Scott entered into Campbell’s agreement with kindness and promptitude, and it was arranged, under certain stipulations, that the plan should have his zealous cooperation; but as the number and importance of his literary engagements increased, he declined to take an active part either in the magazine or the other undertaking.  “I saw Campbell two days ago,” writes Murray to Constable, “and he told me that Mr. Scott had declined, and modestly asked if it would do by himself alone; but this I declined in a way that did not leave us the less friends.”

At length, after many communications and much personal intercourse, Murray agreed with Campbell to bring out his work, without the commanding name of Walter Scott, and with the name of Thomas Campbell alone as Editor of the “Selections from the British Poets.”  The arrangement seems to have been made towards the end of 1808.  In January 1809 Campbell writes of his intention “to devote a year exclusively to the work,” but the labour it involved was perhaps greater than he had anticipated.  It was his first important prose work; and prose requires continuous labour.  It cannot, like a piece of poetry, be thrown off at a heat while the fit is on.  Campbell stopped occasionally in the midst of his work to write poems, among others, his “Gertrude of Wyoming,” which confirmed his poetical reputation.  Murray sent a copy of the volume to Walter Scott, and requested a review for the Quarterly, which was then in its first year.  What Campbell thought of the review will appear from the following letter: 

Mr. T. Campbell to John Murray.

June 2, 1809.

My Dear Murray,

I received the review, for which I thank you, and beg leave through you to express my best acknowledgments to the unknown reviewer.  I do not by this mean to say that I think every one of his censures just.  On the contrary, if I had an opportunity of personal conference with so candid and sensible a man, I think I could in some degree acquit myself of a part of the faults he has found.  But altogether I am pleased with his manner, and very proud of his approbation.  He reviews like a gentleman, a Christian, and a scholar.

Although the “Lives of the Poets” had been promised within a year from January 1809, four years passed, and the work was still far from completion.

In the meantime Campbell undertook to give a course of eleven Lectures on Poetry at the Royal Institution, for which he received a hundred guineas.  He enriched his Lectures with the Remarks and Selections collected for the “Specimens,” for which the publisher had agreed to pay a handsome sum.  The result was a momentary hesitation on the part of Mr. Murray to risk the publication of the work.  On this, says Campbell’s biographer, a correspondence ensued between the poet and the publisher, which ended to the satisfaction of both.  Mr. Murray only requested that Mr. Campbell should proceed with greater alacrity in finishing the long projected work.