BI 0 GRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 93
but the Italian exhibited a degree of considerate partiality for the musical
brothers, by affording them instructions at half-price. By degrees Mr. Campbell
acquired some celebrity as an amateur vocalist, and having become favourably
known to the Rev. Robert Walker (the colleague of Blair), he was recommended
by that gentleman to the Rev. Dr. Macfarlan of the Canongate Church, who
procured for him, in 1775, the situation of precentor.
While studying under Tenducci, the aptitude and obliging disposition of the
scholar had been such as to gain the respect and esteem of his tutor. To the
friendship of that foreigner-displayed in a novel and characteristic manner-
Mr. Campbell attributed his first start, as well as his future success, as a teacher
of music. When about to leave Edinburgh he hrevailed on the latter to sit
to Allan for a portrait ; but for what purpose he did not explain. This he had
engraved on a small scale, with the initials “C-p-11, P-n-r, C-g-e
C-11 ” beneath, copies of which he inclosed in circulars to all his employers
in high life, among whom were the witty Duchess of Gordon, the volatile Lady
Wallace, the Earl of Hopetoun, Sir John Halket, and other equally distinguished
persons. Tenducci having left the city without giving the smallest hint of what
he had done, Campbell was astonished to find letters dropping into him every
other day from the families of the nobility, requesting his professional services’;
and some time elapsed ere he became aware of the obligation under which he
lay to his benefactor. Thus encouraged, in conjunction with his brother Alexander,
he devoted himself exclusively to teaching, and rapidly attained
professional reputation and respectability.
Having fairly overcome his early difficulties, Mr. Campbell married in 1776
Margaret, daughter of Alexander Ogilvie, glover in Edinburgh. Not many
years after this his prosperity received a severe check by the flight of a brotherin-
law, for whom, along with another individual, he had become security to the
amount of a thousand pounds. From the creditors, however, he experienced
such sympathy as rendered the settlement comparatively easy.
Early skeled against misfortunes, Mr. Campbell possessed a happy equanimity
of mind, with philosophy enough, in as far as possible, to render the various
occurrences of life subservient to his own and the happiness of all within his
circle. The poet Burns, while starring
among the “Embro Gentles,” was a frequent and welcome guest at the table of
He was of a kind and social disposition.
Tenducci in Dublin, in AT~UCinB ‘ Artaxerxes,’ which I had seen in London on its first coming out
in 1762. His singing Water Parted ’ was the great attraction, as were the airs he sung as the first
spirit in Comus, The
frolicsome Dublin boys used to sing about the streets, to the old tune of ‘Over the Hills and far away,’
At his benefits there, he had thirty, forty, and fifty guinea8 for a single ticket.
(‘ ‘ Tenducci was 8 piper’s son,
And he waa in love when he was young ;
And all the tuna that he could play,
Was (( Water parted from the Say I’ ”
In 1784, Thew Tenducci in London, when he set to music Captain Jephson’s ‘ Campaign.’ ”
Father of Dr. Patrick Macfarlan of Greenock.
