The New Student's Reference Work/Campbell, Thomas

Campbell, Thomas (born 1777, died 1844), a noted British poet, was born at Glasgow, and, as a student at the university there, was distinguished for his knowledge of Greek literature. His early poem, The Pleasures of Hope, gave him a name as a poet. He traveled on the continent, where he witnessed the battle of Hohenlinden, which forms the subject of one of his finest lyrics. He wrote, besides poems, articles for the magazines and papers and for the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, and also published a magazine. He was at one time lord rector of the University of Glasgow. He died at Boulogne, France, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, a Polish nobleman scattering dust on his coffin from the grave of Kosciusko. Gertrude of Wyoming and the short poem, The Last Man, are well known; but it is for his war lyrics that Campbell will be most remembered, such as Hohenlinden, Ye Mariners of England and The Battle of the Baltic.