Literary Reminiscences and Memoirs of Thomas Campbell
William Roscoe to Thomas Campbell, 3 November 1805
“My Dear Sir,—
“The common sympathy and sorrow which I am sure we
both of us feel for the loss of our late ![]()
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 67 |
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ever-lamented
friend Dr. Currie, would be a sufficient
apology for this intrusion, even if we were greater strangers to each other
than I have the happiness to think we are. On the death of our friend nothing
is more soothing to our feelings, and indeed more natural, than to turn towards
those whom they have respected and loved, and who have returned the friendship
with equal warmth; and that he ever regarded you with affectionate kindness is
not less certain than that you now deeply lament his most unfortunate, and I
may add, untimely loss. Allow me, then, my dear sir, to say, that amidst these
ravages of death and warnings of mortality, I feel myself bound, by an
additional tie to those who once partook with me in the society and friendship
of him who is no more, and that although the loss of one beloved friend has
occasioned a void in the bosom which can never be supplied, yet nothing can
afford me more pleasure than an interchange of good offices and of mutual
kindness and affection with those whom he esteemed and loved. If in this view I
should be fortunate enough to meet your own sentiments, the only proof I shall
at present ask of it is, that you will allow me to take that interest in the
success of your labours which they so eminently deserve, and to render you the
same services, as respecting the volume which our ![]()
| 68 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND | |
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excellent
young friend Mr. Wallace Currie informs
me you shortly intend to publish, as his father did respecting your last, and
which he would have repeated with so much pleasure had he still survived.
“Favour me, then, with your plan of publication, and
such particulars as you may think necessary, and be assured, the deserved
celebrity of your name and the actual merit of your writings will render it not
only an easy, but a grateful task to me to furnish you with the suffrages of
many of my friends, for whom pecuniarily I will be answerable, and whose
payments I will with the greatest pleasure anticipate.
“If in this communication I have ventured too far on
the presumption, either on the grounds of our personal acquaintance, or on
those I have before stated, let me at least hope to stand excused, and it shall
be sufficient for me to write with such influence as I may obtain in the
general list of your admirers and friends, who, by their public approbation of
your writings, will, instead of honouring you, do honour to themselves.
“I am, my dear sir,
“Most truly and invariably yours,
“Allerton, 3rd of November, 1805.
James Currie (1756-1805)
Scottish physician educated at Glasgow University; he practised in Liverpool and was the
editor and biographer of Robert Burns.
William Wallace Currie (1784-1840)
The son of the biographer of Robert Burns; he was mayor of Liverpool (1833-36).
William Roscoe (1753-1831)
Historian, poet, and man of letters; author of
Life of Lorenzo di
Medici (1795) and
Life and Pontificate of Leo X (1805). He
was Whig MP for Liverpool (1806-1807) and edited the
Works of Pope,
10 vols (1824).
