but a lively poet. In the congenial society of this worthy compeer, and that of a kindred spirit, the late Rev. Dr. Finlayson, with whom he afterwards travelled to Mull, he spent many pleasant, as well as profitable, hours. And as both his class-fellows were preparing for holy orders; theology, with all the "weighty matters of the law," Ecclesiastical history, and Logic, were the leading studies of the session. Having a warm friendship for those young men, living much in their company, and sharing their sentiments, it is probable that he at length embraced similar views; and, for some time, at least, steadily persevered in regulating his studies by theirs. Circumstances, however, of a domestic or personal nature, appear to have altered his purpose; but these are so indistinctly remembered, or so doubtfully stated, that I cannot take upon me to repeat them with any degree of confidence. His prospects of church patronage could never have been very encouraging. His family connexions, on both sides of the house, were chiefly engaged in commerce; and when he looked towards Kirnan, "the home of his forefathers," and thought of days when the staunch old "lairds of that ilk" would have sold their last acres to have placed such a kinsman in the pulpit, the case was cheerless; "roofless and wild" was their abode; and under the greensward of Kilmichael Kirk-yard lay the last "heritors" who could have lent him a helping hand. All this passed through his mind. But then it was said "his talents would easily accomplish what family influence could not." Talents he certainly had-talents of the first order-but of what avail were these? Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi. Many other such arguments were employed; but they went merely to show that, if he aspired to church preferment, he must give much more attention to things" ecclesiastical;" study Calvin, compose homilies, read Mosheim, follow in the steps of those noble ancestors, who, at the peril of their lives and property, had ever clung fast to the interests of their Mother Kirk; and take his own words for a motto: Be strong as the rock of the ocean that stems A thousand wild waves on the shore! What effect this friendly exhortation produced on the mind of Campbell, is not known. He panted ardently for independence; and would have given any amount of labour to have realised the boon. He had at this anxious period a firm conviction that "all difficulties were to be overcome by strenuous exertions, diligence, and industry; and to these, not to his genius, he attributed all his school and college distinctions. His father had expressed a preference for the civil rather than the ecclesiastical profession, and his opinion harmonised with that of the Poet. But to that, also, there was an insuperable barrier in the state of his finances. The profession of Medicine, or Surgery, was next thought of; and Campbell, as he informs us, attended some preliminary lectures on the subject. But, on one occasion, he was so much affected by a surgical operation, at which he was present, that he could never overcome this repugnance so far as to resume his studies. Law, as we have already seen, was tried with no better success. Its cruel "operations" were as offensive to his mind and taste, as those of surgery; and now physic was also given up as being too nearly related to surgery. Thus, left without any definite aim, he appears to have passed the ensuing summer in the counting-house of a Glasgow merchant, a near relation of his family, where he acquired some useful habits of business, with the prospective hope of being enabled to join his elder brothers in America, where they had been many years established as merchants and planters. But to enter at large into the distracting hopes and disappointments, which at this time so painfully chequered our Poet's life, would be forestalling the interest of those letters, in which he has adverted to them with much feeling, and with a truth and candour never to be misunderstood or suspected. Still, however, a vague idea of church preferment seems to have kept its hold of his mind. Many little circumstances tend to show, though indirectly, that his studies inclined in that direction. He read Hebrew with other theological youths; familiarised himself with some of the "best divines," and wrote the following hymn on the Advent, which, so far as I know, is one of his original poems, which has never been publicly acknowledged. The Poet's copy, however, has an autograph inscription, stating that "he wrote it at the age of sixteen," consequently about the end of the previous autumn. The original, from which the following is a transcript, has been forty years in the possession of Dr. David Irving. HYMN. WHEN Jordan hushed his waters still, * In a letter, written only a few months before his death, he recalls the fact of having studied Hebrew at this time, in the following words: "I have met a very pleasant, well-informed, and agreeable man, the son of the professor in the Glasgow University, with whom, during my curriculum, I studied Hebrew." In distant hallelujahs stole, Wild murmuring, on the raptured soul. Then swift, to every startled eye, New streams of glory gild the sky; On wheels of light and wings of flame, Oh Zion, lift thy raptured eye, See, Mercy, from her golden urn, Pours a glad stream to them that mourn; The bleeding bosom of despair.— HE comes- -HE cheers the trembling heart- T. C., æt. 16. 106 CHAPTER V. THIRD SESSION-CORRESPONDENCE. ONE of the first and most intimate acquaintances of young Campbell at College was James Thomson, a fellow-student from Lancashire, whose kindred genius and amiable disposition formed the bond of a friendship which increased with years, and continued, without interruption, until the Poet's death. To this congenial friend, Campbell addressed most of his early letters; and from these I shall be readily excused for introducing a few extracts, such as will better illustrate the young Poet's character, than any commentary from the pen of his biographer. They are all written in the full candour and confidence of unreserved friendship, and exhibit a faithful picture of the warm heart, and brilliant intellect of the youthful writer. The second from which I shall quote, was written while residing in the immediate neighbourhood of Glasgow, and engaged in a merchant's office, with the view of joining his brothers in Virginia. It appears, that "the employments" of the session had not been agreeable; but by employments is to *No distance shall put an end to our epistolary correspondence. Our friendship, though begun in the years of youth, I trust, shall survive that period, and be immutably fixed in graver years.' [Letter, dated June 12, 1794.] This was truly predicted. It was to Mr. Thomson's order that two marble busts of the Poet were executed by Bailey, one of which he presented to the University of Glasgow, and retained the other in his own family. The admirable portrait of the Poet, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, an engraving of which is prefixed to this volume,-was also commissioned by this early friend. |