George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

‘ [65] destroyed, and that his friends had fallen,—nay, he saw almost every one about his person killed or wounded,—but yet he never spoke a word or moved a muscle, looking unchanged upon all the destruction about him. At last, at five o'clock, the fire of the French began to slacken. He ordered a charge to be made along the whole line,—a desperate measure, which, perhaps, was never before ventured under such circumstances; and when he saw the alacrity with which his men advanced towards the enemy, then, for the first time, laying his hand with a sort of convulsive movement on the pistols at his saddlebow, he spoke, as it were in soliloquy, and all he said was, “That will do!” In ten minutes the route of the French was complete. And yet this great man, twice in India and once in Spain, had almost lost his reputation, and even his rank, by being unable to control the impetuosity of his disposition. In the night one of his aids passed the window of the house where he had his quarters, and found him sitting there. He told the Duke he hoped he was well. “Don't talk to me of myself, Major,” he said; “I can think of nothing, and see nothing, but the Guards. My God! all destroyed! It seems as if I should never sleep again!” This was his favorite regiment; and when they were mustered, after the battle, out of above a thousand men, less than three hundred answered.’

June 25.—Mr. Campbell asked me to come out and see him to-day, and make it a long day's visit. So, after the morning service, I drove out, and stayed with him until nearly nine this evening. He lives in a pleasant little box, at Sydenham, nine miles from town, a beautiful village, which looks more like an American village than any I have seen in England. His wife is a bonny little Scotchwoman, with a great deal of natural vivacity; and his only child, a boy of about ten, an intelligent little fellow, but somewhat injured by indulgence, I fear. . . . . They seem very happy, and have made me so, for there was no one with them but myself, except an old schoolmate of Campbell's, now a barrister of considerable eminence. . . . . Campbell had the same good spirits and love of merriment as when I met him before,—the same desire to amuse everybody about him; but still I could see, as I partly saw then, that he labors under the burden of an extraordinary reputation, too easily acquired, and feels too constantly that it is necessary for him to make an exertion to satisfy expectation. The consequence is, that, though he is always amusing, he is not always quite natural.

He showed me the biographical and critical sketches of the English Poets which he is printing. . . . . They will form three volumes, and