independence awaited him. On the 6th of February he started from Edinburgh in company with his old schoolfellows, Mr. Ralph Stevenson and Mr. Burrows, and paid a second visit to Liverpool, where he was received by Mr. Roscoe, Dr. Currie, and the Messrs. Duncan, with marked respect and hospitality. Since their previous meeting, his reputation had been strengthened by new and successful efforts; and at the moment of his arrival, Mr. Thelwal was delivering a course of lectures on elocution, in which the "Battle of Hohenlinden" was introduced, and recited with popular effect. On this occasion Dr. Currie insisted on having the Poet as his own particular guest; and to live with the biographer of Burns, was to live in a pleasing round of intellectual enjoyment. Writing to a friend a few hours after his arrival in Liverpool, he says, "I have hardly slept on my journey; but it was pleasant, and I have to-night seen Dr. Currie." He then requests his friend to pay for him a small sum into the family exchequer at home, laments it is so little, but prays him to explain the cause; has "wasted his last eyes in writing to his mother;" cannot therefore write to his sisters as he intended, but will do so on the morrow; and is pained to think that his scanty means fall so far short of what his heart would dictate.* After a full week's experience of the hospitality of his Liverpool friends, he thus writes, February 18 :-" Drinking with this one, and dining with that one, I have consumed, my dearest friend, many hours that might have *These little traits of feeling show the Poet in an amiable light. He accepts no hospitality, uses no expression of the pleasures that awaited him, until he has first discharged a sacred duty to his mother-shed some additional comfort round the family hearth-bespoken in her behalf the kind offices of his friend, and assured his sister that she also should hear from him next day. This was the preparation he made for enjoying the society of Liverpool; and this, no doubt, gave fresh zest to the enjoyment. been devoted to correspondence; and surely Liverpool must be agreeable, to dispel, even for so long, the remembrance of those I have left at home. This, however, is but a temporary oblivion. Cold, dark, and cheerless the winter afternoon sets in. I am left perchance in solitude ; and Care, like a true spectre, always seeks one out when alone. Were I at home now-thought I to myself a few moments ago-sitting by the good old woman, hearing Glasgow anecdotes, annoyed with my own thoughts, or teased with hers, I should wrap 'my old cloak about me,' and down to John Richardson in the twinkling of an eye; coffee, mocha, pipes, negus, herrings, nut-brown ale, and Oronoka, should await us for our evening regale! We should sit like Lælius and Scipio-like Valentine and Orson-like Pylades and Orestes! The Baron* would strike in his worthy presence ere night, and the world, with all its cares, should be drowned in a spoonful of toddy. Worthy Baron! give him my kindest regards. "Now, of my history since we parted, I vow to Heaven, John, I can give you no chronicle. The post-chaise that carried Stevenson, Burrows, and myself through Carlisle, Kendal, and Lancaster, passed, no doubt, over many interesting scenes, which a better observer might have chewed his cud upon, for many chapters. But about the age and history of the borough-towns' on our way; the heraldry of landed gentlemen, whose castles we saw; the cultivation of cabbage and turnip-fields along the wayside, and the breed of cattle, horned and humble, between this and Auld Reekie to give you satisfaction upon all these points, would cost me a journey back, and more attention than it is usual with me to bestow. So leaving us both in profound and peaceful ignorance upon all these heads, * Henry Cockburn, now Lord Cockburn---a son of Baron Cockburn. I must be contented to dwell upon the present scene of my feelings and fortune. 66 "I am living, you will observe, with Dr. Currie, whose friendship and attention extend to the minutest circumstances regarding my comfort. He makes parties at his house, of precisely the character that he knows I like; and he devotes himself to keep me company all the leisure time that his profession allows. All the hospitality that a landlord can show seems, in fact, combined in these two circumstances. Without a single claim upon his friendship, I must own myself obliged to him beyond what I would say to his face; and I only pray to God that I may have it in my power to do him a kindness somewhat adequate to his, at present, in promoting my happiness and good name. The only new character I have met with in the department of authors-for I knew Roscoe before-is * * * I sought out this poetical Republican in his shop at the Wapping Dock, and introduced myself by a 'this-is-me' introduction to his acquaintance. He seems an honest, high-minded man, full of sense and information, beyond his circumstances; but dark and haughty in his political opinions regarding those slight shades of difference in principles, which fall insensibly into each other, like colours of the rainbow.. To speak plainer, he is one of those that tire you with the slang' of democracy; and seem to have no satiety in speaking of subjects that ought, by this time, to sicken every natural heart. Without humour or relaxation of thought, he fatigues you as much as Mrs. Moonlight; and one's throat is sore with keeping it so tight stretched with severe and stubborn truths. By the way, though agreeable at all other times, * *broke out once more upon the subject of Jacobinism; and it was not till I had scourged him severely, that he submitted to have his jaws bound up, and his tongue bridled upon this detestable topic. 6 * "Public amusements are frequent enough here-and this is just the noontide hour of them; but I have only gone to one which is more interesting and intellectual than most others. It is Thelwall's course of lectures upon what? Why upon taste, reading, writing, elocution, and eloquence-He deserves encouragement, and if he comes to Edinburgh, I beg you would raise the clans in his favour-for two reasons :-first, he is a poor persecuted devil, honest every body believes, and well-intentioned in the cause which costs him persecution: in the next place, although he recites but mediocrely, yet the very circumstance of his reciting my Hohenlinden, is doing me a service, and contributing as "a puff direct "-not the less effective, that it comes not from my own lungs! You know me too well to suppose I found upon his opinion, or on that, perhaps, of the bulk of his audience; but when the public see any piece chosen by even an attempt at elocution, it gives a popularity to it, independent of its intrinsic merit. This, you know, is between ourselves-it is only for wiseacres like you and me to discover how much fame is increased by accident ! * "Yours, my boy, right truly, * T. C." * The following anecdote of the Poet's visit was communicated to me by a late distinguished friend, and is at once original and characteristic:-"I happened to be this year in Liverpool, during a visit which Campbell was paying to some friends in that great commercial town, among whom was my relation the late Dr. Currie, best known, perhaps, as the judicious editor of Burns' works, and writer of his life. Here I renewed my intercourse with my old college acquaintance, and became much more intimate with him • Mr. T. and the subject of his lectures are noticed in the satirical poem"The Pursuits of Literature," p. 132, 14 Ed. 1808. 6 than formerly. I shall only mention one incident which happened at this time, as it shows that he was not altogether exempt from those keen, sensitive feelings which mark the genus irritabile vatum.' It is this: one day Campbell was taking a family dinner with my brother George, a Liverpool merchant, with whom I was then residing. No strangers were present, and our friend was treated with the same familiarity as if he had been a member of the family. He seemed to feel domesticated among us, and was particularly agreeable and facetioussurprising and delighting us with his flashes of wit, and sportive brilliancy of imagination. After many lively sallies, among which there was a good deal of pleasant bantering bandied on both sides, the subject of his poems was introduced; and to this also the humour for bantering, somehow or other, was extended. He was first rallied on a stanza in The Wounded Hussar,' where an unfortunate false punctuation had perverted the sense. * Ah,' said he good-humouredly, when roguishly asked to explain the meaning of the line'you know as well as I do, how that couplet should be read; but to tell you the truth, that is just one of the many unfortunate blunders of my printer, to whom I am obliged entirely to leave the punctuation, having never been able myself to acquire the occult art of pointing.' "From this we were led to speak of his admirable poem of 'Hohenlinden,' which its very excellence induced us to fix upon as a subject for jocular criticism. Campbell,' said my brother, I know that you poets think yourselves entitled to embellish your effusions with that sublime figure of rhetoric, "Thou shalt live, she replied, heaven's mercy relieving; See this quotation, and notice of the song, at page 201 of this volume. |