tual qualities; it would be a question to recognize those which first manifest themselves, to verify the period when they attain their maximum of energy, and to appreciate the relative degrees of their development at different epochs of life."

Crimes committed; 2d, Crimes committed and de- to establish numerically the values of these two nounced; 3d, Crimes committed, denounced, and portions of his intelligence; but as yet, we are brought before the tribunals." An investigation far from perceiving the possibility of such a reof criminal tables has shown "that the law of de- sult. *** One of the most curious studies that velopment of the tendency to crime is the same could be proposed in relation to man concerns the for France, Belgium, England, and the grand-progressive development of his different intellecduchy of Baden, the only countries whose observations are correctly known. The tendency to crime towards the adult age increases with considerable rapidity; it reaches a maximum, and decreases afterwards until the last limits of life. This law appears to be constant, and undergoes no modification but in the extent and period of the maximum. In France, for crimes in general, the maximum appears about the 21th year; in Belgium, it arrives two years later; in England and the grand-duchy of Baden, on the contrary, it is observed earlier. * Considering the circumstances," pursues the writer, "under this point of view, we shall better form an opinion of the high mission of the legislator, who holds to a certain extent the budget of crimes in his hands, and who can diminish or augment their number by measures combined with more or less of prudence."

In the chapters on human societies, M. Quetelet traces cycles of duration for nations as for other departments of nature. Thus the Assyrian Empire lasted 1580 years; the Egyptian, 1663 years; the Jewish nation, 1522 years; Greece, 1410 years; the Roman Empire, 1129 years; giving an average of 1461 years, remarkable as corresponding exactly with the Sothiac period, or canicular cycle of the Egyptians, with which was comprehended the existence of the phoenix. This result would appear referable to the action of a law, of which, however, too little is known to predicate on events yet to transpire in the future.

epidemic, and others are hereditary. Vice is transmitted in certain families, as scrofula or phthisis. Great part of the crimes which afflict a country originate in certain families, who would require particular surveillance-isolation simar to that imposed on patients supposed to carry about them germs of pestilence."

With regard to the theoretical mean, M. Que- The law of accidental causes admits of applitelet affirms that "man, in respect to his moral cation to derangements of the mental faculties faculties, as with his physical faculties, is subject" Moral maladies," we read, "are like physical to greater or less deviations from a mean state; maladies; some of them are contagious, some are and the oscillations which he undergoes around this mean, follow the general law which regulates all the fluctuations that a series of phenomena can experience under the influence of accidental causes. Free choice, far from opposing any obstacle to the regular production of social phenomena, on the contrary favors them. A people who should be formed only of sages, would annually offer the most constant return of the same facts. This may explain what would at first appear a paradoxnamely, that social phenomena, influenced by man's free choice, proceed from year to year with more regularity than phenomena purely influenced by material and fortuitous causes.”

The question is examined, Whether the indefinite contraction of the limits between which men can vary is a benefit? "Absolute equality, if it could be realized, would lead society back to its point of departure, and if it became durable, would plunge it into the most complete atomy; variety and movement would be annihilated; the picturIn treating on intellectual qualities, the author esque would be effaced from the surface of the observes" Two things at first are to be distin- globe; arts and sciences would cease to be cultiguished in our intellectual faculties; what we owe vated; that which does most honor to human geto nature, and what we derive from study. These nius would be abandoned; and as no one would wish two results are very different; when found united, to obey another man, great enterprises would beand carried to a high degree of perfection in the come impossible." To complete the argument, it same individual, they produce marvels; when they is shown that the means and the limits vary only present themselves isolated, they bring forth noth-in proportion to science. ing but mediocrity. A student of the present day, Besides the points we have noticed, the work on leaving school, knows more than Archimedes, under consideration contains many valuable inquibut will he make science advance a single step? ries and suggestions. In the chapter on the intelOn the other hand, there exists more than one Ar- lectual faculties, for example, we find views on chimedes on the surface of the globe, without a literary, artistic, and scientific productions-influchance of making his genius public, because he ence of age upon the development of dramatic lacks the science." "If," we read in another talent-excess of labor-on emigration—the inplace, "phrenology should one day realize its fluence of the healing art on the social system— promises, we should have the means of directly demoralization and pauperism-antagonism of nameasuring man's intellectual organization; we tions; and in the concluding section "on humanshould possess as a consequence the elements by ity," the department of aesthetics presents itself to which to solve an extremely complex problem; the discussion; these questions are treated with we should know what each individual owes to na- the author's well-known ability. His work must ture, and what to science; we should even be able be taken as a valuable contribution to moral sci

but in those notes, and through the whole book,
Milton's controversial writings were assailed in a
temper of bigotry scarcely intelligible in our
days and which Hayley's "Life" did much to
counteract.
To an
extent which is quite sur-
prising, he was enabled to effect what Michelet
and others have done in the case of Luther, and
thus Milton became his own biographer.

ence, to the cause of justice, law and order. | curiously illustrative of the mental process by Whatever differences of opinion may be enter- which Milton's poetical language was elaborated; tained, it is impossible not to be impressed by M. Quetelet's earnestness; he would have nations as wise and trustful as is sometimes the case with individuals." The two extreme states," he observes, "individuality and humanity, are not the result of human combinations; they are determined by the Supreme Being, who has established laws of dependence between them. Philosophy has busied itself with investigating its nature, and in recognizing what each one owes to himself, and the duties which he is bound to fulfil towards others. ✶✶✶ It is by such laws that Divine wisdom has equalibriated all in the moral and intellectual world; but what hand will raise the thick veil thrown over the mysteries of our social system, and over the eternal principles which regulate its destinies and assure its preservation? Who will be the other Newton to expound the laws of this other celestial mechanism?"

From the North British Review.

Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell. Edited by
WILLIAM BEATTIE, M. D., one of his executors.
London, 1849.

Some years after, in his life of Cowper, Hayley gave to the public the very most interesting volumes of biography that have perhaps ever been published. The state of health which separated Cowper from the active business of life, was consistent with systematic study, and with the exertion of the poetical faculty. Cowper's residence at a distance from his relatives-the peculiar tenderness with which he was regarded—and some circumstances connected with his pecuniary affairs, created a correspondence which was the amusement, and, in some sort, the business of his life. These letters, above all comparison the most charming that have ever been published, and from which, as we best remember, every passage that it could be thought unreasonable to living persons to bring before the public, had been first removed, rendered his style of biography popular. In formal autobiography there can seldom be absent some appearance of vanity. In passages selected from letters in which the author is unconsciously writing his life, this fault is at least absent, and for the last half century rarely an eminent man has died, whose friends have not been solicited for copies of such letters as accident has left undestroyed.

FOR Something more than half a century the custom has been gradually increasing, of publishing, with but little reserve, such letters of eminent men as have been written in the ordinary management of the affairs of life, or the careless confidence of domestic intimacy. In Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," we scarcely remember a single private letter being printed as illustrating any one statement in the work, or as affording an exhibition of the character of any one of the wriIt was scarce possible that the great poet, ters, whose lives he relates. A short time before Campbell, should have escaped the common lot; the publication of "The Lives of the Poets," and a considerable mass of his letters are now Mason had in his memoirs of Gray, introduced a given to the public by his friend and executor, new style of biography which has affected, more Dr. Beattie. The volumes also contain some or less, every work of the kind since written. biographical notes drawn up by the poet at the The journals of Gray, a retired scholar, who took request of Dr. Beattie, and though we can imaccurate notes of whatever he read, supplied much agine this voluminous work improved both by that was instructive and interesting to the earnest compression and by omission, and though we student; and Mason had the opportunity of select-think a more diligent inquirer. without taking ing, from a correspondence conducted through the whole of Gray's life with one friend or another, a vast body of information on a great variety of subjects. There were few personal details; and though Mason made great use of Gray's letters, yet there was scarcely a single letter published without omissions. The example given by Mason, was followed in two remarkable instances by a writer whose poetry was once popular, and whose prose works, in spite of great affectation, which deforms everything he has written, are still very pleasing. Hayley, in his life of Milton, has woven together passages from Milton's letters, calculated to make his readers sympathize with the great poet, and which give a wholly different aspect to his life from that which the readers of Johnson had received. Milton's minor poems had been published by Thomas Wharton, with notes

very much trouble on the subject, might have given us more scenes from the London life of a man who lived so much in the eye of the public -we yet think some gratitude is due to Dr. Beattie for many of the letters in these volumes. The book will aid us in appreciating the character of a man whose works will probably for many generations continue to give delight.

Campbell was a true and a great poet; he was, what is better, a true-hearted, generousminded, and honorable man.

With all men life is a struggle. With such a man as Campbell-peculiarly sensitive-the struggle was from adverse circumstances more than ordinarily severe. He was the youngest of ten children. The father of the poet, Alexander Campbell, had for many years been a prosperous merchant in the Virginia trade. During the ear

Adam Smith was his friend, and Reid baptized the poet-hence his name Thomas. When Reid sent a copy of his "Inquiry into the Human Mind" to Alexander Campbell, and heard from him the pleasure with which he read it, he said there were two men in Glasgow who understood my work-Campbell and myself.

lier part of his life, he had lived at Falmouth in tie, "one of the few I heard him sing in the Virginia. He had come to the sober age of evening of life, when for an instant the morning forty-five, when he married Margaret Campbell, sun seemed again to rest on it; and it was probthe sister of his partner in business. We will not ably the first that soothed the infant poet in his follow Dr. Beattie in disentangling the intricate cradle, long before he attempted to lisp in rhyme." pedigree of the Campbells. Margaret was, it Alexander Campbell, the poet's father, lived in seems, of the same clan, but not a blood-relation, social intimacy with several of the University proof "the Campbells of Kirnan,' to which family fessors. her husband belonged. "The Campbells of Kirnan," a locality with which the poet's people were connected by their traditions, and not by the fact of having ever resided there, was a sound that had its magic; and the mother of the poet would, late in life, when sending home an article from a shop, describe herself as Mrs. "Campbell The elder Campbell is said to have been liberal of Kirnan," mother "of the author of the Pleas- in politics. We shall not seek to determine the ures of Hope." The union with England had precise meaning in which the word is used. He opened the American trade to Scotland. Pre- was religious. The traditions of his family told viously to that, Scotland could only deal with the of chiefs of the clan that had suffered martyrdom colonies of England on the footing of a foreign for the doctrines of the church of Scotland, and nation. When the trade was once opened, the his pride as well as his better feelings were interindustry and intelligence of the Glasgow mer-ested in the cause. Family worship was then chants gave them almost a monopoly of the busi- almost the universal habit of Scottish families— ness. The war with America drove trade into and the fervor of the old man's extempore prayers other channels; and among the houses ruined by was such that the very expressions which he used the change was that of which the poet's father never passed away from the minds of his children. was the senior partner. The savings of forty The poet, a short time before his death, said that years of industry, amounting to about twenty he "had never heard language-the English litthousand pounds, were swept away in an hour. urgy excepted-more sublime than that in which The old man was sixty-five, too old to commence his devotional feelings at such moments found uta new score with the world. His eldest child terance."

was a daughter of nineteen. The poet, if we read dates aright, was not born for two years after his father's business had been broken up.

Poetry was not among the old merchant's studies, but he loved music, and could sing a good naval song-he loved better a metaphysical wranIt would appear that the debts of the firm were gle or a theological dispute-and when the young paid, and that a small surplus remained. In ad- poet was caught verse-making, the father was dition to this, Mr. Campbell received a small an- perhaps happiest, for then most did the spirit of nual sum from the city Merchant's Society, and contradiction awake, and then only was he quite from a provident institution, of which he had long sure of being right. Whatever he might think been a member. This was no doubt a very dif- of Reid's principle of Common Sense, he could ferent amount of income from what he had en- not but feel that there was something to be said joyed. His wife was a sensible woman, who in- for Berkley and Locke, and in his most vehement stantly acted on the changed state of circumstances theological discussions he would sometimes feel -lived with the most severe economy, and did that the subject had slipped through his fingers, what she could to educate her family. The float- and that while the sense of positiveness remained. ing traditions which Dr. Beattie has collected the very topic of the disputation had altogether describe her as "of slight but shapely figure, vanished from his memory. Not so when young with piercing black eyes, dark hair, and well Tom's scribbled manuscript was before him. chiselled features"-" a shrewd observer of char-There it was-nonsense-absolute nonsense. The acter-warm-hearted, strongly attached to her poor boy had to retire crest-fallen and ashamedfriends, and always ready to sympathize in their the father did not perhaps know that all early misfortunes. She was often the author of substan- poetry is imitative-he thought little (and who tial but unostentatious charity." One gentleman could think much ?) of the poetry of the day, the recollects of being taken to see her in his boyhood cadences of which were echoed in every line of when she was very old. She bought a cane for the boy's verseshim, and amused him by her good nature in walking up and down the room, twirling it, to show him how the young gentlemen in Edinburgh managed their canes. She had a natural taste for music; and in her old age she would to the last sing snatches of old songs-"My Poor Dog The old man lived, however, to be gratified by Tray," and "The Blind Boy," were her favor- the reception of " The Pleasures of Hope." Had ites. It was to the former air that Campbell Mr. Campbell been able to get rid of the anxieties wrote "The Harper." "It is," says Dr. Beat- of property, when he was compelled to retire

His soul's proud instinct sought not to enjoy
Romantic fictions, like a minstrel boy;
Truth, standing on her solid square, from youth
He worshipped-stern, uncompromising truth.

from business, he would have been comparatively natural asperity relaxed in the management of her a happy man; but the restless ghost of his former youngest son. Mary, the eldest sister, had already prosperity haunted him for the rest of life in a left her father's house; Isabella still remained to series of never-ending lawsuits. A correspondent assist her mother in domestic details, and with of Dr. Beattie's tells us, that in the year 1790 her the playful child was a delightful plaything. he spent an evening at Mr. Campbell's. The poet has in his letters called Isabella his

poetical sister, and from her or from his mother his ear had become familiar with the ballad poetry of Scotland long before he could understand its meaning.

At eight years old he was sent to the school of Mr. Alison; his triumphs are solemnly recorded-he was always at the head of his class; his father assisted him in preparing his lessons—

The old gentleman, who had been a great foreign merchant, was seated in an arm-chair, and dressed in a suit of the same snuff-brown cloth, all from the same web. There were present besides Thomas, his brother Daniel, and two sisters, Elizabeth and Isabella. The father, then at the age of eighty, spoke only once to us. It was when one of his sons, Thomas I think, who was then about thirteen, and of my own age, was speaking of getting new clothes, and descanting in grave earnest as to the a fact commemorated by his classical biographer most fashionable colors. Tom was partial to green, in language that swells into dignity suitable to the I preferred blue. “Lads,” said the senior, in a subject. "It must have been," says he, “a picvoice that fixed our attention, "if you wish to have ture in itself of no little beauty and interest, to a lasting suit, get one like mine. We thought he see the venerable Nestor stooping over the versions meant one of a snuff-brown color; but he added, "I and directing the studies of the future Tyrtaus.” have a suit in the Court of Chancery, which has lasted thirty years; and I think it will never wear out."

66

The boy was overworked, and was obliged to be sent to the country. In about six weeks his health was restored, but to the effect of runSituations were found for the elder sons in the ning wild about the fields his biographer refers colonies. They ended in forming respectable his love of the country, and much of the immercantile establishments in Virginia and Demeagery of his poems. About this time his first rara. The daughters engaged in the education verses were written. Of these and of his school of children-two as governesses in families-the exercises, Dr. Beattie gives us far too many. third in the management of a school. Daniel was Translations of Anacreon, and thefts of strawberplaced in a Glasgow manufactory, where weaving ries distinguish his twelfth year. In the thirand cotton-spinning were conducted on a large scale. teenth, young Tyrtæus learned to throw stones, He was a politician, and the days in which he and gave-in plain prose-what turned out to be lived were less prosperous times for a radical re- a very poetical or very fabulous account of the former than our own. He found Scotland too hot battle. The inspired boy was not unlikely to be for him, and went to Rouen, where the poet found spoiled by the young Glasgow blackguards, who, him conducting a large manufactory. He ceased with every care on the part of his parents, could · to correspond with his family, and became a nat- not but be his companions for a considerable part uralized Frenchman. It is not impossible that of the day. he may be still living. Of this large family, one died in early life; he was drowned while bathing in the Clyde, when he was but thirteen years old,

and his brother Thomas six. He is alluded to in

an affecting passage towards the close of "The
Pleasures of Hope”—

Weep not-at nature's transient pain,
Congenial spirits part to meet again.

Of brother Daniel our readers are probably prepared not to think very well-he was four years older than Thomas, and was now sixteen or seventeen. An old lady-a relative of their mother's-lived about two miles from Glasgow, and one of the boys was each day sent to know how she was. It was Thomas' turn, and the message to the old lady's interfered with the young urchin's gathering blackberries. “Why go there at all?" said Daniel; "can't you do as I do-say she is better, or worse, and don't take the trouble of going to inquire?" For weeks and for months the young scoundrels went on with fictitious bulletins, and finding that unfavorable reports were likely to make more frequent messages sent, they adopted a form that "Mrs. Simpson had a better night and was going on nicely." By artless friendship blessed, when life was new? They at last announced her perfect recovery, and The elder part of the family had been dispersed were starting on some expedition of their own, during the early infancy of the poet, or before his when a letter arrived "as broad and as long as a birth. The father's temper was indulgent to brick, with cross-bones and a grinning death's everything but poetry, and his affections were head on its seal," inviting the old gentleman to centred on the child of his old age. The mother's attend Mrs. Simpson's funeral. temper was severe, and her notions of a parent's

Inspiring thought of rapture yet to be,
The tears of love were hopeless but for thee.
If in that frame no deathless spirit dwell,
If that faint murmur be the last farewell,
If Fate unite the faithful but to part,
Why is their memory sacred to the heart?
Why does the brother of my childhood seem
Restored awhile in every pleasing dream?
Why do I joy the lonely spot to view

Mr. and Mrs. Campbell looked at the letter, then rights were almost as high as a Stuart's fancies of at their two hopeful sons, and then at one another. the royal prerogative, yet it was observed that her | But such were their grief and astonishment that

neither of them could utter a word. "At last," says Campbell was at this time an ardent politician. the poet, "my mother's grief for her cousin vented The French Revolution had everywhere evoked itself in cuffing our ears. But I was far less pained the contending spirits of Aristocracy and Democby her blows than by a few words from my father. He never raised a hand to us; and I would advise racy. all fathers, who would have their children to love their memory, to follow his example."

In spite of this unpromising scene, Campbell's school-days gave promise of good. Alison, his school-master, thought well of him. Mr. Stevenson, a surviving school-fellow of his, remembers him as taking care that fair play should be shown to him, who was an English boy, and probably the only one in the school. He passed from school to college with favorable auguries. He was in his thirteenth year when he entered college, and even from this early period his support was in part earned by his teaching younger boys. At this period he printed a ballad, called Morven and Fillan, in imitation of a passage in Ossian, and which contains some lines that bear a resemblance to his after poem of Lord Ullin's daughter.

Loud shrieked afar the angry sprite
That rode upon the storm of night,
And loud the waves were heard to roar
That lashed on Morven's rocky shore.
Morven and Fillan.

By this the storm grew loud apace;
The water-wraith was shrieking.

Lord Ullin's Daughter.

Being (says Campbell) in my own opinion a competent judge of politics, I became a democrat. but unable to follow his subtleties, or to appreciate I read Burke on the French Revolution, of course; his merits, I took the word of my brother democrats, that he was a sophist. It was in those years that the Scottish reformers, Muir, Gerald, and others, were transported to Botany Bay-Muir, though he had never uttered a sentence in favor of reform stronger than William Pitt himself had uttered, and Gerald for acts which, in the opinion of sound English lawyers, fell short of sedition. I did not even then approve of Gerald's mode of agitating the reform question in Scotland by means of a Scottish convention; but I had heard a magnificent account of his talents and accomplishments, and I longed insufferably to see him; but the question was how to get to Edinburgh.

While thus gravely considering the ways and means, it immediately occurred to me that I had an uncle's widow in Edinburgh-a kind, elderly lady, who had seen me at Glasgow, and said that she would be glad to receive me at her house if I should ever come to the Scottish metropolis. I watched my mother's mollia tempora fandi-for she had them, good woman-and eagerly catching the propitious moment, I said "O mamma, how I long to see Edinburgh! If I had but three shillings, I could walk there in one day, sleep two nights, and Campbell and his young friends formed debatbe two days at my aunt Campbell's, and walk back ing societies, and the poet seems to have been answered "No, my bairn; I will give you what in another day."* To my delightful surprise she distinguished for fluency of speech. A number will carry you to Edinburgh and bring you back, of Campbell's exercises are printed by Dr. Beattie, but you must promise me not to walk more than for no better reason than that " they may revive half the way in any one day." That was twentythe faded images of college life" in the minds of two miles. Here," said she, "are five shillings Campbell's few surviving college friends. Lines for you in all; two will serve you to go, and two to on the death of "Marie Antoinette" are given. return; for a bed at the half-way house costs but She then gave me-I never shall forThey are perhaps worth preserving, as they show sixpence." get the beautiful coin-a King William and Mary how early the poet's ear was tuned to something crown-piece. I was dumb with gratitude; but salof the notes in which his Hohenlinden was after-lying out to the streets, I saw at the first bookselwards written.

66

ler's shop a print of Elijah fed by ravens. Now, I
had often heard my poor mother saying that in case
of my father's death-and he was a very old man
she knew not what would become of her.
Elijah was fed by ravens.
“But," she used to add, "let me not despair, for
When I presented her
with the picture, I said nothing of its tacit allusion
to the possibility of my being one day her supporter;
but she was much affected, and evidently felt a
strong presentiment.

The third session of Campbell's college life was distinguished by his continuing to take the lead in debating societies, and in his obtaining prizes for composition. He wrote a number of pasquinades on his brother students. They were written without any other feeling than that of amusing himself and others, but they were not disregarded by those who were their objects. Dr. Beattie tells that in some cases the resentment generated by Next morning I took my way to Edinburgh, satires written at this time, and utterly forgotten witnessed Joseph Gerald's trial, and it was an era with four shillings and sixpence in my pocket. 1 by Campbell in the hour in which they were in my life. Hitherto I had never known what pubthrown off as mere sportive effusions, has absolute-lic eloquence was; and I am sure the justiciary ly survived the poet himself.

Some of Campbell's jokes were for the purpose of getting a place near the stove when attending the logic class on a winter morning. He would scratch some nonsense on the walls—a libel, perhaps on the tall Irish students that crowded round the fire. While they rushed to read such rhymes as

Vos Hiberni collocatis
Summum Bonum in potatoes,

he managed to get to the stove.

Scotch lords did not help to a conception of it, speaking as they did bad arguments in broad Scotch. But the lord advocate's speech was good; the speeches of Laing and Gillies were better; and the eloquence that had ever been heard within the Gerald's speech annihilated the remembrance of all walls of that house. He quieted the judges, in spite of their indecent interruptions of him, and produced a silence in which you might have heard a pin fall to the ground. At the close of his defence, * A distance of forty-two miles-"long Scotch miles."