CAMPBELL, John, LL.D., a voluminous historical, biographical, and political writer, was born at Edinburgh, March 8, 1708. His father was Robert Campbell, Esq. of Glenlyon, and his mother, Elizabeth, daughter of Mr Smith of Windsor, was a descendant of the poet Waller. Having been designed by his father for the legal profession, he was sent to Windsor, and apprenticed to an attorney; but his tastes soon after led him to abandon the study of law, and to devote himself entirely to literature. In 1736 he published the Military History of Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marlborough, and soon after contributed several important articles to the Ancient Universal History. This was succeeded, in 1742 and 1744, by the Lives of the British Admirals, &c., in 4 vols., a work that was highly popular when it appeared, and which has received continuations from the pens of Dr Berkenhout, Redhead York, and Stephens. Besides contributing to the Biographia Britannica, and Doddsley's Preceptor, he published a work on The Present State of Europe, consisting of a series of papers which had appeared in the Museum. He also wrote the histories of the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, French, Swedish, Danish, and Ostend settlements in the East Indies, and the histories of Spain, Portugal, Algarve, Navarre, and France, from the time of Clovis till 1656, for the Modern Universal History. At the request of Lord Bute, he published a vindication of the Peace of Paris concluded in 1763, embodying in it a descriptive and historical account of the New Sugar Islands in the West Indies. By the king he was appointed agent for the provinces of Georgia in 1755. His last and most elaborate work, Political Survey of Britain, 2 vols., 4to, was published in 1744, and greatly increased the author's reputation, though now it is almost entirely superseded by later authorities. Dr Campbell died December 28, 1775. During his lifetime he enjoyed a European reputation for the extent and accuracy of his scholarship, the simplicity of his life, and the amiability of his disposition. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the university of Glasgow in 1746.