lier part of his life, he had lived at Falmouth in tie, "one of the few I heard him sing in the Virginia. He had come to the sober age of evening of life, when for an instant the morning forty-five, when he married Margaret Campbell, sun seemed again to rest on it; and it was probthe sister of his partner in business. We will not ably the first that soothed the infant poet in his follow Dr. Beattie in disentangling the intricate cradle, long before he attempted to lisp in rhyme." pedigree of the Campbells. Margaret was, it Alexander Campbell, the poet's father, lived in seems, of the same clan, but not a blood-relation, social intimacy with several of the University proof "the Campbells of Kirnan," to which family fessors. Adam Smith was his friend, and Reid her husband belonged. "The Campbells of Kir- baptized the poet-hence his name Thomas. When Reid sent a copy of his "Inquiry into the Human Mind" to Alexander Campbell, and heard from him the pleasure with which he read it, he said there were two men in Glasgow who understood my work-Campbell and myself.

nan,' a locality with which the poet's people were connected by their traditions, and not by the fact of having ever resided there, was a sound that had its magic; and the mother of the poet would, late in life, when sending home an article from a shop, describe herself as Mrs. "Campbell The elder Campbell is said to have been liberal of Kirnan," mother" of the author of the Pleas- in politics. We shall not seek to determine the ures of Hope." The union with England had precise meaning in which the word is used. He opened the American trade to Scotland. Pre- was religious. The traditions of his family told viously to that, Scotland could only deal with the of chiefs of the clan that had suffered martyrdom colonies of England on the footing of a foreign for the doctrines of the church of Scotland, and nation. When the trade was once opened, the his pride as well as his better feelings were interindustry and intelligence of the Glasgow mer-ested in the cause. Family worship was then chants gave them almost a monopoly of the busi-almost the universal habit of Scottish familiesness. The war with America drove trade into and the fervor of the old man's extempore prayers other channels; and among the houses ruined by was such that the very expressions which he used the change was that of which the poet's father never passed away from the minds of his children. was the senior partner. The savings of forty The poet, a short time before his death, said that years of industry, amounting to about twenty he "had never heard language-the English litthousand pounds, were swept away in an hour. urgy excepted-more sublime than that in which The old man was sixty-five, too old to commence his devotional feelings at such moments found uta new score with the world. His eldest child terance." was a daughter of nineteen. The poet, if we read dates aright, was not born for two years after his father's business had been broken up.

Poetry was not among the old merchant's studies, but he loved music, and could sing a good naval song-he loved better a metaphysical wranIt would appear that the debts of the firm were gle or a theological dispute-and when the young paid, and that a small surplus remained. In ad- poet was caught verse-making, the father was dition to this, Mr. Campbell received a small an- perhaps happiest, for then most did the spirit of nual sum from the city Merchant's Society, and contradiction awake, and then only was he quite from a provident institution, of which he had long sure of being right. Whatever he might think been a member. This was no doubt a very dif- of Reid's principle of Common Sense, he could ferent amount of income from what he had en-not but feel that there was something to be said joyed. His wife was a sensible woman, who in- for Berkley and Locke, and in his most vehement stantly acted on the changed state of circumstances theological discussions he would sometimes feel -lived with the most severe economy, and did that the subject had slipped through his fingers, what she could to educate her family. The float- and that while the sense of positiveness remained. ing traditions which Dr. Beattie has collected the very topic of the disputation had altogether describe her as "of slight but shapely figure, vanished from his memory. Not so when young

with piercing black eyes, dark hair, and well Tom's scribbled manuscript was before him. chiselled features"-" a shrewd observer of char-There it was-nonsense- -absolute nonsense. The acter-warm-hearted, strongly attached to her poor boy had to retire crest-fallen and ashamedfriends, and always ready to sympathize in their the father did not perhaps know that all early misfortunes. She was often the author of substan- poetry is imitative-he thought little (and who tial but unostentatious charity." One gentleman could think much ?) of the poetry of the day, the recollects of being taken to see her in his boyhood cadences of which were echoed in every line of when she was very old. She bought a cane for the boy's verseshim, and amused him by her good nature in walking up and down the room, twirling it, to show him how the young gentlemen in Edinburgh managed their canes. She had a natural taste for music; and in her old age she would to the last sing snatches of old songs-"My Poor Dog The old man lived, however, to be gratified by Tray," and "The Blind Boy," were her favor- the reception of "The Pleasures of Hope." Had ites. It was to the former air that Campbell Mr. Campbell been able to get rid of the anxieties wrote "The Harper." "It is," says Dr. Beat- of property, when he was compelled to retire

His soul's proud instinct sought not to enjoy
Romantic fictions, like a minstrel boy;
Truth, standing on her solid square, from youth
He worshipped-stern, uncompromising truth.

from business, he would have been comparatively natural asperity relaxed in the management of her a happy man; but the restless ghost of his former youngest son. Mary, the eldest sister, had already prosperity haunted him for the rest of life in a left her father's house; Isabella still remained to series of never-ending lawsuits. A correspondent assist her mother in domestic details, and with of Dr. Beattie's tells us, that in the year 1790 her the playful child was a delightful plaything. he spent an evening at Mr. Campbell's.

The poet has in his letters called Isabella his his ear had become familiar with the ballad poetry poetical sister, and from her or from his mother of Scotland long before he could understand its meaning.

The old gentleman, who had been a great foreign merchant, was seated in an arm-chair, and dressed in a suit of the same snuff-brown cloth, all from the same web. There were present besides Thomas, his brother Daniel, and two sisters, Elizabeth and At eight years old he was sent to the school Isabella. The father, then at the age of eighty, of Mr. Alison; his triumphs are solemnly respoke_only once to us. It was when one of his corded-he was always at the head of his class; sons, Thomas I think, who was then about thirteen, his father assisted him in preparing his lessonsand of my own age, was speaking of getting new clothes, and descanting in grave earnest as to the a fact commemorated by his classical biographer most fashionable colors. Tom was partial to green, in language that swells into dignity suitable to the I preferred blue. Lads," said the senior, in a subject. "It must have been," says he, a picvoice that fixed our attention, "if you wish to have ture in itself of no little beauty and interest, to a lasting suit, get one like mine." We thought he see the venerable Nestor stooping over the versions meant one of a snuff-brown color; but he added, "I and directing the studies of the future Tyrtæus." have a suit in the Court of Chancery, which has lasted thirty years; and I think it will never wear

Out."

rara.

be sent to the country. In about six weeks his The boy was overworked, and was obliged to health was restored, but to the effect of runSituations were found for the elder sons in the ning wild about the fields his biographer refers colonies. They ended in forming respectable his love of the country, and much of the immercantile establishments in Virginia and Demeagery of his poems. About this time his first The daughters engaged in the education verses were written. Of these and of his school of children-two as governesses in families-the exercises, Dr. Beattie gives us far too many. third in the management of a school. Daniel was Translations of Anacreon, and thefts of strawberplaced in a Glasgow manufactory, where weaving ries distinguish his twelfth year. In the thirand cotton-spinning were conducted on a large scale. teenth, young Tyrtæus learned to throw stones, He was a politician, and the days in which he and gave-in plain prose-what turned out to be lived were less prosperous times for a radical re- a very poetical or very fabulous account of the former than our own. He found Scotland too hot battle. The inspired boy was not unlikely to be for him, and went to Rouen, where the poet found spoiled by the young Glasgow blackguards, who, him conducting a large manufactory. He ceased with every care on the part of his parents, could to correspond with his family, and became a nat-not but be his companions for a considerable part uralized Frenchman. It is not impossible that of the day.

Of this large family, one

he may be still living. Of brother Daniel our readers are probably died in early life; he was drowned while bathing prepared not to think very well-he was four in the Clyde, when he was but thirteen years old, years older than Thomas, and was now sixteen or and his brother Thomas six. He is alluded to in seventeen. An old lady-a relative of their an affecting passage towards the close of "The mother's-lived about two miles from Glasgow, Pleasures of Hope"

Weep not-at nature's transient pain,
Congenial spirits part to meet again.

*

Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be,
The tears of love were hopeless but for thee.
If in that frame no deathless spirit dwell,
If that faint murmur be the last farewell,
If Fate unite the faithful but to part,
Why is their memory sacred to the heart?
Why does the brother of my childhood seem
Restored awhile in every pleasing dream?
Why do I joy the lonely spot to view

By artless friendship blessed, when life was new?
The elder part of the family had been dispersed
during the early infancy of the poet, or before his
birth. The father's temper was indulgent to
everything but poetry, and his affections were
centred on the child of his old age. The mother's
temper was severe, and her notions of a parent's
rights were almost as high as a Stuart's fancies of
the royal prerogative, yet it was observed that her

and one of the boys was each day sent to know how she was. It was Thomas' turn, and the message to the old lady's interfered with the young urchin's gathering blackberries. Why go there at all?" said Daniel; "can't you do as I do-say she is better, or worse, and don't take the trouble of going to inquire?" For weeks and for months the young scoundrels went on with fictitious bulletins, and finding that unfavorable reports were likely to make more frequent messages sent, they adopted a form that " Mrs. Simpson had a better night and was going on nicely." They at last announced her perfect recovery, and were starting on some expedition of their own, when a letter arrived "as broad and as long as a brick, with cross-bones and a grinning death's head on its seal," inviting the old gentleman to attend Mrs. Simpson's funeral.

Mr. and Mrs. Campbell looked at the letter, then at their two hopeful sons, and then at one another. But such were their grief and astonishment that

neither of them could utter a word. "At last," says Campbell was at this time an ardent politician. the poet, "my mother's grief for her cousin vented The French Revolution had everywhere evoked itself in cuffing our ears. But I was far less pained the contending spirits of Aristocracy and Democby her blows than by a few words from my father. He never raised a hand to us; and I would advise all fathers, who would have their children to love their memory, to follow his example."

racy.

Being (says Campbell) in my own opinion a competent judge of politics, I became a democrat. In spite of this unpromising scene, Campbell's but unable to follow his subtleties, or to appreciate I read Burke on the French Revolution, of course; school-days gave promise of good. Alison, his his merits, I took the word of my brother demoschool-master, thought well of him. Mr. Steven-crats, that he was a sophist. It was in those years son, a surviving school-fellow of his, remembers that the Scottish reformers, Muir, Gerald, and others, him as taking care that fair play should be shown were transported to Botany Bay-Muir, though to him, who was an English boy, and probably the only one in the school. He passed from school to college with favorable auguries. He was in his thirteenth year when he entered college, and even from this early period his support was in part earned by his teaching younger boys. At this period he printed a ballad, called Morven and Fillan, in imitation of a passage in Ossian, and which contains some lines that bear a resemblance to his after poem of Lord Ullin's daughter.

Loud shrieked afar the angry sprite
That rode upon the storm of night,
And loud the waves were heard to roar
That lashed on Morven's rocky shore.
Morven and Fillan.

By this the storm grew loud apace;
The water-wraith was shrieking.

Lord Ullin's Daughter.

he had never uttered a sentence in favor of reform stronger than William Pitt himself had uttered, and Gerald for acts which, in the opinion of sound even then approve of Gerald's mode of agitating English lawyers, fell short of sedition. I did not the reform question in Scotland by means of a Scottish convention; but I had heard a magnificent account of his talents and accomplishments, and I longed insufferably to see him; but the question was how to get to Edinburgh.

While thus gravely considering the ways and means, it immediately occurred to me that I had an uncle's widow in Edinburgh-a kind, elderly lady, who had seen me at Glasgow, and said that she would be glad to receive me at her house if I should ever come to the Scottish metropolis. I watched my mother's mollia tempora fandi-for she had them, good woman-and eagerly catching the propitious moment, I said "O mamma, how I long to see Edinburgh! If I had but three shillings, I could walk there in one day, sleep two nights, and

Campbell and his young friends formed debat-be two days at my aunt Campbell's, and walk back ing societies, and the poet seems to have been distinguished for fluency of speech. A number of Campbell's exercises are printed by Dr. Beattie, for no better reason than that "they may revive the faded images of college life" in the minds of Campbell's few surviving college friends. Lines on the death of "Marie Antoinette" are given. They are perhaps worth preserving, as they show how early the poet's ear was tuned to something of the notes in which his Hohenlinden was afterwards written.

answered "No, my bairn; I will give you what
in another day."* To my delightful surprise she
will carry you to Edinburgh and bring you back,
but you must promise me not to walk more than
half the way in any one day." That was twenty-
two miles. "Here," said she,
66 are five shillings
for you in all; two will serve you to go, and two to
return; for a bed at the half-way house costs but
sixpence." She then gave me I never shall for-
get the beautiful coin-a King William and Mary
crown-piece. I was dumb with gratitude; but sal-
lying out to the streets, I saw at the first booksel-
ler's shop a print of Elijah fed by ravens. Now, I
had often heard my poor mother saying that in case
of my father's death-and he was a very old man
she knew not what would become of her.
Elijah was fed by ravens.
"But," she used to add, "let me not despair, for
When I presented her
with the picture, I said nothing of its tacit allusion
to the possibility of my being one day her supporter;
but she was much affected, and evidently felt a
strong presentiment.

The third session of Campbell's college life was distinguished by his continuing to take the lead in debating societies, and in his obtaining prizes for composition. He wrote a number of pasquinades on his brother students. They were written without any other feeling than that of amusing himself and others, but they were not disregarded by those who were their objects. Dr. Beattie tells that in some cases the resentment generated by Next morning I took my way to Edinburgh, satires written at this time, and utterly forgotten witnessed Joseph Gerald's trial, and it was an era with four shillings and sixpence in my pocket. 1 by Campbell in the hour in which they were in my life. Hitherto I had never known what pubthrown off as mere sportive effusions, has absolute-lic eloquence was; and I am sure the justiciary ly survived the poet himself.

Some of Campbell's jokes were for the purpose of getting a place near the stove when attending the logic class on a winter morning. He would scratch some nonsense on the walls-a libel, perhaps on the tall Irish students that crowded round the fire. While they rushed to read such rhymes as

Vos Hiberni collocatis
Summum Bonum in potatoes,

he managed to get to the stove.

Scotch lords did not help to a conception of it, speaking as they did bad arguments in broad Scotch. But the lord advocate's speech was good; the speeches of Laing and Gillies were better; and the eloquence that had ever been heard within the Gerald's speech annihilated the remembrance of all walls of that house. He quieted the judges, in spite of their indecent interruptions of him, and produced a silence in which you might have heard a pin fall to the ground. At the close of his defence, * A distance of forty-two miles-"long Scotch miles."

he said "And now, gentlemen of the jury-now | Fife's next door neighbor was a spirit-dealer of that I have to take leave of you forever, let me re- the name of DRUM. Campbell and his brother mind you that mercy is no small part of the duty Daniel, assisted by a third party, who we believe of jurymen; that the man who shuts his heart on is still living, got a long thin deal-board, and the claims of the unfortunate, on him the gates of mercy will be shut, and for him the Saviour of the painted on it in capitals— world shall have died in vain." At this finish was moved, and, turning to a stranger who sat beside me, apparently a tradesman, I said to him, By heavens, sir, that's a great man!" "Yes, sir," he answered, "he is not only a great man himself, but he makes every other man feel great

who listens to him."

THE SPIRIT-STIRRING DRUM-THE EAR-PIERCING

FIFE.

This they nailed one night over the contiguous and to the great amusement of every one else in doors, to the great annoyance of Drum and Fife, Glasgow. In a few days afterwards Campbell set off for Mull.

Political passion is contagious; and Campbell returned from Edinburgh an altered man-if the From the first Campbell was thrown on his expression may be used in speaking of a boy of own resources for support. At thirteen or foursixteen. "His characteristic sprightliness had teen years of age, his means of paying his classevaporated." He did not neglect the studies of fees depended on his obtaining employment as a his class, but his heart was elsewhere; and his teacher of younger children; for surely, at that attention was divided between the "Clouds" of age, it is scarce fit to call him by any other name. Aristophanes, of which he meditated a translation, | The genial life of childhood or boyhood never was and the democratic journals of the day. The his in the sense in which it is that of almost every case of Muir and Gerald was one singularly fitted person in the rank of life in which Campbell as a topic for debating clubs, for the men were early took his natural and rightful position. We transported, under the laws of Scotland, for an of- think that this forced and premature exertion of fence which, at that time, was in England punish- his faculties dwarfed his intellectual powers-that able only by fine and imprisonment. Campbell the perpetual excitement in which he was kept by vehemently denounced the conduct of the state his debating societies, and his competition for coltrials, in his debating clubs, and in private so- lege prizes, could not but be injurious—and that ciety exhibited the manner of one "who suffered it was above all things fortunate when he was some personal wrong which he could neither for- separated from Glasgow, and forced into the soligive nor effectually resent. His change of man- tudes of the Hebrides. His prize-verses had been ner was so sudden-the violence of his indigna- the subject of such admiration that he ran the tion was such-his declamation against modern chance of being spoiled forever; and nothing less society and all its institutions was so unceasing-than a separation from Glasgow and its coteries that there seems to have been among his friends could have saved him. On the 18th of May, an impression of his actually having become in- 1795, he started from Glasgow, in company with sane; and it was not till the demon of poetry a class-fellow, Joseph Finlayson, and took the entirely possessed him that they felt wholly free road to Inverary. Wordsworth, in a note to the from this fear. His translation of scenes from Excursion, vindicating his choice of a pedler as the "Clouds" of Aristophanes was rewarded with the hero of his poem, quotes a passage from Hera prize, and with the more gratifying acknowledg-on's Letters from Scotland, in which he says— ment from Professor Young of his version being "A young man going from any part of Scotland the very best of any that had ever been given in to England, of purpose to carry the pack, was conby any student at the university. An essay on sidered as going to lead the life and acquire the the Origin of Evil, which obtained a prize at the fortune of a gentleman." Poor Campbell, carrysame time, is a skilful imitation of Pope's man- ing his store of learning to the Hebrides, did not ner. In the course of the next session he trans- feel the same elevation of spirit, when he thought lated some choruses from the Medea of Euripides of the value likely to be set on the articles in and the Chaphori of Eschylus. Dr. Beattie which he dealt. "I was fain," he says, boldly says that the passages from Euripides my father's reduced circumstances, to accept, for "hardly lost anything of their original beauty by six months, of a tutorship in a Highland family at his translations." They gave more pleasure to the farthest end of the Isle of Mull. To this, it the professors at Glasgow than they have given is true, my poverty rather than my will consented. to us; and Campbell, compelled to look round I was so little proud of it, that in passing through him for bread, found recommendations for the Greenock, I purposely omitted to call on my office of private tutor to a family of his own name mother's cousin, Mr. Robert Sinclair. at that time residing in the remote Hebrides. a wealthy merchant, and first magistrate of the The poet's solemnity seems to have relaxed town, with a family of nine daughters, one of about this time. He thought less of politics, and whom I married some nine years afterwards." was up to a piece of fun. A respectable apothe- He would not tell his pretty cousins he was going cary, named Fife, had over his door in the Tron- out in that capacity. He tells of an evening gate, printed in large letters," Ears Pierced by passed in the open air for the sake of economy. A. FIFE," meaning the operation to which young When he and Finlayson were repairing dinnerless ladies submit for the sake of wearing ear-rings. to their beds, they saved the life of a boy who

"" from

was drowning, and then thought they earned a took my leave of it. Nevertheless, God wot, I was fair right to their dinner. The poet tells of beef- better pleased to look on the kirk steeples and steaks vanishing before them "like smoke;"-then whinstone causeways of Glasgow than on all the came tankards of ale—and then a night passed in eagles and wild deer of the Highlands. singing and reciting poetry.

The solitude in which Campbell now lived was "Life," says Campbell, speaking of this scene, strangely contrasted with the busy scenes which "is happier in the transition than in the retro- he had left; and it must have been of great use spect, but still I am bound to regard this part of to him to have time for actual communing with his my recollections of life as very agreeable. I was, own mind. In spite of its eminent men there was it is true, very poor, but I was as gay as a lark, in the whole of the Glasgow literature something and hardy as the Highland heather." We wish of a mercantile-not to say peddling-character. we had room for Campbell's account of this jour- It was disputative in its progress, and all progress ney. "The wide world contained not two mer- stopped at an early stage. The exchangeable rier boys. We sang and recited poetry through-value of learning was chiefly thought of, and the out the long wild Highland glens." They great object in life was the dictatorial position of believed in Ossian, and Ossian had given an inter- the professor's chair. By the system carly profiest to the Gaelic people in their eyes. The Highland inns gave them herrings, potatoes, and whiskey, and nothing else. Their walk seems to have been in glorious weather. Full forty years afterwards, when Campbell wrote of it, he tells of his unmeasured delight at the roaring streams and torrents-the yellow primroses and the cuckOos-the heathy mountains, with the sound of goats' bleating at their tops. "I felt a soul in every muscle of my body, and my mind was satisfied that I was going to earn my bread by my own labor."

dress, quietly
"You little
the post-boy

66

They met a boy, in a postman's playing marbles on the road-side. rascal," we said to him, "are you and thus playing away your time?" Na, sir," answered redjacket, "I'm no the post; only an express!" At Inverary, he and Finlayson parted company, and Campbell walked alone to Oban, under drenching rain. From Oban he

crossed over to Mull.

I'm

In the course of a long summer's day I traversed the whole length of the island-which must be nearly thirty miles-with not a footpath to direct

me.

At times I lost all traces of my way, and had no guide but the sun going westward. About twilight, however, I reached the Point Callioch," the house of my hostess, Mrs. Campbell of Sunipol-a worthy, sensible widow lady, who treated me with great kindness. I am sure I made a conscience of my duty towards my pupils. I never beat them-remembering how much I loved my father for having never beaten me.

At first I felt melancholy in this situation, missing my college chums, and wrote a poem on my exile as doleful as anything in Ovid's Tristia. But I soon got reconciled to it. The Point of Callioch commands a magnificent prospect of thirteen Hebrid islands, among which are Staffa and Icolmkill, which I visited with enthusiasm. I had also, now and then, a sight of wild deer, sweeping across that wilder country, and of eagles perching on its shore. These objects fed the romance of my fancy, and I may say that I was attached to Sunipol before I

"The Point Callioch" is on the northern shore of Mull, where the house of Sunipol may be easily seen by any one sailing from Tobermory to Staffa. It stands quite upon the shore, and occupies the centre of a bay immediately before you turn that point of Mull where you first get a view of the wondrous island which contains the cave of Fingal.

ciency and considerable accuracy of information,
up to a certain not very high point, were attained,
and Campbell was as near being ruined by the ad-
miration of a little provincial circle as ever great
man was, when his poverty fortunately interposed
to rescue him.

It was the wisdom and the will of Heaven
That in a lonely tent had cast

The lot of Thalaba;
There might his soul develop best
Its strengthening energies;
There might he from the world

Keep his heart pure and uncontaminate,
Till at the written hour he should be found
Fit servant of the Lord, without a spot.

We have no doubt that solitude is the true nursery for a great poet; and we think that the narrative of Campbell's life-both in his success and his failures-is calculated remarkably to illustrate this. In the lonely residence, where he educated a few children, there was time for thought; nay, self-reflection was strangely forced on him, for the box containing his books did not arrive for some time, and till it arrived he was even without paper. A letter of his, dated June, 1795, tells a friend of his that "there is no paper in Mull."

To have passed some time in thinking, instead of writing, would have been no bad discipline for a young prize-poet. Campbell would write, however, as much as he could, and he scribbled as much as he could on a white-washed wall. By the time pen, ink, and paper arrived, the wall appeared like a broad sheet of manuscript.

Of Campbell's verses before he left Glasgow, the only ones at all worthy of preservation are a hymn, most of which was afterwards worked into the Pleasures of Hope. While in Mull he employed himself in adding to his translations from

schylus and Aristophanes, probably thinking that a character for scholarship was more likely to lead to some provision by which he might support life, than any exertion in the way of original poetry. Dr. Beattie, however, gives us some lines descriptive of the scenery of Mull, which when shown to Dr. Anderson two years afterwards, led him to predict Campbell's future suc