Thomas Campbell. J. Cuthbert Hadden
described him as ‘unparalleled in his early talent for eloquence,’ as literally the most beautiful youth he had ever seen; and he declared afterwards that if Watt had lived he must have made a brilliant figure in the House of Commons. Then there was James Thomson, a kindred genius, known familiarly as the ‘Doctor,’ with whom he formed a life-long friendship, and to whom some of the most intimate of his letters are addressed. It was to the order of this early friend that two marble busts of the poet were executed by Bailey, one of which he presented to Glasgow University; and it was he who also commissioned the well-known portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, which accompanies most editions of Campbell’s works. Unfortunately, Campbell just missed Jeffrey, the ‘great little man,’ who spent two happy years (1788–1790) at the old College, and, like Campbell himself, was subsequently made its Lord Rector.
Campbell’s career at the University, allowing for certain differences of detail, was very much what it had been at the Grammar School. That is to say, he fought shy of drudgery, put on a spurt now and again, distinguished himself in the classics, wrote verse, and indulged freely in the customary frolics of the typical student. He confessed in after life that he was much more inclined to sport than study; and although he admitted having carried away one or two prizes, he admitted also that he was idle in some of the classes. The fact remains notwithstanding, that he constantly outstripped his competitors, who, as Beattie has it, steadily plodded on in the rear, ‘the very personifications of industry.’ In his first year he took one prize for Latin and another for some English verses, besides securing a bursary on Archbishop Leighton’s foundation. Next session he had more academical honours. In the Logic class he received the eighth prize for ‘the best composition on various subjects,’ and was made an examiner of the exercises sent in by the other students of the class—certainly a high compliment to a youth of his years. One of the essays, on the subject of Sympathy, is printed by Beattie with the Professor’s note appended. From this note it appears that the occult art of pointing was not the only matter which required the attention of the student. Professor Jardine might have passed over the amazing statement that ‘God has implanted in our nature an emotion of pleasure on contemplating the sufferings of a fellow-creature’; but it was impossible that he should overlook such spellings as ‘agreable,’ ‘sympathyze,’ and ‘persuits.’ Still, ‘upon the whole,’ said Jardine, ‘the exercise is good, and entitles the author to much commendation.’
The Professor’s verdict may be taken as a type of Campbell’s whole career at College: it was a case of ‘much commendation’ all through. At the close of his third session he was awarded a prize for a poetical ‘Essay on the Origin of Evil,’ which, if we are to credit his own statement, gave him a celebrity throughout the entire city, from the High Church down to the bottom of the Saltmarket. The students, who spoke of him as the Pope of Glasgow, even talked of it over their oysters at Lucky MacAlpine’s in the Trongate. In the Greek class he took the first prize for a rendering of certain passages from the ‘Clouds’ of Aristophanes, which Professor Young declared to be the best essay that had ever been given in by a student at the University. This was not bad for a youth of fifteen. Hamilton Paul says that Campbell carried everything before him in the matter of his ‘unrivalled translations,’ until his fellow-students began to regard him as a prodigy, and copy him as a model. In Galt’s Autobiography there is a story—he heads it ‘A Twopenny Effusion’—to the effect that the students bore the cost of printing an Ossianic poem of Campbell’s which was hawked about at twopence; but as Galt erroneously says that Campbell published ‘The Pleasures of Hope’ by subscription, we may regard the story as at least doubtful. Campbell called Galt a ‘dirty blackguard’ for retailing it.
But it was not alone by his proficiency in the classics that Campbell compelled attention. At this time he showed a turn for satire, of which he never afterwards gave much evidence, and his lampoons upon characters in the College and elsewhere were the theme of constant merriment in the quadrangle. Beattie has a good deal to say about these effusions, but if we may judge by a sample which Redding has preserved, their cleverness was better than their taste. It was legitimate enough, perhaps, to rail at the length of an elderly city parson’s sermons, to make fun of his oft-recurring phrase, ‘the good old-way’; but the worthy man, about to marry a young wife, could hardly be expected to relish this kind of thing:
So for another Shunamite
He hunts the city day by day,
To warm his chilly veins at night
In the good old way.
Adam Smith contended that it was the duty of a poet to write like a gentleman. If as a student Campbell had always written like a gentleman, there would have been less of that posthumous resentment of which his biographer complains. Nevertheless, his popularity as a playful wit must have been very pleasant to him at the time. ‘What’s Tom Campbell been saying?’ was a common exclamation among the students as they gathered of mornings round the stove in the Logic classroom. And Tom Campbell, if he had been saying nothing of particular note, would take his pencil and write an impromptu on the white-washed wall. Presently a ring would be formed round it, ‘and the wit and words passing from lip to lip generally threw the class into a roar of laughter.’ It is but right to say, however, that these impromptus were invariably produced with a view to something else than praise. The stove was usually encircled by a body of stout, rollicking Irish students, and Campbell found that the only sure means of getting near it was by ‘drafting the fire-worshippers’—in other words, by making them give warmth in exchange for wit. One cold December morning it was whispered that a libel on old Ireland had been perpetrated on the wall. The Irishmen rushed forth in a body, and while they read, apropos of a passage they had just been studying in the class—
Vos, Hiberni, collocatis,
Summum bonum in—potatoes,
the young satirist had taken the best place at the stove!
Campbell’s third session at the University was eventful in several respects. To begin with, it was then—in the spring of 1793—that he made that first visit to Edinburgh to which he so often referred afterwards. It was a time of intense political excitement. ‘The French Revolution,’ to quote the poet’s words, ‘had everywhere lighted up the contending spirits of democracy and aristocracy’; and being, in his own estimation, a competent judge of politics, Campbell became a pronounced democrat. Muir and Gerald were about to stand their trial for high treason at Edinburgh, and Campbell ‘longed insufferably’ to see them—to see Muir especially, of whose accomplishments he had heard a ‘magnificent account.’ He had an aunt in Edinburgh ready to welcome him; and so, with a crown piece in his pocket, he started for the capital, doing the forty-two miles on foot. Next morning found him in court. The trial was, he says, an era in his life. ‘Hitherto I had never known what public eloquence was, and I am sure the Justiciary Scotch lords did not help me to a conception of it, speaking, as they did, bad arguments in broad Scotch. But the Lord Advocate’s speech was good—the speeches of Laing and Gillies were better; and Gerald’s speech annihilated the remembrances of all the eloquence that had ever been heard within the walls of that house.’ In the opinion of eminent English lawyers Gerald had not really been guilty of sedition, and certainly Muir never uttered a sentence in favour of reform stronger than Pitt himself had uttered. Nevertheless, in spite of their solemn protests and their fervent appeals to the jury, they were both sentenced to transportation, and were sent in irons to the hulks.
The trial and its sequel made a deep impression on the young democrat. When he returned to Glasgow he could think and speak of nothing else. His old gaiety had quite deserted him, and instead of frolics and flute-playing and ‘auld farrant stories’ by the fireside, there were tirades about ‘the miserable prospects of society, the corrupt state of modern legislature, the glory of ancient republics, and the wisdom of Solon and Lycurgus.’ Never, surely, was any philosopher of fifteen so harassed by political cares and apprehensions. But the gloomy fit did not last long. Campbell had to think of making a living for himself, and he began by casting about for something to fill up his college vacations.
It does not appear that he went to the University with any definite object in view, but the question of a profession had long since become