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.
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