came tutor in the
family of Sir William Napier, at Downie, near Loch Fyne. On completing a
fifth session at the University, he experienced anxiety regarding the
choice of a profession, chiefly with the desire of being able speedily
to aid in the support of his necessitous parents. He first thought of a
mercantile life, and then weighed the respective advantages of the
clerical, medical, and legal professions. For a period, he attempted
law, but soon tired of the drudgery which it threatened to impose. In
Edinburgh, during a brief period of legal study, he formed the
acquaintance of Dr Robert Anderson, through whose favour he became known
to the rising wits of the capital. Among his earlier friends he reckoned
the names of Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, Thomas Brown, James
Graham, and David Irving.

In 1798, Campbell induced his parents to remove to Edinburgh, where he
calculated on literary employment. He had already composed the draught
of the "Pleasures of Hope," but he did not hazard its publication till
he had exhausted every effort in its improvement. His care was well
repaid; his poem produced one universal outburst of admiration, and one
edition after another rapidly sold. He had not completed his
twenty-second year when he gained a place among the most distinguished
poets of his country. For the copyright Mundell and Company allowed him
only two hundred copies in quires, which yielded him about fifty pounds;
but they presented him with twenty-five pounds on the appearance of each
successive edition. He was afterwards permitted to publish an edition on
his own account,--a privilege which brought him the sum of six hundred
pounds. Resolving to follow literature as a profession, he was desirous
of becoming personally acquainted with the distinguished men of letters
in Germany; in June 1800 he embarked at Leith for Hamburg. He visited
Ratisbon, Munich, and Leipsic; had an interview with the poet Klopstock,
then in his seventy-seventh year, and witnessed a battle between the
French and Germans, near Ratisbon. At Hamburg he formed the acquaintance
of Anthony M'Cann, who had been driven into exile by the Irish
Government in 1798, on the accusation of being a leader in the
rebellion. Of this individual he formed a favourable opinion, and his
condition suggested the exquisite poem, "The Exile of Erin." After some
months' residence at Altona, he sailed for England; the vessel narrowly
escaping capture by a privateer, la