mination of the School by the Chief Magistrate.*

The University of Glasgow differs from Oxford and Cambridge, particularly in this respect that it has, from the time of its foundation (shortly before the Reformation), received students at a very early age, and thus it happened that Campbell commenced his preparation for college life before he had completed his thirteenth year. With the prospect of matriculation at hand, for months previous to the actual commencement of the October session he was engaged in a reperusal of his "old books," feeling a laudable desire to be prepared for “a fair start" with the freshmen of his year. Mr. Alison prophesied distinction, hist family expected great things, and he determined to aim high, and realize, if possible, their fondest hopes. This may seem far-fetched in speaking of a mere child, yet it will be remembered that his mind was cast in no ordinary mould, and his zeal much heightened by early successes.

In the October term of 1791 commenced his novitiate at college, and here the effect of judicious training at school quickly manifested itself. Before many months had elapsed he had gained a position in the Latin, Greek, and Logic classes, and, before he had completed his fourteenth year, had gained from the college authorities a prize for English and Latin verse, and a still more substantial mark of approbation, a bursary or exhibition on Archbishop Leighton's foundation. This boon was not awarded without reference to merit and ability, or upon the ground of the known straitened

*See specimens of translations from Anacreon at the age of twelve years, "Beattie's Life and Letters of Campbell," vol. i. p. 36.

circumstances of his parents, but was fairly won after an examination before the whole faculty in construing and Latin writing, and after competition with a fellow student by several years his senior. The result of the first session was satisfactory, yet in after years he often confessed that he was much more inclined to sport than to study, and it would seem that what he accomplished was not always the result of patient application to books, but rather of that natural facility which enabled him to see clearer than many of his fellow undergraduates, who trusted solely to unwearied attention for the chance of distinction. There can be no question that the colour of the remainder of his college career took its brightest tinge from the first essay, though he himself, with pleasing modesty, speaks in the following terms of hist academical career:-"Some of my biographers have, in their friendly zeal, exaggerated my triumphs at the University. It is not true that I carried away all the prizes, for I was idle in some of the classes, and being obliged by my necessities to give elementary instruction to younger lads, my powers of attention were exhausted in teaching when I ought to have been learning." Yet the facts are in his favour; the repeated prizes awarded (many of them now in existence) speak for themselves, and show that he was not, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, idle; probably he placed his standard so high, that, failing in his own judgment to reach it, this induced dispraise and the self-imputation of idleness.

At this period his first ballad, entitled "Morven and Fillan," was printed for distribution and circulation amongst his friends and fellow-students : it comprised one hundred and forty lines, many

of them both spirited and original. The following are the first four :

“Loud breathed afar the angry sprite
That rode upon the storm of night,
And loud the waves were heard to roar,
That lashed on Morven's rocky shore."

Campbell's second year at the University (Sessions 1792 and 1793) was marked by fresh indications of progress. Professor Jardine, Lecturer in the Logic class, awarded him the eighth prize for the best composition on various subjects, the third prize in the Greek class for exemplary conduct, and further paid him the compliment of appointing him examiner of the exercises sent in by the members of the Logic class; but the crowning honour of the year was reserved for the last day of the session, the 1st of May, when his "Poem on Description" carried away the palm against a host of competitors. This production marks the progress he had made in versification since the previous autumn, and is entitled "A Description of the Distribution of Prizes in the Common Hall of the University of Glasgow, on the 1st of May, 1793,"— his motto was taken from Pope.

"Nor fame I slight, nor for her favour call,

She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.”

For some weeks after the commencement of the vacation, Campbell "tried his hand" at the law, and with a view of adopting it as a profession, was accommodated with a desk and seat in the office of his relative, Mr. Alexander Campbell, writer to the Signet of Glasgow. Here, according to the approved fashion and custom of that day (happily, now in a great measure ex

ploded), he commenced the study of jurispru dence, not by learning principles, but groping in the dark at the practice of the profession by transcribing "drafts, deeds, abbreviating pleadings," and the like drudgery.

This mysterious method of penetrating the arcana of an honourable and scientific calling, operated so prejudicially nat before autumn he gave up all thoughts of adyancing his fortunes by the avenue of the law, and, therefore, relinquishing his seat in the office, directed his mind to more congenial pursuits-poetry, classical reading, and preparation for the ensuing college term.

Among the miscellaneous pieces struck off in the course of the autumn was a brochure suggested by the enormities of the French Revolutionthe subject being the cruelties inflicted on the illfated Marie Antoinette, Queen of France. This effusion excited the sympathy of many who read it, and was deemed worth insertion in the "Poet's Corner "of the leading journal of Glasgow.

In the course of his third year at the University (1793-4), in addition to a debating society into which Campbell had been previously enrolled, whereat he was a popular orator, and to which belonged nearly all his principal contemporaries, there was another, called the "Discursive,” of which he himself has thus written: "There was, moreover, a debating society, called the Discursive, composed almost entirely of boys as young as myself, and I was infatuated enough to become a leader in this spouting club. It is true, that we had promising spirits among us, and, in particular, could boast of Gregory Watt, son of the immortal Watt, a youth unparalleled in his early talent for eloquence. With melodious elocution,

great acuteness in argument, and rich unfailing fluency of diction, he seemed born to become a great orator, and I have no doubt would have shone in Parliament, had he not been carried off by consumption in his five-and-twentieth year. He was literally the most beautiful youth I ever saw. When he was only twenty-two, an eminent English artist (Howard, I think) made his head the model of a picture of Adam. But though we had this splendid stripling, and other members that were not untalented, we had no head among us old and judicious enough to make the society a proper palæstra for our mental powers, and it degenerated into a place of general quizzing and eccentricity."

In the spring of 1794, Campbell, in consideration of good conduct, obtained a few days' leave of absence from his "Alma Mater," and visited Edinburgh to witness the trial of Joseph Gerrald and others (the Scottish Reformers) charged with the crime of sedition. To him, all the proceedings were novel: it was his first visit to the Parliament House, and the scene he there beheld made so powerful an impression upon his mind, that the lapse of years could not efface its vivid recollection. Various circumstances conspired to produce this: intense political excitement reigned at the time, crowds thronged the court, the bearing of the prisoners was touching; Gerrald's demeanour, in particular, was very bold and determined; his appeal to the court and jury was eloquent; and when the case terminated with the conviction of the accused and their sentence to transportation, he left the court all glowing in the cause of freedom, and full of sympathy with those he deemed oppressed. With feelings wrought to the