Burrel answered nothing; but when she raised her eyes, which had been cast down while she spoke, they found his fixed upon her; and she felt from that moment that she was beloved.
Blanche Delaware turned very pale, though the consciousness was any thing but painful. It was so oppressive, however, that the agitation made her feel faint; but her brother's voice recalled her to herself.
"Well spoken, my dear little patriot sister!" he said; "but if you had been a sailor, like your brother, you would have added, that England is not wanting in associations of glory and freedom, and noble actions and noble endeavors; and in this view the associations connected with our native land are more extended than those of any other country; for in whatever corner of the world an Englishman may be, when he catches but a glimpse of the salt sea, the idea of the glory of his native land rushes upon his mind, and he sees, waving before the eye of fancy the flag that 'for a thousand years, has stood the battle and the breeze.'"
Burrel smiled; but there was no touch of a sneer in it. "The song from which you quote," he said, "must have been written surely under such enthusiasm as that with which you now speak. I know scarcely so spirit-stirring a composition in the English language. Indeed, all Campbell's smaller poems are full of the same _vivida vis animi_."
"And yet," said Sir Sidney Delaware, "you, as well as I, must have heard fools and jolter-heads say, that Campbell is no poet, because now and then, in his longer pieces, when he gets tired of the mere mechanism, he suffers a verse or two to become tame--out of pure idleness, I have no doubt."
"Those who say he is no poet, do not know what poetry is," replied Burrel, somewhat eagerly. "Scattered through every one of his poems there are beauties of the first order; and almost all of his smaller pieces stand perfectly alone in poetry. He has contrived sometimes to compress into four or five of the very shortest lines that can be produced, more than nine poets out of ten could cram into a long Spenserian stanza, with a thundering Alexandrine at the end."
"Do you know Mr. Campbell personally?" asked Miss Delaware.
"I do," answered Burrel, laughing; "but do not suppose my praise of him is exaggerated from personal friendship. On the contrary, I am bound, by all the laws and usages of the world in general, to hate him cordially."