Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 400, February, 1849

"This little gentleman all this while looked to be so proud of his new station in society, that he held up his blue eyes and placid little face with perfect indifference to what people about him felt or thought. Our first interview was when he lay in his little crib, in the midst of white muslin and dainty lace, prepared by Matilda's hands, long before the stranger's arrival. I verily believe, in spite of my partiality, that lovelier babe was never smiled upon by the light of heaven. He was breathing sweetly in his first sleep. I durst not waken him, but ventured to give him one kiss. He gave a faint murmur, and opened his little azure lights. Since that time he has continued to grow in grace and stature. I can take him in my arms; but still his good nature and his beauty are but provocatives to the affection which one must not indulge: he cannot bear to be hugged, he cannot yet stand a worrying. Oh! that I were sure he would live to the days when I could take him on my knee, and feel the strong plumpness of childhood waxing into vigorous youth. My poor boy! shall I have the ecstasy to teach him thoughts and knowledge, and reciprocity of love to me? It is bold to venture into futurity so far! at present his lovely little face is a comfort to me; his lips breathe that fragrance which it is one of the loveliest kindnesses of Nature that she has given to infants – a sweetness of smell more delightful than all the treasures of Arabia. What adorable beauties of God and Nature's bounty we live in without knowing! How few have ever seemed to think an infant beautiful! But to me there seems to be a beauty in the earliest dawn of infancy which is not inferior to the attractions of childhood, especially when they sleep. Their looks excite a more tender train of emotions. It is like the tremulous anxiety which we feel for a candle new lighted, which we dread going out."

The sensibility, too, which he uniformly exhibited towards those who had shown him kindness, especially his older and earlier friends, is exceedingly pleasing. In writing to or speaking of the Rev. Archibald Alison and Dugald Stewart, his tone is one of heartfelt, and almost filial, affection and reverence; and amongst all the benevolent actions performed by those great and good men, there were few to which they could revert with more pleasure than to their seasonable patronage of the young and sanguine poet. With his literary contemporaries, also, he lived upon good terms, – a circumstance rather remarkable, for Campbell, notwithstanding his good-nature, was sufficiently touchy, and keenly alive to satire or hostile criticism. Excepting an early quarrel with John Leyden, on the score of some reported misrepresentation, a temporary feud with Moore, which was speedily reconciled, and a short and unacrimonious disruption from Bowles, we are not aware that he ever differed with any of his gifted brethren. He was upon the best terms with Scott; and Dr Beattie has given us several valuable specimens of their mutual correspondence. With Rogers he was intimate to the last: and even the sarcastic and dangerous Byron always mentioned him with expressions of regard. Let us add, moreover, that, whenever he had the power, he was ready, even in instances where his own interest might have counselled otherwise, to lend a helping hand to others who were struggling for literary reputation. This generous impulse was sometimes carried so far as to injure him in his editorial capacity; for, although fastidious to a degree as to the quality of his own writings, it was always with a sore heart that he shut the door in the face of a needy contributor.

The querulousness with which Campbell complains throughout, of the cruel treatment which he met with at the hands of the publishers, would be amusing if it were not at the same time most unjust. He acknowledges, in a letter written to Mr Richardson, so late as 1812, that the sale of his poems, for a series of years before, had yielded him, on an average, £500 per annum: not a bad annuity, we think, as the proceeds of a couple of volumes! We happen to know, moreover, that by the first publication of Gertrude Campbell made upwards of a thousand pounds; and, unless we are grievously misinformed, he received from Mr Murray, for the copyright of the Specimens, a similar sum, being double the amount contracted for. We have already mentioned the publication of a subscription edition of the Pleasures of Hope, "which," says Dr Beattie, "with great liberality on the part of the publishers, was to be brought out for his own exclusive benefit." We should not have alluded to these matters, which, however, we believe, are no secrets, but for the publication by Dr Beattie of some very absurd expressions used and reiterated by Campbell. Such phrases as the following constantly occur: "They are the greatest ravens on earth with whom we have to deal – liberal enough as booksellers go – but still, you know, ravens, croakers, suckers of innocent blood, and living men's brains." Nor, in the opinion of Campbell, were these outrages confined merely to the living subjects, for he says, in reference to the older tenants of Parnassus, "Poor Bards! you are all ill used, even after death, by those who have lived upon your brains. And now, having scooped out those brains, they drink out of them, like Vandals out of the skulls of the severed and slain, served up by a Gothic Ganymede!" Further, in speaking of Napoleon, he says, " Perhaps in my feelings towards the Gallic usurper there may be some personal bias; for I must confess that, ever since he shot the bookseller in Germany, I have had a warm side to him. It was sacrificing an offering, by the hand of genius, to the manes of the victims immolated by the trade; and I only wish we had Nap here for a short time, to cut out a few of our own cormorants." The fact is, that so far from Campbell being ill-used by the trade, they behaved towards him with uncommon liberality. It is true that, in several instances, they hesitated in making high terms for work not yet commenced, with a man who was notoriously deficient in punctuality and perseverance; nor are they to be blamed, when we consider the number of his schemes, and the very few instances in which these were brought to maturity.

On the whole, then, though we cannot bestow unqualified praise upon Dr Beattie, for the manner in which he has compiled these volumes, we shall state that we have passed no unprofitable hours in their perusal. We rise from them with full appreciation of the many excellent points in the poet's character, with an augmented regard for his memory on account of the virtues so eminently displayed, and with no lessened reverence for the man in consequence of the admitted foibles from which none of the human family are exempt. The book may be practically useful to those who aspire to literary eminence, and who are apt to rely too confidently and implicitly on the powers with which they are naturally gifted. So long as Campbell was under restraint – so long as he was subjected to the wholesome discipline of the University, and forced into the race of emulation, we find that his genius was largely and rapidly developed. He was not a mere philological scholar, though his attainments in Greek might have put many a pedant to the blush; but he improved his sense of beauty and his taste by the contemplation of the Attic flowers; and, without injuring his style by any affectation of antiquity unsuited to the tone of his age, he adorned it by many of the graces which are presented by the ancient models. At Glasgow he worked hard and won merited honours. But afterwards, by abandoning himself to a desultory course of study and of composition, by never acting upon the wise and sure plan of keeping one object only steadily in view, and persevering in spite of all difficulties until that point was attained, – he failed in realising the high expectations which were justified by his early promise. As it is, Campbell's name is ranked high in the roll of the British poets; but assuredly he would have occupied a still more exalted place, and also have avoided much of that anxiety which at times clouded his existence, if he had used his fine natural gifts with but a portion of the energy and determination of his great compatriot, Scott.

In conclusion let us remark, that however Dr Beattie may have erred on the side of prolixity, by including in the compass of the memoirs some trifling and irrelevant matter, he is more than concise whenever it is necessary to allude to his own relationship with Campbell. He has made no parade whatever of his intimacy with the poet; and no stranger, in perusing these volumes, could discover that to Beattie Campbell was substantially indebted for many disinterested acts of friendship, which contributed largely to the comfort of his declining years. This modesty is a rare feature in modern biography; and, when it does occur so remarkably as here, we are bound to mention it with special honour.

THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR REFORMS

All over Europe, of late, we have been hearing a great deal of universities and students. The trencher-cap has claimed a right to take its part in the movements which make or mar the destinies of nations, by the side of plumed casque and priestly tiara. Whether it was the beer of the German burschen that "decocted their cold blood to such valiant heat," or whether their practice in make-believe duels had imparted a savage appetite for foeman's blood in some more genuine combat, or whether Fichte's metaphysics had fairly muddled their brains into delirium, certain it is that they have, wheresoever they could find an opportunity, been foremost in the cause of demolition and disorder, vied with and encouraged the lowest of the rabble in lawless aggressions, exulted in the glow of blazing houses, and cried havoc to rapine and murder.

It is curious that, while all this has been going on in Europe, the attention of the public should have been so much occupied by the condition of our English universities. Still more curious is it, perhaps, that so large a portion of the attention thus directed should have assumed an objurgatory tone, as if Oxford and Cambridge were not duly performing their functions, as if they were of a character suited only to bygone ages, as if, in short, they were doing nothing. True enough, in one sense, they were "doing nothing." There was no academical legion formed – none, at least, that we heard of – in Christchurch Meadows or Trinity Walks; no body of sympathising students marched to London, with the view of taking part in the democratic exhibitions of the 10th of April. If Cuffey is to be President of the British Republic, he must search for the body-guard of democracy elsewhere than on the banks of the Cam and the Isis. No doubt this excellent result is attributable, in a great measure, to the loyalty of the professional and middle classes, from which our university students principally spring. Their feelings will naturally be akin to those of their relations and friends. But when, in so many other instances, we see the academic population taking the lead in the work of revolution, beyond any spirit which exists among their kindred, and urged on by a democratic madness of purely academic growth, we cannot help holding that some credit on behalf of the loyalty of English students is due to the institutions by the influence of which they are surrounded.

We are inclined to think that the public have not been sufficiently alive to this not unimportant difference between Oxford and Heidelberg – Cambridge and Vienna. Certes, but little account was taken of the peaceful bearing of our academic population. On the contrary, much supercilious wordiness has been lavished, more or less to the discredit of cap and gown, by portions of the London press in the lead, and, as a necessary consequence, by provincial journalists ad libitum. This talk, current now for some years, was all concentrated and endued with new vigour by a movement of the University of Cambridge itself. The people who stop your way by talking of "progress," and deal out dark rhodomontade on the subject of "enlightenment," were all set agog by what they thought a symptom of capitulation in the strongholds of the Ancient. All our old imbecile friends, the cant phrases of twenty and thirty years ago, started up as fresh as paint, ready to go through all the handling they had before endured. We heard of, "keeping alive ancient prejudices," "cleaving pertinaciously to obsolete forms," "following a monastic rule," "forgetting the world outside their college walls," and multifarious twaddle of this sort, till the Pope fled from Rome, or some other little revolution occurred to withdraw the attention of the public from this set of phrases to another, no doubt not less forcible and original. Others, again, took a friendly tone and spoke apologetically: it was a great thing to get any move at all from the university: those who took the lead in her management were not men who mixed with the world at large, and allowance must be made if they did not altogether march with the times. "The world at large" is an expression of very doubtful import: "all think their little set mankind: " but when the resident fellows of colleges are charged with not duly mixing with the world at large, we cannot help thinking that those who use the phrase are ignoring the existence of the Didcot Junction and Eastern Counties Railway, and borrowing their ideas of academic life from the time when Hobson travelled "betwixt Cambridge and the Bull." As far as our observation goes, we should say that there is no class of persons who have better opportunities of taking an extended view of different phases of social being, or who are more disposed to take advantage of those opportunities. A fellow of a college is not engaged much more than half the year in university business; for four months, at the very least, he generally has it in his power to expatiate where he will, from May Fair to Mesopotamia; he has no household ties to detain him, and if he does not rub off the lexicographic rust, and the mathematical mouldiness, which he may have contracted during his labours of the term, he must be possessed of a local attachment almost vegetable: some few instances of which secluded existence still linger in quiet nooks of our halls and colleges, but which are no more the types of their class than Parson Trulliber is a representative of the country clergy, or the stage Diggory of the English yeoman. But the self-complacency of Cockneyism is the most unshaken thing in this revolutionary age. It is perfectly ready to lecture the parson on the teaching of Greek, or the Yorkshire farmer on the fattening of bullocks. All the distributive machinery in the world does not diminish, it would seem, the absorption of intelligence by the Ward of Cheap.

We are not, however, surprised that the conclusions, on which we have remarked, should be those arrived at by the large class of small observers whose phraseology we have quoted. The bustling man of business, who takes his day-ticket to Oxford or Cambridge, is of course struck by seeing a number of usages, for the original of which, if he inquire, he is referred back to hoar mediæval times – times which his Cockney guides dispose of by some such phrase as crass ignorance, or feudal barbarism. He is naturally surprised at such things; he never saw anything like it before; they don't do so in Mincing Lane, or even in Gower Street. He can hardly be expected to view these matters in their relation to the system of which they form a part; he can hardly be expected to realise in them the symbols through which the genius loci finds an utterance and exerts an agency; and so he goes smiling home in his railway carriage, and perhaps buys a number of Punch by the way, and thinks that there is more practical wisdom in that periodical than is embodied in the great monuments of William of Wykeham or Lady Margaret.

Nevertheless, while we rebut these vague general charges of a blind impassibility to the influences of the time, we are far from denying that a tendency to cling to ancient ideas and observances is a characteristic of the universities. This tendency is a property of all corporate institutions, and is commonly the reason of their foundation. They are to perpetuate to a future time a feeling or design of the present; to form a nucleus, round which the thoughts and principles of one age congregate, and are thus handed down to another in a preserved and crystallised form. Changes of ideas pass upon them of necessity, through the individual liability of their constituent members to be affected by the current of the passing time; but these changes take place rather by a gradual fusion of the old into the new, than by those sudden transitions to which the popular and prevailing opinions are so often subjected. And it may fairly be supposed that, by means of this property, corporations are more likely to adopt and amalgamate into their framework that which is most permanent and genuine, out of all that the ever-changing tide of time casts upon the shore.

Perhaps, too, this tenacity of the bygone will more naturally be found to be a characteristic of the universities, than of other corporations. The spots which they occupy are holy ground, fraught with historic memories of the great and wise of former days. The genius loci is a mighty advocate in behalf of antiquity: —

"As the ghost of Homer clingsRound Scamander's wasting springs;As divinest Shakspeare's mightFills Avon and the world with light;"

– so we may not well pass unaffected by the congregation of priest, and poet, and sage, whose recollections consecrate the banks of our academic rivers. As we go beneath "Bacon's mansion," or about Milton's mulberry tree; as we kneel where Newton knelt, or dine in halls where the portraits of Erasmus, and Fisher, and Taylor, look down upon us, – these are not times and places for the dogmatism and arrogance of "the nineteenth century" – for bragging of our advance and illumination, or sneering at "the good old times." This is in accordance with the law of our nature; but these recollections, and the lessons which they teach, are not, if rightly laid hold of, such as to induce a mere blind attachment to the skeletons of dead notions and practices. And although it may, perhaps must, happen that, at any given time, there may be found relics adhering to the system, whose vitality and meaning have been withdrawn by time, and left them dry and sapless, yet we will venture to assert that, if a dogged adherence to antiquated forms could fairly be charged on the universities, they could never have maintained their ground amidst the mighty historical transmutations that have passed over their heads. Civil wars and popular tumults have raged around them; the throne has yielded to violence and to intrigue; the Church has admitted modifications, both of her doctrine and her discipline; and, more than all, the still more important, though silent and gradual changes – changes to which the striking and salient events of history are but the indexes and visible signs – changes of thought and rule of action – have risen and sunk, and ebbed and flowed, and still these stable monuments of the piety and munificence of men whose names are almost unknown, remain unshorn of their ancient vigour, and intimately entwined with our social system.

But it is time that we should come to particulars, and make known to our readers, as briefly as we can, the nature of the alterations recently introduced at Cambridge, which have called forth so much objurgatory commendation from quarters, which were commonly considered to entertain tolerably destructive views in regard to the universities. We say objurgatory commendation, because the faint praise of a "move in the right direction" was generally more or less coupled with vigorous denunciation of the antiquated obstinacy which had so long kept in the wrong. And here we must premise the statement of certain qualities of the age in which we live, which will have fallen under the notice of all observers. Perhaps the most distinguishing feature of our time is the principle which forms the life and soul of retail trade – the principle which sets men to busy themselves about small and immediate returns for outlay; which looks more to the gains across the counter, than to the advantage which is general, or distant, or future. In a word, practicality is the ruling passion of our day. As might have been expected, education, among other things, has been subjected to this huckstering test. People have asked, what is the market value of this or that branch of learning? Will it get a boy on in the world? Will it enable him to provide for himself soon? Will the returns for the expenditure I am going to make be quick and certain? Cowper represents the father of a son intended for the church as speculating on his young hopeful's prospects after the following fashion: —

"Let reverend churls his ignorance rebuke,Who starve upon a dog's-eared Pentateuch,The parson knows enough who knows a duke."

In these days the acquaintance of a duke is not of the same relative value as it was when Cowper wrote; but this sort of worldly-wise calculation is more prevalent than ever, and the cry of the largest class of the public is – give us such knowledge as will pay. Those who took this commercial view of education derived no small encouragement from the circumstance that Prince Albert, the learned field-marshal, and warlike chancellor of Cambridge University, had interfered to promote the culture of modern languages in these venerable precincts of Eton, where for many a year Henry's holy shade had watched the growth of an education of less obvious utility. How was young Thomas or William "the better off" for being able to con "the tale of Troy divine?" But teach him to mince a little French, simper a little Italian, snarl a little German, and there he is at once accomplished for an attaché, a correspondent, or a bagman – profitable walks of life all of them. And the same notions mounted still higher in the ascendant, when the senate of the University of Cambridge apparently evinced a desire to examine the requirements of that body by the same standard.

The first step of this kind was taken about three years ago. Most of our readers are aware that, at Cambridge, those candidates for a degree who do not aspire to honours are said to go out in the poll; this being the abbreviated term to denote those who were classically designated ὁι πολλοι. Now the qualifications required for attaining this poll degree consisted of an acquaintance with a part of Homer, a part of Virgil, a part of the Greek Testament, and Paley's Evidences of Christianity, over and above the mathematics, of which we shall speak presently. By what curious infelicity the recondite, and, in many particulars, inexplicable language of Homer has been so commonly selected for beginners in Greek at school, and, as in this case, for those who were not expected to appear as accomplished scholars – we need not here stop to inquire. Suffice it to say that the university, in this initial reform, ousted Homer and Virgil from the course, and supplied their places with a Latin and Greek author, to be varied in each successive year. This was decidedly an improvement, at least as regards Homer, for the reason we have alluded to above. Perhaps a better innovation would have been to have followed the Oxford system, and allowed to the student a choice of his author. But it is a great misfortune that the university, in recasting this course, did not substitute a work of some one of the logical or philosophical authors current in the English language, for the shallow and plausible book of Paley's above mentioned – with regard to which it would be difficult to say whether it is worse chosen as a model of reasoning, or as a proof of Christian facts.

The mathematical portion of this course consisted of Euclid, algebra, and trigonometry, the student being thus trained in the model processes of pure mathematical reasoning left us by the first, and also brought acquainted with the elementary operations of analysis. As a matter of mental training, the most valuable portion of this curriculum was the knowledge acquired of the geometrical processes employed by Euclid, as familiarising the mind of the student with the severest forms of reasoning, and the steps whereby indubitable verity is attained. This portion, however, was most especially selected for curtailment by the reforms to which we are alluding. In the stead of the requirements thus displaced, a motley amount of elementary propositions in statics, dynamics, and hydrostatics, were substituted – useful information enough as instances of the simpler applications of the analytical machinery of mathematics, but comparatively worthless as an exercise of the mind. Country clergymen, whose forgotten mathematics loomed grandly on their minds through the mist of years, were confounded with disappointment at beholding their sons, in whom they expected to find philosophers, return to them with an examination paper, apparently rather calculated to unfold the mysteries of engineering, well-sinking, and carpentering.