Duncan Campbell (soothsayer) facts for kids

The history of the life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell

Duncan Campbell (1680?-1730) was a Scottish deaf man and professed soothsayer.

Life

The account of Campbell's early life, brought up in Lapland where his Scottish father had wed a local woman, has been questioned. He had some teaching at the University of Glasgow, according to the recommendations of John Wallis.

Campbell went in 1694 to London, where his predictions attracted attention in fashionable society. Running into debt, he went to Rotterdam, where he enlisted as a soldier. Returning in a few years to London, he read a wealthy young widow's fortune, to his own benefit, and having taken a house in Monmouth Street, he found himself again a centre of attraction.

Campbell succeeded in obtaining the notice of royalty, as reporting in the 'Daily Post' of Wednesday, 4 May 1720: 'Last Monday Mr. Campbell, the deaf and dumb gentleman—introduced by Colonel Carr—kissed the king's hand, and presented to his majesty "The History of his Life and Adventures", which was by his majesty most graciously received.'

In 1726 Campbell appeared as a vendor of miraculous medicines. He published 'The Friendly Demon; It consists of two letters, the first by Duncan Campbell, giving an account of an illness which attacked him in 1717, and continued nearly eight years, until his good genius appeared and revealed that he could be cured by the use of the lodestone; the second on genii or familiar spirits, with an account of a marvellous sympathetic powder which had been brought from the East. A postscript informed the readers that at 'Dr. Campbell's house, in Buckingham Court, over against Old Man's Coffee House, at Charing Cross, they may be readily furnished with his "Pulvis Miraculosus", and finest sort of Egyptian loadstones.'

Campbell died after a severe illness in 1730.