John Campbell (eighteenth-century biographer)

John Campbell (8 March 1708 – 28 December 1775) was a Scottish author. He contributed to George Sale's Universal History, and wrote a Political Survey of Britain (1744). He was both prolific and well paid: according to James Boswell, Samuel Johnson spoke of Campbell to Joseph Warton as 'the richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.'

He was the son of a Campbell of Glenlyon, captain in a regiment of horse, and was born at Edinburgh on 8 March 1708. At the age of five he was taken to Windsor by his mother, originally of that town, and educated under the direction of an uncle, who placed him as a clerk in an attorney's office. He left the law for literature, in the 1730s.

In 1754 the University of Glasgow conferred on him the degree of LL.D. In March 1765 he was appointed his majesty's agent for the Province of Georgia, and held the office until his death. He died on 28 December 1775, having received in the preceding year from the Empress Catherine of Russia a present of her portrait.

Campbell produced at the age of 28 a Military History of the late Prince Eugene of Savoy and the late John, Duke of Marlborough … illustrated with variety of copper-plates of battles, sieges, plans, &c., carefully engraved by Claude Du Bosc, issued without the compiler's name in 1736. In compiling it Campbell used the Marquis de Quincy's Histoire Militaire du règne de Louis Quatorze, and the works of Jean Dumont and Jean Rousset de Missy on Prince Eugene of Savoy. In 1734 appeared, under Campbell's name, A View of the Changes to which the Trade of Great Britain to Turkey and Italy will be exposed if Naples and Sicily fall into the hands of the Spaniards. Campbell suggested that the Two Sicilies should be handed over to the Elector of Bavaria.

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