Reminiscences of a Literary Life
CHAP. II
THOMAS CAMPBELL
THOMAS CAMPBELL
My great intimacy with the poet began in the winter of 1829, and terminated
rather suddenly in the autumn of 1832, in a quarrel, or rather in an offence he took at
some remarks I hazarded on the Poles, their former history, and their late revolution. He
bounced out of the house where we had been dining in a red-hot passion, telling our host
that I had been talking about what I did not understand; that all the books I had quoted
were false and fabulous; that Ruilhiere’s book
on the anarchy of Poland was a perfect romance; that a history of Poland, upon national
authorities, was yet to be compiled; and that, perhaps, he might write it. I was
exceedingly sorry at this rupture, for notwithstanding sundry infirmities of temper, and
not very agreeable irregularities of conduct and manners, I was disposed to cling to the
man. I highly admired—no one more—the poetical genius he had displayed in early life; he
was a Scotsman, nay more, he was all but a Highlander, claiming affinity with one of our
noblest clans; he was my superior in learned accomplishments, and my senior by a good many
years. With all this I could not be, and I am quite sure I was ![]()
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not,
disrespectful or intemperate in my language or manner towards him. Seeing how widely we
disagreed on the Polish question, I twice tried to change the subject, but he would not let
me; he would go on to convince me against my will, or rather against my better judgment.
The very next morning I sent our mutual Scottish friend, L. M., to sue
for peace. “Tell him,” said I to the mediator, “that I beg his
pardon, that I will never again dispute with him about Poland, that for all that I
shall say to the contrary he may make demi-gods of all the Poles, applaud their
elective monarchy system as the perfection of good government, and declare that no
British Parliament was ever to be put in comparison with the Polish Diet held on
horseback with drawn sabres, and that the most constitutional mode of disposing of a
troublesome minority was to cut its throat or shoot it, as his admired Sarmatians had
so often done.” The friendly mediation failed. Tommy would not be pacified. During several more years we met rather
frequently, at Miss G.’s, now Countess of H., at John Murray’s, at Longman’s, and at other places of resort, but he always gave me the
cold shoulder, until one damp, cold, foggy morning I met him in the narrow part of Argyll
Street, looking ill, seedy, and quite shaken. I was so affected by his altered appearance,
that not without some fear of a rebuff, I crossed the street and addressed him. This time
he held out his hand, and was quite gentle and even friendly. He told me that he had been
ill, very ill, but that he thought of going over to France, and that would set him up. His
remarkably fine dark eyes were still brilliant and flashing, though less so than formerly.
We parted with cordial hand-shaking, and I never saw him again. When I related our
brouillerie to W. S. Rose, he said: “Oh! I could have told you beforehand that if
you got upon Polish ground with Campbell, a squabble would be the
inevitable consequence. Tommy is a ![]()
| CHAP. II] | CAMPBELL AND THE POLES | 17 |
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Polomaniac, and has been so ever since he wrote that
famous line in the ‘Pleasures of
Hope’—‘And Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell’—not that there was much freedom in that
land of serfs to shriek—and that line, and the few which precede it, have made him a
sort of rallying-point, and an idol with all the Polish fugitives who get to England.
These men flatter him and bedaub him with praise. Oh, how they do lay it on! But poor
Campbell likes it—nay, he loves to be flattered and bedaubed.
With the single exception of old ‘Oberon’ Sotheby and Lord Byron, I think he is about the vainest man I have
known; but Byron had the good taste to love praise from the
Laudati, and would very soon get
impatient and angry at the compliments of nobodies, or at coarse, clumsy, vulgar
laudation. I once told Campbell that when he went forth to walk
through the streets he ought to have a barber’s pole carried before him, and that
a barber’s pole ought always to project over his street-door. I wonder that he
never catches the itch from some of his frowsy associates, for I am told that the itch
is much more a national complaint in Poland than ever it was in Scotland. But let us
return to good nature. I liked poor Campbell; I would give my left
hand or both my ears to have written some of his best lyrics. Tell him I say so, and
shake hands with him for me when you meet him, or when you make up this Highland
feud.”
For a very long time I rarely met the Bard of
Hope, in street, house, theatre, or elsewhere, without finding him attended
by a longish Polish tail. From circumstances previously explained, he could not by any
possibility take very many of his refugees into decent houses; but still he introduced a
considerable number in good society, and among these were some who did no honour to his
introduction. I remember being told that he was disquieted by a story about the mysterious
disappearance of ![]()
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some silver spoons and forks, after a supper chez
Madame ——, to which he had conducted some of his protégés.
The clear distinction necessary to be made between Upper Seymour Street and
Lower Seymour Street will sufficiently explain Tommy’s convivial foibles. While our friendly league and covenant
lasted, he would often come in upon me late at night. Often when we had dined together at
John Murray’s, and each had taken more
wine than he ought to have done, he would, at midnight, or even at a later hour, go home
with me “to finish the evening,” as he facetiously called it. I was as
yet a bachelor, living in very comfortable, choice apartments, in Berners Street, Oxford
Street, in the house of good little Rolandi, the
Italian bookseller, who allowed me the bachelor privilege of the latch-key, and always saw,
before going to his own early bed, that my fire was in good burning order, and that my
little comforts were at hand. “And now, Mac,” the bard would say—“now, Mac,
for a glass of toddy! Your whisky is very good, and we will have a crack. Time was made
for slaves.” Three or four times he remained till daylight, and twice he
slept on a good broad sofa in my sitting-room, and stayed till twelve or one o’clock
next day. Warned by what had happened to K. and
B. S. L., I preferred accommodating him with a
sofa to adventuring with him in a hackney coach, though I had a coach-stand conveniently
near. I cannot plead the nocturnal water-drinking of poor Sir
Walter, but I rather think that for one tumbler of toddy that I took,
Campbell must have taken three. The worst of it—or at least a very
bad part of it—was, that drink did not improve Tommy’s temper;
it made him impatient, captious, and querulous, and at times violently passionate and
uncommonly unpleasant.
So long as his poor wife lived, and
they sojourned ![]()
| CHAP. II] | HIS PROPENSITIES | 19 |
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in the cottage at Sydenham, he was
kept in tolerable order; and was, on the whole, a douce, prudent, quiet-going bard.
“You should have known him then,” said his very old Scottish friend,
Mrs. E., “and you must not judge of him as he was then,
by what you see of him now. From the day of his wife’s death, or at latest from
the day when he got over his grief for her loss, Tommy broke loose, and has never brought up since. It is a sad pity,
for all we London-dwelling Scots honoured him and were so fond of him, and he might
have done so well. One by one he has contrived to quarrel with or to annoy, beyond
bearing, nearly all his old friends, whether Scottish or English. The last time he was
in my house he broke the claret-jug and three glasses.”
I remember as one of Campbell’s
characteristics that he could not bear to be, after dinner, in the same drawing-room with
Moore, because the Irish minstrel sang his
melodies and accompanied himself very sweetly on the piano, thus attracting much of the
homage for which Campbell was so greedy, and absorbing all the
attention of the company, of which he would fain have made a monopoly for himself. I have
heard him very, very severe on Moore’s “Lalla Rookh,” and on his poetical style generally.
He called it “washy,” a word he had taken from the vocabulary of his
sometime close ally, Mrs. Siddons, the tragic
actress, of whom, after her death, he wrote a very incorrect, “washy” Life. But I believe that of the said Life
or Memoir, he himself, in reality, wrote very little.
The bard of “Hohenlinden” for many years wore a wig, of which mention will be found in
my book of “Table Talk,” biography, and literary souvenirs. It was a wig not at
all suited to his age and complexion; it was a fine black wig with Hyperion curls, and
generally well oiled and perfumed. One ![]()
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night, after a very jovial
dinner at old John Murray’s, and while the
claret-jugs were still in rapid circulation, Theodore
Hook was called upon to sing one of his improvised songs. He was in
“keff” and in vein; he sang three songs in succession, and really excelled
himself. Campbell, considerably more than three-parts
“fou,” went off into an ecstasy, and taking his wig off his head, he threw it
across the table at Theodore, shouting, “There, you dog! Take
my laurels! They are yours!”
The laughter was uproarious, and it did not cease until long after the
elder bard had recovered his wig, and had covered his bald, shining pate. Washington Irving laughed until his sides ached, and then
with a sly, demure face told Campbell that he had
never before fancied that those poetical locks were not of his own growth. In those
days—between 1829 and 1833—we had very frequently high jinks in Albemarle Street. Then,
too, there was fat, jolly old bibliopole and opera man, old
Andrews of Bond Street, who now and then gave a dinner to authors and wits,
and gave it in good style, with champagne and claret à discrétion,
or rather à indiscrétion. It was at one of this very fat man’s
symposia that the author of the “Pleasures of Hope” so far exceeded limits that a hackney coach had to be
sent for, and C. K. and B. S. L. were obliged to see him home.
Tommy was past speech, and Andrews, in giving his address, forgot to give the
important word “Upper.” The coachman drove as directed; and then, descending
from his box, gave a violent tug at the bell, and played an equally violent
“rat-tattat” with the knocker. Presently the head of a man was projected from
an attic window. “Who’s there?” cried he. “Mr.
Campbell,” said C. “D——
Mr. Campbell!” cried the man. “This is the
third time within a week that I have been knocked out ![]()
| CHAP. II] | UPPER SEYMOUR STREET | 21 |
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of my bed in the middle of the night on his account. He
lives in Upper Seymour Street. This is Lower Seymour Street!” He banged down
the window, and the two friends conveyed their rather troublesome and quite unconscious
charge to his own door.
John Andrews (1857 fl.)
London bookseller trading in New Bond Street, 1831-57. Charles Macfarlane recalled him as
a fat man who “gave a dinner to authors and wits, and gave it in good
style.”
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)
Scottish poet and man of letters; author of
The Pleasures of Hope
(1799),
Gertrude of Wyoming (1808) and lyric odes. He edited the
New Monthly Magazine (1821-30).
Theodore Edward Hook (1788-1841)
English novelist, wit, and friend of the Prince of Wales; he edited the
John Bull (1820) and appears as the Lucian Gay of Disraeli's
Conigsby and as Mr. Wagg in
Vanity Fair.
Charles Knight (1791-1873)
London publisher, originally of Windsor where he produced
The
Etonian; Dallas's
Recollections of Lord Byron was one of
his first ventures. He wrote
Passages of a Working Life during half a
Century, 3 vols (1864-65).
Thaddeus Kosciusko (1746-1817)
Polish general and patriot who fought in the American Revolution and in 1794 led an
unsuccessful rebellion against Russian and Prussian control of Poland.
Thomas Norton Longman (1771-1842)
A leading London publisher whose authors included Southey, Wordsworth, Scott, and
Moore.
Charles Macfarlane (1799-1858)
A traveler, historian, and miscellaneous writer who knew Shelley in Italy; he active in
the Royal Asiatic Society and worked for the publisher Charles Knight and the Society for
the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. His
Reminiscences was published
in 1917.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852)
Irish poet and biographer, author of the
Irish Melodies (1807-34),
The Fudge Family in Paris (1818), and
Lalla
Rookh (1817); he was Byron's close friend and designated biographer.
John Murray II (1778-1843)
The second John Murray began the
Quarterly Review in 1809 and
published works by Scott, Byron, Austen, Crabbe, and other literary notables.
Pietro Rolandi (1801 c.-1863)
London bookseller in Berners Street; he sold prints and foreign books. He died in
Naples.
William Stewart Rose (1775-1843)
Second son of George Rose, treasurer of the navy (1744-1818); he introduced Byron to
Frere's
Whistlecraft poems and translated Casti's
Animale parlante (1819).
Claude Rulhière (1734-1791)
French diplomat, historian, and poet elected to the Académie Française in 1787; his
incomplete history of Poland was posthumously published in 1807.
Francis Barry Boyle St. Leger (1799-1829)
Irish poet and novelist, educated at Rugby School; he wrote for the
New
Monthly Magazine and
Knight's Quarterly Magazine, was
co-editor of the
London Magazine, and was editor of
The Album and the
Brazen Head.
Sarah Siddons [née Kemble] (1755-1831)
English tragic actress, sister of John Philip Kemble, famous roles as Desdemona, Lady
Macbeth, and Ophelia. She retired from the stage in 1812.
William Sotheby (1757-1833)
English man of letters; after Harrow he joined the dragoons, married well, and published
Poems (1790) and became a prolific poet and translator,
prominent in literary society.
