If these freezing remarks be false, as we believe they are, the surest way to thaw them is to quote the whole passage, and well known as it is, it delights us to do so, for a copy of Campbell is not on all parlour tables, though on many thousands.
"Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore
Earth's loneliest bounds, and Ocean's wildest shore.
Lo! to the wintry winds the pilot yields
His bark careering o'er unfathom'd fields;
Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar,
Where Andes, giant of the western star,
With meteor-standard to the winds unfurl'd,
Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world.
"Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles,
On Behring's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles:
Cold on his midnight watch the breezes blow,
From wastes that slumber in eternal snow:
And waft across the wave's tumultuous roar
The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.
"Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm,
Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form!
Rocks, waves, and winds, the shatter'd bark delay;
Thy heart is sad, thy home is far away.
"But Hope can here her moonlight vigils keep,
And sing to charm the spirit of the deep;
Swift as yon streamer lights the starry pole,
Her visions warm the watchman's pensive soul;
His native hills that rise in happier climes,
The grot that heard his song of other times,
His cottage home, his bark of slender sail,
His glassy lake, and broomwood-blossom'd vale,
Rush on his thought; he sweeps before the wind,
Treads the loved shore he sigh'd to leave behind;
Meets at each step a friend's familiar face,
And flies as last to Helen's long embrace;
Wipes from her cheek the rapture-speaking tear,
And clasps, with many a sigh, his children dear!
While, long neglected, but at length caress'd,
His faithful dog salutes the smiling guest,
Points to the master's eyes (where'er they roam)
His wistful face, aud whines a welcome home."
What better could our excellent friend, if he will allow us to call him so—had he his heart's content—possibly desire? We feel assured that he is willing to eat his words and to pronounce—with us—the passage perfectly beautiful. The poet has not given us here "a collection of topics gathered from remote sources"—you must not say so—you must not indeed—for were that dog to overhear you finding fault with his master, he would bite the calf of your leg—and though not mad he—you might happen to die of the phoby.
"And waft across the wave's tumultuous roar
The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore."
Had Coleridge written these two lines, Heavens! how the Quarterly would have extolled them to the skies—and Maga rejoiced to join her—for their imitative harmony—that is howling—and what not while all the ears in the neighbourhood would have been deafened with perpetual mouthings of—"Ooonalaska's shore." Bless "the wolf's long howl" to the ghastly moon—for the sailor—as he shuddered to hear it—thought of his far-away faithful dog "whining a welcome home"—and his "heart was in heaven."
In a note, the reviewer says of the three lines above about Andes, "This passage, we believe, is a general favourite. The last line deserves applause; a mountain, viewed from a distance, may be visible above as well as below the clouds, and the expression
'Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world,'
is as just as bold. But the passage is disfigured, to our taste, by the introduction of too many points of similitude with human grandeur. 'The giant of the Western Star, shall be allowed to pass in all its vague magniloquence; but the 'meteor-standard to the winds unfurl'd,' inevitably suggests ideas of military pomp, if not of military office, which accord but ill with the mountain's solitary and severe
