He let part of the secret
out in his _Castle of Indolence;_ and the more he let out, the more
honour he did to the simplicity and cordiality of the poet's nature,
though not always to the elegance of it. Allan Ramsay knew his friends
Gay and Somerville as well in their writings, as he did when he came to
be personally acquainted with them; but Allan, who had bustled up from
a barber's shop into a bookseller's, was 'a cunning shaver;' and nobody
would have guessed the author of the _Gentle Shepherd_ to be
penurious. Let none suppose that any insinuation to that effect is
intended against Mr. Campbell: he is one of the few men whom I could at
any time walk half-a-dozen miles through the snow to spend an afternoon
with; and I could no more do this with a penurious man than I could
with a sulky one. I know but of one fault he has, besides an extreme
cautiousness in his writings; and that one is national, a matter of
words, and amply overpaid by a stream of conversation, lively, piquant,
and liberal--not the less interesting for occasionally betraying an
intimacy with pain, and for a high and somewhat strained tone of voice,
like a man speaking with suspended breath, and in the habit of subduing
his feelings. No man, I should guess, feels more kindly towards his
fellow-creatures, or takes less credit for it.
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