its,
induced them to forbear contesting on the same subjects. At least on one
occasion the verses of Paul were preferred to those of the Bard of Hope.
The following lines, exhibiting a specimen of his poetical powers at
this period, are from a translation of Claudian's "Epithalamium on the
Marriage of Honorius and Maria," for which, in the Latin class, he
gained a prize along with his friend:--

"Maria, now the maid of heavenly charms,
Decreed to bliss the youthful monarch's arms;
Inflames Augustus with unwonted fires,
And in his breast awakens new desires.
In love a novice, while his bosom glows
With restless heat, the cause he scarcely knows;
The rural pastimes suited to his age,
His late delight, no more his care engage;
No more he wills to give his steed the reins
In eager chase, and urge him o'er the plains;
No more he joys to bend the twanging bow,
To hurl the javeline, or the dart to throw;
His alter'd thoughts to other objects rove,
To wounds inflicted by the god of love.
How oft, expressive of the inward smart,
Did groans convulsive issue from his heart!
How oft did blushes own the sacred flame,
How oft his hand unbidden wrote her name!
Now presents worthy of the plighted fair,
And nuptial robes his busy train prepare--
Robes wherewith Livia was herself attired,
And those bright dames that to the beds aspired
Of emperors. Yet the celestial maid
Requires no earthly ornamental aid
To give her faultless form a single grace,
Or add one charm to her bewitching face."

The circumstances of the young poets were far from affluent. Campbell
particularly felt the pressure of poverty. He came hastily one morning
to the lodgings of his friend to request his opinion of some verses;
they were immediately printed, and the copies sold to his
fellow-students for a halfpenny each. So Paul sometimes told his
friends, quoting the following lines as all he could remember of the
production:--

"Loud shriek'd afar the angry sprite,
That rode upon the storm of night,
And loud the waves were heard to roar
That lash'd on Jura's rocky shore."

After several sessions of attendance at college, Paul became tutor to a
family in Argyleshire, and Campbell obtained a similar situation in the
island of Mull. They entered into a humorous correspondence in prose
and verse. "Your verses on the Unfortunate Lady," writ