They lighted a taper at the dead of night,
And chanted their holiest hymn;
But her brow and her bosom were damp with affright
Her eye was all sleepless and dim!
And the lady of Elderslie wept for her lord,
When a death-watch beat in her lonely room,
When her curtain had shook of its own accord;
And the raven had flapp'd at her window-board,
To tell of her warrior's doom!
Now sing you the death-song, and loudly pray
For the soul of my knight so dear;
And call me a widow this wretched day,
Since the warning of God is here!
For night-mare rides on my strangled sleep:
The lord of my bosom is doomed to die:
His valorous heart they have wounded deep;
And the blood-red tears shall his country weep,
For Wallace of Elderslie!
Yet knew not his country that ominous hour,
Ere the loud matin bell was rung,
That a trumpet of death on an English tower
Had the dirge of her champion sung!
When his dungeon light look'd dim and red
On the high-born blood of a martyr slain,
No anthem was sung at his holy death-bed;
No weeping was there when his bosom bled--
And his heart was rent in twain!
Oh, it was not thus when his oaken spear
Was true to that knight forlorn;
And the hosts of a thousand were scatter'd like deer,
At the blast of the hunter's horn;
When he strode on the wreck of each well-fought field
With the yellow-hair'd chiefs of his native land;
For his lance was not shiver'd on helmet or shield--
And the sword that seem'd fit for Archangel to wield,
Was light in his terrible hand!
Yet bleeding and bound, though her Wallace wight
For his long-lov'd country die,
The bugle ne'er sung to a braver knight
Than Wallace of Elderslie!
But the day of his glory shall never depart,
His head unentomb'd shall with glory be balm'd,
From its blood-streaming altar his spirit shall start;
Though the raven has fed on his mouldering heart,
A nobler was never embalm'd!
From Argyleshire, where his residence was not a protracted one, Campbell
removed to Edinburgh. There he soon became introduced to some of the
first men of the age, whose friendship and kindness could not fail
to stimulate a mind like that of Campbell. He became intimate with the
late Dugald Stewart; and almost every other leading professor of the
University of Edinburgh was his friend. While in Edinburgh, he brought
out his celebrated "Pleasures of Hope," at the age of twenty-one. It is
perhaps not too much to say of this work, that no poet of this country
ever produced, at so early an age, a more elaborate and finished
performance. For this work, which for twenty years produced the
publishers between two and three hundred pounds a year, the author
received at first but £10, which was afterwards increased by an
additional sum, and by the profits of a quarto edition of the work. By
a subsequent act of the legislature, extending the term of copyright,
it reverted again to the author; but with no proportional increase of
profit. Campbell's pecuniary circumstances are said to have been by no
means easy at this time and a pleasant anecdote is recorded of him, in
allusion to the hardships of an author's case, somewhat similar to his
own: he was desired to give a toast at a festive moment when the
character of Napoleon was at its utmost point of disesteem in England.
He gave "Bonaparte." The company started with astonishment. "Gentlemen,"
said he, "here is Bonaparte in his character of executioner of the
booksellers." Palm, the bookseller, had just been executed in Germany,
by the orders of the French.
After residing nearly three years in Edinburgh, Campbell quitted his
native country for the Continent. He sailed for Hamburgh, and there made
many acquaintances among the more enlightened circles, both of that
city and Altona. At that time there were numerous Irish exiles in the
neighbourhood of Hamburgh, and some of them fell in the way of the
poet, who afterwards related many curious anecdotes of them. There
were sincere and honest men among them, who, with the energy of their
national character, and enthusiasm for liberty, had plunged into the
desperate cause of the rebellion two years before, and did not, even
then, despair of freedom and equality in Ireland. Some of them were
in private life most amiable persons, and their fate was altogether
entitled to sympathy. The poet, from that compassionate feeling which
is an amiable characteristic of his nature, wrote _The Exile of Erin_,
from the impression their situation and circumstances made upon his
mind. It was set to an old Irish air, of the most touching pathos,
and will perish only with the language.
Campbell travelled over a great part of Germany and Prussia--visiting
the Universities, and storing his mind with German literature. From
the walls of a convent he commanded a view of part of the field of
Hohenlinden during that sanguinary contest, and proceeded afterwards in
the track of Moreau's army over the scene of combat. This impressive
sight produced the _Battle of Hohenlinden_--an ode which is as
original as it is spirited, and stands by itself in British literature.
The poet tells a story of the phlegm of a German postilion at this time,
who was driving him post by a place where a skirmish of cavalry had
happened, and who alighted and disappeared, leaving the carriage and the
traveller alone in the cold (for the ground was covered with snow) for
a considerable space of time. At length he came back; and it was found
that he had been employing himself in cutting off the long tails of the
slain horses, which he coolly placed on the vehicle, and drove on his
route. Campbell was also in Ratisbon when the French and Austrian
treaty saved it from bombardment.
In Germany Campbell made the friendship of the two Schlegels, of many of
the first literary and political characters, and was fortunate enough to
pass an entire day with the venerable Klopstock, who died just two years
afterwards. The proficiency of Campbell in the German language was
rendered very considerable by this tour, and his own indefatigable
perseverance in study. His travels in Germany occupied him thirteen
months; when he returned to England, and, for the first time, visited
London. He soon afterwards composed those two noble marine odes, _The
Battle of the Baltic,_ and _Ye Mariners of England_, which, with his
_Hohenlinden_, stand unrivalled in the English tongue; and though,
as Byron lamented, Campbell has written so little, these odes alone are
enough to place him unforgotten in the shrine of the Muses.
In 1803 the poet married Miss Sinclair, a lady of Scottish descent, and
considerable personal beauty, but of whom he was deprived by death in
1828. He resided at Sydenham, and the entire neighbourhood of that
pleasant village reckoned itself in the circle of his friends; nor did
he quit his suburban retreat until, in 1821, literary pursuits demanded
his residence in the metropolis. It was at Sydenham, in a house nearly
facing the reservoir, that the poet produced his greatest work,
_Gertrude of Wyoming_, written in the Spenserian stanza. About the
same time Campbell was appointed Professor of Poetry in the Royal
Institution, where he delivered lectures which have since been
published. He also undertook the editorship of _Selections from the
British Poets_, intended as specimens of each, and accompanied with
critical remarks.[3]
[3] This work is in seven handsome library volumes; a new edition
was announced two or three years since, but has not yet
appeared.
Soon after the publication of his "Specimens," he revisited Germany, and
passed some time in Vienna, where he acquired a considerable knowledge
of the Austrian court and its manners. He remained long at Bonn, where
his friend, W.A. Schlegel, resides. Campbell returned to England in
1820, to undertake the editorship of the _New Monthly Magazine_,
and coupled with his name, it has risen to a very extensive circulation.
In 1824, Campbell published his "Theodric, a Domestic Tale," the least
popular of his works.
By his marriage Campbell had two sons. One of them died before attaining
his twentieth year; the other, while in the University of Bonn, where
he was placed for his education, exhibited symptoms of an erring mind,
which, on his return to England soon afterwards, ripened into mental
derangement of the milder species. After several years passed in this
way, during which the mental disease considerably relaxed, so that young
Campbell became wholly inoffensive, and his father received him into his
house. The effect of this upon a mind of the most exquisite sensibility
like the poet's, may be readily imagined: it was, at times, a source of
the keenest suffering.
We must now allude to an event in Campbell's life, which will ensure him
the gratitude of ages to come: we mean as the originator of the London
University. Four years before it was made public, the idea occurred
to him, from his habit of visiting the Universities of Germany, and
studying their regulations. He communicated it at first to two or three
friends, until his ideas upon the subject became matured, when they
were made public, and a meeting upon the business convened in London,
which Mr. Campbell addressed, and where the establishment of such an
institution met the most zealous support. Once in operation, several
public men of high talent, headed by Mr. Brougham, lost not a moment
in forwarding the great and useful object in view. The undertaking was
divided into shares, which were rapidly taken; but Mr. Campbell left the
active arrangements to others, and contented himself with attending the
committees. With unexampled rapidity the London University has been
completed, or nearly so, and Campbell has had the satisfaction of seeing
his projected instrument of education almost in full operation in less
than three years after he made the scheme public. Although one of the
most important,[4] this is not the only public-spirited event of this
description, in Mr. Campbell's life; for he was instrumental in the
establishment of the Western Literary Institution, in Leicester Square;
and at the present time he is, we believe, in conjunction with other
eminent literary men, organizing a club to be entitled the Literary
Union, whose lists already contain upwards of 300 men of talent,
including Sir Walter Scott and all the principal periodical writers
of the day.
[4] Still, Mr. Campbell's name does not occur in the List of Council
or Professors of the University, in the British Almanac for the
present year.
Campbell, as has already been observed, was educated at Glasgow, and
received the honour of election as Lord Rector, three successive years,
notwithstanding the opposition of the professors, and the excellent
individuals who were placed against him; among whom were the late
minister Canning, and Sir Walter Scott. The students of Glasgow College
considered that the celebrity of the poet, his liberal principles, his
being a fellow-townsman, and his attention to their interests, entitled
him to the preference.
In person, Mr. Campbell is below the middle stature, well made,
but slender. His features indicate great sensibility; his eyes are
particularly striking, and of a deep blue colour; his nose aquiline;
his expression generally saturnine. His step is light, but firm; and
he appears to possess much more energy of constitution than men of
fifty-two who have been studious in their habits, exhibit in general.
His time for study is mostly during the stillness of night, when he
can be wholly abstracted from external objects. He is remarkable for
absence of mind; is charitable and kind in his disposition, but of quick
temper. His amusements are few; the friend and conversation only; and
in the "flow of soul" there are few men possessing more companionable
qualities. His heart is perhaps one of the best that beats in a human
bosom: "it is," observes a biographer, "that which should belong to
the poet of _Gertrude,_ his favourite personification."
To exhibit the poet in the social circle, as well as to introduce a very
piquant portrait, drawn by a friend, we subjoin a leaf or two from Leigh
Hunt's _Lord Byron and some of his Contemporaries_[5]--displaying
all the graphic ease for which Mr. Hunt is almost without a rival:--
[5] We are aware of part of the subsequent extract having appeared
in vol. xi. of THE MIRROR, but the additional interest which it
bears in juxtaposition with this Memoir, induces us to repeat
it here.
I forget how I became acquainted with Mr. Hill, proprietor of the
_Monthly Mirror;_ but at his house at Sydenham I used to meet his
editor, Mr. Dubois, Mr. Campbell, who was his neighbour, and the two
Smiths, authors of _The Rejected Addresses._ Once or twice I saw
also Mr. Theodore Hook, and Mr. Matthews, the comedian. Our host (and
I thought him no older the other day than he was then) was a jovial
bachelor, plump and rosy as an abbot: and no abbot could have presided
over a more festive Sunday. The wine flowed merrily and long; the
discourse kept pace with it; and next morning, in returning to town,
we felt ourselves very thirsty. A pump by the road side, with a plash
round it, was a bewitching sight.
"They who know Mr. Campbell only as the author of _Gertrude of
Wyoming_ and the _Pleasures of Hope,_ would not suspect him to
be a merry companion, overflowing with humour and anecdote, and any
thing but fastidious. These Scotch poets have always something in
reserve: it is the only point in which the major part of them resemble
their countrymen. The mistaken character which the lady formed of
Thomson from his _Seasons_ is well known. He let part of the secret
out in his _Castle of Indolence;_ and the more he let out, the more
honour he did to the simplicity and cordiality of the poet's nature,
though not always to the elegance of it. Allan Ramsay knew his friends
Gay and Somerville as well in their writings, as he did when he came to
be personally acquainted with them; but Allan, who had bustled up from
a barber's shop into a bookseller's, was 'a cunning shaver;' and nobody
would have guessed the author of the _Gentle Shepherd_ to be
penurious. Let none suppose that any insinuation to that effect is
intended against Mr. Campbell: he is one of the few men whom I could at
any time walk half-a-dozen miles through the snow to spend an afternoon
with; and I could no more do this with a penurious man than I could
with a sulky one. I know but of one fault he has, besides an extreme
cautiousness in his writings; and that one is national, a matter of
words, and amply overpaid by a stream of conversation, lively, piquant,
and liberal--not the less interesting for occasionally betraying an
intimacy with pain, and for a high and somewhat strained tone of voice,
like a man speaking with suspended breath, and in the habit of subduing
his feelings. No man, I should guess, feels more kindly towards his
fellow-creatures, or takes less credit for it. When he indulges in doubt
and sarcasm, and speaks contemptuously of things in general, he does it,
partly, no doubt, out of actual dissatisfaction, but more perhaps than
he suspects, out of a fear of being thought weak and sensitive--which is
a blind that the best men very commonly practise. Mr. Campbell professes
to be hopeless and sarcastic, and takes pains all the while to set up an
university.
"When I first saw this eminent person, he gave me the idea of a French
Virgil: not that he is like a Frenchman, much less the French translator
of Virgil. I found him as handsome as the Abbé Delille is said to have
been ugly. But he seemed to me to embody a Frenchman's ideal notion of
the Latin poet; something a little more cut and dry than I had looked
for; compact and elegant, critical and acute, with a consciousness of
authorship upon him; a taste over-anxious not to commit itself, and
refining and diminishing nature as in a drawing-room mirror. This fancy
was strengthened in the course of conversation, by his expatiating on
the greatness of Racine. I think he had a volume of the French Tragedian
in his hand. His skull was sharply cut and fine; with plenty, according
to the phrenologists, both of the reflective and amative organs; and his
poetry will bear them out. For a lettered solitude and a bridal properly
got up, both according to law and luxury, commend us to the lovely
_Gertrude of Wyoming_. His face and person were rather on a small
scale; his features regular; his eye lively and penetrating; and when he
spoke, dimples played about his mouth, which nevertheless had something
restrained and close in it. Some gentle puritan seemed to have crossed
the breed, and to have left a stamp on his face, such as we often see
in the female Scotch face rather than the male. But he appeared not
at all grateful for this; and when his critiques and his Virgilianism
were over, very unlike a puritan he talked! He seemed to spite his
restrictions; and out of the natural largeness of his sympathy with
things high and low, to break at once out of Delille's Virgil into
Cotton's, like a boy let loose from school. When I have the pleasure
of hearing him now, I forget his Virgilianisms, and think only of the
delightful companion, the unaffected philanthropist, and the creator
of a beauty worth all the heroines in Racine.
"Mr. Campbell has tasted pretty sharply of the good and ill of the
present state of society, and for a book-man has beheld strange sights.
He witnessed a battle in Germany from the top of a convent (on which
battle he has written a noble ode); and he saw the French cavalry enter
a town, wiping their bloody swords on the horses' manes. Not long ago he
was in Germany again, I believe to purchase books; for in addition to
his classical scholarship, and his other languages, he is a reader of
German. The readers there, among whom he is popular, both for his poetry
and his love of freedom, crowded about him with affectionate zeal; and
they gave him, what he does not dislike, a good dinner. There is one
of our writers who has more fame than he; but not one who enjoys a
fame equally wide, and without drawback. Like many of the great men in
Germany, Schiller, Wieland, and others, he has not scrupled to become
editor of a magazine; and his name alone has given it among all circles
a recommendation of the greatest value, and such as makes it a grace to
write under him.
"I have since been unable to help wishing, perhaps not very wisely,
that Mr. Campbell would be a little less careful and fastidious in what
he did for the public; for, after all, an author may reasonably be
supposed to do best that which he is most inclined to do. It is our
business to be grateful for what a poet sets before us, rather than to
be wishing that his peaches were nectarines, or his Falernian Champagne.
Mr. Campbell, as an author, is all for refinement and classicality,
not, however, without a great deal of pathos and luxurious fancy."
Mr. Campbell's literary labours are perhaps too well known and
estimated to require from us any thing more than a rapid enumeration of
the most popular, as supplementary to this brief memoir. In his studies
he exhibits great fondness for recondite subjects; and will frequently
spend days in minute investigations into languages, which, in the
result, are of little moment. But his ever-delightful theme is Greece,
her arts, and literature. There he is at home: it was his earliest, and
will, probably, be his latest study. There is no branch of poetry or
history which has reached us from the "mother of arts" with which he
is not familiar. He has severely criticised Mitford for his singular
praise of the Lacedaemonians at the expense of the Athenians, and his
preference of their barbarous laws to the legislation of the latter
people. His lectures on Greek Poetry have appeared, in parts, in the
_New Monthly Magazine_. He has also published _Annals of Great
Britain, from the Accession of George III. to the Peace of Amiens_;
and is the author of several articles on Poetry and Belles Lettres
in the _Edinburgh Encyclopoedia_.
Among his poetical works, the minor pieces display considerably more
energy than those of greater length. The _Pleasures of Hope_ is
entitled to rank as a British classic; and his _Gertrude_ is
perhaps one of the most chaste and delicate poems in the language. His
fugitive pieces are more extensively known. Some of them rouse us like
the notes of a war trumpet, and have become exceedingly popular; which
every one who has heard the deep rolling voice of Braham or Phillips in
_Hohenlinden_, will attest. Neither can we forget the beautiful
_Valedictory Stanzas_ to John Kemble, at the farewell dinner to
that illustrious actor. Another piece, _the Last Man_, is indeed
fine--and worthy of Byron. Of Campbell's attachment to his native
country we have already spoken, but as a finely-wrought specimen of
this amiable passion we subjoin a brief poem: