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His mother lay on his right hand, and his wife on his left. mother had a stone laid on her grave, but neither Scott nor wife had anything but the earth which covered them; and 1 under the arched ruin, nature herself was not allowed, as otherwise would, to fling over the poet the verdant mantle which she shrouds the grave of the lowliest of her children. contrast was the stranger since so splendid a monument had b raised to his honour in Edinburgh; and that both Glasgow Selkirk had their statue-crowned column to the author of Wave! The answer to inquiries was, that his son had been out of country; but a plain slab, bearing the name, and the date of death, would have conferred a neatness and an air of respec attention on the spot, which would have accorded far more g fully with the feelings of its thousands and tens of thousand visitors than its then condition.

Since that time an oblong tomb has been placed over Sir Walt grave, with this simple and all-sufficient inscription,—“ Sir Ws Scott, Baronet, died September 21st, 1832."

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THOMAS CAMPBELL was born in Glasgow on the 27th of July, 1777. His father was a resident of that city, a respectable merchant, and descended from an ancient Highland family, on which the poet evidently prided himself, though undoubtedly he was the greatest man his family ever produced. His ancestors traced their descent from Gilespic-le-Camile, the first Norman earl of Lochawe; and the Scotch still pronounce the name Camel, or more broadly, Caumel. The old family residence was at Kirnan, in the vale of Glassary, on the southern frontier of the Western Highlands. So proud were the poet's parents of this, that they always styled themselves Campbells of Kirnan; and the poet's mother, after he had risen to fame, would, when requesting articles to be sent home from shops, say, "Send them to Mrs. Campbell's of Kirnan;" and when that did not seem to produce a very profound impression of respect, would add, "the mother of the author of The Pleasures of Hope."

Campbell's grandfather was the last laird of Kirnan. He died in Edinburgh, and Campbell's father went to America, where, falling in with a Daniel Campbell, a clansman, but no way related, they agreed to return to Glasgow, and set up as Virginia merchants. They were

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successful, and Campbell's father, then forty-five, married the daughter of his partner, who was only twenty. They had no less than eleven children, who had various fortunes, and all of whom the poet outlived. Three of them were daughters, none of whom married, but had, as governesses, or teachers of schools, acquired a small competency, which was increased by an allowance of 100%. a-year for many years by the poet.

Campbell's father acquired a handsome fortune, but this was, for the most part, swept away by the breaking out of the American war in 1775, two years before the poet's birth. His father was then in his sixty-fifth year; but though he had so large a family, he had not the elasticity left to continue his trade, and retired upon the meagre remnant of his property. Two years later, his youngest son, Thomas, was born, that is, in his father's sixty-seventh year, at which age it is remarkable that the poet died.

Thomas Campbell was born in the house where his parents had resided since their marriage. This was in the High-street, but has now been long swept away by the progress of modern improvement. Campbell's father was a man of superior ability and education. He was an intimate friend of Adam Smith, and of Dr. Thomas Reid, author of the "Inquiry into the Human Mind," and Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow. By Dr. Reid the infant poet was baptized, and named after himself. Campbell's mother was a woman of a firm and somewhat acerb character, but clever and active, which was rendered the more necessary by the easy and indolent temperament of the father.

Campbell, who is described as a handsome boy, was first sent to the grammar-school, then under the management of Mr. Allison, who soon perceived the talents of his pupil. The discovery was hailed with delight by Campbell's parents, and his father devoted himself assiduously to his assistance in preparing his tasks, a proof that the old gentleman was a good scholar. Campbell was soon st the head of the school, but not without feeling the effects of too close application; and his father was obliged, on one occasion, to send him for six weeks to a cottage on the banks of the Cart, a few miles out of town. This country residence is said to have left such vivid imagery on his mind, that the effect was constantly appearing in the poetry of his mature years. During his grammar-school life, he began writing poetry at the age of ten, specimens of which Dr. Beattie has preserved in his very interesting life of the poet. But his greatest passion was for the classical authors, and his progress in Latin and Greek was extraordinary. In his twelfth year he made very respectable translations from Anacreon, and acquired the ambition of being a Greek scholar, which never left him, and which, to the last, predominated over his ambition as a poet.

In his fourteenth year he entered the college of Glasgow, and continued there till 1795, or till his eighteenth year. His course at college was one continuous triumph, especially in classical attainment. He carried off most of the chief prizes, and at the same time produced compositions both in prose and verse perfectly astonishing

in a boy of his age. These may be seen in his published works, or in his Life and Letters, by Dr. Beattie. In translations from the Greek he excelled all his fellow-students, so that they were afraid to enter the lists with him. In his translations from Homer, Aristophanes, Eschylus, and others, he entered into the spirit of the ancients, with a wonderful ardour, and a beauty of expression which astonished the professors. In his fourth session he carried off two prizes: one of these was the first prize for the best translation of the Clouds of Aristophanes; and Professor Young, in awarding the honours, declared that this was the best performance which had ever been given in by any student at the University. But the production which won him still higher celebrity was that which gained his second prize. This was an Essay on the Origin of Evil, which was expected to be prose, but which was in poetry. It was the chef-d'œuvre of the Moral Philosophy class, and gave him at once a local celebrity as a poet.

In the fifth session he carried off three prizes. One of these was for the Choephora of Eschylus; one for a translation of a chorus from the Medea; and a third, the translation of Claudian's "Epithalamium on the Marriage of the Emperor Honorius and Maria." During this period he was not less zealously engaged in studying the works of the English poets, especially Milton's Paradise Lost, and the writings of Pope, Thomson, Gray, and Goldsmith. The influence of Pope and Goldsmith is sufficiently obvious in his future style. A writer in Hogg's Weekly Instructor, who knew Campbell well, says, "At this period Campbell was a fair and beautiful boy, with winning manners, with a mild and cheerful disposition; he was not only the wit of the school, but was greatly desirous to see himself in print. Having got one of his juvenile poems printed, to defray the expense of this, to him, then bold adventure, it is related that he had recourse to the singular expedient of selling copies to the students at a penny each. This anecdote has been told by one who remembers seeing the beautiful boy standing at the college gate with the slips in his hand." The story was one which Campbell was not fond of hearing told in his later years. The verses began,

"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. "

These he afterwards remodelled into his beautiful ballad of Lord Ullin's Daughter.

The same writer describes the electric effect of his recitation of his favourite passages from the Greek poets, as he often heard him give them in after years.

During his life at college, his great companions were James Thomson, a youth from Lancashire, with whom he ever after maintained the warmest friendship, and who had two busts of the poet executed by Baily, one of which he presented to the University at which they had studied together. The other was Gregory Watt, the

youngest son of the celebrated engineer, who, after displaying great talents, died at the early age of twenty-seven.

But no circumstance had so decided an influence on the mind of Campbell during his college years as the trial of Muir, Gerald, Skirving, Margarot, and Palmer, for high treason. It was the time when the outbreak of the French Revolution had stirred the spirit of all Europe. The lovers of liberty were active in diffusing their opinions, and no government was more alarmed and more severe in its endeavours to repress them than that of England. These men would not now even attract attention by advancing the notions for which they were then condemned to transportation to Botany Bay, where they were treated with such rigour, that few or none of them lived to return. Campbell's mind was all aglow with the flame of liberty, imbibed from his favourite Greek authors. He conceived an ardent desire to witness the trials of these patriots. His mother furnished him with five shillings for his expenses on the way, and he was to lodge at his aunt's house in Edinburgh. He walked there, a distance of forty-two miles, and back. He witnessed the trial of Gerald, the most gentlemanly and eloquent of all these ill-used men. Gerald had been a student at the University, and a great favourite with the professors. Campbell relates the effect the trial had upon him: "Hitherto I had never known what public eloquence was; and I am sure the judiciary Scotch lords did not help me to a conception of it; speaking, as they did, bad arguments in broad Scotch... Gerald's speech annihilated the remembrance of all the eloquence that had ever been heard within the 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 address, I turned to a stranger beside me, exclaiming By heavens, Sir, that is a great man! Yes, Str,' he answered, and he makes every other man feel great who listens to him.'"

Campbell returned to Glasgow so deeply impressed by what he had seen and heard, and by the insight which this had given him. young as he was, into the great questions before the world, and the arbitrary and unjust spirit in the government, that all his wit and gaiety had fled. He went about brooding in deep abstraction on all that he had seen and heard; and, no doubt, the ardent advocacy of liberty, the burning and never-quenched championship of the oppressed, which came forth in his Pleasures of Hope, dated from that day. That fire was kindled within him which broke forth in his vehement episodes on the wrongs of Poland, the massacre of Warsaw, the iniquity of the slave-trade, the oppressions of India, and the melancholy fate of individual patriots. But a more immediate vent was found for his indignant feelings in the debating-club which the students established, and where Campbell took a distinguished rank amongst the embryo orators.

But all this time the res angusta domi were pressing upon the minds of his anxious parents what profession the young scholar should or could embrace. His only inclination was for the Church,

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