I began with describing my present undertaking on the Poets to be selected-I mean the first-rate Poets—and I have set first-rate judges to name what they consider the best passages. These opinions-taken along with another standard of taste, to which I pay due deference, viz.,

ET. 27.] LETTER TO WALTER SCOTT-BRITISH POETS.

47

general opinion-shall decide my own humble choice. Will you do me then a favour, my dear favourite of living Poets, to be in this instance a judge of the merits of the dead? Will you mark the passages in Chatterton which please you, referring me, with a slight description of what the passage contains, to the page of Anderson's edition, where I may read the same. From Chatterton I cannot admit into my compilation more than ten or twelve pages of 128 lines to the page. I have also a favour to request, that your friend Erskine would give me his assistance in reading "Falconer's Shipwreck," and give me in his report on the best passage, not exceeding a few pages, to be selected. In his taste I confide as much as any man alive. I meant to ask Alison's discriminating and fine judgment of poetical merit; but I fear he is not strong enough to be troubled with any commission. If you will write me on this subject, it will give me great comfort. The task of this compilation appears easy; but to be well discharged, it is really fatiguing. I am wading through oceans of bad poetry, where not a fish is to be caught. Believe me, affectionately yours,

T. CAMPBELL.

This letter was promptly acknowledged by Mr. Scott, † whose approbation of the scheme of the British Poets was accompanied with great admiration of the new ballad; and with such an authority in his favour, Campbell resumes

* William Erskine, Esq., advocate.—See Vol. I., page 243.

+ On the 12th April, in a letter to Mr. James Ballantyne, he says: "I have imagined a very superb work. What think you of a complete edition of British Poets, ancient and modern? Johnson's is imperfect and out of print; so is Bell's, which is a Lilliputian thing; and Anderson's, the most complete in point of number, is most contemptible in execution, both of the editor and printer. There is a scheme for you!" The Life, Vol. II., page 44.

the correspondence, and thus lays open to him his views and circumstances:

TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.

MY DEAR SCOTT,

SYDENHAM, April 10th, 1805.

For a letter so valuable in every respect as your last, I sit down to offer you my grateful acknowledgments, especially for the encouragement you give me respecting the sea song, which is to form part of a second volume, very soon to bring me again before the public. It is to go along with Lochiel and Hohenlinden-with the poems at the end of my 4to volume—and a Turkish little story about the siege of Belgrade, of which I know not what, how much, or how little, or how much less than little I may make of it. I was always a dead bad hand at telling a story; and, if your own poetry be excepted, I know no one of Scotland born who has the narrative faculty.

In return for such a letter as yours, I feel considerable embarrassment in sending you another request, of a nature more indelicate and troublesome than the last I sent you. What I have to say, however, respecting the usage I have met with from one of my booksellers, and some circumstances in my situation, it is probable that either Richardson, or Alison, or Grahame-knowing your friendly interest in my affairs—may have accidentally spoke of to you in the course of conversation. The case is this I have connexion at present with two booksellers, Constable and Co., on whom I am drawing, and have drawn liberally for the compilation, on which I subsist at present with comfort. Constable's conduct to me has been very friendly. With Doig I have an account open; but his usage is uncivil, and his poverty and hard-fistedness so truly Scotch, that I really feel more hurt in asking my own from him, than I should

ET. 27.]

TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION FROM SCOTT.

49

feel in asking advances of a liberal dealer. . . . In the meantime, having some debts to discharge in London, I have no other way of settling my affairs than by requesting a temporary accommodation, where I can apply on the score of friendship; and where I have reason to think there is a full reliance on my principles being honourable. The advance of 501.* at present is a serious favour to ask of you; but I hope the disagreeable impression of my conduct will be effaced when I say, as I can say with safety, that the money with which I can repay it, is at this moment my legal due. . . . I have troubled you, therefore, because I think you know me, and think me such a man as would live uneasily, if, after obtaining a proof of your kindness and confidence, I did not evince myself worthy of it by subsequent conduct. The time of repayment I shall fix a little further off than I could state, if I expressed my fair hopes. At all events, therefore, I may that this summer I shall be able to inclose a draft for immediate discount.

say

Believe me, my dear Scott, yours sincerely,

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

P.S. It is surely good news to send a poet of the first order, that the great verdict of Fox+ is among the classical tastes given in warm admiration of your "Lay of the Last Minstrel."

On receipt of the draft, Campbell writes:

T. C.

* This letter is endorsed by Sir W. Scott-"Thomas Campbell, answeredenclosing letter to Longman and Rees, desiring them to accept my draft for 521. 10s."

+ "I have had a flattering assurance of Mr. Fox's approbation, mixed with a censure of my Eulogy on the Viscount of Dundee."-Letter to George Ellis, Esq., Life of Sir Walter Scott, vol. ii. p. 49.

TO WALTER SCOTT, ESQ.

SYDENHAM, April 25th, 1805.

MY DEAR SCOTT,

I received yesterday your letters, and that to Longman has succeeded as well as possible. In the fever of a temporary complaint, called by Frenchmen "Le Catch-cold," I have just command of pen and eyesight sufficient to thank you with a most grateful heart for a kindness and a kindness most agreeably done. I really will never forget the impression I felt on reading your letter. The consciousness of having been obliged to have recourse to what is, even among friends, a trial of friendship, and a something connected with indelicacy, had given me a little uneasiness; but your style and manner of writing is so full of confidence and of unaffected kindness, as entirely to relieve me. I am infinitely encouraged by what you say of your own fortune. I thought it had been founded on paternal inheritance. I hold your progress before me as a comfortable encouragement, to shew what a cheerful and industrious use of talents can accomplish. I delight to think of your happiness! having a sympathetic anticipation that your brother bard, on the bleaker knows of Parnassus, may one day batten in such another rich enclosure as your own habitation. I thank God, I have very tolerable prospects: I have now so many pleasing incitements to industry-such a wife and such a child as would make any but the heart of a scoundrel beat with no other wish than to get forward in life for their sakes. In London, it is true, I have but few intimate friends; these, however, I scarcely want, having so much inestimable companionship my own fireside. I may safely say I have not a

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