To THOMAS CAMPBELL, Esq.

Bremhill, March 14, 1822.

DEAR SIR,

I Assure you it was only yesterday that I accidentally saw, in the Magazine, of which you are the Editor, an article professedly reviewing a pamphlet, in which a late controversy is spoken of. The article in the Magazine, if not written, which I can hardly suppose, by the Editor, has, at least, his sanction, and therefore is entitled to some notice. 1st. I am happy it is admitted that I spoke of 'passions" in my definition of poetry.

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Est quodam prodire tenus si non datur ultra.

No misunderstanding could have taken place, between me and yourself, if this had been originally admitted; because I could not have been represented as confining my views of poetry to Dutch pictures and inanimate landscapes.

2d. It being admitted that I had spoken of "passions," and that you had represented me as omitting them, I am very willing that your representation of my sentiments shall not be called misrepresentation, if there be any other term.*

Whether the sentence in which " passions" are spoken of as "derived" from "manners," be verbally accurate or not, the main drift of the argument is not affected by it; which is, whether art or nature, passions or manners, are more susceptible of the highest poetical effects, or, in other words," are more adapted to the highest orders of poetry," which is my proposition.

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A third edition of the Letters to Lord BYRON being about to appear, I shall have an opportunity of making some further remarks respecting the sentiments which come under the sanction of Mr. CAMPBEll.

As to the writer reviewed in the New Monthly Magazine, to pass over the eternal quibbles, “ split"ting hairs" about words; his writing "about it, Goddess, and about it;" to pass over his

proving" what I never denied, and assuming what I never asserted; his reasonings appear to me ne plus ultra absurdities in any man who can read and write.

* Mr. C. had originally quoted, but omitted to make any use of, Mr. BowLES's second position.

Third and lastly; when he speaks of HOMER as introducing images from art, I would ask, "Te "judice," whether those passages, through the whole of the Iliad or Odyssey, are more poetical, whose chief beauty depends on images from ART or NATURE? Yes or no? If Yes or no? If you say, "the passages are more poetical that describe images from "nature, and passions, than those that describe "art, you AGREE with me!" Can you venture to say the contrary?

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I would ask you another question.

Why could not so great and poetical a genius as VIRGIL, have made his top as poetical as his JUPITER, (media nimborum in nocte,) if the sublimity of any object depended solely on the genius of the describer?

Whatever verbal cavils may be made, I am quite sure the immoveable foundation of these principles cannot be shaken, either by yourself or Lord BYRON, if the question be met fully and fairly; and after all, if you should succeed, you will destroy, not my principles, but the principles of common sense, the acknowledged foundation of all sound criticism, from LONGINUS to Dr. JOHNSON. It will be enough to say, that, looking to the authority of POPE himself, and to him alone, if these principles are not sound, the line of the Essay on Criticism, describing

nature as

The source, the end, the test of art,

was meant by POPE as burlesque, and the "song" by a person of quality,

"NATURE must give way to ART,"

As serious;-which is reductio ad absurdum, or rather absurdum per absurdius.

Be assured I never was 64 angry with you."How could I be? You had never used the language of vulgar insult, nor even incivility; you had unintentionally omitted, what I thought it necessary, in my definition of poetry, to lay down, and I thought it right to shew this; and you had spoken of art, without reflecting, apparently, that images from art in poetry, are rendered more poetical from their moral associations, or connection with the external beauties of nature.

I should certainly have thought it would have been more manly and generous in the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine, to have stated Lord BYRON's arguments, and my answers, briefly but substantially, or his own arguments, and my answers, and his own fair answers to them, instead of tacking his opinions to ex parte statements of a writer, whose ingenuity consists chiefly in elaborate verbal cavils.

Now, my good Sir, it will not avail you to say, that no one object is more poetical, (that is, more adapted to poetry) than another; it signifies little to assert and build a baseless theory upon an