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demned themselves to two or three previous | of papers which will contribute a portraiture dark and idle hours of intolerable ennui. much more finished and accurate than any These dark hours, indeed, constituted his that I could delineate. Another of his bête noire, and formed the subject of his friends, Dr. William Beattie, who attended incessant complaint; nor did he fail to en- him during his last illness at Boulogne, and ter an additional protest when the long-de- who has procured for the purpose a valuable ferred meal was not punctually served. mass of documents and letters, has announ"Nowadays," I once heard him say, "Iced his intention of publishing a regular never know at what hour I may expect to biography; so that there is nothing left for get anything to eat; but last week I was the present writer but to pick up such informed to a minute when I could not get anecdotical strays and waifs as may, pera mouthful. While posting to Liverpool, chance, have escaped the knowledge, or where I had an appointment to attend a have been deemed hardly worth the gatherrehearsal, the sharp air made me uncom-ing, of other and more regular collectors. monly hungry, and as I perceived a decent Though few men were more competent to road-side inn, with the landlord standing discuss elevated and learned subjects, and at the door, I told the postillion to draw to convey information as well as to confer up, and called out from the window of the pleasure by his manner of treating them, chaise, the poet, who was naturally sociable and "Landlord, have you got anything hot hilarious, loved to unbend Apollo's bow,

in the house?'

666 No, sir.'

"Anything cold in the house?'

"No, sir.'

and to indulge in the gibes, and gambols, and flashes of merriment "that were wont to set the table in a roar. In these moods he would freely communicate any little ad

"The deuse! what then have you got venture in which he had been concerned,

in the house?'

"An execution, sir.'

"Poor fellow, sorry for you. Drive on, postillion.""

even though it turned the laugh of the auditory against himself, as was invariably the case when he related the following unexpected disappointment of his auctorial vanity.

And this reminds me of another anecdote which-but if I run on in this manner Walking up Holborn-hill, he perceived I shall never have done, and I might un- that he had burst his boot, and as it hapconsciously be repeating stories inserted in pened that the streets were rather wet, he the delightful biography to which the reader turned into the first shop where he could has already been referred. An author's provide himself with a new pair, which was vanity, and a greybeard's license may, per- soon accomplished, when he wrote down haps, plead to excuse when I state, in con- his name and residence in an address book clusion, that on the death of this unrival- kept for that purpose, directing the old led comedian and excellent man, I was boots to be sent home to him. No sooner honoured by an application from his family had the shopkeeper read the words, "Thomas to write a poetical inscription for his tomb- Campbell, Essex Chambers, Duke-street, stone in St. Andrew's church, Plymouth; which melancholy duty I performed, and gave vent to my feelings of sorrow and respect in a subsequent and longer tribute to his memory.

THE POET CAMPBELL.

St. James's," than his countenance underwent a change, and bowing with an air of profound reverence, he said, or rather whispered, as if his natural voice would not sufficiently express his homage,

"I beg your pardon, sir; I hope I am not taking too great a liberty; I would not for the world be guilty of the smallest disThe man of the highest literary eminence respect, yet may I venture to inquire among the visitors to Hill's cottage, at Sy- whether I have the honor of seeing in my denham, was indisputably the poet Camp-shop the celebrated Mr. Thomas Campbell:" bell, and to him, therefore, I ought, per- "My dear friend," said the bard, in rehaps, to have given precedence in the series lating the anecdote to me, "I have heard of sketches which I am about to attempt. so little lately of my literary reputation, In this instance, however, mine will be hard- for people have almost forgotten the Plealy a sketch, hardly an outline, since his sures of Hope, that having, as I fondly friend, Mr. Cyrus Redding, is contributing imagined, caught a new and an ardent adto the New Monthly Magazine a succession mirer, I resolved to play with the hook a

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little; so I replied, looking as modest and unconscious as I could,

"I don't exactly know whom you mean by the celebrated Mr. Thomas Campbell.' "Oh, sir,' cried the fellow, 'I mean Mr. Thomas Campbell, the African missionary-I never heard of any other!'

"An ignorant Muggletonian rascal !" ejaculated the bard, in narrating this misadventure, "I'll never buy another pair of boots of him as long as I live."

The poet's residence among the grave Algerines did not destroy his taste for jocular quirk and quiddity, for he addressed from that quarter a poetical epistle to the writer of these notices, full of puns and verbal conceits, to one of which I remember his alluding after his return to England. A reference having been made to him upon some question of Chronology, he exclaimed, "That is a point on which you should never apply to a Scotch Cam'el (thus did he always pronounce his own name), the whole clan have short memories, and I shall never forget my amazement when I first saw an African camel carrying a load of dates without the least apparent inconvenience." I have heard him state, that when a child, knowing nothing of his animal namesake, he felt offended at the association, on reading in the Old Testament, that Jacob had much cattle, asses and camels," but he probably did not expect this anecdote to be taken au pied de la lettre.

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Though he did not affect the character of a professed wag, he would sometimes indulge a vein of quiet, caustic drollery, that might have entitled him to his diploma as a successful jester, one instance of which I cannot refrain from recording.

"Not one-not one-not one," was assentingly echoed by three times as many loyal bibliopolists.

66

Egad, gentlemen," said the poet with an arch smile, "I cannot quite agree with ye. Ye seem, all of ye, to forget that he once shot a bookseller!"

Few writings have attained long endurance which have not required a length of time for their composition; a literary as well as natural law seeming to require that longevity should demand an extended period of gestation. An elephant is not prolific, but its offspring outlives whole generations of the inferior animals, whose incubation is of more frequent recurrence. Drudges are manually and mechanically quick, because they are intellectually slow; men of genius are tardy, because the fertility of their minds supplies a superabundance of thought, and their high standard of taste renders them fastidious in the choice and perfection of their materials. Their's is literally l'embarras des richesses, and such was especially the case with Campbell, the disbursement of whose mental opulence was checked and controlled by his high appreciation of art, as well as by his fear of compromising, in inferior works, the great reputation he had already acquired. In the sunset of his life, the shadow of his own greatness frightened him, and yet he felt the necessity of keeping his name before the public, lest it should be forgotten. He knew that he could outstrip others, but the difficulty was to surpass himself.

"My good friend," he once said to me, "if an author does not go forward he goes backwards; the world will not suffer him to stand still. When he has a hungry reIt may be in the recollection of my el-putation to sustain, he is like a man with derly readers that, early in the career of a ravenous beast in his house, he must feed Napoleon he gave orders for seizing a Ger- it, or it will prey upon its owner." man book-seller named Palm, who had published a libel against his person and government, for which offence he was brought to a court martial and shot. Some time subsequent to this occurrence, the eminent firm of Longman & Co., after one of their annual book sales, gave a dinner, to which were invited the principal publishers of London, as well as a few of the most eminent authors, including the subject of this notice. After dinner, the conversation turned upon the daily aggressions and enormities of Bonaparte, who was anathematized as a tyrant and a monster, to whom it was impossible to ascribe a single good action.

With these feelings, he was the last man who should have undertaken, as he did in two or three instances, to get up a book for the publishers, invita Miverva; an irksome and uncongenial task, in which he found it impossible to satisfy himself, even when the long protracted result of his labors gave satisfaction to the public. More than once have I heard him exclaim, when frittering away years upon the life of Mrs. Siddons

"Confound the woman. I wish her career had not been so monotonous and so virtuous, for it does not afford me any supplies either of incident or of scandal; so that when I once get her off the stage of

the theatre, I have not a word more to say."

A professed scribe would have dilated, to any extent, upon everything and nothing, however irrelevant the matter; a substitution for genuine biography which Campbell was much too punctilious to adopt.

In ridicule of the imputed rareness and difficulty of his literary parturition, more especially when the offspring of his throes was poetical, one of his waggish friends used gravely to assert, that on passing his residence, at the time that he was writing "Theodoric," he observed the knocker to be tied up, and the street in front of the house to be covered with straw. Alarmed at these appearances he gently rang the bell, and inquired anxiously after the poet's health. Thank you, sir," was the servant's reply, master is doing as well as can be expected."

"Good heavens! as well as can be expected! what has happened to him ?"

"Why, sir, he was this morning delivered of a couplet !"

have been the cause, the effect was visible enough when, in one of my visits to the metropolis, I paid him my customary visit. Not without difficulty did I discover the house in Lincoln's Inn Fields in which he had engaged a set of chambers. Various names were written on the door-post, but not that of which I was in search. I wandered from floor to floor with no better result; and at length I summoned the portress from below, who told me where to find the door of my friend's apartment; adding, that he would not have his name inscribed on it, because he did not want to be "bothered with visitors."

After

Undiscouraged by this warning, I ventured to knock at the portal, which was opened by the bard himself, who welcomed me with his usual cheerful cordiality, though his appearance led me to suspect that he was out of health and out of spirits. the first salutations had been exchanged, I made inquiry about the London University, knowing that he had actively exerted himself in its establishment, though I was not With the enlarged and liberal feeling of aware that it was just then involved in some all true poets, Campbell had ever been en- little temporary difficulty. "My dear thusiastically devoted to the cause of liber-friend," was his reply, "don't ask me a ty and human advancement. A philan- word about it. I never wish to hear its thropist in the most exalted sense of the name mentioned. Don't ask me about anyword, he had pleaded the cause of humanity thing upon the success of which I have set against the spoilers of Poland, the invaders my heart, for you may be sure it's a failure. of Spain, the enslavers of Greece, as well, All attempts at improving or benefiting as against the bigots and oppressors of his my fellow-creatures I have given up for native land. For many years had he fought ever. I have now had a pretty long exthe good fight, undaunted and unwavering; perience, and I have at length come to the but the continued disappointment of his conclusion-I wish I had done so sooner— cherished aspirations, that hope deferred that our race is not destined to improve, which the most ardent and generous spirits even if it do not relapse into comparative ever find it the most difficult to endure with barbarism. Aye, you may shake your patience, combined with waning health and head; I know you are a sanguine believer increasing years, finally prayed upon his in a never-ceasing progress towards higher noble mind, oppressing him with occasional destinies; but for my own part I am satisattacks of hypochondria, and a morbid de-fied that man is an incorrigible rascal, spair of all human improvement. The whose innate brutality will ever predominate sweetest wine is the soonest soured; and over his modicum of rationality." the milk of human kindness, wanting a fit recipient for its overflow, will sometimes turn to gall, and generate both mental and corporeal disturbance. For the frustration of his benevolent yearnings he could find little compensation in domestic enjoyment, the death of his wife and the mental imbecility of his son, an only child, whom he had been obliged to place under restraint, having consigned him to a sad and solitary home. Perchance some act of individual ingratitude may have further helped to Tomonise his spirit; but whatever may

After he had run on in this strain for some time, I ventured to protest against his disparaging and gloomy views, predicting that they would deepen into a fixed dedency, if he persisted in withdrawing from his friends, and shutting himself up like a monk in his cell.

"Oh I am at no loss for much better society than the world can give me," was his reply; "come hither and see what a charming companion I have.”

So saying, he led me up to an oil-painting, of the size of life, representing a hand

some gipsy girl, the work, as he informed ing me that he had given up his chambers, me, of a Polish emigrant. In an enthusi- and after having tied up all his money, astic and excited tone, he proceeded to give between one and two hundred pounds, inme the history of the picture, evidently tending to bring it with him, he had enquite unconscious of the hallucination the sconced himself and his valise in the stagefollowing narrative betrayed::coach, for the purpose of paying me a visit. When the coach arrived at Reigate, he suddenly recollected that he had left his money-bag on the table of his bed-room, whereupon he jumped instantly out, ordered a post-chaise, urged the postillion to drive as fast as possible, sped back to London, and had the satisfaction to find that the landlady had found and carefully locked up his treasure. The worthy dame, after having made him count it over in her presence, to be sure that nothing had been

his pocket, and the money-laden bard, throwing himself into another stage, finally reached his destination in safety.

"I was walking down Great Queen-street, when I saw this beautiful creature in a broker's shop, gazing upon me with such a friendly smile that I instantly stood transfixed. So much was I smitten with the painting, that I inquired the price, but finding that it was forty guineas, much more than I could afford to give, I uttered a deep sigh, and walked on to Long Acre. But the gipsy was still before me, smiling at me as I proceeded, and thus she continued to bless me with her lovely presence, abstracted, again tied it up, secured it in until I reached my home. Even in the darkness of night it was just the same. I could not sleep, because those beautiful eyes were still benignly fixed upon mine; and in the morning I asked myself, why I should be made miserable by not possessing that which forty guineas would obtain. I procured the money, accordingly, and hurried to secure my beauty -- there she is-and I would not take a thousand guineas for her! See how she smiles upon me; so she does in whatever part of the room I may be placed, and when I quit the room. How can I be solitary with such a sweet companion? I talk to her constantly, and she always gives me a gracious reply. You laugh, and I don't wonder. Mark you, I don't say that you, or any one else, can hear her mellifluous voice; but I do, and that is quite enough to make her society charming, and more than enough to supply the place of all other companionship."

Seeing that it would be difficult, and, perhaps, hardly desirable to dispel an illusion which had a peculiar charm for his imaginative mind, I did not attempt to combat it, and willingly admitted the great beauty of his canvas innamorata. How long this species of nympholepsy lasted, I cannot say; I was told he had completely chased away the vaporous clouds by which his fine mind had been depressed, but one subsequent return of his hypochondria fell within my own immediate cognisance.

From time to time he would run down to the provincial town in which I reside, on which occasions he passed the greater part of the day with me as long as he remained. One afternoon he made his appearance, evidently in deep dejection of spirits, tell

"And why, in the name of wonder," I demanded, did you not pay it into your banker's? and for what earthly purpose can you have come hither with so large a sum of money?"

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"Pay it into my banker's!" exclaimed the poet, why, my good friend, I have just drawn it out. As to my purpose in doing so, I will disclose it to you; but I do so in confidence. The fact is that I shall stay here for some time: I have secured capital apartments at the hotel; I shall live handsomely until the money is all gone; I shall then take advantage of some fine morning to go out in a boat, as if for the purpose of fishing; and when we are at a sufficient distance from land, I have made up my mind to jump overboard, that I may take my leave for ever of a good-for-nothing and ungrateful world, which no philanthropist can improve, and which no gentleman can wish to live inI beg your pardon; you are willing, I believe, to take a prolonged lease of life: I am tired of mine, and care not how soon I get rid of it."

I treated this as a joke, or as the splenetic effusion of the minute; but his look and manner evinced a seriousness that pained and alarmed me. A few post-prandial glasses of wine, however, so completely chased away his blue devils, that he quickly became too much elevated in spirits to be quite guarded in his language; and subsequent meetings gave me occasion to observe, that very slight potations disturbed the equipoise of his mind. Bracing air, change of scene, and a little cheerful society, having cured his morbid despondency, he re

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In the vicinity of the city of Assumption, cotton, all in full cultivation. The house the capital of Paraguay (that irregular was built, after the fashion of the country, country, which, from the policy of seclu- of sun-dried bricks, covered with plaster, sion so long pursued by its government, has and whitewashed. Along the front was a been termed the Japan of South America), deep veranda, the pillars of which were are scattered many country-houses belong-slender stems of forest-trees, stripped of ing to the more wealthy citizens, who retire their branches and bark, and whitewashed, thither when their business is over, to es- but with many rough knots and inequalicape from the scorching heat and stifling ties where the boughs had been hewn off. dust of the open, unpaved streets. To These served to sustain the vines which, many of these villas farms or plantations of planted at their feet, ascended with many considerable extent are attached, which, a winding clasp, and covered them with cultivated by servants, supply the market their luxuriant leaves. Then, reaching the of the capital, and thus afford a revenue to roof of the veranda, the vines spread and the proprietors. It is to one of these man- interlaced, until the whole was buried in a sions that we would transport the imagina- mass of verdant foliage, which contrasted tion of our readers; and as this power- beautifully with the snow-white walls of namely, the imagination-is lord of time as the cottage and the ruddy tiles of the well as of space, we shall expect it to bear sloping eaves. In the rear of the cottage us company as far back as a period of forty was a long, low building, appropriated to years ago, when Paraguay was under the the servants and the offices, and extending sway of a Spanish governor appointed by to a corral, or enclosure, in which the catthe viceroy of Buenos Ayres. At that time there stood, about a league north of the little city of Assumption, a dwelling of small dimensions-in fact a mere cottage but beautifully situated, and surrounded by fields of sugar-cane, maize, tobacco, and

tle and horses were kept. Directly in front of the porch were two tall trees, of the tatayiba, or wild mulberry, with slender stems and a profusion of light, glossy leaves; while before, and on each side of the house, was an orchard, or it might ra

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