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Clan Campbell from which he sprung. The Lines in question are barren of promise they flow freely, and abound in pretty similitudes; but there is more of the trim garden breeze in their composition, than the fine bracing air of Argyleshire.

He did not remain long in the humble situation of a tutor, but made his way to Edinburgh in the winter of 1798. What his expectations were in Edinburgh, no one has told us. He came with part of a poem in his pocket, and acquiring the friendship of Dr. Robert Anderson, and the esteem of Dugald Stewart, he made bold to lay his poem and his expectations before them. The poem in question was the first rough draft of "Pleasures of Hope." Stewart nodded approbation, and Anderson was all rapture and suggestion. The poet listened, altered, and enlarged — lopped, pruned, and amended, till the poem grew much as we now see it. The first fourteen lines were the last that were written. We have this curious piece of literary information from a lady who knew Campbell well, esteemed him truly, and was herself esteemed by him in return. Anderson always urged the want of a good beginning, and when the poem was on its way to the printer, again pressed the necessity of starting with a picture complete in itself. Campbell all along admitted the justice of the criticism, but never could please himself with what he did. The last remark of Dr. Anderson's roused the full swing of his genius within him, and he returned the next day to the delighted doctor, with that fine comparison between the beauty of remote objects in a landscape, and those ideal scenes of happiness which imaginative minds promise to themselves with all the certainty of hope fulfilled. Anderson was more than pleased, and the new comparison was made the opening of the new poem.

"At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?

Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?
'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,

And robes the mountain in its azure hue.

Thus, with delight we linger to survey

The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;

Thus from afar, each dim-discover'd scene

More pleasing seems than all the past hath been;

And every form that Fancy can repair

From dark oblivion, glows divinely there."

There is a kind of inexpressible pleasure in the very task of copying the Claude-like scenery and repose of lines so lovely.

With Anderson's last imprimatur upon it, the poem was sent to press. The doctor was looked upon at this time as a whole Willis's Coffee-house in himself; he moved in the best Edinburgh circles, and his judgment was considered infallible. He talked, wherever he went, of his young friend, and took delight, it is said, in contrasting the classical air of Campbell's verses with what he was pleased to call the clever, homespun poetry of Burns. Nor was the volume allowed to want any of the recommendations which art could then lend it. Graham, a clever artist-the preceptor of Sir David Wilkie, Sir William Allan, and John Burnet-was called in, to design a series of illustrations to accompany the poem, so that when "The Pleasures of Hope" appeared in May, 1799, it had every kind of attendant bladder to give it a balloonwaft into public favor.

All Edinburgh was alive to its reception, and warm and hearty was its welcome. No Scotch poet, excepting Falconer, had produced a poem with the same structure of versification before. There was no Sir Walter Scott in those days; the poet of "Marmion" and the "Lay" was only known as a modest and not indifferent translator from the German: Burns was in his grave, and Scotland was without a poet. Campbell became the Lion of Edinburgh. "The last time I saw you," said an elderly lady to the

poet one day, within our hearing, "was in Edinburgh; you were then swaggering about with a Suwarrow jacket." "Yes," said Campbell, "I was then a contemptible puppy." 'But that was thirty years ago, and more," remarked the lady. "Whist, whist," said Campbell, with an admonitory finger, "it is unfair to reveal both our puppyism and our years."

If the poet's friends were wise in giving the note of preparation to the public for the reception of a new poem, they were just as unwise in allowing Campbell to part with the copyright of his poems to Mundell, the bookseller, for the small sum of twenty guineas. Yet twenty guineas was a good deal to embark in the purchase of a poem by an untried poet: and when we reflect that Mundell had other risks to run-that paper and print, and above all the cost of engravings, were defrayed by himwe may safely say, that he hazarded enough in giving what he gave for that rare prize in the lottery of literature, a remunerating poem. We have no complaint to make against the publisher. Mundell behaved admirably well, if what we have heard is true, that the poet had fifty pounds of Mundell's free gift for every after edition of his poem. Our wonder is, that Dr. Anderson and Dugald Stewart allowed the poet to part with the copyright of a poem of which they spoke so highly, and prophesied its success, as we have seen, so truly.

I have never had the good fortune to fall in with the first edition of the "Pleasures of Hope," but learn from the magazines of the day, that several smaller poems, "The Wounded Hussar," "The Harper," &c., were appended to it. The price of the volume was six shillings, and the dedication to Dr. Anderson, is dated “ "Edinburgh, April 13, 1799."

I have often heard it said, and in Campbell's lifetime, that there was a very different copy of the "Pleasures of Hope," in MS., in the hands of Dr. Anderson's family, and I once heard the question put to Campbell, who replied

with a smile, "Oh dear, no; nothing of the kind." The alterations which the poem underwent by Anderson's advice, may have given rise to a belief that the poem was at first very unlike what we now see it.

It was said of Campbell, that by the time

"His hundred of gray hairs
Told six-and-forty years,"

he was unwilling to remember the early attentions of Dr. Anderson. He certainly cancelled or withdrew the dedication of his poem to Dr. Anderson, and this is the only act of seeming unkindness to Dr. Anderson's memory which we have heard adduced against him. But no great stress is to be laid on this little act of seeming forgetfulness. He withdrew, in after-life, the dedication of "Lochiel" to Alison, whose "Essay on Taste," and early friendship for Campbell, justified the honor; and omitted or withdrew the printed dedication of "Gertrude of Wyoming," to the late Lord Holland.

As soon as his poems had put money in his pocket, an early predilection for the German language, and a thirst for seeing some of the continental universities, induced him to visit Germany.

He set sail for Hamburgh, where, struck with the sight of the many Irish exiles in that city, he strung his harp anew, and sung that touching song, "The Exile of Erin," which will endear his name to the heart of every honest Irishman. On his road from Munich to Linz, he witnessed from the walls of a convent the bloody field of Hohenlinden, (Dec. 3, 1800,) and saw the triumphant French cavalry, under Moreau, enter the nearest town, wiping their bloody swords on their horses' manes. But he saw, while abroad, something more than "the red artillery" of war; he passed a day with Klopstock, and acquired the friendship of the Schlegels.

He was away altogether about thirteen months, when he

returned to Edinburgh, to make arrangements with Mundell about the publication, in London, of a quarto edition of his poems. Mundell granted at once a permission which he could not well refuse, and Campbell started for London by way of Glasgow and Liverpool. At Liverpool he stayed a week with the able and generous Dr. Currie, to whom he was introduced by Dugald Stewart. Currie gave him letters of introduction to Mackintosh and Scarlett.

"The bearer of this," Dr. Currie writes to Scarlett, "is a young poet of some celebrity, Mr. Campbell, the author of The Pleasures of Hope.' He was introduced to me by Mr. Stewart, of Edinburgh, and has been some days in my house. I have found him, as might be expected, a young man of uncommon acquirements and learning, of unusual quickness of apprehension, and great sensibility.

"He is going to London with the view of superintending an edition of his poems, for his own benefit, by the permission of the booksellers to whom the copyright was sold before the work was printed; and who, having profited in an extraordinary degree by the transaction, have now given him the permission above-mentioned, on condition that the edition shall be of a kind that shall not interfere with their editions. He is to give a quarto edition, with some embellishments, price a guinea; the printing by Bensley. You must lay out a fee with him; and if you can do him any little service you will oblige me and serve a man of genius."

Currie's letter is dated 26th February, 1802, so that we may date Campbell's arrival in London (there was no railway then) on or about the first of March.

"When Campbell came first to London,” said Tom Hill, to the collector of these imperfect "Ana," "he carried a letter of introduction to Mr. Perry, of the Morning Chronicle. He was then a poor literary adventurer, unfitted with an aim. Perry was so much pleased with him that he offered him a situation on his paper, which Campbell thankfully accepted. But what could Campbell do? he

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