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TO retrograde a little in a desultory way. The solitude of the
old domestic hearth has been already alluded to, as one cause of the poet’s change of
residence. His removal to Scotland Yard took him away from old associations and from his
study which he had added to his house, at a considerable expense. This shifting the scene
and yet remaining a housekeeper, had the objection of still attaching domestic details to
his incapacity for their management. His loneliness soon began to press upon him again,
though he gave evening parties occasionally, and concealed as much as ever the contest that
went on in his own bosom. His absences of mind were at
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“You did see it; as usual, I knew it was one of those you would be delicate about, and put it in my pocket when I came on such an evening, to take coffee with you.”
“I had entirely forgot all about it.”
“I thought you were abstracted when I was describing it to you.”
He was soon tired of Scotland Yard. His loneliness began to press heavy on his feelings, and he wanted me to leave Upper Berkley Street, and come down nearer to him. I pleaded my small allowance of spare time. One of the later evenings I spent in Scotland Yard, I remember was one of the latest of those Mrs. Siddons ever passed out of her own house, and that John Lockhart and Washington Irving were of the party.
Under the same roof, but with another entrance, sat the Ecclesiastical Commission, his tenants, if I remember rightly.
“What a wonder—is it a conversion, that I find a son of the kirk, a covenanter, under the same roof with bishops, deans, doctors, and proctors. I was not aware you had abandoned John Knox, for high church Laud. I wonder the bishops do not scent the odour of your heretical tenets?”
“In the Stuart time they would have shut me
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He soon removed into lodgings, tired of housekeeping. This led him much
into society, for he felt his loneliness still more. He bore a part in many of the club
dinners, and shared in the conviviality, to which to the same extent he had been long a
stranger. He had no evening fireside as formerly, and seemed to live with less regularity.
He had begun to try and accustom himself to new habits at the very period of life, when
custom generally points to a state of rest from change of any kind. Thrown upon accident he
grew restless and mentally dissatisfied. Yet he took a pride in seeming indifferent to
feelings that were sometimes exceedingly acute. He sought a refuge in company, often not
with his former care in its selection, partaking in everyday conversation more than before,
and seeming to want to lose sight of the past in the present. I have inferred, I think upon
just grounds, for no one had so good an opportunity of observing the poet’s domestic
life for nine or ten years before his wife’s decease, that her death threw him back
into habits that existed before his marriage.
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Scotland is not a land of restraint from youthful conviviality. The
social glass is taken to no small extent by those who are never seen inebriated—taken
in quantities, even in youth, in a manner unknown in England. An hour of extraordinary
indulgence in England is an after-dinner affair, not often repeated. The poet’s
disposition was no doubt convivial at an early age, and even at college the bottle was not
spared by young men. Then he went to Hamburgh, and at Altona, with the exiles, he had
“merry bouts.” He returned home, was feasted, flattered and welcomed
everywhere, and only broke through those indulgences on his marriage, and retirement to
Sydenham. The convivialities of Thomas Hill there,
could not have been injurious and were comparatively few. In his own house on receiving
company, he was remarkably moderate, and took no more wine than other men did, and for days
together none at all. The re-
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Campbell appears, upon a careful survey of his
career and productions, to have reached the summit of his poetical ability, about 1812;
declining until 1825, and rapidly afterwards. As Scott
remarked he had burst upon the world magnificently with a work of surpassing excellence.
His youthful poetry, before he was eighteen, gave no promise of such excellence, although
it exhibited the early dawn of the poetical faculty. Other poets had far outstripped his
boyish efforts. Pope at twelve years of age, far
outshone him. Some of his translations from the Greek at that age are
plagiarisms—take those from “Anacreon” for example, particularly the nineteenth ode “Ή γη
μέλαινα πίνει.” No one can mistake that the boy had been reading the translation of
“Anacreon” by Fawkes, which is not in every
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“The sun in his prodigious cup, Drinks all the seas and rivers up.” |
“The sea in his prodigious cup, Drinks all the rain and rivers up.” |
Boys get translations sometimes among themselves, and use them in this
manner. His lines “To the First of
May,” were an imitation of our older poets of the same age, written at
fourteen. In fact, the “Lines” he wrote in Mull are the first, perhaps, in order of merit out of the
common run of their time. His verses to Caroline are sweet, delicate,
passionless, and full of promise, but there was nothing to foretell so splendid an outbreak
upon the world as was to follow, in the “Pleasures of Hope.” The original draught of
which was fine, though by no means equal to the poem as it stood when corrected by
Dr. Anderson’s suggestions, and the
poet’s fortunate perception after all, of the benefit of that high finish which is
contemned by present poetasters. There are lines in the “Pleasures
of Hope” that will be orally transmitted through future generations, and
become familiar aphorisms among those who have never read the work, when perhaps the lust
of gain will have reduced to
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The second, and his own favourite production, “Gertrude of Wyoming,” not being a didactical
poem, brought out the poet in a different department of the art. It was one in which he was
likely to be successful. That tranquil scenery and those tender emotions of which he
excelled in the description, were main accessories here. His imagination rich and vivid,
flashed forth continually in verse, which for grace, and all that
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From all Campbell wrote it may
be inferred that while he could draw upon his imagination for the richest embellishments of
his art, he had little power in designating combined action. He could decorate with
exquisite taste, and colour, and bathe in beauty and affection, the sentiments with which
he invested and inspired his characters, but he could not conduct them through the
complexity of a plot. He could follow, and render bewitchingly attractive, through the
display of a luxuriant taste, straight lines in the blooming
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When Scott deemed the poet “afraid of the shadow his own fame cast before him,” and when he spoke of his having “wings that would bear him to the skies,” he miscalculated. Campbell’s best works were the fruits of impulsion, at the moment when his genius was at the summit of the hill in his life’s earlier journey. He would willingly have done as well in his middle life if he could, and, indolent as he was, he would and did try for it. Here and there, in some of his shorter pieces down to 1825, there are detached lines and scraps that recal his prime. But even in his sincere and enthusiastic regard for the Poles, when he exerted himself for the best, as far as he had the power, he could not raise the flame to its pristine intensity. The truth was, that the early intensity of his genius had become weakened, measured by the power of its after retention. He had finished his work with éclat, being among those whose lot it was to reach their eminence in early life, and then to see the reflection of their own renown, a pleasure often not reserved for greater names.
In the letters of Horner, an
account is found of the changes the poet made in his “Hohen-
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“Men of England who inherit Rights that cost your sires their blood.” |
So Horner got a copy of his alterations from Campbell himself, and sent them to a friend, who had only the first version, which it appears was in six stanzas, in place of eight, as they now stand.
“Campbell,” said Horner, “gave me a copy of his poem, which will enable me to correct your edition of it, you will be pleased to enjoy it in a more perfect form, instead of six, it consists of eight stanzas; the third is this:—
‘By torch and trumpet fast array’d ‘Each horseman drew his battle-blade, ‘And furious every charger neighed, ‘To join the dreadful revelry.’ |
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‘Few, few shall part where many meet, ‘The snow shall be their winding-sheet, ‘And every turf beneath their feet ‘Shall be a soldier’s sepulchre.’ |
“You must likewise make some corrections in your third stanza, line first, for ‘by’ read ‘with;’ line second, for ‘rush’d,’ read ‘flew;’ line third, for ‘volleying like the bolts,’ read ‘louder than the bolts;” [here I think a had line has been altered for the worse]. In your fourth stanza, for ‘and,’ read ‘but,’ in line first, and for ‘these fires’ read ‘that light;’ line second, for ‘purpled,’ read ‘stained;’ line third, for ‘shall be the flow,’ read ‘the torrent flow.” In your fifth stanza, for ‘warlike,’ read ‘fiery.’”
Of Dryden’s three best
odes, the noblest is said by Johnson, to be that on
the “Death of Mrs.
Killigrew;” “The Odes on St. Cecilia’s
Day” come after it. We have the charming ode of Collins, and several by Gray; but in subject and happy execution none resemble those of Campbell, and therefore do not admit of comparison.
Campbell’s are war-songs—Tyrtean—severe in
language, short, and full of spirit. They stand a species of their own, while conferring
fame upon their author, adding another wreath to the literary glory of their country. It
was well to have written no
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Campbell seldom made allusion to his own writings, never but twice, during our long intimacy. We were dining with Mr. R——, of Paddington, one day, and Lord Dillon, in a conversation in the drawing-room, asked me if I did not think Campbell’s best ode “Ye Mariners of England.” The poet had overheard us speaking of the ode, and walking home, asked what his Lordship and myself had been saying about his verses. I replied, that Lord D. preferred “Ye Mariners of England,” and that I gave the preference to the “Battle of the Baltic.” “Why what makes you prefer that piece to the other?”
“Because, it is a piece of action, addressed to more senses than one. It is a painting of a naval combat, the sound is truly an echo to the sense. The repetition ‘Again, again, again,’ is not only spirit-stirring, but quite truthful. The heavy firing of shipping often has short pauses, and then ‘Again, again.’ I have heard much of it, and it has been recalled by those words, it seemed like the real thing.”
“I am glad you think so,” said the poet, “it was unpremeditated on my part.”
Every stanza is a natural and perfect painting of itself, so that an
artist might sketch from it a distinct feature. In the first, stand the warriors
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If Sir Walter Scott was of opinion, though he could imitate all the modern poets, he must make Campbell an exception, because his peculiarities were not in manner but in matter, still his verses have been and are quoted by literati, in the senate and on public occasions, beyond those of any contemporary poet. “Lochiel,” “Glenara,” “The Mariners of England,” and “The Pleasures of Hope,” supply quotations for illustration to all ranks of men, because they respond to every heart, the true key to popularity.
Here I must close these reminiscences, entreating the reader to recal
the quotation addressed to him at the commencement of these volumes, and to remember that
to do more I have not pretended. I subjoin a few scattered remembrances of the poet, and of
things in connection with him, not in the order of dates, which is impracticable, and
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The poet did not excel in epistolary writing; there was a want of that careless ease which, accompanying the generality of subjects in familiar intercourse, makes their great charm; for it must be admitted, that the nearer our communications are in style to unstudied conversation the greater is their virtue. There was too much of the stiffness of metaphysics and the moral philosophy class in many of his letters; whereas, had they been touched with the spirit of his poetry their value would have been proportionate. The two are antagonistic; a Scotch education is ever marked with the metaphysical brand. Campbell had too much of the poet’s holy fire for metaphysics to quench, though they might sometimes deaden, the lustre of his prose writings.
The advance of the human race to some more elevated position at an era
far remote from the present, was a thing which he did not call impossible; but of what
moment could it be to us of the existing generation! When I said that with a single British
frigate I could defeat the navies of Rome and Carthage united, that I could dare the
unknown ocean, and circumnavigate the globe,
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“Admitting all this, what is it to us if in time, man, in place of threescore years and ten lives to a hundred, and is enabled by his advance to ‘tine the red lightning?’ We shall have passed away—your philosophy is very consolatory, to be sure!”
“It is the condition of our existence that we are as we are, and as we shall be. I speak of our race. Why we existed at all we cannot explain.”
“It is an hopeless affair that man will ever be much other than he is.”
Then he would change the subject, his views evidently unsettled, and
often terminate the conversation in a common-place joke. While in the
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He formed no just estimate of his own beautiful productions. “Hohenlinden,” that immortal ode, would not have been published at all but for Scott. The poet said it was only a “d—d drum-and-trumpet thing.” How he prevented the introduction of the beautiful “Dirge of Wallace,” in editing his works, because he did not think “it was perfect,” I have stated. Remonstrance was in vain.
Seldom, except in a moment when he seemed thrown off his guard, would he refer to the past. I recollect a story or two of his boyish tricks marked by nothing that has not happened to all boys at school, and not at all characteristic. These he stated at a moment of hilarity, to second a story told by a friend of his own childish days a little similar, and not worth putting into type.
During the whole of the year 1832 the poet was swallowed up in Polish
affairs. It was a real
| 338 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
“Warsaw’s last champion,” |
“And freedom shriek’d, as Kosciusko fell!” |
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“You believe I have dined?”
“Most assuredly, but the good-natured world does not know it.”
“Pooh! I don’t care for the world.”
Half-a-dozen lines a day would have completed the Life of Mrs. Siddons in a fourth part of the time he
took to finish it. The Poles, too, were sometimes an excuse for his idleness on that
unsatisfactory work. His published letters in relation to his toils at this period are
“awful exaggerations,” often perversions through forgetfulness of the
circumstances to which they relate, and often give incidents, which seeming lapses of
memory, or a desire to be uppermost in everything with the smallest quantum of labour
possible, could alone have coloured. I had once run down to St. Leonard’s to spend a
couple of days with him. In rambling about together, with a third party, having reached the
summit of the East cliff, a place I had often visited, I observed to the poet that I had
little doubt in my own mind but William I. had encamped
there after landing, and before the battle of Hastings. “Come with me
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He was much struck with the spot, and that night began some verses, as he told me the next day (I was at the St. Leonard’s Hotel) when I went to breakfast with him. He could not get them ready in time, and sent them to town after me, for insertion in “The Metropolitan.” In his note that accompanied the verses, he wrote:—
“My dear Sir,—I have forwarded a paper to you which I think will be thought interesting. I bespoke it from Mr. M——, the traveller in Turkey, who is now here.
“I enclose you a note, the signature of which I cannot make out, though I suppose it to be known. What a shame for people to write so affectedly! Pray address it, if you know the name.
“Pray favour me with a little historical note about the Camp-hill, on which I have made the stanzas. The substance of what you told us on the spot will suffice, and let it be subjoined with the poem.
The verses are those beginning—
“In the deep blue of eve, Ere the stars had appeared one by one,” &c. |
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I wrote:—
“What is called the East hill at Hastings is crowned with the works of an ancient camp, and it is more than probable it was the spot which William I. occupied between his landing and the battle which gave him England’s crown. It is a strong position; the works are easily traced.”
Of this there could be only my conjecture; no history of the spot remains, no record of the exact place William I. occupied on his landing before the battle; much less could it be known to have been occupied the evening before the Norman defeated Harold. The road out of Hastings to Battle, too, lay on the west of the town. Campbell, in a letter written to one of his correspondents, observes, in the month I thus visited him:—
“The subject of the following lines, which will appear in ‘The Metropolitan’ for September, is a spot of ground not far from the castle of Hastings, on which I have ascertained, by a comparison of histories, the camp of William the Conqueror must have been placed the evening before he defeated Harold!”
This was no solitary case of his want of memory, and its supply by
taking the credit of what hardly belonged to him as to the history of places and
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He had been long fearful of the conduct of a countryman of his, and therefore had kept him under surveillance, and in that case nothing escaped his notice, though he was in general the most unsuspicious of mankind; but the party owed the poet money. He wrote me, “His word is not worth a straw; he has three times deceived Mr. M—— himself, in his promise to send to me. Mr. M—— and you believe that you can manage him; and so Captain C—— believed before you. It is my belief that he could manage you all three put together.” The poet was right, and he rallied us all three upon it as a triumph. He got his money, and we did not. I replied that it was no wonder as the affair was a money one, and he was a North Briton, pitted against a countryman, with whom three Southerns had no chance. He replied that he thought a lesson or two in the North would do us all three good, and he would give us introductions, for a Scotch rogue was generally a well-educated man, worth half-a-dozen English ones through his better instruction.
No one in moments of relaxation was a more lively companion; but he
moved by fits and starts, and required to be reminded of the most ordinary things. His fine
eyes would sometimes seem to
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 343 |
On calling upon me, Swift’s works were upon the table.
“I have not read him for many years,” remarked Campbell, “and whoever reads him a second time laughs more heartily at him than on the first perusal, at least I do. He represents the mass of mankind just what it is in respect to its rationality. How superstitious and grovelling is its spirit! It was an admirable hit at the prevalent superstition for burying the dead east and west, to propose burying them with their heads downwards.”
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No man was more the advocate of religious freedom than Campbell. He would have everyone judge for himself, abhorred any kind of persecution, and never cared to ask a man what his creed was, as a thing with which he had no concern. He had a number of good stories about the rigidly righteous of his countrymen. His own religious opinions were sceptical; but he was exceedingly cautious of any religious topic before strangers. He was blind to the failings of friends, charitable and humane in his feelings, ready to do a kind act to another, only give him the hint, and fond of town rather than country life. He was often despondent. One day Horace Smith met him when he felt some disappointment about the London University, and asked about it.
“My dear friend, don’t ask me a word about it. I never
wish to hear its name mentioned. Don’t ask me about any thing upon the success of
which I have set my heart, for you may be sure it’s a failure. All attempts at
improving or benefiting my fellow-creatures I have given up for ever. I have now had a
pretty long experience, and I have at length come to the conclusion—I wish I had
done so sooner—that our race is not destined to improve, even if it do not
relapse into comparative barbarism. Ay, you may shake your head; I know you are a
sanguine believer in a never-ceasing progress towards higher desti-
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It was rarely Campbell would discuss elevated and learned subjects before a third party. Lockhart often tried him on Spanish literature. They occupied his retired moments; and although he so well knew how to treat difficult points, he preferred in conversation in mixed company either to be reserved, or very social and lively. No one at certain times was more ready to join in setting the table in a roar, when in the particular humour.
To one well acquainted with the incidents stated—no unimportant
witness, and, indeed, actor in the same scenes—the statements made by the poet in his
senility are so much at war with the real facts, that they are painful to read. His
recollection was continually at fault, and circumstances of little real moment to himself
or others, are so misstated, as to afford evidence of the effect of time upon some
constitutions, and upon the poet’s in a particular manner. This was remarked by
Horace Smith, while the poet was alive, and by
many of his friends. Smith has left an evidence of it in the statement
which follows. Matter, too, which, it is presumed, was extracted from the notes
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“I was once,” said Smith, “rallying him in his last years upon his depression of spirits, and recommending his shaking off certain gloomy views he had of the world. He replied:—
“‘Oh, I am at no loss for much better society than the world can give me; come and see what a companion I have.’
“He led the way to an oil-painting in Lincoln’s Inn Chambers, the size of life, representing a handsome gipsy girl, the work of a Polish emigrant. In an excited tone, he gave the history of the picture, quite unconscious of the hallucination his narrative betrayed:—
“‘I was walking down Great Queen Street, when I saw this
beautiful creature in a broker’s shop, gazing upon me with such a friendly smile,
that I instantly stood transfixed. So much was I smitten with the painting, that I
inquired the price, but finding that it was forty guineas, much more than I could
afford to give, I uttered a deep sigh, and walked on to Long Acre. But the
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“Seeing it would be difficult and hardly desirable to dispel an illusion which had a charm for his imaginative mind, I did not attempt to combat it, and willingly admitted the great beauty of his canvas innamorata.”
The poet would sometimes have recourse to stratagem to get over a
difficulty, or where he was pressed against his inclination about anything he was reluctant
to do or deny, and would circumvent. His plans generally shewed his simplicity on these
occasions, by their want of depth. In a
| 348 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
I intended by “a Scotticism” merely some innocent stratagem
to avoid that which he disliked, or to promote self-interest, when he had not inclination
and firmness to say no, playing what he styled “paukiness” upon another. There
were one or two places in London where, forced to make morning calls, he was always pressed
to sit longer, under a variety of excuses, and where, too, he felt he had no disinclination
to linger, and lose time in spite of himself. On leaving his house of an evening, he said
to me, “Are you going into town to-morrow?—if so, call for me and we will
walk together.” Upon calling, I found he had gone out before me, leaving word
that he would be obliged to me if I would call for him at a house in a particular street. I
did so, and he immediately joined me. This occurring more than once, I thought it odd,
especially when one day, knocking and asking for him, in the same manner, the servant said
his mistress requested I would walk up into the drawing-room, at the door of which I met
Campbell, bustling away on hearing my name
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“It is of no more use now,” said the poet, “I have made a cat’s-paw of you, that is the truth, to get me away from those people where I always lose too much time. They will never let me go, and your calling allowed me to plead another engagement.”
“It had been the fashion,” he said, “to accuse
our language of hissing sounds. This might in some degree be a charge well founded,
especially since the th, the beautiful Greek θ, had been so much discarded to make room for the s; but
there were lines in the Latin classics that in this respect could meet any of ours. What
must the ancient Romans have thought of them if the sound of the s
was so very annoying to classical ears? Foscolo, on
being asked what sounds in our language were most pleasing and unpleasing to his
Greek-Italian ear, made no mention of those overburdened with the accused letter. He said
the most disagreeable word we had was a Spanish word, mucho, made worse by our pronunciation, ‘much.’ It was
horrible to his ear. One of the most agreeable sounds in any language was our
‘indeed.’ pronounced partly in the way of interjec-
| 350 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
‘Dixerat: et spissia noctis so condidit umbris.
Adparent diræ facies, inimicaque Trojæ Numina magna deûm.’ |
‘Elle dit, et dans l’ombre echappe à mes
regards,
Alors, le voile tombe; alors de toutes parts, Je vois des dieux vengeurs la figure effroyante.’ |
When Lord Londonderry committed
suicide, Campbell was much struck with a
circumstance
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“No one could accuse his lordship,” the poet observed, “of being over-sensitive, early schooled as he had been in all that was hardening and unfeeling.”
Some singular reasons were assigned at the time for the act. Campbell took the most indulgent view of the case.
“It was no matter for the cause, since it was equally humbling to human nature to see a man at the pinnacle of hope, and prospering in the sight of the world, struck down thus into the grave.”
“You say,” he observed to me, “few will miss Lord Londonderry. That may be true; but it is a lesson of an inscrutable character happening to such an individual. That a mind, either of a wide or narrow scope, should thus overturn itself, was a painful contemplation. There was a man of a superior intellect and virtue to Lord Londonderry, Romilly, committed the same act, and Whitbread, too. Who can rely upon his own strength of mind even in no uncommon circumstances! You know a medical man, as well as I do, who says the balance between suicide and existence often turns upon a blue pill. If so, what are we?”
The poet thought there were three classes of readers, one of which,
quoting Dryden, were
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Washington Irving was sitting with Campbell while at Whitehall, when a raw Scot called, and hearing there was company, said he would wait. He then began to pump a youth whom Campbell had employed to write.
“I suppose our Irving, may be, is giving the poet a little godly advice, and needs o’ it. The last time he was in Glasgow he never was in the kirk at all, but once, to hear one of our guid men.”
“I don’t know,” replied the youth,
“anything
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 353 |
“You are wrong, laddie, there is no so in his godly works, unless he ha’ writ anything leesome very lately.”
“You have never read his ‘Salmagundi,’ then, and have a pleasure to come?”
“Who should think of such a primsie man trying his hand at ungodly beuks?”
“You have read his ‘Knickerbocker’s History of New York?’”
“Come, laddie, this is carrying it too far. Don’t mock haly men. You maun think me daff to stan’ a’ that.”
The American took his leave, and the poet laughed immoderately at his countryman mistaking Washington Irving, who wrote “Salmagundi,” for the wild-looking enthusiast.
When Prince Czartorisky came an
exile to England, Earl Grey, then prime minister, called
upon him, though scarcely, if at all, personally acquainted; but Campbell remarked, with some asperity, that Lord Brougham, not long before made Chancellor, did not call
upon the Prince, though they were old acquaintance. The motive attributed to the Lord
Chancellor might have been mere surmise; but as he had just put on the
“courtier’s coat,” the incident appeared singular. “I am sorry
to see Brougham so actuated,” said
| 354 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
It is well known that the “Exile of Erin” was written by Campbell in 1800, upon an interesting Irishman named McCann, who took refuge in Hamburgh from the torturings practised by those in authority in Ireland, about the time of the rebellion. Campbell, visiting Berlin in 1825, went to Hamburgh on his return towards home, and saw his old friend. A dinner was given to the poet here, and he was heartily welcomed by those with whom he became acquainted on his first visit. McCann was alive, and Campbell had a communication from him in 1832. He has been dead many years, not having been suffered to return to England, though applications were repeatedly made in his behalf.
There is a statement on the strength of a friend’s recollection, that Campbell, in putting together “The Life of Mrs. Siddons,” so scanty of material, said, “Confound the woman! I wish her career had not been so monotonous and so virtuous, for it does not afford me any supplies, either of incident or scandal; so that when I once get her off the theatrical stage, I shall not have a word more left to say about her.”
When the poet was composing “Theodric,” Hook declared that,
passing by his house, he saw the knocker tied up. Thinking the poet ill, he
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Captain Marryat sent an article to “The Metropolitan” in favour of naval punishment. Always on the side of humanity, Campbell sent him the following lines, which afterwards went into that publication:—
“Ingenious author of this article, I believe in your doctrine not one particle, But if e’er the power be mine To flog contributors, my boy, Your back shall be the first to enjoy The benefit of the Nine!” |
The following joke of the poet’s own, was related to a friend in one of his pleasant conversational moods, not caring whether the joke ran for or against himself:—
“Walking one day,” he said, “along Holborn
Hill, he perceived he had burst his boot. The streets were wet, and he turned into the
first shop where he could provide himself with a new pair, which was soon accomplished,
when he wrote down his name and residence in an address-book kept for that purpose,
directing the old boots to be sent home to him. No sooner had the shop-
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“‘I beg your pardon, sir; I hope I am not taking too great a liberty; I would not for the world be guilty of the smallest disrespect, but may I venture to inquire whether I have the honour of seeing in my shop the celebrated Mr. Thomas Campbell?’
“‘My dear sir,’” said the bard, in relating this anecdote, ‘I have heard so little lately of my literary reputation, for people have almost forgotten ‘The Pleasures of Hope,’ that having, as I fondly imagined, caught a new and ardent admirer, I resolved to play with the hook a little; so I replied, looking as modest and unconscious as I could,—
“‘I don’t exactly know whom you mean by the celebrated Mr. Thomas Campbell.’
“‘Oh, sir,’ cried the fellow, ‘I meant Mr. Thomas Campbell, the African missionary—I never heard of any other!’
“An ignorant Muggletonian rascal!” ejaculated the bard, in narrating this misadventure, “I’ll never buy another pair of boots of him as long as I live.”
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When the Reform Bill was proceeding, Campbell remarked, “It must come, that reform. The most anti-popular minister can only retard the measure for a time. Even now, see how much better are the times than those through which you and I have lived. The chances of fighting for freedom are over, in this country at least.”
“I see, you would not have been knocked on the head with the old Covenanters.”
“I am afraid I should have taken that side.”
“It was the right side, as time has proved; but your friend, Sir Walter (Scott), does not quite think so.”
“No; Sir Watty, as Lady Scott used to call him, will stand by his regiment ‘right or wrang,’ as the old countrywoman prayed that God would do with Hamilton’s regiment. But Sir Walter is in earnest, believes himself right, and acts upon that belief.”
“Our friend, Horace Smith, has just been twitting the great novelist. See these lines, in some manuscript poetry he has enclosed to me,—
“Why does not England’s pride, the good Sir
Walter, Embalm their names in some immortal song! Alas! he would not have us mend or alter What time hath hallowed, be it right or wrong, And leaves oppression and corruption still To work their will!” |
“Smith is a good
fellow; but has not Scott
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I replied in the affirmative, and said I would take the risk of erasing the stanza, and Smith would not be displeased.
When Hazlitt published “The New Pigmalion,” which he afterwards endeavoured to suppress, wholly unworthy of his talent as it was, Campbell said, “‘Pigmalion,’ indeed! the title should be ‘Hogmalion!’”
His talent for punning, I have before observed, was not great.
“I have not a sixpence,” I said to him one day; “my money is in my writing-desk, and I have lost the key.”
“Never mind, Redding,” said Campbell, jestingly, “if nothing better turns up, you are sure of a post among the lackheys.”
One day at the dinner-table, Colonel Jones of the
Guards, Lord Denman, and others being present, the
Colonel complained that there were too many men in the Guards recruited from the
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“No, not exactly,” said the poet, “you might have had their masters.”
He would play upon an old pun of his own, and yet it did not appear threadbare from his mouth.
He wrote Horace Smith from Algiers, that it was the land of dates, for he had seen a camel carrying a load on his back. But he had long before said that the East was the site in which to write works on Chronology, “because it was the country of dates.”
Halting once at an inn in Haddington, N. B., he was much struck with the charms of the chambermaid. He fell asleep soon after he was in bed, to dream of her beauty, when he was awoke by the girl herself, standing at his bedside with a candle in her hand, and somewhat of an embarrassed air.
“Sir, sir, would you object to a bedfellow?” she questioned him with a hesitating voice.
Supposing she alluded to herself, he declared how he should be delighted.
“Oh, sir, I am so glad,” she replied; “there is a drunken Brummagem rider below, wants a bed, and I have been so bold as ask whether you’d let him turn in with you, for nobody I have yet asked will hear of the man.”
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He told this story inimitably well.
The poet’s quarrel with the over-praised Dr. Leyden arose from one of those practical jokes of which no man of well-bred habits and gentlemanly feeling would be guilty. Leyden sent a paragraph to a newspaper, in the early part of Campbell’s career, stating that the poet had been playing “hide and seek,” and hoped to make his appearance through the profits of his “Pleasures of Hope.” The youthful sensitiveness of the poet, the falsehood of the story, and his anxiety at that moment in particular, rendered the act doubly mischievous. The poem appeared, and introduced him to all the literati of Edinburgh, who were his friends through life.
I could not take coffee with him, “because,” I observed, “I expected a couple of Jacks”—in reference to two countrymen so named—having hooked me in for the evening.
“I see,” said he, “you are the line to catch the Jacks that Busby wrote of,—
‘Hæc est progenies magnos captare
Johannes.’” |
The toast given by Campbell, out of compliment to the late great artist, Turner, and the retort, so ready of the artist, are perfectly true.
“Gentlemen, I give you the painters and glaziers!”
“I will respond, gentlemen,” said Turner, “by giving you ‘the paper-stainers!’”
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Miss Webb was a lady who used her pen, not without considerable ability, some years ago. She was an amiable woman of some talent and ultimately married when very far gone in a state of single-blessedness. Some of those who were fond of nicknaming their friends called her “The Mummy,” in consequence of a tale she wrote so denominated.
“Who is that lady?” said the poet to L—— the first time he happened to be in her company.
“She is intensely blue,” replied L——, with affectation, “she is ‘The Mummy.’”
“It is the first time I have heard of a blue mummy!” was the response.
A man who had been a shoemaker, and unexpectedly came into a large property several years before, was invited to the tables of the people near him in a large country town, which shall be nameless. He was courted by those who would have despised him at his honest trade. At the dinner-table he had not the tact to accommodate his manners somewhat to the change as anyone else would have done. The poet, asking our host who he was, that he conducted himself so oddly—
“He is very rich, a man who has once been at the last!”
“O, I understand—he was before only accustomed to the table of ‘shoebread!’”
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“Rogers the poet,” said Campbell, “has been pressed with many applications for assistance and advice by literary tyros. One application began: ‘I am sorry to say I have been unsuccessful in my commercial pursuits, and not knowing what course to take, having exhausted my little capital, I have thought of turning my mind to literature as a last resource. How would you advise me to proceed, as I am “wholly inexperienced in that line?” I should esteem it a great kindness for a hint or two from one so capable of giving it.’ Rogers replied that as his correspondent was sensible he could not trade commercially without capital, was he not also aware that capital of another kind was necessary to authorship? When, therefore, he communicated the amount disposable for his projected undertaking, he should have his advice. Nothing more was heard of the applicant.”
When a certain minister received his appointment, Campbell said, “You don’t know the most shining talents necessary he should possess. He will ever be the most distinguished in his post as a statesman, who knows how to take advantage of the talents of other people after duly balancing them. He need have none himself.”
Of the poet’s relatives and friends in Glasgow and Edinburgh,
many have followed him to the
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