union of such opposite qualities could have accomplished. The "irritability" of the one was softened or subdued by the habitual "equanimity" of the other; and where the mother passed sentence upon any of her young culprits for breach of privilege, or neglect of tasks, it was never reversed by the father. Thus, in their domestic affairs, paidocracy was kept under, and the parental authority supported in all its force. "Grave counsel" from the father, and sharp "reproofs from the mother," were always made to co-operate in such a manner as to effect one important end—an increase of application to school exercises, which was generally followed by some fresh distinction in the class.

Mrs. Campbell has been described to me by a lady who knew her, as a woman of great mental energy; fond of literary society; sprightly in conversation; and spending most of her leisure in the perusal of those books which the previous generation had pronounced to be the "only standard authorities." But although she preferred the "old authors" as her daily companions, she had a very just notion of their merits, with considerable relish for the popular authors of the day, which she felt much pleasure in having read to her, long after she had completed her seventieth year. I have already mentioned that she had a natural taste for music; and having had a good voice in her younger days-but which owed little to the artificial cultivation of that talent-she often sang, even in the very wane of life, to the few familiar guests who occasionally met at her hearth, such snatches of old songs as the hour or circumstance happened to call forth. Among these were two especial favourites, sweetened, no doubt, by many proud associations," My Poor Dog Tray," and "The Blind Boy." It was to the air of the former, so often sung to him by his mother, in infancy, that Campbell

wrote the "Harper." It is one of the few I ever heard him sing in the evening of life when, for an instant, the morning sun seemed again to rest upon it; and it was, probably, the first that soothed the infant poet in his cradle, long before he had attempted to lisp in rhyme.

In person, the Poet's mother was of slight but shapely figure, with piercing black eyes, dark hair, well-chiselled features, which, in after-life, became round and fulllosing much of their original expression. With natural vivacity of spirit and cordiality of manner, she was a shrewd observer of character; warm-hearted; strongly attached to her friends, and always ready to sympathise in their misfortunes. With this disposition, she was often the author of unostentatious but substantial charity; and it is pleasing to think, that, when overtaken by adversity, her good deeds were not entirely forgotten. By her own sex her society was much courted. She had a "considerable fund of anecdote," and the talent of saying wise, or witty things in a way that "drew all the young people about her."

She was, of course, very proud of her youngest son, whose precocious talent for song was not a little indebted to her taste and cultivation. As one illustration of this amiable and very excusable weakness, I am informed by the relation above mentioned, that, having occasion to go shopping with her, they halted at a silk-mercer's, where, after the usual scrutiny and rejection of articles shown to them, the old lady was at last "struck with a very nice pattern of a shawl," which she immediately purchased and paid for. The parcel was folded up, and when the mercer inquired the name, and where she would have it sent to, -"Send it," she said, "to Mrs. Campbell-Mrs. Campbell of Kirnan ;"-then added, "mother of the author of the Pleasures of Hope.'" Kirnan, it is true, had long ceased

to be the family mansion; but, in her mind, "Kirnan" and the "Pleasures of Hope" were like two gems appended to the name of Campbell, never to be separated.

"A few years previous to her death," says a correspondent, "my mother took me to Edinburgh, on a visit to Mrs. Camphell. I was very young at the time; but I have a distinct recollection of the old lady, and it is of a pleasing kind. She was evidently a person of strong mind, of great good sense, and much kindliness of disposition. In her manner, there was an uncommon mixture of innate dignity and liveliness. It might be difficult to convey to you a distinctive notion of the former quality; but the following slight incident exemplifies, I think, both Mrs. Campbell's liveliness and kindness. Shortly after I arrived she bought a cane for me; but, before presenting it, she said it would be proper to show me how the young gentlemen, students of Edinburgh, managed their canes. For this purpose she walked several times across the room, all the while twirling the cane in her hand. The imitation was certainly amusing; but the beauty of the trait was, the condescension of the old lady in attempting it, purely to please and divert a boy.

"During the same visit she spoke in terms of high praise of her son Thomas. Nothing,' she said, 'could be conceived more kind and respectful than the tenor of his letters to herself.'" Mr. Campbell's kindness, however, went far beyond profession; for, out of his own narrow income, he allowed a handsome annuity to his mother and his sisters.

This much-respected lady-who resembled, in some of her early characteristic traits, the 'mother of the Gracchi'— survived her husband; and after a widowhood of eleven years, died in Edinburgh, on the 24th February, 1812, at the age of seventy-six.

Mr. Alexander Campbell, the Poet's father, was naturally a man of superior abilities, which, both at home and abroad, he had much improved by reading and reflection. He was held in esteem by several members of the University, at a time when it could muster some of the first men of the day; and when its chairs were filled by teachers, not only of profound learning themselves, but endowed with the rare and happy faculty of communicating their learning to others. Of these, frequent notice will be found in the Poet's Letters, in which he always speaks with grateful admiration of his Glasgow instructors-men not merely of English but European celebrity. But it may serve to show the character of his father's mind simply to state, that he was on terms of intimacy with Adam Smith, and the confidential friend of his successor, Dr. Thomas Reid, from whom the Poet received his name in baptism. On publishing his celebrated "Inquiry into the Human Mind,” Dr. Reid gave a copy of it to his friend Mr. Campbell, who, after reading it attentively, called upon the author, and thanked him for the great pleasure and edification which his new work had afforded him. "I am glad to hear you are pleased with it," said Dr. Reid; "there are now, at least, two men in Glasgow who understand my work, and these are Alexander Campbell and myself."

In matters of business, Mr. Campbell is said to have been indolent rather than active, and to have expressed infinitely less solicitude to become a wealthy merchant than to maintain the character of an upright man and a patriotic citizen. It was the proud but honest boast of his family, that, in the course of a life, in which he had mixed with all classes of society, and which was extended far beyond the ordinary limits of human existence, his honour and integrity had never been questioned. In his political creed he was liberal, in the true sense of the term;

and in all his actions maintained a strict consistency with his profession. He was happily spared, however, the necessity of making any display in the party politics of his day. He limited his social intercourse to that of a few old friends, and the enjoyments of his own family circle, where he was looked up to with love and veneration.

He lived in strict observance of his religious duties, both in public and in the bosom of his family, where every precept was enforced by example. To the doctrines of the Kirk of Scotland, which his ancestors had done and endured so much to establish; and in support of which two Chiefs of his clan had suffered martyrdom, he was zealously and conscientiously attached; but he never permitted ecclesiastical questions to disturb the tranquillity of his own fixed persuasion, nor to diminish the spirit of charity and goodwill with which he regarded all those who happened to differ from him in their religious views.

In his house, the practice of family-worship-almost universal in Scotland at that time-was regularly kept up. On those occasions, the force and fervour of his extempore prayers were such, that they were never effaced in afterlife from the minds of his children. The Poet himself mentioned, only a short time before his death, that in his addresses to Heaven, the expressions used by his father were still fresh in his mind; and that he had never heard language the English Liturgy excepted-more sublime than that in which his devotional feelings at such moments found utterance. "His were the only extemporal prayers I ever heard," said his son, "which might have been printed as they dropped from his lips." This must be taken, perhaps, with some abatement on the score of filial admiration; yet it could have been no ordinary gift of eloquence that so imprinted itself on the Poet's mind, as to retain its freshness for more than half a century.