Thomas Campbell was an important transitional figure. Although he lived and wrote during the height of the Romantic period, he preferred the classical poetry of the eighteenth century. Yet like many other writers and thinkers of his day, he was caught up in the enthusiasm for expanded freedom generated by the American Revolution and the early days of the French Revolution. His major work, "The Pleasures of Hope," embodies the humanitarian idealism he shared with the great Romantics. Today he is remembered as a poet of freedom, patriotism, and social concern, and for his influence on many contemporaries and successors.

The youngest of the eleven children of Alexander and Margaret Campbell, Thomas Campbell was a native of Glasgow, Scotland. He received a traditional literary education at Glasgow University, where he enrolled in autumn 1791 at the age of fourteen. He attended five six-month sessions, leaving in May 1796. The next...