Dialogue on Scottish Music,” prefixed, had the merit of conveying to Continental musicians for the first time a correct acquaintance with the Scottish scale, the author receiving the commendations of the greatest Italian and German composers.  The work likewise contains “Songs of the Lowlands,” a selection of some of the more interesting specimens of the older minstrelsy.  In 1802 he published “A Tour from Edinburgh through various parts of North Britain,” in two volumes quarto, illustrated with engravings from sketches executed by himself.  This work met with a favourable reception, and has been regarded as the most successful of his literary efforts.  In 1804 he sought distinction as a poet by giving to the world “The Grampians Desolate,” a long poem, in one volume octavo.  In this production he essays “to call the attention of good men, wherever dispersed throughout our island, to the manifold and great evils arising from the introduction of that system which has within these last forty years spread among the Grampians and Western Isles, and is the leading cause of a depopulation that threatens to extirpate the ancient race of the inhabitants of those districts.”  That system to which Mr Campbell refers, he afterwards explains to be the monopoly of sheep-stores, a subject scarcely poetical, but which he has contrived to clothe with considerable smoothness of versification.  The last work which issued from Mr Campbell’s pen was “Albyn’s Anthology, a Select Collection of the Melodies and Vocal Poetry Peculiar to Scotland and the Isles, hitherto Unpublished.”  The publication appeared in 1816, in two parts, of elegant folio.  It was adorned by the contributions of Sir Walter Scott, James Hogg, and other poets of reputation.  The preface contains “An Epitome of the History of Scottish Poetry and Music from the Earliest Times.”  His musical talents have a stronger claim to remembrance than either his powers as a poet or his skill as a writer.  Yet his industry was unremitted, and his researches have proved serviceable to other writers who have followed him on the same themes.  Only a few lyrical pieces proceeded from his pen; these were first published in “Albyn’s Anthology.”  From this work we have extracted two specimens.

Mr Campbell died of apoplexy on the 15th of May 1824, after a life much chequered by misfortune.  He left various MSS. on subjects connected with his favourite studies, which have fortunately found their way into the possession of Mr Laing, to whom the history of Scottish poetry is perhaps more indebted than to any other living writer.  The poems in this collection, though bearing marks of sufficient elaboration, could not be recommended for publication.  Mr Campbell was understood to be a contributor to The Ghost, a forgotten periodical, which ran a short career in the year 1790.  It was published in Edinburgh twice a week, and reached the forty-sixth number; the first having appeared on the 25th of April, the last on the 16th of November.  He published an edition of a book, curious in its way—­Donald Mackintosh’s “Collection of Gaelic Proverbs, and Familiar Phrases; Englished anew!” Edinburgh, 1819, 12mo.  The preface contains a characteristic account of the compiler, who described himself as “a priest of the old Scots Episcopal Church, and last of the non-jurant clergy in Scotland.”