| 160 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
THE poet, upon his arrival at Glasgow, promised the students anew that he would abide by them and fill the rectorship, if, on due consideration, they could find no one more likely to unite their suffrages, who satisfied them better. A new election took place, and Campbell was voted lord rector by a larger majority of the students than before, and by three out of the four nations.
On the 5th of December, 1828, at three o’clock, no exclusion of the
public happening, a great assemblage of persons took place at the Hall, and when the doors
were thrown open, the building,
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 161 |
“Gentlemen,—It is an understood
conventional propriety among all civilised elective bodies, than when the tumult of
election has subsided, there should be an amnesty proclaimed as to past hostile
feeling, and an abstinence observed, on the one side, from all hostile language, and,
on the other, from any ungentlemanlike expression of discontent. I come not to break up
any such amnesty. I am not capable of degrading myself on this bench by an insidious
insinuation against any man’s motives or conduct. You, in the free exercise of
your elective franchise, had a more than ordinary right to be divided in your opinions;
and this division would have been to me, if I needed it, only a fresh incentive to my
desire of making you all my constituents in your hearts, by the faithful performance of
my duty. But contrary to what would otherwise be my wish, I shall be obliged, for a few
moments, to speak of myself; for there are some circumstances respecting my motives and
conduct in the present affair that may be unknown to, or misapprehended by many
individuals in this assembly. It may not be gene-
| 162 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 163 |
| 164 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 165 |
| 166 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
“No, gentlemen, I come to you in a frame of mind not indeed
crushed, though chastened by calamity, but still in a frame of mind little coveting any
new sprig for my mere vanity to be interwoven with this crape. Gentleman, unavoidable
circumstances have robbed me of the lingua that would have been necessary for
addressing you in a worthy manner, on certain of those points connected with your
studies, on which your rectors have, for some time past, felt it their duty or their
privilege to address you. But I have not forgotten one pleasing privilege of office,
which is that of adding to the prizes that may contribute to excite your emulation and
to exercise your industry. I propose to offer two silver medals, to be competed for
only by the gown students, for the best exercises in Latin and Greek verse, on subjects
that shall be speedily announced. I propose also to give two gold medals, to be
competed for only by ungowned students, and graduates, whether gowned or not, on two
subjects, which, though not intrinsically improper for the consideration of younger
minds,
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 167 |
“Now, let no candidate imagine that I shall favour any essay on
this subject, on account of the side which he takes as to this or that opinion in the
comparative estimate, for I shall decide merely by the display of talent. In my own
opinion, the importance of science is paramount; but this idea from an unscientific
man, and thus hastily thrown out and unargued, will not, of course, affect you, still
less I hope will it cause you to suspect that I would depreciate the beautifying and
exalting influences of classic learning. No! For in looking down through the furthest
| 168 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
“I have nothing further to add, than to beg you to return assiduously to your studies; and that if any feuds have sprung up among you in consequence of this election, you will bury them all in generous oblivion.”
He returned to London in tolerable health, and began to talk much on politics. He contended, on the accession of the Peel and Wellington administration that there was a want of sound public opinion in the country. Speaking of the aspect of public affairs to a friend, whose transcript of his words is before me, he says:—
“Your feelings on the aspect of affairs are precisely my own. It
is not that the Tories are in power again, that might be, but it is vexatious because
it proves the lamentable want of a sound public opinion, and the corruption of the
influential part of the English population. The Tories may go out, but that does not
cure the evil. Reform must come some day, and that not a distant one. Wellington’s bayonets cannot create wealth, but may
do much towards knocking it down. At our time of life, we can expect to see no revival
from enforced revolution and all the misery it brings before it brings good. I think we
all overlook one
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 169 |
He had no high opinion of Huskisson, who made some noise at that moment in a Liverpool speech, though he admitted that his financial views augured well. At the inveterate imbecility of Lord Goderich the poet indulged in many a joke, and it must be owned that time has strengthened the legality of a deeper derision than the poet ever commanded towards such a minister. As the Catholic question gained ground the poet’s spirit seemed to get up.
“If we cannot have political let us have religious liberty; it is something, at least, for our thoughts to be free.”
But it was only in the society of his particular
| 170 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
Campbell, staunch as he was to sound political
principles, was too earnest and warm for a politician. His views were liberal, high-minded,
and sound, but he would have been a poor statesman from these very virtues. He would never
yield a valid principle, while he would not have had patience to work it out by that sure
and slow process which alone ensures success; by that wearisome waste of effort, of
language, of time and muscle, which must be made a sacrifice to render current any one of
the simplest truths that the cultivated mind finds self-evident. Was it worth the pains?
No, said Campbell, for if the people having learned the alphabet will
not
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 171 |
The repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in the same year, and Lord Eldon’s opposition to that repeal, made Campbell one day laughingly remark of that narrow-minded and bigoted old man, that what he was in law he could not judge, but out of it he was an old woman. His solitary warning to the Lords against the repeal reminded him of the warning of the witch of Endor, without its veracity.
Just then political feeling ran high. The poet expressed his astonishment that Peel should deny the claims of the Catholics to emancipation either upon the score of justice or policy. Peel was partly a favourite with the poet.
| 172 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
About a month after the death of Mrs. Campbell, he lost an old friend, for whom he ever expressed the greatest regard, one of his earliest friends too, Dugald Stewart, to whose “Philosophy of the Human Mind” he had made frequent references to myself. The professor retained his high mental qualities to the last, having at seventy-five written a preface that exhibited an increase of mental power, a contrast of an opposite nature to the poet’s own conformation, and, looking at what a few years were to bring about, another of the many striking proofs of human frailty and blindness to the future. When Campbell noted the brilliant mind of his friend shining like the noon-day sun to the last, how little could he have foreseen the decay of his own genius so long before the like age.
Banim just then sent me some verses from Sevenoaks,
which the poet did not like, I could not conceive why, and I gave them to Pringle for his little annual—“The Friendship’s Offering.” The
subject was a touching one. I give it here from his own letter. “They,”
the lines, “were at least earnestly felt and conceived. Last summer, after going
down to Hastings, Mrs. Banim and I took a walk
along the path at the bottom of Cart Hill, and passing the little churchyard, which you
may recollect, we caught a glance of the headstone of an old friend, who had just died
in the
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 173 |
The poet’s objection was not to the verses, but the subject. The truth was, he did not like to see any thing about lost friends, as it recalled to his mind what had just happened. Few Parisians went to see the catacombs of Paris when they were open to the public, from something of a similar sentiment. Yet this year the poet wrote “The Death-boat of Heligoland,” a subject sombre enough. He published it anonymously in the Magazine.
Viscount Dillon, a great friend of Campbell’s, launched an epic poem, in twelve books, in 1828; the metre, blank verse, was recommended by Campbell. It had been a work of three years. There were excellent points about Lord Dillon; he was kind, gentlemanly, hospitable, with a handsome person. In company highly agreeable, though given to engross a full share of conversation. In his poem he imitated some of the inversions of language in Milton and others of the great poet’s peculiarities, but not with success. The noble viscount, however, erred sometimes on the score of metaphorical propriety. I remember a figure of his which compared the flight of a female apparition through the sky to a rocket—
“Rapid as rocket rushing with a hiss She cleaves the sky.” |
Some passages were effective and poetical.
Lord Dillon patronised a young lady as a poetess, and mentioned her in the highest terms to Campbell, to whom she was, it subsequently appeared, to dedicate her volume. His lordship had talked of her for nearly two years, and one day said, “She is a wonderful girl—she is the girl to start for the Derby.” Some time after, the poet asked if she had not “bolted,” as he had heard nothing more of her at the winning-post. The volume at last appeared, with lines indicative of an elegant, well-informed mind.
At the poet’s this amiable but somewhat enthusiastic nobleman used
to get into conversations of a considerable length, until Campbell either got impatient, or lapsed into one of his abstractions, and
became lost to all that was said. In the meantime I was generally conversing with Mrs. Campbell. Lord
Dillon would turn and address me, on perceiving
Campbell’s inattention. It was impossible not to attend to
one who was really so kind a man, and of such thorough good manners, although, as a French
writer says, “it was difficult to get a comma into the discourse.” On
many subjects, particularly in relation to Ireland,
| 174 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
At the house of R——n at Paddington, a warm conversation ensued about some Roman antiquities, volubly enunciated by Lord Dillon. Campbell, who felt the call of appetite, saw the dinner set in the next room, and the discussion going on while the guests were seating themselves. Fancying a turkey under one of the covers he said, “Gentlemen, let us leave Rome for Turkey.” When the cover was taken off, the dish exhibited a goose. “We can’t leave the Capitol, you see,” said our host. “No,” said Campbell, “every one to his friend—dulce domum.”
Dillon, Campbell, and one or two others, used to meet at dinner at this
friend’s house near Maida Hill, when the pleasantness and conviviality of the
after-dinner-hour were the most agreeable I ever remember. The table was strictly a
“conversable table,” never less than the Graces nor more than the Muses sitting
down to it. In general there were no more than six. Here all kinds of subjects were freely
discussed—poetry, philosophy, economy, politics, and sometimes religion, but nothing
in the way of disputation, all being in a strain
| 176 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
In 1829, the poet had become somewhat more reconciled to his domestic misfortune. He now went into society frequently and saw company at home. He had not lost any portion of his old abstractive habit, however, for Pringle had been circulating a paper soliciting a subscription for an unfortunate youth named Henry Scott. A copy was put into Campbell’s hand for the purpose of mentioning the subject at a dinner where he was to be in the chair. When the cloth was removed, the poet had forgotten the paper and all about the subscription for which Pringle had been solicitous. In fact, Campbell had mislaid it at home. Pringle complained to me; “You should have kept the paper yourself,” I observed, “and having prepared Campbell for the expectation of it beforehand, have gone and given it to him at the proper moment; it was eight chances out of ten otherwise that he would lose it.”
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 177 |
“Impossible!” said Pringle; “a charity matter, too?”
With his habitual absence of mind, as I told that excellent and kind man, he would have lost an exchequer bill in the same way, the last property he had in the world.
Pringle then sent him a note, recalling the circumstance of his inattention, which the world would have declared was unpardonable neglect, disregard of charitable feelings, and the like. Campbell instantly replied:—
“I was guilty of a sad oversight in neglecting to circulate the paper which you gave me, and now, by some fatality, I have mislaid it for the present, though I shall seek for it, and I think to a certainty I shall find it.
“In the meantime I enclose 3l. as the only atonement I can offer you for the behoof of the poor fellow in whom you are so humanely interested. With much regard, and respect, &c.”
This was but a repetition of the poet’s old way. I never heard that the paper was discovered; the chances are, that it was never heard of again.
I think it was the time he last came up from Scotland that I crossed him
in the street just as he was entering his own house, wearied and dusty. I went in with him
for a few minutes, when putting his hand into all his pockets, he exclaimed, “I
have not lost them, surely; I had a hundred
| 178 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
“Did he know the numbers?”
“No.” He set off to the inn again, but he never heard any thing more of his notes. He pulled them out perhaps, and dropped them in the coach in which he left the inn. I found he had brought them loose in his pocket, such was his careless way. Even when he wished to place any thing at home in security, he generally put it in some place that when he wanted it he had forgotten. He soon forgot in the present case the loss of his money, economist as he affected at times to be.
He passed the first three months of the year in London, in tolerable
health, resuming as near an approach as he could make to his old domestic life, though it
was easily seen that his efforts were far from successful. There are so many little things
demanding female supervision in the economy of a household, that are certain to be
neglected under male superintendence, and above all under the superintendence of one so
“helpless” as the poet was, to use Mrs.
Campbell’s word, that the want of her who had for so many years filled
up the void now become wider in the poet’s ex-
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 179 |
He decked his table with fresh plate, gave dinners, occasionally, as if
he wished to seek in society at home, the removal of that desolateness of feeling which it
was impossible he should not experience. His table had seldom more than six, including
himself and son, or eight at most. I never recollect to have met more. His dinners were
frugal and well served, there was nothing extraneous; all was in good taste, too, at this
time, for he had not yet betaken himself to those changes of domicile nor that disregard of
comfort which he afterwards fell into as he drew more towards his last years. I well
remember his giving
| 180 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
In April this year Campbell took a journey into Scotland again, although he had been down three months before. The object was to distribute the prizes which it has been already seen, from his address to the students of Glasgow, it was his intention to give them for certain essays upon subjects he had designated. He reached Glasgow on the 6th of April, from the following communication which I still have in my possession, stating, as was too frequently the case where business was to be transacted under his arrangement, that some error had taken place:—
“I arrived here this morning, when I learnt to my mortification that the prize exercises for my medals had been sent to London. They must have come to Seymour Street this morning. Will you have the goodness, my dear friend, to get them sent off immediately to me per mail, addressed to me Wm. Gray, Esq., Claremont Place, Glasgow. With best remembrances, I remain, &c. (though with a wretched steel-pen).”
He was occupied until the 17th of the month in Glasgow, about the
affairs of the university, during which time he adjudged the prizes for the different
essays which had been sent to London for his decision, under the idea that he would not
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 181 |
On the 17th of the same month, he was still in Glasgow, for he wrote from thence under that date.
“After a good deal of discussion, I have brought my rectorial matters to a settlement, and am now on the point of leaving this place for Edinburgh, from whence, on Monday next, the 20th, I shall embark for London. I am bringing with me one of the students, whom I have invited to stop a month with me in town. I long to tell you all my adventures here.”
The first notice I had of his return was a note to the following effect, undated:—
“I have returned sooner than I expected, last night, and am here at your service at as early an hour as you like to come to-day. I have an apology to make to you, which I must make verbally.
“P.S.—By an early hour, I mean five or so. I am going out at two. Perhaps you will have the goodness to say whether you will come at five or later.”
To what the apology related I have now no recollection. I went over and
dined. The poet was in excellent spirits, and entered into a detail
| 182 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 183 |
Tempora labunter, tacitisque senesoimus annis, |
I remarked that he had left the poetical for the philosophical mood, which was rather a strange thing with him.
“My good friend,” he replied, “a poet is a philosopher; the world won’t think so, because his lessons are not delivered according to the conventional ideas of the philosopher’s language. The difference is, that the poet gives the same lessons over sparkling wine, that the dry philosopher gives without even a glass of water to moisten his mouth.”
In the spring of this year, as before, Campbell
| 184 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 185 |
“You have done your own business now,” said Campbell to me.
“Why, I saw you did not disapprove of what I said.”
“Oh no,” he replied, “the doctor is very good-natured, and to punish one of the orthodox who put faith in prelacy is a virtue in the eyes of a John Knoxer, as of course I am.”
I felt annoyed; I would not willingly give any one offence, and feared I had hurt the archdeacon’s feelings.
Catholic Emancipation was at this time the engrossing topic of
conversation. The conduct of the Duke of Wellington in
yielding to the neces-
| 186 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
“See here,” said Campbell, showing me a letter from Ireland, in the month of January or February, “there will be serious work, I fear; Peel, says ——, is the greatest ignoramus or unaccountable that ever lived. He wrote to the lord-lieutenant, Lord Anglesey, a school-boy letter, most insolent and overbearing, and attributed his recall to his correspondence with Dr. Curtis, though that correspondence was not published till after the recall had arrived here—this is too bad even for Candor ‘himself.’”
“Soft and fair,” said the poet, “parliament is but just opened. If Peel opposes the measure, it will still be carried. I cannot believe he will hold out in opposition.”
Some very severe remarks upon Sir Robert
Peel’s conduct, then Mr. Peel, in afterwards
giving his late assent to that measure, were made in the poet’s hearing. It was
contended that he had sacrificed his principles, forsaken his friends, and, for the sake of
place, cast a stain upon his reputation. Campbell,
whose political tenets had never varied through life, and, therefore, might be supposed
more likely than individuals of looser political principles to join in the censures thus
unsparingly dealt out, on the contrary, vindicated the conduct of
Peel. He insisted that there was
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 187 |
| 188 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
Whenever he heard the minister attacked for changing his sentiments, he
used similar argu-
| MEMOIRS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL. | 189 |
| 190 | LITERARY REMINISCENCES AND |
It was singular that Campbell thus strenuously defended this statesman in those days upon the very point on which, since he has been deceased, the same statesman exhibited more striking lapses. It was singular, too, that a Whig so zealous as Campbell should become Peel’s champion, when, by so many of all parties, his conduct was placed on the list of unquestionable equivocations.
| ≪ PREV | NEXT ≫ |
