without a rival:--

[5] We are aware of part of the subsequent extract having appeared
in vol. xi. of THE MIRROR, but the additional interest which it
bears in juxtaposition with this Memoir, induces us to repeat
it here.

I forget how I became acquainted with Mr. Hill, proprietor of the
_Monthly Mirror;_ but at his house at Sydenham I used to meet his
editor, Mr. Dubois, Mr. Campbell, who was his neighbour, and the two
Smiths, authors of _The Rejected Addresses._ Once or twice I saw
also Mr. Theodore Hook, and Mr. Matthews, the comedian. Our host (and
I thought him no older the other day than he was then) was a jovial
bachelor, plump and rosy as an abbot: and no abbot could have presided
over a more festive Sunday. The wine flowed merrily and long; the
discourse kept pace with it; and next morning, in returning to town,
we felt ourselves very thirsty. A pump by the road side, with a plash
round it, was a bewitching sight.

"They who know Mr. Campbell only as the author of _Gertrude of
Wyoming_ and the _Pleasures of Hope,_ would not suspect him to
be a merry companion, overflowing with humour and anecdote, and any
thing but fastidious. These Scotch poets have always something in
reserve: it is the only point in which the major part of them resemble
their countrymen. The mistaken character which the lady formed of
Thomson from his _Seasons_ is well known. He let part of the secret
out in his _Castle of Indolence;_ and the more he let out, the more
honour he did to the simplicity and cordiality of the poet's nature,
though not always to the elegance of it. Allan Ramsay knew his friends
Gay and Somerville as well in their writings, as he did when he came to
be personally acquainted with them; but Allan, who had bustled up from
a barber's shop into a bookseller's, was 'a cunning shaver;' and nobody
would have guessed the author of the _Gentle Shepherd_ to be
penurious. Let none suppose that any insinuation to that effect is
intended against Mr. Campbell: he is one of the few men whom I could at
any time walk half-a-dozen miles through the snow to spend an afternoon
with; and I could no more do this with a penurious man than I could
with a sulky one. I know but of one fault he has, besides an extreme
cautiousness in his writings; and that one is national, a matter of
words, and amply overpaid by a stream of conversation, lively, piquant,
and liberal--not the less interesting for occasionally b