ART. III-CAMPBELL'S LIFE AND LETTERS. 1. Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell. Edited by WILLIAM BEATTIE, M. D., one of his Executors. In two vols., 12mo. New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1850. 2. The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell, complete; with a Memoir, &c. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard. 1845. THE republication in this country of the "Life and Letters" of THOMAS CAMPBELL makes this a fitting occasion to take a passing notice of his personal and literary history. Among the heavy taxes imposed on greatness, not the least onerous is that levied by the biographer. No sooner does the child of genius or renown go down to the house appointed for all the living, than this public administrator seizes upon all his memorabilia, and proceeds to appropriate them for the benefit of his heirs at law,-to wit, the great public. The task is generally performed either with a deep veneration for the illustrious dead, or else with a patronizing officiousness, as if the sun had indeed consented to act as usher for the morning star. Very few, however, can afford to have the secrets of their private affairs thrown open to the gaze of an unsympathizing public. There are joys and sorrows that belong exclusively to the domestic and social being, with which the world ought not to intermeddle, and into which it is not often inclined to intrude, unless invited by the excessive communicativeness of ostentatious sorrow. Biographies of persons recently deceased are generally productions pro tempore,—a further lapse of time is requisite to remove the object a little way from the beholder, that it may be contemplated as a whole as well as in its details. Such temporary memoirs, however, answer a valuable purpose in preserving and making accessible the materials out of which, in due time, the real biographer will construct his work. Much discrimination is required in making such collections of memoirs, for, since they are designed for the public, they should contain nothing that does not properly belong to that distinguished personage. The man who, in the privacy of domestic or social life, should never do or say anything unfit to be made public, might be a very safe man, but he would also be a very reserved, if not indeed an austere one; and any other than such a one could suffer no greater calamity, in his posthumous fame, than to fall into the hands of some admirer, who, with more zeal than judgment, should, à la Boswell, expose to public gaze the picture of his private life. The "Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell" is a work in some degree obnoxious to these criticisms. Dr. Beattie, the compiler, was the intimate personal friend of the poet during the later years of his life, and an ardent admirer of his genius; was appointed one of the executors in his will, and by consent of surviving friends, became his biographer. Of course, he came to his literary task with much zeal, and has pursued it with an unfailing interest. But while he everywhere manifests the interest that he himself feels, he fails to communicate it to the reader, who is often only a spectator when he should be a participant of the joys or sorrows of the occasion. He seems to have thought that whatever Campbell had said or done, ought to be remembered and admired, and, therefore, that it was his duty to detail everything for public use; and though the example of his admired subject is evidently an unsafe one, yet are his faults and follies all spread out before us, but with so kind a hand as to seem only as the venial aberrations of a gifted spirit, or the exuberances of genius. This method of writing biography is most pernicious. Either let the faults of the sons of genius be forgotten, or, if they must be remembered, let them be branded with their real character, lest the lustre of mental greatness gild the deformities of vice, and cause crime itself to appear no longer odious. As a writer, Dr. Beattie is not destined to attain great eminence. He is fitted rather to be the companion of literary men than to assume a high place as one of the craft. He has more taste than genius, and his taste is rather appreciative than discriminating. Yet has he given us a very readable work,-too large, indeed, by nearly one-half, which is so common a fault among that class of books, that it must be endured as a kind of destiny. But in this case the reader may readily abridge for himself by omitting any portion of the documentary matter with which these volumes abound,-unless, indeed, he fears that he may lose some of the good things that are scattered among these voluminous extracts. The work will unquestionably find readers. With these notices of the work spoken of above, we take leave of it for the present, designing to devote this paper rather to the subject than to the book,-the life and literary history of Thomas Campbell the poet. The old Scottish crone was somewhat in error, who, when her little grandchild read to her the story of the patriarch of Uz, at the mention of the three thousand camels, exclaimed, "Och, lassie! the caumels are an auld clan, then,”-for, in fact, the Campbells were among the most recent of all the clans of Scotland, dating back no further than the eleventh century. Among the adventurers who followed the Norman Conqueror into England was Gilespie de Camille, who afterward engaged in the service of the king of Scotland, in which service he and with her the lairdship of Lochawe. From that stock sprang the famous clan of the Campbells. The line of their chieftains may be traced downward through Sir Neil, a contemporary and compatriot of Robert Bruce, to Archibald, whose name stands as a pillar of history in the records of his clan. This Archibald died in 1360, leaving three sons;-Colin, who succeeded to the honours of the family, Tavis, ancestor of Dunardrie,-and Iver, from whom sprang the Campbells of Kirnan, the family of Thomas Campbell. The fame of the poet, however, rests but slightly upon his ancestry, and he had the good sense not to pride himself upon a title so precarious. Only once is the subject introduced in his poems, and then with a highly commendable modesty. In his "Lines on Receiving a Seal with the Campbell Crest," after denominating that crest the same he adds, "That erst the adventurous Norman wore," "Yet little might I prize the stone, If it but typed the feudal tree, From whence, a scatter'd leaf, I'm blown On Fortune's mutability." Before the birth of the poet, (Sept. 27, 1777,) the family estate at Kirnan had been alienated. His father was the youngest of three brothers, all of whom went from home to better their fortunes. Robert, the oldest, went to England, and was a political writer under Walpole's administration, but sunk into obscurity upon the decline of that minister, and afterward died in penury. Archibald, the second brother, came to America, and was settled as a Presbyterian minister in Westmoreland, Virginia, where he died in 1795, full of years, and greatly honoured. Alexander, the father of the poet, having been bred to the mercantile profession, followed his brother to Virginia, and was for several years occupied as a merchant at Falmouth, in that State. He then returned to his native country, and established himself in his profession, in the city of Glasgow, where he married when past middle life, and afterward reared a large family. His business, being mostly in American trade, was ruined by the war of the Revolution, so that he was greatly embarrassed during his subsequent life-time, and at last died in poverty. He was a man of singular integrity of character, and, true to the reli gious affinities of his countrymen, he was a Presbyterian. In after times, his gifted but more wayward son used to speak of his father's daily family devotions, and pronounce them the most correct and eloquent extempore prayers to which he had ever listened. Thomas was the youngest of eleven children that were born to his parents, the son of his father's old age, and peculiarly an object of parental affection and earnest hope. His father's smiles were always most radiant when they beamed upon his boy,-his junior by almost seventy years,— "While, like a new existence to his heart, That living flower uprose beneath his eye." And even the native severity of his more youthful and energetic companion relaxed into fondness as she gazed upon the last of her progeny budding into adolescence before her. The feelings with which her indomitable spirit lingered around the object of her maternal affections and ambitious expectations are happily delineated in one of the most exquisite passages of the "Pleasures of Hope," -the mother's apostrophe to her sleeping infant: "Sleep, image of thy father, sleep, my boy: No lingering hour of sorrow shall be thine, And chase the world's ungenerous scorn away.” Johnson's observation relative to Goldsmith, that "he was a plant that flowered late," will not apply to Campbell; for he was evidently and eminently a vernal flower. His poetical genius was especially precocious, for at ten years old he produced verses of very considerable merit. His school exercises, consisting of translations from the classics, were rendered in verse, as a matter of preference, and large portions of the Latin poets were committed to memory. But the Greek became at length his favourite pursuit, and to the end of his life he seemed more ambitious of the reputation of a first-rate Greek scholar than of that of the first of English poets. At thirteen years old he entered the University of Glasgow, where his progress was one uninterrupted triumph. Though the youngest member of his class, he won nearly all the first prizes; and in classics and belles-lettres he had no competitor. Not satisfied with his college triumphs, nor sufficiently occupied with the labour they cost him, he was accustomed to indulge his satirical muse in good-natured attacks upon his rivals, and to touch off their several peculiarities with rather a free hand. At sixteen, an event occurred that made a deep impression upon his mind, and probably gave direction to his subsequent career. He visited Edinburgh for the first time, and, while there, witnessed the trial and condemnation of a number of notable political offenders. The whole affair, with its attendant circumstances, was well adapted to impress the mind of a country youth possessed of a highly susceptible and active imagination. The stately eloquence of the advocate and counsel commanded his admiration; but the impassioned and highly eloquent address of one of the prisonerswho, passing by mere conventional forms, and appealing to a higher authority than legislatures can give, claimed for himself and his associates the inalienable rights of men-quite overwhelmed him. He returned home, and resumed his duties at the university, but he seemed a very different person from his former self. His wit and vivacity were replaced by a cold reserve and moping meditativeness. Politics for a season took the place of poetry, and "human rights" were more thought of by him than taste and philosophy. His application to his college duties, however, was rather increased than diminished, and the award of two prizes, at the ensuing examination, convinced his associates that if indeed he was mad, there was some "method in his madness." During his fourth session at the university, the increasing exigencies of the family caused him to wish for some means by which to provide for his own subsistence. His father was bending over the grave, burdened with old age and accumulated misfortunes; and from the other members of the family our young student could expect but little assistance. He wished to gain a profession; but the relief promised in that direction was distant and problematical, while his case demanded a certain and speedy return. A situation was accordingly procured as tutor in the family of a widowed relative, Mrs. Campbell, of Sunipol, in Mull, one of the Hebrides. Here he devoted himself to his new duties, and divided his large intervals of leisure between his favourite classics and his out-door rambles. For these his situation was highly auspicious, for here he communed with nature in her sublimest aspects, and imbibed from the contemplation a deep and awful inspiration. But it was a new and somewhat painful change of situation, for one so young and susceptible to be torn away from his cherished associations, and placed, almost in solitude, in his far-off island |