SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE A NARRATIVE OF THE EVENTS OF HIS LIFE BY JAMES DYKES CAMPBELL WITH A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR BY LESLIE STEPHEN London MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO. 1896 All rights reserved JAMES DYKES CAMPBELL THE Life of Coleridge to which these pages are prefixed was accepted by all competent critics on its first appearance as a remarkable contribution to the history of English literature. Although the genius of Coleridge has been sufficiently appreciated, his personal history had been left in singular obscurity. Campbell for the first time fixed many dates and facts, cleared up misunderstandings, and unravelled tangled passages for the benefit of all future students. The man who rendered this service to one of the greatest of our authors was not himself a professional author, nor a man of literary leisure. He had been from his childhood fully occupied in business. Readers of his book may be led to inquire how he came to undertake so difficult a work and to qualify himself for its successful discharge. Mrs. Campbell has entrusted me with materials which should enable me to give some answer to that inquiry.' I hope that I also be able to show why Campbell's premature death has not only been regretted by lovers of may 1 I have to offer my sincere thanks for various information to Canon Ainger, Sir Walter Besant, Mr. E. H. Coleridge, Mr. A. Constable, Mr. G. W. Davidson, Campbell's former partner, Mr. James Dick, Dr. Oswald Dykes, Mr. Fleming, of the Verreville Pottery, Dr. Furnivall, Mr. A. Taylor Innes, Mr. N. MacColl, Mr. C. W. Mason, Mr. Coventry Patmore, Mrs. Sandford, and Mr. Charles Dudley Warner. 148331 literature, but brought sorrow to a very wide circle of personal friends. The family of J. D. Campbell belonged to the Breadalbane branch of the Campbells, and was long settled at Killin at the head of Loch Tay. There Campbell's great-grandfather was drowned with his eldest son, in sight of wife and home, while fording the flooded Dochart. The Earl of Breadalbane1 was left guardian to the widow and her two infant boys. A vague tradition remained about the subsequent disappearance of certain title-deeds in the 'black kist' of Breadalbane, and the loss of the corresponding land. Anyhow Duncan, the elder of the two boys, migrated to Greenock, married, and in 1800 set up business at the newly established town of Port Glasgow as shipwright and blockmaker.' Duncan was a quiet man, much given to books, and the business was chiefly managed by his partner, James Dykes, who came from Ayrshire. The firm of Campbell and Dykes was concerned in fitting out some of the earliest Clyde steamboats and became fairly prosperous. Duncan Campbell's son, Peter, the only child who grew to manhood, married Jean, daughter of James Dykes, in 1825, and settled in a cottage built by the two fathers on 'Barr's Brae,' behind Port Glasgow. Peter Campbell kept on the business after the death (about 1833-34) of the two first partners, but it gradually declined, from the disuse of hand-made blocks, and finally expired about 1850. Peter Campbell is said to have been a man of high integrity and strong religious convictions. He was for many years an elder of the Free Kirk congregation in Port Glasgow. He left three 1 I presume John, third Earl of Breadalbane (1696-1782). |