HKB
THE INTRODUCTION.
Of all the writings delivered in an historical manner to the world, none certainly were ever held in greater esteem than those which give us the lives of distinguished private men at full length; and, as I may say, to the life. Such curious fragments of biography are the rarities which great men seek after with eager industry, and when found, prize them as the chief jewels and ornaments that enrich their libraries, and deservedly; for they are the beauties of the greatest men's lives handed down by way of example or instruction to posterity, and commonly handed down likewise by the greatest men. Since, therefore, persons distinguished for merit in one kind or other are the constant subjects of such discourses, and the most elegant writers of each age have been usually the only authors who choose upon such subjects to employ their pens, and since persons of the highest rank and dignity, and genii of the most refined and delicate relish, are frequently curious enough to be the readers of them, and to esteem them the most valuable pieces in a whole collection of learned works; it is a wonder to me that when any man's life has something in it peculiarly great and remarkable in its kind, it should not move some more skilful writer than myself to give the public a taste of it, because it must be at least vastly entertaining, if it be not, which is next to impossible, immensely instructive and profitable withal.
If ever the life of any man under the sun was remarkable, this Mr. Duncan Campbell's, which I am going to treat upon, is so to a very eminent degree.
It affords such variety of incidents, and is accompanied with such diversity of circumstances, that it includes within it what must yield entire satisfaction to the most learned, and admiration to persons of a moderate understanding. The prince and the peasant will have their several ends of worthy delight in reading it; and Mr. Campbell's life is of that extent, that it concerns and collects, as I may say, within itself, every station of life in the universe. Besides, there is a demand in almost every page that relates any new act of his, for the finest and closest disquisitions that learning can make upon human nature, to account how those acts could be done by him. For he daily practised, and still practises, those things naturally, which puts art to the rack to find out how nature can so operate in him; and his fleshly body, by these operations, is a living practical system, or body of new philosophy, which exceeds even all those that have hitherto been compounded by the labour and art of many ages.