Life
1777-1844 (author of “Exile of Erin”, ballad of ’98); b. 27 July, Glasgow; son of bankrupt merchant; ed. Glasgow Univ., grad.
1796; worked as tutor at Mull and Argyllshire; engaged as law-clerk in Edinburgh; issued Pleasures
of Hope (1799); travelled in Germany and Denmark, 1800-01; reached London,
1801 and settled there, 1804; received royal pension, 1805; issued Poems (1805); visited
Paris, 1814; issued Specimens of the British Poets (1819); ed.
New Monthly Magazine, 1820-30; advocated foundation of London University;
appt. rector of Glasgow University, 1826-29; visited Algiers, 1835; d. Boulogne
d. Boulogne, France, 15 June; bur. Westminster Abbey. DNB FDA
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Frank Molloy, ‘Campbell’s “Exile of Erin”’ [unpublished paper]: (For full text, see Archives, infra.)
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Notes
Website biographies incl. www.slainte.org.uk/Scotauth/campbdsw.htm.
Exile or what? Campbell claimed authorship of "The Exile from Erin", a poem attributed by Irish critics to George Nugent Reynolds based on the letter of an exiled United Irishman; he purported to have written it in 1801, and was alive to defend his authorship in The Times against Henry Ellis in 1830. (Note however that the attribution is still contested by English writers; and see Frank Molloy, supra.)
Dear Madam: Thomas Campbell wrote a letter of introduction to Lady Morgan on behalf of a Mr. MacDonald, requesting that his young friend receive ‘the usual attention which you are known to show to respectable strangers’ (See Elizabeth Bowen, The Shelbourne, 1951, p.69.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)