SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

BIOGRAPHY,

Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell. Edited by William Beattie, M.D., one of his

Executors. In three volumes .Hozon.

THAVRIA,

Dalmatia and Montenegro ; with a Journey to Mostar in Herzegovina ; and Remarks on the Selavonic Nations, the History of Dalmatia and Ragusa, the 1Jscoes, tic. By Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, F.R.S., Sze. In two volumes Murray. Froxtox,

The Haunted Man, and the Ghost's Bargain. A Fancy for Christmas-Time. By

Charles Dickens. Bradbury and Evans.

Doctor Birch stud his Young Friends. By Mr. M. A. Titmarsh With Sixteen Illus- trations by the Author Chapman and Hall.

DE. BEATTIE'S LIFE AND LETTERS OF CAMPBELL. Or all the poets of the present century, Campbell is the most likely to go down to posterity in his entirety, from the general and genial nature of his subjects and sympathies, the broad and natural character of his images, the condensation, force, and polish of his style. It now appears from Dr. Beattie's work, that, like many of his predecessors, he became a poet by profession from the want of some more profitable pursuit ; and that, partly by family misfortunes, partly through his own mismanage- ment, he was no exception to the fate which attends upon genius in money matters. These are distinguiahing traits in the man, and justify full development. At the same time, they do not require three bulky octavoes, expanded by a number of puerile exercises, and a vast amount of idle and trivial correspondence, upon subjects which could only interest even the parties addressed by the feelings they entertained towards the writer. This undue expansion is further increased by a diffuse narrative, which frequently flattens the point by overlaying it, and sometimes contrives to lose it altogether. Dr. Beattie's Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell will furnish a large quantity of materials for an artistical biography of the poet, but has itself small pretensions to that character, beyond an obvious earnestness of admiration for his hero, a conscientious desire to do his best, and a very amiable kindliness of feeling.

The work opens with a long account of the poet's genealogy ; but the only point about it of consequence to his career is, that his father was a wealthy Glasgow merchant, who was rained by the American war. The wreck of Mr. Campbell's fortune was subsequently lost in an unlucky Chancery snit; Mrs. Campbell gave up a small annuity she derived from her own family to her husband's creditors; and at the time when Thomas Campbell was of age to be started in the world, and several daugh- ters to be provided for, his parents were eking out a species of annuity or pension allowed by. some Glasgow society to old Mr. Campbell, by taking University pupils as boarders. The high and kindly feeling of his father, the indomitable spirit and energy of his mother, struggled against diffi- culties that would have overwhelmed common-minded people, and re- tained their children in a respectable state of society with respectable ideas. As regards Campbell himself, the Scottish system of education gave him advantages which in England he could not have obtained. Yet notwithstanding these advantages, he had a severe struggle to fix him- self in life. His subsequent difficulties were in a measure traceable to himself.

Thomas Campbell was born at Glasgow, in 1777. He does not ap- pear to have actually "lisped in numbers," but the versifying faculty was developed in his tenth year ; though his lines of that early period were of a puerile character. It was the practice of his schoolmaster, Mr. Alison, to require versions of the classics, either in prose or verse according to the taste of the pupil ; and young Tom Campbell's facility in hexameters, and his classical progress generally, excited praise and procured prizes. At thirteen he entered Glasgow University ; where similar success in ancient learning, English essay-writing, and poetical translation, at- tended him. He passed five sessions at the University ; partly sup- porting himself by teaching others, and during the last summer vaca- tion acting as tutor to a family in the Hebrides. At the close of his col- lege career, nothing better could be found for him than a tutorship in the Highlands, notwithstanding the favour of the professors, the honours he had carried off, and the poetical reputation he had attained in his own city. He appears to have been favourably placed both as regards com- fort and leisure ; but the drudgery of teaching disgusted him,—or per- haps, if the truth were told, an incapacity of regularly applying himself to what was distasteful at the moment ; and he returned to Glasgow as soon as his engagement expired.

Want stared him in the face, and it became absolutely necessary.for Campbell, now nineteen, to do something for a living ; but the " res an- gustm domi" rendered it difficult to settle what. He had thought of the church; but theology and the gravity of the divine did not suit his vola- tale disposition, and that plan was abandoned. He began the practical study of medicine and surgery ; the first operation he saw performed so excited his sensitive nature that he was compelled to dismiss all idea of surgery, and physic was dropped as a kindred pursuit. The bar he dwelt much upon with a kind of longing ; the want of "two or three hundred pounds" of capital prevented a good poet from being turned into a bad lawyer. He tried the countinghouse ; and soon got tired of that. Part of his family had settled in America, and a scheme was oftener than once proposed for Campbell to go out and push his fortune in the States ; when the failure of the brother to whom he was to be consigned put an end to the venture. Again he turned his mind towards the law, hoping to earn money enough as a copying-clerk to support himself and lay by something with an eye to the bar thereafter. The present Lord Cuninghame, when at Glasgow University, had boarded in the house of Campbell's father ; he was now a law-student in Edinburgh, and almost the only acquaintance that Campbell had in the capital. " Of course," says Lord Cuninghame in an interesting paper communicated to Dr. Beattie, " he applied to me to find him employment; and my efforts to ac- complish this I cannot now look back upon without sensations of wonder and self-ridicule. The gentleman in whose office I was then established, a Mr. M'Nab, Was a man of kindly and friendly dispositions; but as Campbell bad not been trained as a regular law-clerk in the country, (while our office otherwise was crowded with young meo,) I thought it in vain to apply to him; but I went to the officer of the Register House of Edinburgh, a Mr. Millar, who then prepared our extracts of judgments, (or exemplifications,) writs of immense length, and en- treated him to give Campbell a place in his establishment. This he at once agreed to; and Campbell was forthwith set to the humble occupation of a copy- ing-clerk,—the most dry and intolerable drudgery for a scholar that the legal pro- fession afforded. Campbell, however, was glad to accept it. He remained some weeks in this situation; but, as might be expected, he at last got tired of it; for with all its excessive labour, it barely afforded hint the means of existence. He then procured a situation in the office of Mr. Whytt, where there was a little more variety, and better payment than in the extractor's office; and there lie remained for a short time."

The drudgery and chicanery, with perhaps the little profit the chicanery yielded to himself,—as well, we fear, as some truth in the charge of vola- tility that his friends brought against him,—combined to disgust the poet with the profession ; and he thus takes a final leave of the law.

" In a letter to his friend Thomson, dated July 26, (1797,) he reports himself returned to Glasgow, and adds= Well, I have fairly tried the business of an at- torney, and, upon my conscience, it is the most accursed of all professions I Such meanness—such toil—such contemptible modes of peculation—were never moulded into one profession.' He then pronounces a hearty 'malediction on the law in all its branches.' `lt is true,' he adds, 'there are many emoluments; but, I declare to God, that I can hardly spend, with a safe conscience, the little sum I made du- ring my residence in Edinburgh.' " Campbell now became by necessity a man of letters. Dr. Anderson had been shown an elegy written in Mull, which contains more of the character of The Pleasures of Hope than anything be had as yet pro- duced. The editor of the British Poets was so much struck with it that he wished to be introduced to the author; and, by means of a com- mon friend, an interview took place. This was at the time he was drudging as an attorney's copyist; and Dr. Anderson's recommendation of Campbell to Mundell the bookseller probably assisted in inducing him to forsake the law. A magazine, a translation of the Medea, and various projects, passed through Campbell's mind ; but the first actual business was an abridgment of Bryan Edwards's History of the West Indies, for which he was to receive twenty pounds. This was followed by various literary jobs from Mundell and other booksellers ; but the pay was scarcely sufficient to support him, and they contributed nothing to his reputation. In the same year, however, (1797,) "The Wounded Hus- sar " carried his poetry if not his name through the kingdom. "This ballad was no sooner published than its popularity was established; it was sung in the streets of Glasgow, and soon found its way over the whole king- dom. It might be literally said of it—as in The Winter's Tale= There's not a maid Westward, but she sings it; in request, I can tell you.' The negligence, however, with which it was printed, caused the sensitive author no small annoy- ance. By placing a semicolon at the end of the first line, the printer had com- pletely marred the sense and pathos of the whole stanza. The poet had intended the heroine to express her confidence that the mercy of Heaven would be so speedily manifested for the relief of the husband, as to 'forbid her to mourn': but instead of this natural and affecting sentiment, the fair Adelaide; on dis- covering her wounded hussar' in the agony of death, was made to apostrophic him thus-

' Thou shalt live,' she replies, Heaven's mercy relieving ;

Each anguishing wound shall _forbid one to mourn '

and, strange as it may seem, this little error in punctuation—so important to the sense—was repeated in more than one or two of the authorized editions. But the art of punctuation, as already noticed, was one of those mysteries which the poet could never comprehend."

" Of the origin, plan, and composition of The Pleasures of Hope, not much seems to be known. It has been said that the idea was suggested by Campbell's perusal of "The Pleasures of Memory." During his re- sidence in the Isle of Mull, one of his friends wrote to him and playfully furnished the title.

"We have now three 'Pleasures' by first-rate men of genies—viz. The Plea- sures of Imagination, The Pleasures of Memory, and The Pleasures of Soli- tude. Let us cherish the Pleasures of Hope that we may soon meet in Alma Mater !"

But be the origin what it may, the work was finished for the press by the autumn of 1798, when the poet bad just turned his twenty-first year. Campbell's original idea was to print it on his own account, and a friend lent him money towards defraying the expense ; but Campbell spent it on some more pressing claim. Its publication on half-profits was then talked of; but the copyright was finally sold to Mundell for sixty pounds, in money and books. The instant celebrity which the poem attained, and the steady demand which attended its sale, rendered this a very profitable pur- chase, till the copyright, at the end of twenty-eight years, reverted to the author. The bookseller, however, allowed the poet fifty pounds on every new edition.

The name of Thomas Campbell was now famous, and his company sought for in the Northern Athens; but this did not conduce to idleness. His first idea was to plan a new poem, to be called " The Queen of the North " ; and as it appears to have been a sort of historical review with- out action, it is as well that he never finished it. His first step was to take a tour in Germany ; of which a minute but not very interesting account is contained in his letters. The expenses of the journey were discharged by the new editions of The Pleasures of Hope, and by a sort of engagement with Mr. Perry of the Morning Chronicle; to whom Campbell transmitted poems, and also prose as " our foreign correspondent," though nothing very distinct appears about it in the volume. The extension of the war induced Campbell to return in 1801. The vessel in which he sailed was chased by a Danish privateer ; and, instead of reaching Leith, the poet was driven into Yarmouth. Thence he proceeded to London by the mail; and was soon involved in the gayeties of the metropolis, with scarcely a steady head. " A day or two later he says, I wrote to you ten minutes before I met Mr. Perry, when I was in considerable agitation from the fear of not finding him, and from missing my old school-fellow Thomson, on whom, exclusive of Mr. P., I solely relied for relief—for I landed in London with only a few shillings in rill pocket. - I have found Perry. His reception was warm and cordial beyond what I had any right to expect. ' I will be your friend,' said the good man. I will be all that you could wish me to be.' All my fears and blue devils are departed. I shall have now time to settle and work 'a power.' * * Come, my dear

Richardson, and enhance all the good fortune I enjoy, by your precious society ! You will be acquainted with Perry also, and must, like me, admire him. His wife is an angel, and his niece a goddess. I am over head and ears in love with the latter. Leap into your boots like Lefleur, and be in London tomorrow.

T. C.

" In the posthumous notes of his first visit to London, he says—' Calling on Perry one day, he showed me a letter from Lord Holland, asking about me, and expressing a wish to have me to dine at the King of Clubs. Thither with his Lordship I accordingly repaired; and it was an wra in my life. There I met, in all their glory and feather, Mackintosh, Rogers, the Smiths, Sydney and others. In the retrospect of a long life, I know no man whose acuteness of intellect gave me a higher idea of human nature than Mackintosh; and, without disparaging his benevolence—for be had an excellent heart—I may say that I never saw a man who so reconciled me to hereditary aristocracy like the benignant Lord Holland."

And again—

"A transition more grateful could not be conceived than from painful and un- availing commiseration with my fellow-sufferer [an United Irishman, probably the hero of " The Exile of Erin,"] • • "—from the tedium of cold and gloomy evenings, unconsoled by the comforts of life, and from the barbarity of savages, (where an Englishman was not sure of his life,) to the elegant society of London, and pleasures of every description. "Among the best of my London friends, I must acknowledge a few whose fa-

vour might flatter a prouder man than myself. In the family of the Siddons's I find myself treated as no stranger. Perry's attention I shall not easily forget. puss Siddons is a fine woman of the first order. She sings with incomparable sweetness melodies of her own composition. Except our own Scotch airs, and some of Haydn's, I have heard none more affecting or simple. From a man so pro- verbially proud and reserved as John Kemble I certainly looked for little notice. But his kindness at our first meeting undeceived me. Dining with him last Sun- day at Perry's, be spoke with me in another room; and, with a grace more en- chanting than the favour itself, presented me with the freedom of Drury Lane Theatre. His manner was so expressive of dignified benevolence, that I thought myself transported to the identity of Horatio with my friend Hamlet giving me a welcome.

"Among the literaries, I have met with Mrs. Inchbald and Mrs. Barbauld. Dr. Moore's son took me to Rogers."

Henceforth the metropolis with so many attractions became Campbell's head-quarters ; and the great events of his literary career may be read in the dates of publication of his avowed works. These, however, em- ployed but a comparatively small portion of his time, and give no idea of the inner life of the man or the struggles of the author. The reader who wishes to see Campbell in these two personal and social phases must have recourse to Dr. Beattie's volume ; where will be found much interesting matter relating to the poet's marriage, the death of his favourite son, the lunacy of the survivor, the illness and death of Mrs. Campbell, his feelings throughout his career, and the deathbed of the poet himself. We may touch generally upon a point which is more purely literary, and gives a generic idea of the "man of letters." In Edinburgh as the lawyer's copyist, Campbell had saved money ; from the time of the publication of The Pleasures of Hope, he was more or less in difficulties till the close of his career. In the outset this might partly arise from necessity. The Pleasures of Hope did not furnish him with an income ; he undertook to allow an an- nuity to his family ; and he had to live by anonymous compilations, con- tributions to magazines, and holding the pen of a ready writer, till 1805, when a nominal pension of 2001., yielding him about 1701. a year, made him independent had he chosen to be so ; but he could not—it was not in his nature. His gains were always sufficient and sometimes consider- able. For many years he translated foreign news for the Star news- paper at four guineas a week, and his other labours brought him in money. He made a large sum (to release him from difficulties) by a subscription edition of his poems ; Lady Holland sent him, through Sydney Smith, a present which kept him out of " the Rules." At a later period he had 5001. a year as editor of the New Monthly Magazine, but so managed matters that he got in debt to Mr. Colburn 7001. When the copy- right of The Pleasures of Hope reverted to him, the sale of the collected editions of his poetry brought him in 5001. a year for some time, and till they came into his own hands he ever exer- cised the chapman-like art of increasing the value of each edition published for his own especial profit by adding new poems. His friend Telford the engineer left him a legacy of 1,0001. The head of his house left him the life-interest in a residue which eventually reached nearly 5,000/. ; furnishing him, including his pension, with from three to four hundred a year certain. Yet, no matter what his income might be, he was always in pecuniary trouble, sometimes to such a degree that it prevented his labours and affected his health. This did not arise from an absurdly extravagant style of living, as in the case of Hook ; Campbell's expenditure perhaps was never greater than his actual income would warrant, and if that fell off he dimi- nished his scale of expense. Dr. Beattie speaks of his charity ; which was indiscriminate, unbounded save by his purse, and utterly forgetful of the proverb that charity begins at home. An obvious source of his em- barrassments was, that he was always behindhand; and if relieved from a difficulty by some windfall, he was quickly behindhand again. All these things, however, did not so much cause his embarrassments as his utter carelessness about money. When this is considered, the wonder is that a man with the habits described in the following extracts, (and they might easily be multiplied,) should have retained his personal freedom and respectability, and never been induced to sacrifice the future income to be derived from his copyrights, to answer some pressing necessity. "An instance of the Poet's inattention to money matters occurred soon after his arrival in Edinburgh. Calling upon a friend who for many years had attended to his interest in the Argyllshire estates, &c., he mentioned that, on ex- amining his purse that morning, he discovered that his fonds were nearly all gone; that he would have to draw money before he left Scotland, to defray his expenses to London, although he fully believed that, on leaving home, he had brought with him ample means for that purpose. On returning to his hotel, however, he men- tioned to his servant the low state of his purse; when it was proposed to examine the pockets of his clothes. This was instantly assented to; and in rummaging the pockets of his coat, a sum in bank-notes was discovered, loosely rolled up, but more than sufficient to defray all the expenses of his subsequent delay in Soot- land and return to London. He then called and mentioned the discovery to his friend; from which it was apparent that he kept no account of his expenditure, and only became aware of his money being exhausted by finding his purse on expectedly empty.' This habitual carelessness, of which be was never fully conscious, was the source of frequent anxiety, if not loss, and was particularly remarked by his friends in Algiers. But the habit, though often pathetically deplored, was never conquered. Yet no man was ever more punctual in his payments. He often for- got what he spent, or gave away, but never what he owed."

A stranger circumstance still occurred a few years before his death. He felt himself ill; started for some German baths, without saying a word to anybody ; and then, as he was short of funds, wrote to Dr. Beattie from Wiesbaden, to " enter my house in Victoria Square, and take out all the money that is there"; describing that he had locked up some bank-notes in his "bedroom-press."

"After a hasty perusal of this letter, I went to my solicitor; and, with his advice and concurrence, we proceeded to the Poet's house, in Victoria Square. There we called upon his next-door neighbour, Admiral Honeyman; and having explained the object of our visit, Mrs. Honeyman kindly offer.d to assist us in the scrutiny. The servant left in charge of the house, showed us into her master's bedroom, where the press or wardrobe stood, in which he had left the money. This repository was opened without difficulty, for it appeared even doubtful whether it had been locked. The contents—consisting of articles of dress, books, and table furniture, but without any appearance of method in their arrangement —were carefully examined, but no money was discovered. Then came the ques- tion, What was to be done next? His request was urgent; lie was suffering under great suspense; and having, probably, in his haste to leave home, mistaken the repository, we considered it our duty to examine every room in the house. Portmanteaus, table-drawers, coat-pockets, and even canisters, were emptied; but not a trace of the bank-notes was to be found. Even our lawyer's ingenuity was foiled; and we were driven to the painful conclusion that the money—unless the Poet's memory deceived him—bad been purloined. "To prevent misapprehension, his letter was again taken out and read; but there was no mistake—'the press in my bedroom ' were his words; and to that repository we again ascended. It was ransacked from top to bottom, as if we had been taking an appraiser's inventory; but still there was no money. The solici- tor shook bis head, spoke of burglaries, and the folly of leaving houses in the charge of mere strangers, with bank-notes in the bedrooms. ' It was, to say the least, very imprudent.' But what chiefly weighed on my mind was, how I should be able to break the subject of his loss to the owner. Under the worst cir- cumstances, indeed, I had no fear of his ' drowning himself in the Rhine,' as he had threatened: but his health and spirits were low, and not likely, as I well knew to rally upon an empty purse. But the search, as we thought, was hopeless; and the only thing we could do was to leave the room as we had found it. "In shutting the press-doors, however, the point of a red embroidered slipper— I shall never forget it—stood in the way. Taking it in my hand to push it back, it felt bard; and, looking nearer, I saw it was stuffed full of white paper matches, such as are used to light candles. One of these, out of mere curiosity, was unrolled—for it was twisted like whipcord—and, to our sur- prise and delight, turned out to be a ten-pound Bank of England note. Here was, undoubtedly, the treasure referred to in his letter ! and, continuing the in- teresting process, every little distinct bit of paper that was unfolded made a simi- lar disclosure. lie had playfully boasted, as we have seen, of having suddenly turned miser, of hoarding his ' money in an old stocking,' &e.; and from the stocking, by some unknown process, it had dropped into the slippers. But how- ever that might be, the discovery was an unspeakable relief to his friends; and at last, when both slippers had been fairly stripped of their precious lining, we found that the product in genuine bank-notes amounted to upwards of three hundred pounds."

Our extracts, brief and incidental as they have been, will give an idea of the value of the materials relating to Campbell's life that have been accumulated by Dr. Beattie, and will induce regret that a more unscru- pulous rejection of trivial matter and a more condensed style of narrative had not been adopted. Besides a full account of Campbell's prospects and feelings at the most critical times of his life, under his own hand, and many reminiscences of him by friends, there are a good many anecdotes of contemporaries, which will be read with interest.