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WILLIAM CAMPBELL PRESTON. By Walter L. M1ller ok the South Carol1na Bar. IF. ABOUT the year 1817, Preston visited Europe for the purpose of completing his education and enjoying the advantages of foreign travel. He was fortunate in hav ing for his companions on his voyage across the Atlantic a number of young men of good family and of fair education, who like him self were going abroad to finish their edu cational course. Among them, we are in formed, were Everett, Bancroft, Irving and Prescott. In his old age, he is said to have referred to this voyage with great pleasure, and to the delightful hours he had spent with his companions on it. He had a charming time seeing the sights of Europe, he had entree to the best society, and he was privileged to meet many of the most distinguished men and women in the European world of art and letters. Among the notable characters whom he met were Hamilton Rowan, Lady Morgan, Lockhart, Walter Scott, Wilson, Thomas Campbell and Rogers. He met the poet Campbell in London, and had a very pleasant inter course with him. It was through Campbell that he made the acquaintance of Scott, — a privilege which Mr. Preston enjoyed very much and appreciated very highly. He not only visited London, but he went over into France also and spent several months in Paris. His journey also embraced Switzerland and Italy. After seeing the sights there, he returned to Edinburgh, where he spent the winter attending several courses of lectures in the far-famed university lo cated there. At Edinburgh, he met Hugh S. Legarc, who was also at the university taking a postgraduate course, and, while there, they roomed together. In this way was started, established and cemented a

beautiful friendship between two kindred spirits, which was to last through life and I trust beyond. The lectures, which Mr. Preston attended at this university, were those of Playfair, Brown and Irving, on civil law. Mr. Preston stored his mind with knowledge during his stay in Europe. He embraced this opportunity to see its sights, to visit its local spots of interest, and to meet with its celebrities, both in the literary and social world. He attended the theatres and heard some of the world-renowned actors. At Edinburgh he had the benefit of the lectures of men of letters and of sci ence, whose reputation for learning and scholarship was unsurpassed. After Mr. Lcgare's death, Mr. Preston, at the request of the city of Charleston, delivered an elo quent eulogy on him. Much that he said of Legare was descriptive also of himself. Indeed, there was a marked kinship in their lives and characters — a striking similarity of thoughts and ideas. I will now quote a passage or so from this eulogy, which will not only serve to illustrate Mr. Preston's disposition and taste, but will also give to the reader some idea of the great advantages which he enjoyed during his stay abroad. In his eulogy on Legarc, he says : " The most attractive objects to him were the gal leries of fine arts and the theatres. The former somewhat shorn of their beams, in 1 81 8, were yet glorious with the rich, though diminished spoils of Italy and Holland. His cultivated imagination found the counter parts of its images on the canvas or in mar ble; and while they filled him with delight, furnished him with more exalted, and at the same time more definite, conceptions of grace, beauty, and sublimity. The theatres