27 July: Boreham on Thomas Campbell

A Rousing Battle-Laureate
We celebrate today the birthday of the most incorrigible lazybones in our literary history. Rejoicing in the nickname of Procrastination Tom, Thomas Campbell never worked if he could possibly help it, and never tackled on Monday a job that, by any twist of ingenuity, he could postpone until Tuesday. This explains the slender volume of his published work. As a boy he displayed no special brilliance beyond the cunning that indolent people often develop in evading unwelcome tasks. It was part of Tom's daily duty to visit the home of his mother's bedridden cousin to inquire after her health. This necessity soon became extremely irksome to the boy, who, as a laboursaving device, determined to exercise his imagination instead of his legs. He therefore assured his mother each day, in appropriate accents either of condolence or of gratification, that her relative was extremely poorly, or very much better, just as the fancy took him. This scheme served in excellent stead until one dismal day when, shortly after he had congratulated his mother on the satisfactory condition of the invalid, the funeral invitations arrived!

A day soon dawned, however, that challenged all his sluggish powers. His soul was stirred by the epoch-making events that provided each successive dawn with some new excitement. The dramatic and spectacular developments of the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon, the war with France, the startling emergence of the younger Pitt, the earlier naval victories of Lord Nelson, the heroic resistance of the Poles under Kosciusco to the partitioning of their country, and the strengthening agitation for the emancipation of the British slaves. It was in the stimulating atmosphere created by these epic conditions that Campbell's genius awoke.

World In Tumult Stirred Indolence To Brilliance
He was only eighteen when his lyrical impulse first seized him. He was acting as a private tutor in Edinburgh, and was, he says, doing fairly well as long as he remained industrious. But the trouble was that his spasms of industry were so shockingly brief. In 1795, however, he came upon some verses entitled, "The Pleasures of Solitude." He recalled famous poems on "The Pleasures of Imagination" and "The Pleasures of Memory." But nobody had written on "The Pleasures of Hope." Why shouldn't he? The haunting phrase took complete possession of his fancy. Leaving his pupils to follow their own inclinations, he abandoned himself without reserve to this new infatuation. Whether in the Hebrides or in the city, he could think of nothing else. His pupils fell off but the poem went on. It was completed in 1798, shortly after his twenty-first birthday, and was published the following year.

From every point of view it was a classic. With the possible exceptions of Chatterton and Byron, no youthful poet has ever enriched our literature with a work of such elegance and finish. Prof. Aytoun regards it as, without exception, the finest didactic poem in the language. The tuneful stanzas were penned whilst Europe was a cauldron of seething agitation, and it was the provocation of the stirring events around him that moved the poet's mind to such lofty forms of melodious inspiration.

Content To Do Little And Do It Well
Most young fellows of two and twenty, having made such a hit, would have surveyed the horizon in search of further worlds to conquer. But the phenomenal success of "The Pleasures of Hope" had no such effect upon Procrastination Tom. With the first £50 that he received from his publishers, he set out on a tour of the Continent. When, after a few weeks of globe-trotting, his pockets were all but empty, he scurried homewards but, before actually crossing the Channel, he received a letter from his publishers telling of the continued demand for his poem and enclosing a further £50. Campbell thereupon unpacked his trunks and settled down to enjoy a protracted sojourn overseas. Glutted with novelty, he eventually returned to England, and, in 1803, at the age of twenty-six, even ventured to marry, although he had, in all conscience, little enough to offer the lady of his choice. The trouble still arose from his irresolution and caprice rather than from any lack of ability or opportunity. Several publishing houses, charmed by "The Pleasures of Hope," made handsome offers for his forthcoming manuscripts. But the manuscripts were never forthcoming! Campbell signed the contract and pocketed the money; but that was as far as it went!

It would have gone hardly with his young wife and himself had not a benevolent Government two years after the wedding, come to the rescue with a pension of £200 a year. Ten years later he inherited a legacy of £5,000, whilst, five years later still, he was appointed editor of the "New Monthly" at a salary of £600 a year. Campbell laughed at his own rare fortune. Why should a man make a slavery of life when, if he reclined at his ease and threw care to the winds, a silver spoon would, sooner or later, be lifted to his lips by other hands? It may be that there is another side to all this. Prof. Aytoun praises Campbell's refusal to become a literary hack, but he admits that it is the duty of a true poet to woo the muse and to await impatiently the falling of the celestial fire. There is, unhappily, very little evidence that Campbell exhibited any such passionate desire for inspiration. As a consequence, he has left us a niggardly heritage. His best work is to be found in the robust war-songs that won for him the title of the Battle-Laureate of the Napoleonic Era. Sir Walter Scott loved to recite "Hohenlinden" in a fine poetic frenzy, whilst Carlyle thought it incomparable and unsurpassable. Campbell died in 1844 and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, close to the tomb of Addison. On the day of the funeral, some representatives of Poland brought a handful of earth from Kosciusco's grave at Cracow and sprinkled it on the coffin. It was a tribute to the affection that Campbell had awakened, not only among his own people, but throughout the world.

F W Boreham

Image: Thomas Campbell