Mr. Thomas Campbell.-I have come to borrow money of you. T. C. But this time it is a very large sum I want to borrow. Fr.-I have always found you honourable, and I will most willingly you to any amount within my means. lend T. C.-I want a very large sum indeed, 500l., and for a purpose I will explain to you. Fr. (laughing).-I want no explanation, but I will give you a check for the amount immediately. T. C.-But-but-but-I am sorry to say, that I can give you no security, except on my person, my furniture, and library. Fr.-I will not take such security, nor any other security from you, my dear friend, except the security of your word. The check was given, and Mr. Campbell voluntarily sent his accept ance for the 500l. Gratified at this, he told me of the whole transaction, and I did not like to damp his joyous elation of spirits. I thought it my duty, however, to see him again on the subject, and I cautiously and temperately explained my views, which were that the speculation must infallibly fail, and he be the victim. He caught my ideas, and I never saw a face more expressive of distress. He became almost distracted, exclaiming, "Oh, God! it is not for my fate I care, but, oh, that I should injure so generous and confiding a friend. I will immediately sell my library and furniture by auction, and pay my friend to the utmost of my power.' I begged him to be more composed, and not to act precipitately. "Your friend," I said, “would be mortified if you made such a sacrifice, it would be an ungenerous return for his excessive kindness to you.' I suggested a channel in which he might dispose of his share at par; he tried and succeeded: the friend was repaid the 500l., and the work, as I predicted, proved a total failure. He was almost as grateful to me for my interference and advice as he was to his other friend for the loan. Mr. Campbell was assisted in his benevolence to others, and especially the Poles, by an eccentric friend, the member for a northern county, who used, and with nearly truth, to boast that he was the richest commoner in England. He introduced me to this gentleman, and one day our conversation turned entirely on politics. The member was, like myself, a radical. He agreed with me on the necessity of household suffrage and annual parliaments, and on the necessity of so remodifying the House of Lords, that, in fact, it would be scarcely any house at all in the present sense of the term. So far all was concord, but I unfortunately turned it into discord, by mentioning the word "ballot." The angry member got up and vehemently exclaimed, "For heaven's sake, Mr. do not mention the word ballot, though I am the wealthiest landholder and mine possessor in the county, I seldom see it, and yet I have great difficulty in defeating Mr. at the general election. Mr. lives in the county, he is always there, and of course associates with the highest classes; but he is likewise familiar with all the squires and farmers, is acquainted with all local business, studies the wants, interests, and feelings of every class; and if the ballot were established, I should not have the slightest chance in any election." Mr. Campbell enjoyed the scene. The exposure of how self will master every thing was complete. I was so imprudent as to say, "Sir, you are not aware that you have given the best of all reasons in favour of the ballot." I had made a hole in my manners, but I casually found an opportunity to repair and close the wide breach. At my next interview, this richest of England's commoners broached the subject of the Spencean system; a most absurd theory of equalising all property. I merely said that the idea was so foolish, that the theory and its theorist might safely have been left to insignificance and contempt. Lord Sidmouth, the secretary of state, thought otherwise, and he indicted a very clever lad,' the son of an humble tradesman in Newcastle-street, Strand, who had written on the subject. In those dreadful times, the youth of course had a verdict against him, and equally, of course, he received from an eminent high prerogative judge a severe sentence, and, as it was then the custom, he was sent to a distant gaol. He was taken to Carlisle and incarcerated, but he told me that the great unpaid, the squirearchy magistrates behaved very well, and he had every indulgence that imprisonment admitted of. His being separated from his family and friends by his cruel transportation to the farthest extremity of England was his ruin, and the cause of his untimely death. After his emancipation, I said to him, "How could you broach so even a silly theory?" He ingeniously replied, "I acknowledge that I wrote abominable nonsense, but I was young, enthusiastic, and disposed to heroism, and imprisonment was not calculated to convince my mind." The richest of commoners and the county member was pleased with my narration and we were reconciled. I told this threefold millionaire, that I was acquainted with a thoroughly narrow-minded man, a sordid creature that had worked his way up in life from the most humble of all possible conditions to very considerable wealth. He was a republican, a Tom Paineite, and an enthusiast for the equalisation of property, provided the theory did not extend to himself. I was sitting in his spacious and almost superb drawingroom on a bitterly cold night, and over an ample fire he would broach his favourite theory of an equal distribution of all property. Disgusted with this curmudgeon's dishonest principles and feelings, I replied, "Sir, could I but fix one leg of a compass on your roof, and describe a circle of less than a mile in diameter, I should include the most distressed and even the most depraved population in Europe. Suppose that they should adopt the, to them, most convenient doctrine of an equalisation of property. You, sir, have several splendid mirrors of great size and in rich frames-these creatures of misery might claim a participation in them." "Zounds," said my friend, or rather acquaintance, getting angry, "the poor cannot eat looking-glasses, though they may be starving." "Certainly not, but they might sell them for food; and besides, sir, the poor and desperate feel a bitter insult in beholding superfluous wealth. You are musical, and boast that you have three Cremona violins, the lowest of which cost you eighty guineas, and you have a genuine Straduarius violoncello, that cost you a hundred, besides which you have two pianos." "Good heavens," cried the frightened man, "the poor can't use Cremona violins, or a Straduarius violoncello, and what have they to do with pianos ?" "You are nervous and sensitive to cold, and you tell me that you sleep in winter in your bed-room facing the south, and in summer, in that towards the north; might not the poor whose beds consist of straw laid on bricks to keep them from the wet flooring, exclaim that it was shameful that you should have two bed-rooms, each with a bed, and with a profusion of blankets, feather-beds, and down pillows; might they not equalise your property, and reducing you to your paillasse, at last say that your bed was too large for one person, and might not three or four shivering wretches make a case of bed-fellowship, on the principles of an equalisation of property?" The selfish creature was almost agonised, and, ringing the bell, wished me good night. I made an enemy of him; but the rich county member was so delighted with my narration that he begged me to write an article on the subject for his "Review." I promised, but was faithless to my word. My excellent friend, Mr. Campbell, rejoiced in the part I had taken, and was glad that I and the rich member were restored to a good understanding. I was far from participating in the gladness-whether the rich member and aristocrat or the rich parvenu were the more selfish, others must determine. Mr. Campbell introduced me to a nobleman celebrated for his great talents, but unfortunately equally famous for his great eccentricities-the genius was neutralised by the unhappy failing. I called on his lordship one morning and was well received. The Edinburgh Review had appeared the day before, and two articles in it were attributed to the very able pen of the nobleman. One was evidently his, and the other, to my mind, was doubtful. He confessed his authorship of the first, and waved the subject of the second, and this I took as a tacit acknowledgment. The first contribution to the Edinburgh occasioned surprise, and very general and strong censure. It was nothing but an extravagant and most fulsome panegyric of George III., and the successions of his ultratory administrations. We had a very warm and a very long argument on the subject, until at last his lordship gave way, and entered into the strongest censures of the king and all he had done, and coming to his climax, he exclaimed, "And when the king became idiotic, with his tongue lolling out (illustrating the lolling tongue) the peers were all ready to fall on their knees, and cry out, A god! a god!' "Now, my lord, I perfectly understand you, and I agree with all your lordship has said, but it is very different from what has appeared in the Edinburgh Review." I told my friend Campbell of this, adding, I supposed that his lordship would never allow me to enter his house again, for eminent noblemen did not like to be contradicted by persons of my humble station. The poet laughed and said, "Poh, poh, poh! he is the last of men to like a sycophant or a servile, and every element of his nature is contradiction. He could not exist a week without giving and receiving contradiction." I met a gentleman officially and socially familiar with his lordship, and told him what had occurred. He likewise laughed, and said his lordship had told him all, and was the reverse of displeased with the spirit and firmness with which I had maintained my position, and the ability with which I had argued my case. This free spirit redounds to the honour of this uncertain nobleman. My friend staid about three or four days in Westmoreland with this nobleman, an old companion when they were both plebeians. He spoke of his hospitable reception and entertainment with much satisfaction. One day after dinner, the conversation turned upon politics, mixed with reminiscences of boyish days, and with the literary merits of their old friends. "I wonder, my lord," said Campbell, "that after your becoming Lord Chancellor you did not raise Sydney Smith to the prelacy,-all your friends are sorry for it." His lordship became excited, and said, "It was impossible; I wished it, but there were insuperable objections. Sydney Smith was an impracticable man; his eccentricities rendered it impossible for the treasury benches to depend on him. Nobody could make a party man of him. There was no depending on him for even his vote. He would take one side or the other as his will inclined him." His lordship was so exactly describing himself, that the poet could not restrain his laughter, and made a forced effort to change the conversation. I delighted in drawing my friend into philosophic, scientific, or literary discussions. I always felt much elevated and equally improved by such controversies-for the conversations often turned into controversies, but they were always conducted by me with the greatest deference to his superior talents and learning, and he displayed his usual suavity of temper. But, he often came to me so harassed and so exhausted by the anxieties of the day and by his mental exertions, that to entice him into such discussions would have exhibited on my part the bad taste and want of judgment so facetiously alluded to by the late James Smith in his man who asked a penny postman to dine on a Sunday, and would press him to take a walk after dinner, and, when he invited the journeyman tailor to his hospitable board, would tease his guest to sit still all the evening, instead of giving the enjoyments of the fields to the poor fellow who was doomed to sit still and cross-legged throughout the week days. Mr. Campbell had derived all his principles, opinions, and feelings from the abstractions of the Greek and Roman philosophers, not entirely omitting the eastern allegories. On this basis he engrafted much from our own metaphysicians and general philosophers, particularly his most celebrated countryman, David Hume. He was very far from omitting the modern French school of philosophy, and found rich sources of knowledge in D'Alembert, Diderot, Volney, and Helvetius, not omitting the great Italian philosopher, Spallanzani. He greatly admired the ingenious subtleties of the German philosophers, and lamented that, in our own country, boasting itself the land of freedom, less liberty of thought and expression was permitted than what was allowed on the continent. Of David Hume he was a very warm admirer, both as a philosopher, a moralist, and an historian. In his first two points I cordially agreed with him, but I one day added that "I could not tolerate Hume's partiality for the worthless sovereigns of the Stuart family, and that worse than even this was his love of toryism, and which he defended by precedents, in the style of a sophist Jesuit or special pleader." My friend did not find it convenient, I suppose, to take me up on either of these opinions, but he pointed out Hume's fine powers of narration, observing that, although he was a phlegmatic man, he often produced the deepest pathos, and by the most simple and natural means. In this we entirely concurred, but he would allude to many extremely beautiful narrations, with all of which I happened to be well acquainted. He was an enthusiastic admirer of Gibbon, as the most philosophic historian of modern ages. He spoke of his great powers of taking the most comprehensive and grand outlines, and of filling them up by consummate historical learning. I once observed that Gibbon's style was far too elaborate, and that his profusion of epithets wearied and almost sickened the reader. "You have not studied him with sufficient attention," replied the poet, "for his epithets are employed with wonderful skill and admirable ingenuity." This induced me to read again several of this great philosophic historian's chapters, and I became a convert to the opinions of my friend. "Gibbon," I said, "I was not pleased with as a public man. He entered parliament for the worst of boroughs, was a thorough tool of the treasury-bench, and, throughout the American war, now so abhorred by all men, his vote was always at the service of ministers. He was a parliamentary place-hunter; and, aiming at a diplomatic appointment, was defeated by his rival candidate, Mr. Storer, the rich West Indian slaveowner. At last he wrote his manifesto against France, and was rewarded by the commissionership of the Board of Trade, a place he soon lost on his party going out of office. "All that is too true, my friend," said the poet, "but I was speaking of Edward Gibbon as an historian, and not as a politician." Something similar to this occurred when Campbell was speaking of Sir Gilbert Elliot, who had given him his sinecure on the Scotch civil pension list. I said, "I do not admire his character; he ratted from his party and principles, became ministerial, and after this he travelled through a succession of the richest appointments, and finally obtained the coronet of an earl." Mr. Campbell, with a strong emotion that did him much honour, said, "I was not speaking of him as a public character, I was speaking of him with gratitude, as a friend and benefactor." I regretted my ill-timed ob servations. He enjoyed the lyric poems of Greece and Rome, and of course the two great epics; and his retention of memory was evinced by the great number of even long passages he could repeat from all. He pointed out beauties that had but feebly impressed me. His chief pleasure, however, lay in the Italian poets of the middle ages-of course not omitting our own from Chaucer upwards. He had no nationality, and I once spoke to him of Burns. He greatly admired not an inconsiderable number of this extraordinary man's productions; but generally, as a poet, his opinions were not favourable. I was even astonished at the immense number and the length of the poems he could recite from Burns. I never could get any opinion from him of Macpherson and Ossian, except the opinion expressed by the interjection "pshaw!" I once asked, to use an expression of Dr. Johnson on many a book, "Could you read it through?" "You are mistaken," said Campbell, "with respect to Ossian; no poem in our language is so easy to read through; for in reading even |