Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XV. VICTORIA SQUARE, PIMLICO. As the winter commenced, Campbell made preparations for another change of domicile. Having felt the loneliness of his chambers, he longed for the comforts of domestic society; and with his niece, whom he had educated, and now invited to superintend his menage, he took the lease of a house in Victoria Square, Pimlico. This was a serious and ill-advised step; for it involved him in expenses and difficulties which he had neither calculated nor foreseen; but the arrangements he had made were so encouraging, that he saw only the bright side of things, and looked to his new house as a new era of happiness. Pimlico had been the first resting-place in his public career; and he felt a sort of impatient yearning to return to it--not without a presentiment, perhaps, that it might be his last: and while fancy was surrounding his hearth with old familiar faces, he writes: --"Jan. 28rf.--I am so much in love with my new house in Victoria Square, that I have resolved to put off my journey to Italy, till 1 have finished and entered it--nay warmed it with a dinner to my friends in May .. "I got a letter from my sister at Edinburgh a few days ago, written, of course, by her companion, Miss Boston: 'So you are to be married--that is reported and quite certain. Oh, my good brother, is not this a rash step at your years? Have you consulted M V My answer was--I have neither consulted M nor any one else; for I did not hear that I was for certain to be married, till I got your letter. But why should you be surprised that I should commit matrimony at my young and giddy age? for I am only sixty-three I must nevertheless request you to obtain for me exact information as to the name, This House, No. 8, was to be finished early in the year, ...