Thomas Campbell. J. Cuthbert Hadden

Reviewing Beattie’s Life of Campbell in the Quarterly in 1849, Lockhart expressed the hope that no one would ever tell Campbell’s story without making due acknowledgment to ‘the best stay of his declining period.’ He would be a bold man who would think of doing so. As well might one expect to write a life of Johnson without the aid of Boswell as expect to tell Campbell’s story without reference to Dr. Beattie. In addition to my acknowledgments to him, I have to express my indebtedness to Mr. Cyrus Redding’s ‘Reminiscences of Thomas Campbell,’ which, though badly put together, yet contain a mass of valuable information about the poet, especially in his more intimate relations. For the rest I have made considerable use of Campbell’s correspondence, and have, I trust, acquainted myself with all the more important references made to him in contemporary records, and in the writings of those who knew him. To several of my personal friends, particularly to Mr. G. H. Ely, I am obliged for hints and helpful suggestions, which I gratefully acknowledge.

J. C. H.

Edinburgh, October 1899.

THOMAS CAMPBELL

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I
ANCESTRY—BIRTH—SCHOOLDAYS

Table of Contents

The Campbells, as everybody knows, can claim an incredibly long descent. There is a Clan Campbell Society, the chairman of which declared some years ago that he possessed a pedigree carrying the family back to the year 420, and no doubt there are enthusiasts who can trace it to at least the time of the Flood. The poet was not particular about his pedigree, but the biographer of a Campbell would be doing less than justice to his subject if he denied him that ell of genealogy which Lockhart deemed the due of every man who glories in being a Scot.

In the present case, fortunately for the biographer, there is authoritative assistance at hand. The poet’s uncle, Robert Campbell, a political writer under Walpole’s administration, made a special study of the genealogy of the Campbells; and in his ‘Life of the most illustrious Prince John, Duke of Argyll,’ he has traced for us the descent of that particular branch of the Clan to which the poet’s family belonged. The descent may be stated in a few words. Archibald Campbell, lord and knight of Lochawe, was grandson of Sir Neil, Chief of the Clan, and a celebrated contemporary of Robert the Bruce. He died in 1360, leaving three sons, from one of whom, Iver, sprang the Campbells in whom we are now interested. They were known as the Campbells of Kirnan, an estate lying in the pastoral vale of Glassary, in Argyllshire, with which, through many generations, they became identified as lairds and heritors, ‘supporters of the Reformation and elders in the Church.’ In a privately printed work dealing with the Clan Iver, the late Principal Campbell of Aberdeen, who was distantly related to the poet, gives a slightly different account of the origin of the Kirnan Campbells, but the matter need not be dwelt upon here. There is a suggestion, scouted by Principal Campbell, that the poet believed himself to be remotely connected with the great ducal house of Argyll. In some lines written ‘On receiving a Seal with the Campbell Crest,’ he speaks of himself as having been blown, a scattered leaf from the feudal tree, ‘in Fortune’s mutability’; and even Lady Charlotte Campbell, a daughter of the ‘illustrious Prince John,’ hails him as a clansman of her race, exclaiming ‘How proudly do I call thee one of mine!’

These, however, are speculations for the antiquary rather than for the biographer. They are interesting enough in their way, but the writer of a small volume like the present cannot afford to be discursive; and so, leaving the arid regions of genealogy, we may be content to begin with the poet’s grandfather, Archibald Campbell. He was the last to reside on the family estate of Kirnan. Late in life he had taken a second wife, a daughter of Stewart, the laird of Ascog. Before her marriage the lady had lived much in the Lowlands, and now she said she could not live in the Highlands: the solitude preyed upon her health and spirits. Hence it came about that the laird of Kirnan set up house in an old mansion in the Trunkmaker’s Row, off the Canongate of Edinburgh, where the poet’s father, the youngest of three sons, was born in 1710.

Beyond the interesting fact that he was educated under the care of Robert Wodrow, the celebrated historian and preacher, from whose teaching he drew the strict religious principles which regulated his life, we hear nothing of the earlier years of Alexander Campbell. He went to America, and was in business for some time at Falmouth, in Virginia. There he met with the son of a Glasgow merchant, another Campbell, to whom he was quite unrelated, and together the two returned to Scotland to start in Glasgow as Virginia traders. The new firm at first prospered in a high degree, for Glasgow about the middle of the eighteenth century was just touching the culminating point of her commerce with the American colonies. Even as early as 1735 the Glasgow merchants had fifteen large vessels engaged in the tobacco trade alone. But the outbreak of the American War in 1775 put a speedy end to the city’s success in this direction. ‘Some of the Virginia lords,’ says Dr. Strang, ‘ere long retired from the trade, and others of them were ultimately ruined. Business for a time was in fact paralysed, and a universal cry of distress was heard throughout the town.’

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