From Argyleshire, where his residence was not a protracted one, Campbell removed to Edinburgh. There he soon became introduced to some of the first men of the age, whose friendship and kindness could not fail to stimulate a mind like that of Campbell. He became intimate with the late Dugald Stewart; and almost every other leading professor of the University of Edinburgh was his friend. While in Edinburgh, he brought out his celebrated "Pleasures of Hope," at the age of twenty-one. It is perhaps not too much to say of this work, that no poet of this country ever produced, at so early an age, a more elaborate and finished performance. For this work, which for twenty years produced the publishers between two and three hundred pounds a year, the author received at first but £10, which was afterwards increased by an additional sum, and by the profits of a quarto edition of the work. By a subsequent act of the legislature, extending the term of copyright, it reverted again to the author; but with no proportional increase of profit. Campbell's pecuniary circumstances are said to have been by no means easy at this time and a pleasant anecdote is recorded of him, in allusion to the hardships of an author's case, somewhat similar to his own: he was desired to give a toast at a festive moment when the character of Napoleon was at its utmost point of disesteem in England. He gave "Bonaparte." The company started with astonishment. "Gentlemen," said he, "here is Bonaparte in his character of executioner of the booksellers." Palm, the bookseller, had just been executed in Germany, by the orders of the French. After residing nearly three years in Edinburgh, Campbell quitted his native country for the Continent. He sailed for Hamburgh, and there made many acquaintances among the more enlightened circles, both of that city and Altona. At that time there were numerous Irish exiles in the neighbourhood of Hamburgh, and some of them fell in the way of the poet, who afterwards related many curious anecdotes of them. There were sincere and honest men among them, who, with the energy of their national character, and enthusiasm for liberty, had plunged into the desperate cause of the rebellion two years before, and did not, even then, despair of freedom and equality in Ireland. Some of them were in private life most amiable persons, and their fate was altogether entitled to sympathy. The poet, from that compassionate feeling which is an amiable characteristic of his nature, wrote _The Exile of Erin_, from the impression their situation and circumstances made upon his mind. It was set to an old Irish air, of the most touching pathos, and will perish only with the language.