revolutions of the planets.  He unexpectedly appears just in the nick of time, after years of absence, and without any known reason but the convenience of the author and the astonishment of the reader; as if nature were a machine constructed on a principle of complete contrast, to produce a theatrical effect. Nec Deus intersit, nisi dignus vindice nodus.  Mr. Campbell’s savage never appears but upon great occasions, and then his punctuality is preternatural and alarming.  He is the most wonderful instance on record of poetical reliability.  The most dreadful mischiefs happen at the most mortifying moments; and when your expectations are wound up to the highest pitch, you are sure to have them knocked on the head by a premeditated and remorseless stroke of the poet’s pen.  This is done so often for the convenience of the author, that in the end it ceases to be for the satisfaction of the reader.

___
[10] There is the same idea in Blair’s Grave.

“------Its visits,
Like those of angels, short, and far between.”

Mr. Campbell in altering the expression has spoiled it.  “Few,” and “far between,” are the same thing. ___

Tom Moore is a poet of a quite different stamp.  He is as heedless, gay, and prodigal of his poetical wealth, as the other is careful, reserved, and parsimonious.  The genius of both is national.  Mr. Moore’s Muse is another Ariel, as light, as tricksy, as indefatigable, and as humane a spirit.  His fancy is for ever on the wing, flutters in the gale, glitters in the sun.  Every thing lives, moves, and sparkles in his poetry, while over all love waves his purple light.  His thoughts are as restless, as many, and as bright as the insects that people the sun’s beam.  “So work the honey-bees,” extracting liquid sweets from opening buds; so the butterfly expands its wings to the idle air; so the thistle’s silver down is wafted over summer seas.  An airy voyager on life’s stream, his mind inhales the fragrance of a thousand shores, and drinks of endless pleasures under halcyon skies.  Wherever his footsteps tend over the enamelled ground of fairy fiction—­

      “Around him the bees in play flutter and cluster,
      And gaudy butterflies frolic around.”

The fault of Mr. Moore is an exuberance of involuntary power.  His facility of production lessens the effect of, and hangs as a dead weight upon, what he produces.  His levity at last oppresses.  The infinite delight he takes in such an infinite number of things, creates indifference in minds less susceptible of pleasure than his own.  He exhausts attention by being inexhaustible.  His variety cloys; his rapidity dazzles and distracts the sight.  The graceful ease with which he lends himself to every subject, the genial spirit with which he indulges in every sentiment, prevents him from giving their full force to the masses of things, from connecting them into a whole.  He wants intensity, strength,