About Thomas Campbell (poet)
Thomas Campbell (27 July 1777 – 15 June 1844) was a Scottish poet at the intersection of the neoclassical with the Romantic style of British poetry. His most successful poem was The Pleasures of Hope (1799), which is a didactic poem in heroic couplets. He also composed patriotic war songs including "Ye Mariners of England", "The Soldier's Dream", "Hohenlinden", and The Battle of the Baltic, in addition to simple lyrics such as "At Love's Beginning". He also was a founder and the first President of the London literary Clarence Club, and a co-founder of the Literary Association of the Friends of Poland, and one of the instigators of the plan to found University College London. == Early life == He was born on High Street, Glasgow in 1777, and the youngest of the eleven children of Alexander Campbell (1710–1801), who was the son of the 6th and last Laird of Kirnan, Argyll and descended from the MacIver-Campbells. His mother, Margaret (b. 1736), was the daughter of John Campbell of Craignish and Mary, daughter of Robert Simpson who was "a celebrated Royal Armourer". In about 1737, his father went to Falmouth, Virginia as a merchant in business with his wife's brother Daniel Campbell, becoming a Tobacco Lord trading between there and Glasgow. They enjoyed a long period of prosperity until he lost his property and their old and respectable firm collapsed in consequence of the American Revolutionary War. Having personally lost nearly £20,000, Campbell's father was nearly ruined.
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