the Shirt" and "The Bridge of Sighs" made for him a name by their pathos, while his character, his fortitude, and irrepressible spirits, not to be subdued by hack-work and misfortune, made him an honour to his profession.
Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802-1839, Eton and Cambridge) is remembered for his lively and adroit occasional verses, more than for his essay in the grotesque and terrible, "The Red Fisherman". Praed was certainly the foremost writer of vers de société of his day, though he was not a Gay or a Prior.
[1] See his Life by Mr. Mackail and the admirable biographical "Introductions" by his daughter, Miss May Morris, to each volume of the new edition of his Collected Works. Longmans & Co.
[2] On the back of my copy of the original edition I found three superimposed paper tickets with three publishers' names, Pickering, Moxon, and Chatto & Windus.