In 1607 he wrote and published a masque for the occasion of the marriage of Lord Hayes, and in 1613 he issued a volume of Songs of Mourning (set to music by Coperario or John Cooper) for the loss of Prince Henry, which was sincerely lamented by the whole English nation. The same year he wrote and arranged three masques, the Lords’ Masque for the marriage of Princess Elizabeth, an entertainment for the amusement of Queen Anne at Caversham House, and a third for the marriage of the earl of Somerset to the infamous Frances Howard, countess of Essex. If, moreover, as appears quite likely, his Two Bookes of Ayres (both words and music written by himself) belongs also to this year, it was indeed his annus mirabilis.
Some time in or after 1617 appeared his Third and Fourth Booke of Ayres; while to that year probably also belongs his New Way of making Foure Parts in Counter-point, a technical treatise which was for many years the standard text-book on the subject. It was included, with annotations by Christopher Sympson, in Playfair’s Brief Introduction to the Skill of Musick, and two editions appear to have been bought up by 1660. In 1618 appeared The Ayres that were sung and played at Brougham Castle on the occasion of the king’s entertainment there, the music by Mason and Earsden, while the words were almost certainly by Campion; and in 1619 he published his Epigrammatum Libri II. Umbra Elegiarum liber unus, a reprint of his 1595 collection with considerable omissions, additions (in the form of another book of epigrams) and corrections.
While Campion had attained a considerable reputation in his own day, in the years that followed his death his works sank into complete oblivion. No doubt this was due to the nature of the media in which he mainly worked, the masque and the song-book. The masque was an amusement at any time too costly to be popular, and with the Rebellion it was practically extinguished. The vogue of the song-books was even more ephemeral, and, as in the case of the masque, the Puritan ascendancy, with its distaste for all secular music, effectively put an end to the madrigal. Its loss involved that of many hundreds of dainty lyrics, including those of Campion, and it is due to the enthusiastic efforts of Mr A.H. Bullen, who first published a collection of the poet’s works in 1889, that his genius has been recognized and his place among the foremost rank of Elizabethan lyric poets restored to him.
Campion set little store by his English lyrics; they were to him “the superfluous blossoms of his deeper studies,” but we may thank the fates that his precepts of rhymeless versification so little affected his practice. His rhymeless experiments are certainly better conceived than many others, but they lack the spontaneous grace and freshness of his other poetry, while the whole scheme was, of course, unnatural. He must have possessed a very delicate musical ear, for not one of his songs is unmusical; moreover, the fact of his composing both words and music gave rise to a metrical fluidity which is one of his most characteristic features. Rarely indeed are his rhythms uniform, while they frequently shift from line to line. His range was very great both in feeling and expression, and whether he attempts an elaborate epithalamium or a simple country ditty, the result is always full of unstudied freshness and tuneful charm. In some of his sacred pieces he is particularly successful, combining real poetry with genuine religious fervour.
Bibliography.—Works, &c., ed. A.H. Bullen (1889) excluding A New Way, &c.; Songs and Masques, ed. A.H. Bullen (1903), with an introduction on Campion’s music by Janet Dodge; Poems, &c. (in English), ed. P. Vivian (1907); Complete Works, ed. P. Vivian (Clarendon Press, 1908). The “Observations in the Art of English Poesie” are also published in Haslewood’s Ancient Critical Essays and Gregory Smith’s Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. ii. (1903).
(P. Vn.)
CAMPISTRON, JEAN GALBERT DE (1656-1723), French dramatist, was born at Toulouse of noble family in 1656. At the age of seventeen he was wounded in a duel and sent to Paris. Here he became an ardent disciple of Racine. If he copied his master’s methods of construction with some success, in the execution of his plans he never advanced beyond mediocrity, nor did he ever approach the secret of the musical lines of Athalie and Phèdre. He secured the patronage of the influential duchesse de Bouillon by dedicating Arminius to her, and in 1685 he scored his first success with Andronic, which disguised under other names the tragic story of Don Carlos and Elizabeth of France. The piece made a great sensation, but Campistron’s treatment is weak, and he failed to avail himself of the possibilities inherent in his subject. Racine was asked by Louis Joseph, duc de Vendôme, to write the book of an opera to be performed at a fete given in honour of the Dauphin. He handed on the commission to Campistron, who produced Acis et Galathée for Lulli’s music. Campistron had another success in Tiridate (1691), in which he treated, again under changed names, the biblical story of Amnon’s passion for his sister Tamar. He wrote many other tragedies and two comedies, one of which, Le Jaloux désabusé, has been considered by some judges to be his best work. In 1686 he had been made intendant to the duc de Vendôme and followed him to Italy and Spain, accompanying him on all his campaigns. If he was not a good poet he was an honest man under circumstances in which corruption was easy and usual. Many honours were conferred on him. The king of Spain bestowed on him the order of St James of the Sword; the duke of Mantua made him marquis of Penango in Montferrat; and in 1701 he was received into the Academy. After thirty years of service with Vendôme he retired to his native place, where he died on the 11th of May 1723.
CAMPOAMOR Y CAMPOOSORIO, RAMON DE (1817-1901), Spanish poet, was born at Navia (Asturias) on the 24th of September 1817. Abandoning his first intention of entering the Jesuit order, he studied medicine at Madrid, found an opening in politics as a supporter of the Moderate party, and, after occupying several subordinate posts, became governor of Castellón de la Plana, of Alicante and of Valencia. His conservative tendencies grew more pronounced with time, and his Polémicas con la Democracia(1862) may be taken as the definitive expression of his political opinions. His first appearance as a poet dated from 1840, when he published his Ternezas y flores, a collection of idyllic verses, remarkable for their technical excellence. His Ayes del Alma(1842) and his Fábulas morales y políticas(1842) sustained his reputation, but showed no perceptible increase of power or skill. An epic poem in sixteen cantos, Colón (1853), is no more successful than modern epics usually are. Campoamor’s theatrical pieces, such as El Palacio de la Verdad(1871), Dies Irae(1873), El Honor(1874) and Glorias Humanas(1885), are interesting experiments; but they are totally lacking in dramatic spirit. He always showed a keen interest in metaphysical and philosophic questions, and defined his position in La Filosofía de las leyes(1846), El Personalismo(1855), Lo Absoluto(1865) and El Ideísmo(1883). These studies are chiefly valuable as embodying fragments of self-revelation, and as having led to the composition of those doloras, humoradas and pequeños poemas, which the poet’s admirers consider as a new poetic species. The first collection of Doloras was printed in 1846, and from that date onwards new specimens were added to each succeeding edition. It is difficult to define a dolora. One critic has described it as a didactic, symbolic stanza which combines the lightness and grace of the epigram, the melancholy of the endecha, the concise narrative of the ballad, and the philosophic intention of the apologue. The poet himself declared that a dolora is a dramatic humorada, and that a pequeño poemais a dolora on a larger scale. These definitions are unsatisfactory. The humoristic, philosophic epigram is an ancient poetic form to which Campoamor has given a new name; his invention goes no further. It cannot be denied that in the Doloras Campoamor’s special gifts of irony, grace and pathos find their best expression. Taking a commonplace theme, he presents in four, eight or twelve lines a perfect miniature of condensed emotion. By his choice of a vehicle he has avoided the fatal facility and copiousness which have led many Spanish poets to destruction. It pleased him to affect a vein of melancholy, and this affectation has been reproduced by his followers. Hence he gives the impression of insincerity, of trifling with grave subjects and of using mysticism as a mask for frivolity. The genuine Campoamor is a poet of the sunniest humour who, under the pretence of teaching morality by satire, is really seeking to utter the gay scepticism of a genial, epicurean nature. His influence has not been altogether for good. His formula is too easily mastered, and to his example is due a plague of doloras and humoradas by poetasters who have caricatured their model. Campoamor, as he himself said, did not practise art for art’s sake; he used art as the medium of ideas, and in ideas his imitators are poor. He died at Madrid on the 12th of February 1901. Of late years a deep silence had fallen upon him, and we are in a position to judge him with the impartiality of another generation. The overwhelming bulk of his work will perish; we may even say that it is already dead. His pretensions, or the pretensions put forward in his name, that he discovered a new poetic genre will be rejected later, as they are rejected now by all competent judges. The title of a philosophic poet will be denied to him. But he will certainly survive, at least in extract, as a distinguished humorist, an expert in epigrammatic and sententious aphorism, an artist of extremely finished execution.