Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/134

82 He entered the college of Glasgow in 1791, already a ripe scholar in Latin and Greek an unwonted circumstance among the young students of our northern universities; and there he had the high privilege of studying under Richardson, the talented and elegant professor of Humanity, and Young, one of the most enthusiastic Grecians and accomplished scholars of the day. The example of the latter was not lost upon the congenial mind of his pupil; and the poetical translations which Thomas Campbell produced at this period, as class exercises, from the "Medea of Euripides," as well as other Greek poets, showed not only his mastery of the language in which they wrote, but the power he already possessed over his own. Many who are alive can still remember the pleasure with which Professor Young, in his college prelections, was wont to advert to these translations, and the pupil by whom they had been produced. Even in original poetry, also, Campbell was at this period distinguished above all his class-fellows, so that, in 1793, his "Poem on Description" obtained the prize in the Logic Class, although it was composed four years previous, and when he had not passed the age of twelve. Besides being distinguished as a poet and scholar at college, he was also well-known as a wit and satirist, and his lampoons were as much dreaded as his lyrics were admired; while his mots were so plentiful, that the usual morning question of the students was, "What has Tom Campbell been saying?" Being of a slim delicate make, and fond of a place near the class-room fire before the professor had entered, but finding it generally surrounded by a phalanx of Irish students, through which he could not break, he used often to disperse it, by causing their attention to be directed to some new roguish effusion he had written on the wall, which was certain to send them all scampering to the place of inscription. On one of these occasions, hearing that he had just written a libel against their country, they rushed away from the blazing grate in fervent wrath to the pencilled spot on the wall, and read, not in rage, but with roars of good-humoured laughter:—

"Vos, Hiberni, collocatis, Summum bonum in―potatoes!"

The great choice of life, whether as to occupation or principles, is often determined by some incident so minute as to escape notice. And such was the case with Thomas Campbell. In common with most youthful minds, before their classical impressions have come in contact with the stern realities of everyday life, his whole heart was with Greece and Rome, with Brutus and Cassius, with liberty and the enemies of oppression. With him, as with others, all this might have faded away like a dream of boyhood, but for an event that indelibly stamped these feelings upon his mind, and made them become the regulating principles of his after-life. It was now the season when the example of the French revolution was at its height, so that even the grave and solid intellect of Scotland became giddy for a moment in the whirl; and the trials of Muir, Palmer, Gerald, and others, showed how narrowly our country had escaped the establishment of a convention modelled upon that of France. While these trials were going on, the young poet felt an impatient longing to visit Edinburgh, and witness the proceedings; to which his affectionate mother assented. He was to travel to the metropolis and return on foot, a journey of eighty-four miles; and to defray the expenses of such a pilgrimage, he thought himself richly furnished by the sum of 5s., which she gave him for the purpose. He reached Edinburgh with a light foot and buoyant heart, and repaired to the Parliament House, where the trial of Gerald was going on; and it was easy for an imagination