In September, 1803, he married his cousin. Miss Matilda Sinclair, a Lady of refined taste and personal beauty; and with "fifty pounds in his writing desk," and the prospective "fruits of literary engagements," he sat down to work with a "happy and contented mind." But with a continual round of visitors, letters, cards, invitations, appeals to the author of "the Pleasures of Hope," which deranged all his plans, he was soon compelled to retreat from Pimlico to a cottage on Sydenham heath. There he found quiet congenial friends, who honoured his talents, and united their efforts to promote his welfare. This was the happiest period of his life. With his busy forenoons in town and studious evenings at home, he made literature a staff on which he could lean with comfort. His familiar letters of that period exhibit the poet and his little household in a very amiable and engaging light.
In 1806 the king was graciously pleased to grant him a literary pension of £200 a year. Three years later appeared his "Gertrude of Wyoming;"' "O'Connor's Child;" "Battle of the Baltic," and other poems, which had their full share of popularity. He then wrote a course of lectures on poetry, which he read at the Royal Institution, edited Specimens of British Poets, and lectured in the provinces. But at length, in losing his favourite child, he appeared to have lost all his health and energy; and then acting upon professional advice, he struck his tent, packed up his books, and removed to a house near Hyde Park. There he undertook the editorship of the New Monthly, which he conducted for many years, making it the vehicle of numerous articles from his own pen, both in prose and verse. His house was the evening resort of a brilliant literary circle. He was identified with every scheme of public and private benevolence, a friend and promoter of talent in every department, and charitable often to excess. He was the avowed champion of the Poles, of all "patriots" and "refugees;" and never was literary championship more vigorously sustained. He founded the London university, visited the public schools of Germany on its behalf, and reported to his colleagues on the Prussian system of education. He founded the Association of the Friends of Poland, and the Literary Club, and gave lectures for public charities on various occasions.
In November, 1826, he had the "crowning honour" of being chosen lord-rector of his native university, a "sunburst of popular favour," as he expressed it, which was repeated a second and a third time, and acknowledged on his part by singular devotedness to the duties of his high office. His "Letters to t he Students of Glasgow," published in his magazine, were much read and commended at the time as models of classical taste and composition. After the publication of his new poem, "Theodoric," he undertook a life of Mrs. Siddons, the queen of tragedy, whom in 1814, in company with John Kemble, he had attended on her visit to Paris. Having completed this task—a dying bequest—he went abroad, where he was publicly feted in Paris as the "Champion of Poland—the Poet of Freedom—the Friend of Mankind;" and with these plaudits ringing in his ears he embarked for Africa, and spent the winter in Algiers. The results of that tour were published in his "Letters from the South." On his return home through Paris he was graciously received and complimented by Louis Philippe upon his lucid report of Algiers and the regency. The next works to which he gave his name were a life of Frederick the Great, a life of Petrarch, and a new edition of Shakspeare, with introductory notes and comments, which furnished him with pleasing occupation, but neither advanced his fame nor improved his income. He was then in delicate health; but a summer tour in the Highlands set him up, and brought under his notice materials for a new poem, which he published with the ominous title of "Glencoe!" Its reception by the public was not very flattering. The bursts of applause which had followed and cheered him through forty years of his poetical life, now fell on his ear with a fainter and fainter echo. He had lived in the society of warm hearts—in times of great excitement—in the sunshine of popularity. But most of his old friends were now departed, and he looked anxiously around for something which neither fame nor friendship itself could bestow. "When I think," he said, "of the existence that shall have commenced when the cold stone is laid over my head, what can literary fame appear to me but as vanity—as nothing!" But he consoled himself with the conviction that he had never written a line to countenance infidelity, nor to lower the standard of christian morals.
The last beautiful edition of his poems, illustrated from drawings by Turner, soon reimbursed him for the heavy outlay, and during his latter years brought him a handsome annuity. This, with his pension and several legacies bequeathed to him by his friends, Telford and others, might have rendered him quite independent of "literary drudgery." But his practical benevolence, acting as a continual drain upon his resources, involved him in difficulties, from which the more wary and calculating are generally exempt. At his farewell breakfast given in London, Rogers, Moore, Milman, and two or three intimate friends, were his guests. The party was cheerful; and during this act of hospitality his wit and humour played gracefully round the table. But it was painfully evident that these momentary flashes were but the fitful lights that often precede the hour of sunset. In a few months he parted with his house at Pimlico, and took the lease of an old family mansion in Boulogne, not far from that in which Le Sage and also the poet Churchill had expired. It was a rash step, the result of a needless panic, and the change was rapid. His health broke down, his pen was laid aside, all literary speculations were abandoned, and with a "forecast" that his time was come, he took to his bed—never again to leave it until removed in his coffin to Westminster abbey. On the 15th of June, 1844, at a quarter past four in the afternoon, he entered, by a calm and painless transition, into a new state of existence.—Hoc erat luctuosum suis, acerbum patriæ.—All necessary arrangements being concluded, the poet's remains were embarked at midnight on the 27th June, conveyed to London, and then to the "Jerusalem chamber" in the abbey (where the body of Addison had lain), there to wait the ceremony of interment. On the 3rd of July the funeral procession moved to Poets' Corner. The pall was supported by eight peers of the realm, headed by the duke of Argyll, while the sublime service for the dead, chanted by the choir, and responded to by the deep-toned organ, produced an effect of indescribable solemnity. At the moment the coffin was lowered, and while the Reverend Dean Milman pronounced the words—"Dust to dust, ashes to ashes"—Colonel Sczyrma, heading a deputation of Polish nobles in deep mourning, took from his breast a handful of dust, brought from the tomb of Kosciusko, and with a trembling hand sprinkled it over the poet's coffin. This delicate token of respect and affection to him who had been emphatically "the exiles' friend," drew tears from many eyes, and formed an appropriate close to the solemnities of the day.—A fine classic statue of Campbell, by Marshall—on a pedestal, presented by Mrs. Roylance-Child, now faces that of Addison in Poets' Corner, and occupies one of the best sites in Westminster abbey.—W. B., L.
* CAMPBELL, William Hunter, a Scotch botanist, was born at Edinburgh about the year 1815. He prosecuted the study of law, but devoted much time to botany, and made many excursions in Scotland. He was one of the originators of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, and acted as its first secretary. He now occupies an important judicial office in Georgetown, Demerara, the government of which lately appointed him, along with two others, to explore a route by the rivers Waini, Barama, and Cuyuni to the goldfields of Caratal, and thence by Upata to the river Orinoco. The report was presented by him in December, 1857. His collection of plants, which contains numerous Indian species, has been handed over to the herbarium of the university of Edinburgh. He is an LL.D. of King's college and university, Aberdeen.—J. H. B.
CAMPE, Joachim Heinrich, a distinguished German educator and author, was born at Deensen, duchy of Brunswick, in 1746, and studied theology at the universities of Helmstedt and Halle. Attracted and inspired by the educational reform then everywhere in progress, he engaged with no less zeal than ability in the work of education. He accepted a mastership which was offered him in the Dessau philanthropinum, and was soon raised to be one of its directors. His love of independence, however, induced him to establish an academy of his own at Trittow, near Hamburg, which his feeble health obliged him to resign some years after to one of his colleagues. In 1787 he was appointed scholastic councillor at Brunswick, and there superintended a thorough reform of schools and scholastic affairs. At the same time he purchased the so-called "Schulbuchhandlung," which, chiefly by the publication of his own works, he raised to a highly flourishing state, and after his death bequeathed to his son-in-law, Mr. Vieweg. He died in 1818. His works
