92 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
No. CCIII.
MR. JOHN CAMPBELL,
PRECENTOR.
MR. CAMPBELLo fficiated for upwards of twenty years as precentor in the
Canongate Church, and was well known as a teacher of English reading, writing,
and other branches of education, as well as of vocal music. He was a native of
Perthshire, and born at Tombea, about twenty miles north-west of Callander,
where his father had for many years been resident as a country wright or carpenter.
By great perseverance and economy, in the course of a laborious life,
the old man had realised about five hundred pounds. Every farthing of this
sum, considered great in those days, he had unfortunately deposited in the
hands of “ the laird ”-a man of extravagant habits, and who became bankrupt,
paying a composition of little more than two shillings in the pound.
Overwhelmed by a misfortune, unexpected as it was ruinous, the “ village
carpenter” resolved on leaving the scene of his calamity ; and, with the first
dividend from the bankrupt’s estate, amounting to a very few pounds, he
removed with his family to Edinburgh, where he did not live to receive the
second moiety of composition. He died, it may be said, of a broken heart not
long after his arrival.
The arduous task of providing for a young and destitute family thus devolved
on Mr. John Campbell,’ who was the eldest, and then about twenty years of
age. To his honour he performed the filial duty, not only ungrudgingly, but
with alacriiy. Having acquired some knowledge of the business of a carpenter
from his father, he applied for employment, we believe, to Mr. Butter, senior,
with whom-there being no other opening at the time in his establishmenGhe
engaged in the laborious avocation of a sawyer j and for some years continued
in this way to gain a livelihood for the family.
Mr. Campbell had obtained a pretty liberal education at the grammar-school
of Stirling, and had at an early period made some proficiency in music. Along
with his brother Alexander-with whom he is grouped in another Print-he
became a pupil of the celebrated Tendocci, a fashionable teacher, who remained
in Edinburgh for some time.’ The charge for each lesson was half-a-guinea ;
1 Besides himself, the family consisted of his mother, his brother Alexasder (the poet and
musician), and three sisters.
Tenducci was an unrivalled singer of old Scottish songs ; such as, “The Flowers of the Forest’,-
“Waly, waly, gin love be bonny”-“The Lass 0’ Patie’s Mill”-“The Braes 0’ Ba1lendean”-
“Water parted from the Sea”-“One day I heard Mary say ”-“ An thou wert my ain thing,” etc.
The following notice of Tenducci occurs in O’Keefe’s Kecollectaons :-About the year 1766, I saw
