3 it is said, a naturalized Frenchman. The knowledge of these circumstances gives an affecting point to a line in which the poet calls himself A brotherless hermit-the last of his race.' At eight years, Thomas was placed with Mr. Alison at the Grammar-School. Here he soon began to exhibit proofs of talent and industry which were naturally followed by success. His exertions, after a time, made him ill; and six weeks which he spent in a Cottage on the banks of the Cart, amongst the fields and woods, for the recovery of his health, seem long to have remained in his memory, as a vision of unmixed happiness. Dr. Beattie is willing to consider this pleasant sojourn in the country, as first awakening Campbell's poetic powers; and indeed from this time till the end of his Grammar-school days, he did write occasional verses. They are utterly devoid, however, of poctic thought, and exhibit scarcely any symptoms of that happiness of expression which Campbell afterwards possessed in a high degree. "During his first College Session", says his Biographer" which commenced in October 1791, Campbell did not belie the character which he had taken with him, from the Grammar-School." He became distinguished in He apLatin, and Logic, and more especially in Greek. pears to have read for his own amusement, valuable English works; we find Locke, the younger Sherlock, Doddridge, Smollett and Fielding and most of the principal pocts, his favorite companions. He was very much liked by his companions; lively, witty, disputative, he was always ready with a copy of verses, an essay, or a satire; and though indeed none of his compositions, at this period, possess much merit, further than as being the productions of a thoughtful, forward boy, they will perhaps possess psychological interest for some. A circumstance, which occurred during Campbell's third Session at College, must not be omitted. He was present at the trial of Muir, Gerald and others at Edinburgh, for high treason. He calculated that he could walk there and back from Glasgow, at the expense of three shillings, and was of course enchanted when his mother presented him with a crown piece for the expedition. The scene in the Parliament House, was one he long remembered, nor can we doubt that it strongly excited an element afterwards prominent in his character, his sympathy with the martyrs of freedom. The justiciary Scotch Lords with their broad accent and clumsy arguments, the Lord Advocate's address, the speeches of Laing and Gillies-above all, the eloquent appeal of Joseph Gerald, ending, as it did, in a solemn demand of mercy;-all these circumstances and the last, the sentence of transportation, naturally made up together a strange and impressive scene. At the close of the third Session "Campbell was gratified by a further share of Academic prizes." One of them was for a poem on the origin of evil' (Phoebus; what a subject !); this Dr. Beattie has given at full length, and it must have been considered a very neat poem for a youth of sixteen. But when one remembers, that in answer to the yearly call, at most public schools, many very neat poems are sent in somehow, and that a dull industrious boy in the top form, would by no means miss trying for the English verse, nay rather, would possibly attain it; we must be cautious in auguring future poetical eminence from such performances. The third Session ended with much anxiety as to the choice of a profession; the young bard seems to have cherished at this time vague ideas of church preferment. With a view to fitting himself for clerical requirements, he commenced Hebrew, and to this period is assigned his graceful hymn on the advent ; "When Jordan hushed his waters still, When Salem's shepherds, thro' the night Wild murmuring on the raptured soul. Her spirits to the midnight hour. On wheels of light and wings of flame, The glorious hosts to Zion come. High Heaven with sounds of triumph rung, Oh Zion, lift thy raptured eye, The long-expected hour is nigh— The Prince of Salem comes to reign! See, Mercy, from her golden urn, Pours a glad stream to them that mourn ; The bleeding bosom of despair. He comes-He cheers the trembling heart— Again the day-star gilds the gloom— The Prince of Salem comes to reign.” In the fourth Session, he distinguished himself highly by translations from the Greek and Latin; but his career was somewhat abruptly interrupted by the misfortunes of his family. His father was now of advanced years, and a chancery suit which had long been pending having recently failed, the resources of the unfortunate old merchant were in consequence still further reduced. Campbell determined to attempt to relieve the pressure at once. Through the recommendation of the professors of the College, he obtained a small tutorship in the Hebrides. Five secluded months were accordingly spent in the island of Mull; dreary enough to the poor boy, but doubtless not without their influence in quickening the imagination and shaping the imagery of the future poet. He was full of the romance and warm self-complacency of his years; Mull seemed very exile after Glasgow, and in his letters to Mr. Hamilton Paul and Mr. James Thompson, two great college friends-he complains of his desolate position, and was wont pleasantly to consider himself as a second Ovid in the social solitudes of another Tomos. A certain 'Caroline' crosses his path for a brief while; the poet is seized with the inspiration of leve, a most necessary element in the melodramic sentiments of eighteen. At length he returned to Glasgow and resumed his duties as a College tutor. One of his scholars, only four years younger than himself, was the present Lord Cunninghame. At the end of this fifth Session, Campbell took a final leave of College, having obtained during the spring two prize poems, one of which, a chorus in the Medea' is included in his printed poems. The succeeding twelvemonth was spent at a small farm called Downie, where the poet had obtained a situation as tutor. It stood" on the shore of that great arm of the sca, known as the Sound of Jura, and within an hour's walk southward of the termination of the canal, which connects the northern extremity of Loch Fyne with that sound." In this secluded spot, surrounded by the striking scenery of the Western Highlands, many of the episodes in the Pleasures of Hope' were composed. These periods of scclusion from the world and of silent communion with nature are of lasting impressiveness to a poetic mind. It is in these scenes and at such times that the more secret voices, the more delicate utterances find vent in song, and then, as the American Emerson has said, "the poet in utter solitude remembering his spontaneous thoughts, and recording them, is found to have recorded that, which men in cities vast' find true for them also." When the period of his engagement at Downie was completed, Campbell returned to Glasgow. Fresh anxieties awaited him with regard to the choice of a profession. Law was thought of; but poetry and the Pandects were found discordant elements at length in vague hopes of literary employment combined with clerical work in a lawyer's office, he started for Edinburgh. Through the influence of friends, a situation as copying clerk was soon obtained for him, and it was whilst temporally engaged in this position that he was introduced to Dr. Robert Anderson, Author of the "Lives of the Poets"; an introduction which materially affected the prospects of the young aspirant. Its immediate result was a warm recommendation to Mr. Mundell, the publisher. Campbell was engaged to produce an abridged edition of Bryan Edwards's "West Indies" for which £20 was to be given. He immediately threw up his clerkship and started home for Glasgow, where he proposed to set at work on his new task. From this time, with the temporary interruptions of new schemes, Chemistry, emigrations to America &c. &c., his career gradually settled down to what he was obviously most fitted for,-literature. In 1798, we find him again in Edinburgh; teaching pupils, and writing for the booksellers. He had brought his father and mother from Glasgow to live in the metropolis, and located them in a little house on St. John's Hill. "And now" he says "I lived in the Scottish metropolis by instructing pupils in Greek and Latin. In this vocation I made a comfortable livelihood as long as I was industrious. But the Pleasures of Hope' came over me. I took long walks about Arthur's Seat, conning over my own (as I thought them) magnificent lines; and as my Pleasures of Hope' got on, my pupils fell off.” This poem was at length completed and having been shewn to Anderson and other writers and spoken highly of by them, was sold to Mr. Mundell for £60. This, as it turned out, was a ridiculously small sum for so popular a work; however for two or three years, Campbell obtained £50 for every new edition. Its success was immediate all the men of distinction then in Edinburgh were anxious to make the acquaintance of the author, and he found himself at once a literary character of eminence. "The Pleasures of Hope" says he "appeared exactly when I was twenty one years and nine months old. It gave me a general acquaintance in Edinburgh. Dr. Gregory, Henry Mackenzie, the author of the 'Man of Feeling;' Dugald Stewart, the Revd. Archibald Alison, the Man of Taste;' and Thomas Telford, the engineer, became my immediate patrons." We find, too, the names of Brougham, Walter Scott, Leyden, Laing the Historian; and Grahame the author of the "Sabbath," amongst his acquaintances, so that he possessed, in a high degree, the advantages of intellectual society. The success of his poem induced Campbell to think of producing another; and the patriotic passages having been particularly admired in the former one, he considered that a historical and traditionary account of Edinburgh would form a good subject. This work, which was to have been called the Queen of the North', parts of which were written, and for the production of which, with illustrations, arrangements were made with Mr. William the Artist, was never pleted. com In the month of June in the next year (1800) Campbell started for a pilgrimage in Germany. To us, in these days, when a man scarcely says "Good bye" in starting for Hong Kong, and "au revoir" in California is not an impossible farewell, there is something very comic in the solemnity with which Dr. Beattie describes Campbell's departure for Hamburgh; "the last signal from the ship", the "Sic te Diva potens", "watching the retiring landscape" etc. But however, something must be said regarding the times: it was the great Marengo year; war was going on very smartly in Germany, and Moreau was appointed to the "Army of the Rhine," whilst Kray was in the field against him: morcover in Campbell's case, there was another great obstacle to comfortable and successful travelling; his purse was light. The poet was well received at Hamburgh, where his fame had already preceded him; he was introduced to Klopstock, now in advanced years, whom he describes as a "mild, civil, old man." From Hamburgh he proceeded to Ratisbon: the French and the Austrians were fighting close at hand, and three days after his arrival the city was taken by the former. He witnessed a charge of Klenau's cavalry on the French under Grenier from the ramparts of Ratisbon, where he stood with the good monks of St. James, whose Scotch monastery was hard by. This circumstance has given rise to the story in some notices of Campbell's Life, that he witnes |