beautiful in person, as a boy, and is said to have been witty and affectionate, though somewhat delicate. When a mere child he would recite, in style, long passages from the Greek and Latin classics, for which he retained a life-long veneration. Yet he dearly loved play as well, and was not considered over studious, although generally at the head of his class-seeming rather, through nimbleness of mind and strength of memory, to shoot ahead of his fellows, and, as it were, sit down and wait for them, instead of moving on, himself.

In the playground he is said to have been characterised by strong feeling and generous sympathy; always siding with the injured one whenever a wrong presented itself, as we should have expected of the champion of Poland. At college, as at school, he greatly distinguished himself. We get a glimpse of him at a debating club-the youngest member, yet the most fluent speaker. He had, about this time, such a reputation for fun that any great outburst of merriment among the students generally elicited the question, "What has Tom Campbell been saying now?" His wit was playful to a degree, and yet he had fits of melancholy which left him silent and sad often before the echo of the laughter he had caused had died down. From his own relatives he received little encourage

ment towards poetry. "Many a sheet of nonsense have I beside me" (he says in 1794), “insomuch that when my father comes into my room, he tells me I would be much better reading Locke than scribbling so." As for his brother Daniel, who shared his bedroom, he carried the check further still. Our hero was late in making his appearance at breakfast one morning, and excused himself to his irritated brother by placing a manuscript, with evident self-satisfaction, on the table, saying "There is my apology. A splendid idea struck me during the night-I was afraid of its escaping, and taking pen in hand, I made this out of it;" adding (probably adjusting his collar the while), "You'll soon see whether I have been idle or not." "Very good," said Daniel, "let's have a look at it." "Silence ensued," as Milton has it. "Ha, very good this— very fine indeed!" "Yes, I thought you would say (once more the collar suffers). why you had so restless a night?" "Yes, I had some poetical throes, but you see I have hit it off at last." "You have, my boy," said Daniel, appearing to read with much attention. "Well, what do you think of it?" inquired the poet, rather impatiently. "Why," said the critic, "to tell you the truth, I think it wants fire-don't you?" "Perhaps," said the author, with hesitation (his hand no

"And this is

longer going collarwards). "Yes, it certainly wants fire," and striding across the room the hard-hearted brother placed the midnight effusion between the bars of the grate. This was the first warm reception Campbell's poetry received.

By his fellow-students (and by the professors even) he was, however, regarded as a poetical prodigy. At seventeen he became tutor to a Highland family for five months, in the Island of Mull, where—although his letters show signs of melancholy-the silence and the wildness of the place, no doubt, wrought lasting impressions. He managed here to meet and fall in love with the "Caroline" of his poems; minimising the passion, however, sufficiently to retain vigour enough to write, at the same time, in praise of another beauty. In fact, one and one only is the lover's creed," must ever have been to Campbell an article difficult to believe in. Returning to Glasgow College, he again left it for a tutorship at Downie, near the head of Loch Fyne. Having long since given up all intention of entering the church, which was his first thought, he gave himself up to the study of law and history, and (we have Campbell's own words for it), had he been possessed of a few hundred pounds at this time, "The Pleasures of Hope" might have been written from another standpoint, and a hand

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some little figure, with a wig larger than his necessity (which was great, even at an early age), might have been added to the (then, as now) too numerous assembly of "briefless" advocates who parade Parliament House, in the city of Edinburgh. A few weeks, however, at a desk in the Register Office, and in a solicitor's office in Edinburgh, afforded him all he was to know, practically, of law. He was now nineteen years of age, and, through the influence of his friend, Dr. Anderson, he received his first offer from a publisher. The task committed to him was an abridged edition of Bryan Edward's West Indies. The fees he received for teaching Greek and Latin, and the work of "hack" literature kept him from starving for some time; while he recited his own sounding lines in "The Pleasures of Hope" to the cliffs and crannies of Arthur's Seat. His intimates in these days were, amongst others, Francis (afterwards Lord) Jeffrey, James Graham (author of "The Sabbath "), Lord (then Henry) Cockburn, Dugald Stewart, and John Leyden. In fact, a sight of the manuscript copy of "The Pleasures of Hope" acted like magic in introducing him to what was termed the "best society" in the city. His poem was a beautiful child, but its birth gave him sore trouble. The "There most uncontrollable gloom followed him,

are days," he said to a friend, "when I can't abide to walk in the sunshine, and when I would almost rather be shot than come within sight of any man or be spoken to by any mortal."

It was on the 27th day of April 1799 that the announcement of the publication of his poem was made, and, at the almost unprecedented age of twenty-one, Campbell found himself famous. He was paid but £60 for the poem, but for two or three years £50 came to him with every new edition. The times suited Campbell, and he suited the times. "The thing," in Carlyle's words, we specifically call French Revolution" had been "blown into space, and had become a thing that was only four years before the partition of Poland and the abolition of Negro Slavery were reigning themes. The public enthusiasm was on the qui vive, and the pulse of song was welcomed because it relieved the overcharged desire. The true singer is one with us in many ways; never so much, however, as when he carries our special burdens away on the wings of his song. To hear another voice sing our sorrows is emphatically to believe another heart knows their bitterness, and to lose the sense of their undivided weight. The desire to gather that experience which travelling alone gives, took him over to the Continent in