Duncan Campbell (soothsayer)

The account of Campbell's early life, brought up in Lapland where his Scottish father had wed a local woman, has been questioned.

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.

He published 'The Friendly Demon;[2] 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.

The 1725 'The Dumb Projector; being a surprising account of a Trip to Holland made by Mr. Campbell, with the manner of his Reception and Behaviour there,' was also by Haywood.

[1] An account of his life appeared in 1732, under the title 'Secret Memoirs of the late Mr. Duncan Campbell, the famous Deaf and Dumb Gentleman, written by himself, who ordered they should be published after his decease.