This book includes a memoir of his life and an essay on his genius and writings. It is also illustrated with fine steel engravings. Campbell won prizes at the university for Classical verse translations, and for his essay On the Origin of Evil . He worked for a while as a tutor in Mull and Lochgilphead, then went to Edinburgh to study law, but literature seems to have been his first love. In 1799, he published the long poem The Pleasures of Hope . The next year, he visited battle sites in Germany and Denmark, which are thought to have inspired his poems Ye Mariners of England and The Battle of the Baltic . Another of his noted poems was Gertrude of Wyoming , the first long poem by a British author set in America. These poems are contained in this volume.