LIFE OF CAMPBELL.

AMONG those gallant champions of freedom who had shared with the Bruce in the struggle for Scotland's independence, was Sir Neil Campbell, chief of his clan, whose grandson, the knight of Lochawe, left a younger son, Iver, the progenitor of the Campbells of Kirnan, and of their illustrious descendant, the author of "The Pleasures of Hope." To this ancient descent some of the allusions in his minor poems refer.

There is, however, a more genuine and enduring influence to be traced to the character of the happy domestic circle in which the Poet was reared, than to the influences of ancestral descent. Before his birth, the family acres had passed into other hands; and his father, the youngest of three sons, after following out an education to fit him for the mercantile pursuits for which he was designed, went to America, where he entered into business, and passed many of his earlier years at Falmouth, in Virginia. There, also, he formed a close friendship with his fellow-clansman, Daniel Campbell, in company with whom he returned to his native land; and, settling themselves at Glasgow, they entered into co-partnership as Virginia traders. Mutual esteem and strict probity secured alike their success in business and confirmed their partiality for each other; and at length this successful partnership was cemented by ties of a still closer kind. Alexander Campbell, the senior partner, had already attained to the mature age of forty-five, and had acquired the character of a confirmed bachelor, when he asked in marriage the sister of his friend, then a girl of about twenty years of age.

Alexander and Margaret Campbell were married at Glasgow on the 12th of January 1756, and began their wedded life in a large old-fashioned house in the ancient High Street of that city; He was where, on the 27th of July 1777, the Poet was born.

the youngest of a family of eleven children, the majority of whom lived to an advanced age; but it was the destiny of the Poet to survive them all, after having added strength to the ties of natural affection by many practical proofs of his generosity and warmth of fraternal attachment.

The career of Alexander Campbell had been a prosperous one; and the Virginia merchant was already a wealthy man when he wedded the sister of his old partner, and established his household in the High Street of Glasgow. The birth of the Poet, however, had been preceded by sad reverses of fortune. On the outbreak of the American war in 1775, the trade of Glasgow received a violent shock, which fell with especial force on those whose mercantile transactions had been carried on directly with the revolted colonies. Foremost among the sufferers was the old established firm of Alexander and Daniel Campbell. Nearly the entire fruits of forty years' successful industry were swept away; and the Poet's father found himself, at the age of sixtyfive, with all his life's labour to begin anew. The old man submitted to his loss with Christian resignation; and, gathering together the scanty residue of his fortune, he prepared his family for adopting a new course, better suited to their change of circumstances. At this crisis, the prudence and sound judgment of his wife proved of peculiar value. By the time their youngest son was old enough to begin his scholastic studies, his parents had resumed their cheerfulness and contented ease; and the lively boy was altogether unconscious of any deficiency in the appointments of his happy home. His school days passed over with the usual admixture of boyish frolic and study, though he showed, from the first, remarkable evidences of unusual talent, and was eminently successful among his juvenile compeers in translations from the classics into English verse. Some of the translations from Anacreon, performed at the age of twelve, are remarkably concise, and furnish unusually early evidences of a proficiency in the translation of the Greek poets, which ever after continued to be among his most favourite studies. He owed his proficiency in the Greek, however, not to his instructors in the grammar school or college of Glasgow, but to the teaching which his sense of deficiency in classical scholarship induced him to secure at a later period. The following is his own account of his later acquirements in Greek:

"It was with great pride that I adhered to my Greek, and to the Latin and English literature. I went on my general tour through Germany, and I was truly and suddenly surprised at the very different views that the Germans took of everything relating to the Greek, from all that I had been taught in Scotland, or had heard of in England. I was thoroughly ashamed of my ignorance, and I put myself under a year's study with the celebrated Professor Heyne. For nearly three months I could make no progress. I became vexed and dispirited, and began to think that nature had not given me any talent for languages, or if she had, that Greek was not included in her catalogue.

"I spoke my feelings to the professor, and added, that as yet I had acquired nothing.

"You are mistaken,' said the professor; 'you have not learnt anything, for I have attempted to teach you nothing. All my efforts have been directed to unteach you what you had been taught; and as the mass of rubbish is very nearly removed, you will soon find your progress as rapid and as perfect as you can wish.'" The event justified the prediction. Mr. Campbell

proceeded: "Afterwards I put myself through a course of Latin studies under Professor Heyne; but though I had many deficiencies and more defects, I found that I had been taught the Latin at Glasgow much better than the Greek."

In this, however, we anticipate in some degree the course of biographical narrative. The youthful occupations and pastimes of the Poet have been recorded with all the minute fidelity which admiring friendship and the fondest affection of his early asso ciates and near relatives could employ. He may truly be said to have "lisped in numbers," and his biographer has selected from the productions of his boyish muse, verses penned at nine, ten, and twelve years of age, giving proof of a remarkable facility for verse even at that period of life. The transition from the grammar school to the wider arena of college competition, did not arrest the poetical aspirations of the gifted boy. His skill in versifying was employed on the college thesis, or in turning the Greek dramatists into English. He also no unfrequently lightened the labours of study by some amusing jeu d'esprit, thrown off at the expense of a friendly rival, or in commemoration of some passing incident of the class; such as the unsuccessful assault on the pons asinorum; or the more

highly prized metrical petition which won for the class a holiday, already sued for in vain from the professor in sober prose. This last incident was related long after with affectionate pride by the Poet's mother, who always referred to the success of her son's petition to the professor as the first fruits of his poetical genius. Some of his satirical effusions were less happy in their fruits, the victims of his wit having occasionally cherished the remembrance of their discomfiture long after the author of the pungent jests had forgotten them. No malice, however, mingled with his satire, and most of his youthful companions appear to have courted his society while class-fellows, and long afterwards to have cherished his memory with all the warmth of youthful admiration and friendship.

To an incident which occurred when the Poet was only sixteen years of age, may be traced the strong bias of political feeling which appears in his most popular poems, and influenced the whole course of his thoughts through life. Early in the spring of 1793, Campbell obtained a few days' leave of absence from college, and employed his holidays in paying a visit to Edinburgh. This chanced to occur during a period of great political excitement, when Muir, Gerald, Palmer, and other zealous reformers, were put upon their trial for high treason. The event

was one not unworthy to make a lasting impression on a youthful mind, for the sentence of banishment for life, then passed on the assumed traitors, has since been reversed before the higher tribunal of public opinion, and the Scottish capital now numbers among its varied memorials a commemorative obelisk, inscribed with the names of Muir, Gerald, and Palmer, and with passages from their defence, in which they appealed to posterity. Campbell was present at the trial, and listened to these fervent appeals, which were not uttered in vain, though they failed to influence the tribunal before which the accused then stood.

His active mind had indeed already been strongly excited by the great public events which were then shaking the whole political fabric of Europe to the centre, and the desire of witnessing this trial appears to have had a considerable share in the motives that led to the journey to Edinburgh. "It was in those years," says Campbell, writing long after, "that the Scottish reformers Muir, Gerald, and others, were transported to Botany BayMuir, although he had never uttered a sentence in favour of

reform stronger than William Pitt himself had uttered; and Gerald for acts which, in the opinion of sound English lawyers, fell short of sedition."

In the midst of the events, however, which justly commanded his sympathy, we are tempted to smile at the petty difficulties which had to be overcome by the young enthusiast. Watching the propitious moment when his mother's smiles gave promise of a compliant mood, young Campbell appealed to her generosity to advance him the great sum of three shillings, with which he expected to cover the expenses of his trip to the Scottish metropolis; the sturdy young Scotsman regarding a walk of forty-two miles as no insurmountable obstacle to his purpose. The good

woman extended her liberality, and presented her son with five shillings, a largess so liberally exceeding his expectations or desires, that, before he set out on his journey, he expended a portion of it in buying, as a present for his mother, a print of Elijah fed by the ravens, in allusion to her favourite exhortation, when teaching her young charge, amid their early trials and difficulties, to place their trust in Providence.

That young Campbell's visit to Edinburgh was productive of lasting fruits cannot be doubted. His early associates have remarked that his whole deportment was changed on his return. His characteristic sprightliness and humour were replaced by a gravity of manner, as well as a more serious cast of thought, which the raillery of his friends failed to dispel. His later poetical effusions bear abundant traces of the same change, and prove the expansion and refinement of thought which already resulted from his sympathy with the mighty changes then transpiring on the political arena.

Thomas Campbell was the youngest child of the family, and the favourite of his father, as the child of his old age. By the time he reached the period of life when it became necessary to determine definitely on the course he must ultimately pursue, his elder brothers were seeking their fortunes across the Atlantic, and his sisters were already exerting themselves to assist in alleviating the cares of their aged parents. Two of Campbell's most intimate juvenile friends were destined for the church, and their influence and example induced him for a time to look forward to the same as the final destiny of his life. Circumstances not now very distinctly recorded, appear to have altered his