CAMPBELL, THOMAS, was born July 27, 1777, at Glasgow, where his father, who was the youngest eon of a Highland laird, Campbell of Keenan, and had then attained the age of sixty-seven, had spent, his life as a merchant, but was now out of bueinees. Thomas was the youngest. of a family of eleven sons and daughters. At the university of his native city, where he was educated, he appears to have diatin giddied himself rather by his °caseload exercises, especially in Greek, than by his general industry and proficiency. It is related that a translation (into verse, we suppose) of the ' Clouds' of Aristophanes, fur which be obtained a prize in the Greek elms, was pronounced by the professor, the late learned and s ceentrio Professor Young, to be the best exercise ever given in by any student of the university. After leaving the university be resided a short time at Edinburgh, where he published in April 1799 his ' Pleasures of Hope.' Few first poems have ever made so great a sensation, and it still continues to be the poem by which Campbell is best known ; indeed ho never after ventured on a work of equal extent or pretension. Yet with all its imposing declamatory splendour, and the poetic glow which animates it, it betrays, both in execution and in substance, the raw and unknit mind of youth. It was n poem of extraordinary promise however for a first production. It could not indeed be considered as a mere clever imitation of any reigning model or other previous poetry ; taken nil in all, in its faults as well as in its beauties, its manner and spirit were its own. It is said that the profit. ha derived from the sale of the ' Pleasures of Hope 'enabled Campbell to visit the continent, which he did in the latter part of the year 1800. He saw part of Germany, and having proceeded to Bavaria, then the seat of war, had a view from a safe distance of the battle of liohenlinden, fought in December of that year. He was stopped in attempting to pass into Italy, and returned to England by way of Hamburg. A seventh edition of his 'Pleasures of Hope' appeared iu 1S02, ' with other poems,' among which were his noble verses on the battle of Hohenlinden ; his spirited and stirring song, ' Ye Mariners of England,' writteu at Hamburg ou the prospect of war with Denmark ; hie 'Exile of Erin,' also written there; and his 'Lechler. Warning,' which had been written at Edinburgh since
his return. After being nearly two years iu Edinburgh, he removed to London in 1803 ; and !Having in the autumn of that year married his cousin, Mks Matilda Sinclair, he appears to hero commenced in earnest the pursuit of literature as a profession. Among the works which he produced in the course of the next five or six years, was a compilation, published anonymously at Ediuburgh in 1807, in 3 vole. 8vo, entitled ' Annals of Great Britain, front the Accession of George III. to the Peace of Amiens.' lie also contributed several articles to the 'Edinburgh Encyclopaedia; begun in 1808, under the superintendeuce of Dr. (now Sir David) Brewster. Meanwhile iu 1806 be had received from the Fox ministry a pension of 200/. a year, which he enjoyed while he lived.
With the exception of a few occasional short pieces, he published no more poetry till his ' Gertrude of %gaming appeared in 1809, secant panied in the first edition by Lord Ullin's Daughter' and his Battle of the Baltic,' perhaps his finest lyric ; and in a subsequent edition by his beautiful and passionate tale of 'O'Connor's Child.' Gertrude of Wyoming' is written upon the whole in a much purer style than the 'Pleasures of Hope '—though still not without occasional forms of expression having more sound than sense, such for example as the ' transport and security entwine' which Byron has ridiculed. With all his truth and delicacy of taste in the matter of diction, Campbell seldom altogether escapes these hollow conventionalities of phraseology, at least in his quieter passages. The best executed portions of his Gertrude of Wyoming,' as of all his poems, are those in which he is carried along by passion, and has less time to waste on words.