"I have read 'Lalla Rookh.' ... I am very glad to hear of his popularity, for Moore is a very noble fellow, in all respects, and will enjoy it without any of the bad feelings which success, good or evil, sometimes engenders in the men of rhyme." He wrote to Moore from Ravenna, in a sort of jest,--"I am not quite sure that I shall allow the Miss Byrons to read 'Lalla Rookh,'--in the first place, on account of this sad _passion_, and in the second, that they mayn't discover that there was a better poet than Papa."[32] To end these quotations, let us add that, shortly before his death, he said to Medwin:--"Moore is one of the small number of writers, who will survive the century which has appreciated his worth. The Irish Melodies will go to posterity with their music, and the poems and the music will last as long as Ireland, or music or poetry." CAMPBELL. Campbell, the author of "Pleasures of Hope," and who stands fourth in the triangle, was spared, with Rogers, in the famous satire-- "Come forth, oh! Campbell, give thy talents scope: Who dare aspire, if thou must cease to hope?" This homage was strengthened by a note, in which Byron called the "Pleasures of Hope" one of the finest didactic poems in the English language. Byron's relations with Campbell were never as intimate as with other poets. Not only because circumstances prevented it, but also in consequence of a fault in Campbell's character, which lessened the sympathy raised by the admiration of his talent and of his worth. This fault consisted in an _excessive_ opinion of himself, which prevented his being just toward his rivals, and bearing patiently with their successes, or the criticisms of his own work. Coleridge at this time was giving lectures upon poetry, in which he taught a new system of poetry. "He attacks," says Lord Byron, "the 'Pleasures of Hope,' and all other pleasure whatever.... Campbell will be desperately annoyed. I never saw a man (and of him I have seen very little) so sensitive. What a happy temperament! I am sorry for it; what can _he_ fear from criticism?" Lord Byron had just published the "Bride of Abydos," when he wrote in his journal, "Campbell last night seemed a little nettled at something or other--I know not what. We were standing in the ante-saloon, when Lord H---- brought out of the other room a vessel of some composition similar to that which is used in Catholic churches for burning incense, and seeing us, he exclaimed, 'Here is some incense for you.' Campbell answered, 'Carry it to Lord Byron; he is used to it.' "Now this comes of 'bearing no brother near the throne.' I who have no throne am at perfect peace with all the poetical fraternity." But if this weakness of Campbell lessened Byron's sympathy for him, or rather interfered with his intimacy, it never altered his just appreciation of his merits, or made him less generous to him.