Thomas Campbell to Elizabeth Barrett, 28 August 1822, in response to her having asked his opinion of her narrative poem Leila: 'the poem is open to many objections -- It bespeaks an amiable heart and an elegant mind -- but it is the work of an inexperienced imagination & though the versification & expression are such as should make me very loth to exhort you to give up poetical composition Yet I should decieve you if I anticipated the story and main effect of the poem being likely to be popularly admired -- I have marked one or two passages to which I particularly object -- I object in general to its lyric intermixtures -- The are the most difficult of all gems to set in a Narrative poem & should always be of the first water.'