Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 08.djvu/379

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Campbell
375
Campbell

situation, lands, inhabitants, revenues, colonies, and commerce of the island,’ &c., 2 vols. quarto, London, 1774. The work is specially remarkable for its affluence of practical suggestion. It teems with projects for the construction of harbours, the opening up of new communications by road and canal, and the introduction of new industries. Campbell even proposed that the state should buy up all the waste lands of the country and develope their latent resources, arable and pastoral. The ‘Political Survey’ excited some attention, but as a publishing speculation of the author it does not seem to have been very successful. So many years had been spent in its preparation that numbers of the original subscribers were dead before it appeared. Dr. Johnson believed that Campbell's disappointment on account of the indifferent success of the work killed him (Boswell, Life, p. 484). He died on 28 Dec. 1775, having received in the preceding year from the Empress Catherine of Russia a present of her portrait. The memoir of Campbell in Kippis's ‘Biographia Britannica’ gives an ample list of the many writings acknowledged by and ascribed to him. The library of the British Museum is without several of them. Among these is one published in 1751, which professes to give a ‘full and particular description’ of the ‘character’ of Frederick, prince of Wales, from his juvenile years until his death.

A man of untiring industry and considerable accomplishment, Campbell is described as gentle in manner and of kindly disposition. There are several interesting references to him in Boswell's ‘Life of Johnson,’ to both of whom he was known personally, Johnson being in the habit of going to the literary gatherings on Sunday evenings at Campbell's house in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, until ‘I began,’ he said, ‘to consider that the shoals of Scotchmen who flocked about him might probably say, when anything of mine was well done, “Ay, ay, he has learnt this of Cawmell.” Campbell is a good man, a pious man.’ Johnson said of him on the same occasion: ‘I am afraid he has not been in the inside of a church for many years; but he never passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows that he has good principles.’ Campbell told Boswell that he once drank thirteen bottles of port at a sitting. According to Boswell, Johnson spoke of Campbell to Joseph Warton as ‘the richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.’ There is nothing extravagant in the terms for which, according to the agreement preserved in the Egerton MSS. 738–40, he contracted to write for Dodsley the publisher, prefixing his name to the work, a quarto volume on the geography, natural history, and antiquities of England, at the rate of two guineas per sheet.

[Campbell's Writings; Memoir in Biographia Britannica (Kippis); authorities cited.]

F. E.

CAMPBELL, JOHN, third Earl of Breadalbane (1696–1782), was the son of John, second earl (1662-1752), generally known by the nickname of 'Old Rag,' and noted for his extraordinary eccentricities (note by Sir Walter Scott in the Sinclair Memoirs, p. 185). His mother was Henrietta, second daughter of Sir Edward Villiers, knight, sister of the first earl of Jersey, and Elizabeth, countess of Orkney, mistress of King William III. He was born in 1696, and educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he manifested considerable talents and zeal for study. In 1718 he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the court of Denmark. He was invested with the order of the Bath at its revival in 1725. In December 1731 he was appointed ambassador to Russia. In 1727 and 1734 he was chosen to represent the borough of Saltash in parliament, and in 1741 he became member for Oxford. He gave his support to Sir Robert Walpole's administration, and in May 1741 his abilities were recognized by his appointment to be one of the lords of the admiralty, an office which he held till the dissolution of Walpole's administration, 19 March 1742. In January 1746 he was nominated master of his majesty's jewel office. Having in January 1752 succeeded his father as earl of Breadalbane, he was in the following July chosen a representative peer for Scotland. On 29 Jan. 1756 he was created D.C.L. by the university of Oxford. In 1761 he was appointed lord chief justice in eyre of all the royal forests south of the Trent, and he held that office till October 1765. He was appointed vice-admiral of Scotland 26 Oct. 1776. He died at Holyrood House 26 Jan. 1782. He married, first, in 1721, Lady Arabella Grey, eldest daughter and coheiress of Henry, duke of Kent, K.G., by whom he had a son, Henry, who died in infancy, and a daughter, Jemima, who married Philip, second earl of Hardwicke. His first wife dying in 1727, Breadalbane married, 23 Jan. 1730, Arabella, third daughter and heiress of John Pershall, by whom he had two sons, George, who died in his twelfth year, and John, lord Glenurchy, who married Willielma, second and posthumous daughter and coheiress of William Maxwell of Preston [see Campbell, Willielma], and had a son who died in infancy. Lord Glenurchy died in the lifetime of his father in