ssed with Mrs. Siddons, the Kembles,
and his friend Telford, the distinguished engineer, for whom he
afterward named his eldest son." Lord Minto, on his return from
Vienna, became much interested in Campbell and insisted on his taking
up his quarters for the season in his town-house in Hanover Square.
When the season was over Lord Minto went back to Scotland, taking the
poet with him as traveling companion. At Castle Minto, Campbell found
among other visitors Walter Scott, and it was while there that
'Lochiel's Warning' was composed and 'Hohenlinden' revised, and both
poems prepared for the press.

In 1803 Campbell married his cousin, Matilda Sinclair. The marriage
was a happy one; Washington Irving speaks of the lady's personal
beauty, and says that her mental qualities were equally matched with
it. "She was, in fact," he adds, "a more suitable wife for a poet than
poets' wives are apt to be; and for once a son of song had married a
reality and not a poetical fiction."

For seventeen years he supported himself and his family by what was
for the most part task-work, not always well paid, and made more
onerous by the poor state of his health. In 1801 Campbell's father
died, an old man of ninety-one, and with him ceased the small
benevolent-society pensions that, with what Thomas and the eldest son
living in America could contribute, had hitherto kept the parents in
decent comfort. But soon after Thomas's marriage and the birth of his
first child, the American brother failed, so that the pious duty of
supporting the aged mother now came upon the poet alone. He accepted
the addition to his burden as manfully as was to be expected of so
generous a nature, but there is no doubt that he was in great poverty
for a few years. Although often despondent, and with good reason, his
natural cheerfulness and his good sense always came to the rescue, and
in his lowest estate he retained the respect and the affection of his
many friends.

In 1805 Campbell received a pension of L200, which netted him, when
fees and expenses were deducted, L168 a year. Half of this sum he
reserved for himself and the remainder he divided between his mother
and his two sisters. In 1809 he published 'Gertrude of Wyoming,' which
had been completed the year before. It was hailed with delight in
Edinburgh and with no less favor in London, and came to a second
edition in the spring of 1810. But like most of Campbell's more
pretentious poetry, it has failed