The querulousness with which Campbell complains throughout, of the cruel treatment which he met with at the hands of the publishers, would be amusing if it were not at the same time most unjust. He acknowledges, in a letter written to Mr Richardson, so late as 1812, that the sale of his poems, for a series of years before, had yielded him, on an average, £500 per annum: not a bad annuity, we think, as the proceeds of a couple of volumes! We happen to know, moreover, that by the first publication of _Gertrude_ Campbell made upwards of a thousand pounds; and, unless we are grievously misinformed, he received from Mr Murray, for the copyright of the _Specimens_, a similar sum, being double the amount contracted for. We have already mentioned the publication of a subscription edition of the _Pleasures of Hope_, "which," says Dr Beattie, "with great liberality on the part of the publishers, was to be brought out for his own exclusive benefit." We should not have alluded to these matters, which, however, we believe, are no secrets, but for the publication by Dr Beattie of some very absurd expressions used and reiterated by Campbell. Such phrases as the following constantly occur: "They are the greatest ravens on earth with whom we have to deal--liberal enough as booksellers go--but still, you know, ravens, croakers, suckers of innocent blood, and living men's brains." Nor, in the opinion of Campbell, were these outrages confined merely to the living subjects, for he says, in reference to the older tenants of Parnassus, "Poor Bards! you are all ill used, even after death, by those who have lived upon your brains. And now, having scooped out those brains, they drink out of them, like Vandals out of the skulls of the severed and slain, served up by a Gothic Ganymede!" Further, in speaking of Napoleon, he says, " Perhaps in my feelings towards the Gallic usurper there may be some personal bias; for I must confess that, ever since he shot the bookseller in Germany, I have had a warm side to him. It was sacrificing an offering, by the hand of genius, to the manes of the victims immolated by the trade; and I only wish we had Nap here for a short time, to cut out a few of our own cormorants." The fact is, that so far from Campbell being ill-used by the trade, they behaved towards him with uncommon liberality. It is true that, in several instances, they hesitated in making high terms for work not yet commenced, with a man who was notoriously deficient in punctuality and perseverance; nor are they to be blamed, when we consider the number of his schemes, and the very few instances in which these were brought to maturity.