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LOUIS NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.*

THE election of Louis Napoleon to the Presidency of the French Republic will naturally excite some curiosity in regard to his history and public character. Hitherto he has only been known through the foolish affairs at Strasburg and Boulogne; his published works, notwithstanding the merits claimed from them by his adherents, having failed to enlarge his reputation. His life has, nevertheless, been somewhat eventful, and he does not lack the advantage of varied fortune and severe experience. Whether he has profited remains to be seen. From such hasty materials as we could procure, we have arranged for the Tribune the following brief notice of his history:

Charles Louis Napoleon, son of Louis, exking of Holland, was born in Paris on the 20th of April, 1808. His god-parents were the Emperor and Maria Louisa, and during his childhood he was an especial favorite of the former. On the return of Napoleon from Elba, he stood beside him on the Champ de Mars, and when embraced by him for the last time, at Malmaison, the young Louis, then a boy of seven years, wished to follow him at all hazards. When the family was banished from France, his mother removed to Augsburg, where he received a good German education. He was afterward taken to Switzerland, where he obtained the right of citizenship and commenced a course of military studies. After the July Revolution, by which he was a second time proscribed from France, he visited Italy in company with his brother, and in 1831 took part in a popular insurrection against the Pope. This movement failed, but he succeeded in making his escape, and, his brother dying at Forli the same year, he visited England and afterward returned to Switzerland, where, for two or three years, he contented himself with writing poetical and military works, which do not appear to have been extensively read. The death of the Duke of Reichstadt, in 1832, gave a new impulse to his ambitious hopes. His first revolutionary attempt, at Stras

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burg, in October, 1836, completely failed, but after a short imprisonment in Paris, he was sent to this country. The illness of his mother occasioned his return the following year, and after a visit to Switzerland he took up his residence in England until his second attempt at Boulogne, in 1840.

In this affair several of his followers were killed, and he was himself taken and sentenced to imprisonment for life in the Castle of Ham. The particulars of his escape in May, 1846, after an incarceration of six years, are well known. From that time until the end of September last, when he was returned as a Deputy to the National Assembly from the Department of the Seine, he has resided in England. A late London journal, in describing his mode of life, gives the following not very flattering account:

"He was unscrupulous in contracting obligations which were wholly beyond his means of repayment; and his most serious pursuit was the study of alchemy, by which he expected to arrive at the discovery of the philosopher's stone. So vigorously did he prosecute this exploded science, at a house which he had fitted up as a laboratory at Camberwell, and so firm was his faith in the charlatan empiric whom he employed to aid him in transmuting the baser metals into gold, that he is said to have actually appropriated his revenue in anticipation, and to have devoted the first milliard of his gains to the payment of the national debt of France, in order to acquire thus an imperial throne by purchase?"

The large majority by which he was elected a Representative astonishes every one, and gave his followers the first encouragement to bring forth his name as a candidate for the Presidency. To defeat the acknowledged Republican party, he received also the support of the Legitimists and Orleanists, and those combined influences have elected him by an immense majority. The rest must be left to Time and Fate.

* See Engraving.

From Tait's Magazine.

LIFE AND LETTERS OF THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Life

THE preparation of this biography by Dr. Beattie, the friend and the physician of Thomas Campbell, has been known for some time; and the three volumes now published are the result of his labors. The history of Thomas Campbell is one of an almost entirely literary character. The late poet was strictly a literary man. He followed no other profession permanently, and he was eminently successful in that path whereon he was partly forced. The biographer has endeavored to make the poet tell the story of his own life, by quoting largely from his letters, and often interspersing only such connecting links as appeared to be absolutely necessary. This plan has advantages, and it is not without disadvantages. The public generally prefer to have a history of this nature not in the words of the biographer, but in the letters and papers of the person in whom they are most interested. The " of Keats" has been produced in a similar style, but on a smaller scale, by its noble editor. The disadvantages inseparable from this plan are, that we have a redundancy of writing often on trivial matters, and on points evidently considered by the writer of minor importance. In preparing old letters for the press, this course can scarcely be avoided. The plan, however, appears to have been suggested by Campbell himself. Dr. Beattie is not a volunteer in the matter. He was brought under a promise by his late friend to write this work. A number of the necessary papers were put into his possession by Mr. Campbell prior to his death. Dr. Beattie was thus compelled to take the work in hand, which he has now discharged in a style that will be satisfactory to the many friends of the author of the "Pleasures of Hope." The first chapter contains a genealogical statement of Campbell's ancestry. His grandfather was Laird of Kirnan, in Argyleshire. At his death, Robert Campbell, the poet's uncle, succeeded to the estate; and living more extravagantly than the rent

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roll permitted, he was compelled to sell his
land to a half-brother, and, proceeding to
London, lived as a literary man-a precari-
ous living at any period, and peculiarly
hazardous in the last century. He died in
very reduced circumstances."
London, “in
The second brother, Archibald, studied for
the Presbyterian Church; and having for
some time been minister of a Scotch congre-
gation in Jamaica, he ultimately settled in
Virginia, United States. A son of this gen-
tleman afterwards succeeded to the original
family estate-a small parcel, in a large pro-
perty to which he became entitled by the
Alexander, the third son,
law of entail.
was engaged in the mercantile profession.
But we quote Dr. Beattie's account of

THE POET'S FAMILY.

"Alexander, the youngest of the three sons of Archibald Campbell, and father of the poet, was born in 1710. He was educated with a view to mercantile pursuits; and early in life went to America, where he entered into business, and resided many years at Falmouth, in Virginia. There he had the pleasure of receiving his brother Archibald, on his first quitting Jamaica to settle in the United States; and there also, some ten years afterwards, while he was making his way in business very satisfactorily, he formed an intimate acquaintance with Daniel Campbell, a clansman, but no blood relation, of the Campbells of Kirnan.' He was the son of John Campbell, and his wife Mary, daughter of Robert Simpson. John Campbell was a merchant in Glasgow, nearly related to the Campbells of Craignish, an old Argyleshire family. The Simpsons had been for many generations residents in the city, or iminediate neighborhood, of Glasgow, where they possessed several small estates. An old tradition, still current among the collateral descendants-for Robert Simpson died without male issue-states that the progenitor of the Simpsons was 'a celebrated royal armorer' to the King of Scotland. In that capacity, it is said, he fashioned two broadswords, of exquisite temper and workmanship; one of which he presented on the centenary anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn, to the Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland; the other he retained as an heir-loom in his own family, where it is still

preserved. It is a plain but handsome blade, with the date 1414 stamped upon it.

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iel Campbell, the junior partner in the firm, always estimated his own individual loss at eleven or Shortly after making the acquaintance of twelve thousand pounds;' which might also be Daniel Campbell, at Falmouth, in Virginia, Alex- considered as a liberal provision. But being a ander Campbell took final leave of the United younger man, with a smaller family to provide for States; and, in the company of his friend, return- than his brother-in-law, he could look to the ed to Glasgow, where they entered into copartner- future with more confidence, and take more ship as Virginian traders, under the firm of Alex- decisive measures for repairing his ruined fortune. ander and Daniel Campbell. This connection To Alexander Campbell, now well stricken in proved very satisfactory. The partners became years, and the father of a very numerous family, more and more known and respected as men of the test by which his moral character was to be probity and experience; every way deserving the tried was not more sudden than it was severe. success which, for several years, rewarded their Yet he submitted to it with equanimity, or even industry, and gained for them unlimited confidence cheerfulness; and made such efforts as his age in the trade. Daniel Campbell, the junior partner, and circumstances allowed for improving the had a sister named Margaret, born in 1736, and at very scanty residue which had been saved from the this time about the age of twenty. To her Alex- wreck of his former affluence. In these efforts ander Campbell, though by repute a confirmed he was ably seconded by his wife, whose natural bachelor, and then at the mature age of forty-five, strength and energy of character were strikingly paid his addresses; and before another year had developed by the new cares and anxieties in which expired,the mercantile connection between the two she was now involved; of the prudence with friends was cemented by a family tie. Alexander which, as a wife and a mother, she conducted her Campbell and Margaret Campbell were married in domestic affairs during the long struggle that enthe Cathedral Church of Glasgow, on the 12th of sued, there is the most pleasing and authentic January, 1756, in presence of their respective testimony. To her, indeed, much of the high families. They began their domestic cares in a merit of having supported and educated her family large house in the High Street, which has long upon an income, that in the present day would since disappeared under the march of civic im- barely suffice to purchase the common necessaries provements. In this house the poet was born. of life, is unquestionably due. Among her conFrom the date of his marriage, in 1756, to the first temporary relatives, she had always been considoutbreak of war with America, in 1775, Mr. Camp-ered as a person of much taste and refinement.' bell continued at the head of the firm; and every She was well educated for the age and sphere in successive year added something to the joint pros- which she moved, with considerable family pride, perity of himself and his partner. But at the disas- as the daughter and wife of a Campbell, and with trous period, when the flag of war was unfurled much of a fond mother's ambition to see her between kindred people, the tide of prosperity young family make their way in that respectable began to flow with less vigor into the Clyde. The station of life to which they were born. She was Virginia trade, hitherto so profitable, immediately passionately fond of music, particularly sacred changed its current; and among the first who music, and sang many of the popular melodies of felt, and were nearly ruined by the change, was Scotland with taste and effect. With the tradithe now old and respectable firm of Alexander and tional songs of the Highlands, particularly ArgyleDaniel Campbell. Their united losses, arising shire, she was intimately acquainted; and from from the failure of other houses with which they her example it seems probable the love of song were connected, swept away the whole, or very was early imbibed and cultivated by her children. nearly the whole, amount of forty years' successful industry-in fact the savings of a long life, spent in this branch of mercantile pursuits. Our poet's father, at this time, was in the sixty-fifth year of his age. His daughter Mary, eldest of his ten surviving children, had not completed her nineteenth year; and the difficulties of his present position, greatly increased by the sad prospects as to their future establishment in life, may be more easily imagined than described. The actual loss sustained by the senior partner, Mr. Alexander Campbell, in this unforeseen disaster, has been variously estimated. After a careful examination of the accounts with which I have been furnished by living representatives of the two families, I find it cannot have been much less than twenty thousand pounds-equivalent in those days to what was considered an ample independence-particularly in the west of Scotland, where industry and frugality were leading features in the domestic life of a Glasgow merchant; and when luxury and ostentation were very little known or practiced, even by the wealthiest of her citizens. Dan

"From the moment that the aspects of domestic concerns had changed, all the better features of Mrs. Campbell's character appeared in strong relief; every indulgence which previous affluence had rendered habitual and graceful in the station she then occupied, was firmly, conscientiously abandoned. In her family arrangements a system of rigid economy was so established, that no unreasonable expense on one occasion might increase the difficulties of the next. She was,' to use the words applied to her by all who knew her intimately during these years of trials, an admirable manager, a clever woman.' It is pleasing to add, that her unwearied exertions to prepare her children, by a good solid education, for a respectable entrance on the duties of life, were crowned with success; and, during the last years of her long life, afforded her matter for great thankfulness, and procured for her great comforts."

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Dr. Beattie adds to this statement a long account of Mr. Campbell's family, who bore up against the calamities that ruined their

fortune with great fortitude. It is remarka- | ing quietly in the Shettlestone road, when a parcel ble that several of his brothers, at different of blackguards came suddenly out and attacked periods, succeeded in realizing considerable us, without the least provocation! A carter, property in their mercantile pursuits in the however, who had let me be put into his empty colonies and in the United States, which fair; namely, that the weavers of Shettlestone cart, gave a totally different statement of the afwere always lost by some misfortune. The had only come out to protect their tender offspring family consisted of eight sons and three from our slings and stones! Nor was this enough; daughters; and the second or family chapter the arch-fiend had another victory over me, which in the biography concludes thus: I felt more than my bruised bones-namely, in my being exposed before my venerable father, who had always prided himself on my love of truth, for a tacit admission of what my Glasgow seniors in the combat had given as the true statement.' The fate of this expedition was what his companions called a settler;' a long armistice succeeded, and the Poet was not again summoned to witness any fray,' for at least six weeks. The scars and bruises which, as it afterwards appeared, he had received in this inglorious retreat, were so severe his own room." as to occasion his being laid up for some time in

"All this talented family-parents, brothers and sisters-it was the poet's destiny to survive, and to find himself at last in the very position which he has so feelingly described―

'A brotherless hermit, the last of his race.""

Thomas Campbell was born on the 27th July, 1777, and died at Boulogne on the 15th June, 1844, in his 67th year. He appears never to have enjoyed a robust constitution, and even at an early age he was sent The wounded lad commenced to write from Glasgow on account of his health-a verses under his affliction, and succeeded betpractice now followed for some weeks of ter than on any previous trial. At this time, each summer by all, or nearly all, the fami- although not more than thirteen to fourteen lies of that city by whom the expenditure years of age, he translated Greek with great can be afforded. The house of the Camp-facility. The poet's family were educated bells was in the High Street of Glasgow, not now a healthy locality; and there is no reason to suppose that it was better then. At school, Campbell was distinguished by application rather than genius; although, at an early age, he wrote verses, of which his biographer gives specimens, nothing better than those that every smart lad writes during some part of his school life, and wisely learns. At the Grammar School he became an enthusiastic admirer of Greek; and a passion for the Greek orators and poets distinguished him during life. He does not appear to have engaged often in the warlike pursuits of the school; and when he entered on this field, his efforts were unsuccessful, as appears from his defeat and wounds at one of the many

BATTLES OF SHETTLESTONE.

"I had always deemed it a heinous sin to engage in stone-battles, although they were favorite diversions among the Glasgow urchins. But one day there was an expedition fitted out, with slings and round stones, against the boys of Shettlestone, an adjoining village. A spirit of evil seduced me to join in it; although the grounds of hostility, it must be confessed, were scarcely more rational than those of most international wars. I paid dearly, however, for my folly. We were soundly licked, and, from the shortness of my limbs, being one of the last in retreat, I got so sorely pelted that I could not walk home. Some of the bigger Glasgow boys brought me to my father's house; there they gravely stated that we had been walk

into a strict love of truth-their household was regulated on religious principles, and the example placed before them was most advantageous; but these influences were insufficient to preserve the poet youth from an untoward occurrence, and his biographer has disclosed the ridiculous consequences attendant on

A SERIES OF FICTIONS.

"In the midst of all his preparations for the college campaign, young Campbell did not confine himself so closely to his books as not to take his full share in all the ploys-good, bad, or indifferent-in which the other spirited boys of the school were but too diligently engaged. He appears, indeed, to have eschewed all further intercourse with the Shettlestone weavers, or their tender offspring,' and to have taken no further interest, personally at least, in any of the 'stone-battles' that were subsequently fought, in the vain hope of retrieving their disasters. In this non-intervention,' his father's commands were peremptory. But he had also reasoned coolly, no doubt, when laid up with his wounds, on the evil consequences of such international warfare, and resolved in future to confine himself to the theory. He therefore contented himself with Homer's descriptions, where there was certainly all the sublimity of battles, without any risk from the Shettlestone infantry, whose sudden irruption had given so unexpected a turn to the fortunes of his class. They were a formidable tribe; for although worsted and routed, their retreat-like that of young Parthians-was quite as dangerous as their advance; and besides, there might not be always, as

in the recent engagement, an empty cart for the benefit of the wounded.

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"Never was evidence more conclusive. Both the culprits would have gladly confessed the trick, and implored pardon, but they were speechless; and in as much consternation as if the grimly ghost of Mrs. Simpson herself had delivered the fatal message. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell looked at the letter, then at their two hopeful sons, and then at one another; but such were their grief and astonishment that neither of them for some minutes could utter a word.

"At last,' says the poet, my mother's grief for the death of her respected cousin vented itself in cuffing our ears. But I was far less pained by her blows than by a few words from my father. He never raised a hand to us; and I would advise all fathers who would have their children to love their memory, to follow his example.""

Although the preceding anecdote says little for Campbell's honor as a boy, or even his respect for his parents and their friends, yet he was, notwithstanding these appearances, a generous lad; and at school, when broils arose, he generally avoided them, or took the weakest side. The little anecdote which we copy will remind many persons of their own school-boy days; when it was an article of scholastic faith, that our countrymen were superior in all qualities whatever, but especially in those of a pugnacious character. The anecdote is quite characteristic of the sad results which were sown by

"But while the young philosopher cautiously avoided all further skirmishing, he was unhappily not proof against temptations at home, which convinced him in the end that political intrigue is sometimes even worse than open warfare. The trap was set by a wily hand; and, as that hand was a brother's, Thomas never suspected that the well-known waggery of Dariel was to be played off upon himself. My mother,' says he, had a cousin, an old bedrid lady, of the name of Simpson, about whose frail life she felt great anxiety; but, being herself a martyr to rheumatism, she was unable to visit her personally. She therefore sent, every day, either my brother or myself, a distance of nearly two miles, to inquire How Mrs. Simpson had rested last night, and how she felt herself this morning? One day,' he continues, 'that I was sent to fetch the bulletin, which would have kept me from a nice party that was to go out for the gathering of blackberries, I complained, with tears in my eyes, to my brother Daniel, about this deil of an auld wife, that would neither die nor get better.' Tut, man,' said my crafty brother, can't you just do as I do?' And what's that? Why, just say that she's better, or worse, without taking the trouble of going so far to inquire. This seemed a piece of excellent advice; but a philosopher under 13 could see clearly that some untoward event might throw discredit upon the bulletin. Daniel, however, with his usual gravity, proved to demonstration that there was no risk whatever in the plan, or why should he have carried it on so long? Well,' thought I, there was something in that.' It would certainly be a great saving of time,' said Daniel. I said I thought it would; so having adopted the plan Amongst his favorite comrades were several as a great means of saving time, we continued to who afterwards distinguished themselves as men report in this manner for weeks and months; and of science and commercial enterprise. One of finding that a bad bulletin only sent us back earlier the latter was Ralph Stevenson, a sworn asnext morning, we agreed that the old lady should sociate, and now, probably, the only survivor, of get better.' These favorable reports of her dear that juvenile party of which the young poet was cousin's health were very gratifying to Mrs. Camp- the acknowledged leader. In the school, at that bell. No suspicion whatever attached to the time, as Mr. Stevenson informs me, there was a bulletins, as they were reported every morning :- good deal of skirmishing among the tyros of the 'Mrs. Simpson's kind compliments to mamma; different forms; and, being an English boy, he has had a better night, and is going on very nice- had now and then to vindicate the honor of his ly.' And thus the poet and his brother took ad- country by personal conflicts with the Scotch vantage of every nice party' that was made up, callants,' who could not forgive the murder of either for picking blackberries,' or any other ploy Sir William Wallace! But whenever there apof equal interest and importance. But the pleas- peared anything like unfairness, Campbell was ing deception could not last much longer; truth, always at hand to take his part, telling the boythat had been so ingeniously defrauded, was about belligerents' that generosity to strangers was a to make reprisals upon the young culprits. This, Scotch virtue, practiced by Wallace himself. too, was at the very moment when they wereBesides,' he added, rather haughtily, it was a starting to spend a long day in the country. 'But wae's me,' says Campbell, on that very morning on which we had the audacity to announce that 'Mrs. Simpson was quite recovered,' there comes to our father a letter, as broad and long as a brick, with cross-bones and a grinning death's-head upon its seal, and indited thus: Sir-Whereas, Mrs. Jane Simpson, relict of the late Mr. Andrew Simpson, merchant in Glasgow,died on Wednesday the 4th instant, you are hereby requested to attend her funeral on Monday next, at ten o'clock, A.M.'

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NATIONAL ANIMOSITIES.

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shame in them to speak of his English friend as if he were no better than one of themselves.' If this remonstrance failed to restore peace, or to establish the war on an equal footing, Campbell's arm was at the service of his friend. He was no cool spectator of these bickerings; whenever there was apparent wrong, he insisted upon redress, and in all such cases of petty aggression he took part with the injured. May we not consider these little traits as the marked indication of that generous spirit, which, after the lapse of a

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