trymen. Sooner or later all governments To ourselves these idioms, like the intensely are judged by their adherence to, or depar- local prejudices every where projected, are ture from, sound fixed principles; and the among the charms of the performance. They Empire of Napoleon himself was, as this give it individuality and force. Smooth, narrative proves, tainted with the mortal correct writing is common enough. Earnest disorder of financial embarrassment in the sentiment and unaffected diction will do midst of its most brilliant achievements. their work, in spite of worse transgressions The welfare and stability of nations require than can be laid to this door. more homely virtues, and more provident care; of which qualities these volumes will perpetuate an honourable example and an unpretending picture. ART. V.-1. Life of Lord Jeffrey, with a Selection from his Correspondence. By Lord Cockburn. Edinburgh, 2 vols. Svo. 1852. 2. Contributions to the Edinburgh Review. By Francis Jeffrey, now one of the Judges of the Court of Session in Scotland. 4 vols. 8vo. 1844. In his first volume he interweaves sundry extracts from Jeffrey's letters,—the second consists of a selection from them;-and we had already seen a good many in the Memoirs of Horner;-but it is evident, as might have been anticipated, that the most curious parts of the critic's correspondence have not yet been submitted to public view. His early environments must have been in the main very like those familiarized to our readers by the accounts of Mackintosh, Scott, Campbell, and Horner. Old subjects, however, put on a new face when a new spectator is not afraid to give his own impressions: and after all, this is the first time that we have had the whole scene and system depicted by one of Jeffrey's immediate circle. THIS Life seems a good deal too big for its He was born in 1773, in an obscure corsubject, but that fault is redeemed by fea- ner of Edinburgh. His father, a solicitor, tures of less common occurrence. Though obtained ultimately a deputy-clerkship in the septuagenarian Judge apologizes for him- the Court of Session-an office which, from self as a young author, his readers will de- some of the biographer's phrases (for he is tect few signs of inexperience. His narra- usually above statistics), we must presume tive is on the whole clear; shrewdness and to have then been of slender emolument. sagacity mark many a sentence:-and a cor- Francis had one younger brother, John-a dial affection relieves the exaggerated vein mild, calm creature, totally unlike himself, of eulogy in which it was perhaps inevitable but always warmly loved by him-who that one Edinburgh Whig of the top flight spent the best years of his life in America would glorify another. Some wonder, no under the wing of an uncle, long before setdoubt, was excited by the announcement of tled there, and married to a sister of the the undertaking; for among Lord Jeffrey's famous John Wilkes. There were two siseminent intimates hardly any one had been ters, both in due time respectably married; so little thought of in connexion with literary between whom and their brothers the most matters as Lord Cockburn; nor can we de- cordial affection is testified by the correny that the book presents a blank as to some spondence. The book leaves the impression subjects on which students of literature of less agreeable relations between the father might have expected entertaining details. and his children. From a period not far Jeffrey, we had always been told, conversed subsequent to the death of their mother, very freely on the topics which must have which occurred when Francis was but thiroccupied the larger share of his attention- teen, there appears to have been a growing yet Cockburn has nowhere made the least discomfort. Lord Cockburn speaks of the attempt to give us an idea of his style of old man as 'sensible and respectable,' but conversing on such topics. Of course the sour' and 'morose.' The sting comes bebulk of his notions must have found a voice hind-he was, it seems, a Tory. Owing his in his Review; but still a man does not talk post to the Dundases, he was steady in his to the public as he does to a friend, and allegiance to that dynasty; and few things, there must be more in him, we imagine, than we may believe, could have been more morhe ever puts upon paper. As to some minor tifying thin certain early symptoms of libepeculiarities, we cannot concur in criticisms ralism in his bright son. It is probable that that seem to be current. To say that many the younger branches adopted the views of uses of words, and especially turns of phrase, that oracle; and thus, perhaps, the whole are not English, is merely to say that Lord grievance may be explained. What no one Cockburn himself is before us in every page. can contest is, that, in spite of all disap pointments and disagreements, this sulky Istructor. From whatever motive, at the clerk acted uniformly in a very generous style as to his boy's education. lose of the school-period (Oct. 1787), instead of transferring his son to the College. His final abode and that with which his next door, he sent him to Glasgow, at a not children's young recollections were all con- inconsiderable advancement of cost. nected was in the very heart of Auld Reekie According to Dr. Macfarlane, a fellow-the crowning story or flat of one of those student, and now the venerated Principal at towering edifices on the Lawnmarket-Glasgow, Francis during his first session scarcely matched even in the ancient market-thereplaces of Leipzig or Vienna. To this habitat re Francis had a warm attachment. In his exhibited nothing remarkable except a degree early letters he often refers to the 'dear of quickness, bordering, as some thought, on tired adored little window of the Lawnmar- petulance; and the whim of cherishing a premature moustache, very black, and covering the ket garret:'-indicating equally, we feel, his whole of his upper lip, for which he was much tenderness towards his brother and sisters, laughed at and teased.' and his satisfaction in the retrospect of many a midnight hour well spent in his own aërial But, adds the biographer, appealing to ancitadel. About the last of the upper class other student, now also a Principalwho adhered to that vicinity was Boswell; and once, in his ladhood, the future critic had ting for Dr. Smith. This was Jeffrey. Not that he had any objection either to the Wealth of Nations or to its author; but the Economist often made the students take the opposite side,' was patronised by the professors, which has Vol. i. p. 12. 'There was no want of spirit; for Adam personal intercourse with this distinguished Lord Rector, which depends on the votes of the Smith had been set up that year for the office of neighbour. Returning home after a supper, professors and students, and Principal Haldane he was serviceable in lifting Mr. Boswell of St. Andrew's recollects seeing a little black from a gutter, and carrying him safe to the creature, whom he had not observed before, ha'convenient dwelling' in which he had once ranguing some boys in the Green against vohad the honour to lodge Johnson. Next day Boswell, informed of his obligations, stopped Francis in the street to thank him-a little conversation gave a favourable impression of the young Samaritan as a lover of his book, and the close was 'Go on:-you may come to be a Bozzy yourself." One other We apprehend that such opposition was in juvenile glimpse of a great man is recorded. those times very uncommon; and in spite of Jeffrey, when about sixteen or seventeen, it, for the credit of the place, Adam Smith was struck by the stalwart appearance of a was elected. In the second year his advance passing stranger, and stopped to take a bet- is witnessed by both our respected Princiter look at him. A shop-keeper, standing pals:at his door near the Cross, said 'Ay, look weil, laddie, that's Robert Burns.' We re- 'Macfarlane says, "He broke upon us very call the 'startled burghers' when Dandie brilliantly. In a debating society he distinDinmont first strode along that same street guished himself as one of the most acute and in search of Pleydell's hostelrie. Even icism and metaphysics." Professor Jardine used fluent speakers; his favourite subjects being critScott does not seem to have surpassed Jef to require his pupils to write an exercise, and frey in affection for their own romantic then to make them give in written remarks on town.' It is not only that he enjoyed each other's work. Haldane's essay fell to be enthusiastically, early and late, the general examined by Jeffrey, who on this occasion proscenery-he evidently had a genuine love bably made his first critical adventure. for the humblest locality associated with his returning my essay to me (says the Principal) torical tradition. Even near the close of his read some of the remarks at the beginning of the good professor, willing to save my feelings, life his letters mention long solitary walks, the criticism, but the remainder he rend in a not merely about Arthur's Seat with all its suppressed tone of voice, muttering something unsurpassed variety of aspects landward and as if he thought it too severe."-i. 13. seaward, but up and down among the dingi est and most deserted alleys of the old capital itself. All this is very pleasing-by us, we own, it was not expected. In Lord Cockburn surmises that, in sending him to Glasgow, his father had had an eye to one of the exhibitions at Balliol College, He was never the dux of the High School Oxford, which are in the gift of the Profes -but his written exercises attracted the sors there. If the Smith affair be a speciRector's observation. Dr. Adams was a men of Jeffrey's usual course as to disciliberal-almost a republican; and possibly pline, it is not likely that the Professors the depute-clerk ascribed something of Mas- should have been very favourably disposed ter Frank's political heresy to such an in- towards him; nor, however appreciated at his clubs, did he earn any such distinction in Old Adams made a gracious reply-conhis classes as to overrule all scruples. cluding with a monition that, among other Several note-books of those sessions have accomplishments, it might be worth while been preserved. He was not content with recording the substance of his masters' prælections, but already recast the whole, and blended it with his own illustrations or objections, so as to produce a series of Re views. to acquire a more legible handwriting: to which hint, Cockburn regretfully adds, no attention was paid. A more wretched hand was never seen-cramped, pinched, scraggy, with a constant indulgence in utterly arbitrary contractions. Printers are ex-officio Lord Cockburn has recovered a letter which Rawlinsons; but the fair ladies who enjoyed Francis-aged fifteen-addressed from Glas- most of his correspondence must have taken gow to the Edinburgh Rector. We may dutiful pains before they could decipher it. be allowed to smile at its presumption, and Leaving Glasgow in May 1789, he remainalso at its baby appropriation of the slang ed in and about Edinburgh, left entirely to of Scotch Philosophy-but the good feeling himself,' for more than two years. Except towards the old preceptor is, in his own pet phrase, quite refreshing : that he attended one course of lectures on Scotch law, to his avowed disgust, there is no trace during this period of any other studies than those of the adored garret-but these were constant and serious. Among other existing MSS. of 1790 Cockburn was especially struck by one: 'Dear Sir, I do not question that you will be surprised at the freedom of this uninvited intrusion and when I tell you (by way of apology) that for these some weeks I have been impelled to the deed by the impulse of some internal agent, I question if your surprise will be diminished. As a student of philosophy I thought My Opinions of Some Authors is a collection myself bound to withstand the temptation, and of short critical judgments. He says, "I have as an adept in logic, to analyse the source of its only ventured to characterise those who have effects. Both attempts have been equally un- actually undergone my perusal;"-yet they are successful. I have neither been able to resist fifty in number; and besides most of the Engthe inclination nor to discover its source. My lish classics, include Fenelon, Voltaire, Margreat affection for the study of mind led me a montel, Le Sage, Molière, Racine, Rousseau, weary way before I abandoned this attempt; Rollin, Buffon, Montesquieu, &c. His perusal nor did I leave the track of inquiry till I thought of many of these must have been very partial; I had discovered that it proceeded from some yet it is surprising how just most of his concep emotion in the powers of the will rather than of tions of their merits and defects are. Many of the intellect. My epistolary communications these criticisms, especially of English writers, have hitherto been confined to those whom I are written in a style of acute and delicate discould treat with all the familiarity of the most crimination, and express the opinions of his ma perfect equality, and whose experience or attain- turer years. Johnson-as might be expected of ments I was not accustomed to consider as supe- a youth-[!]-is almost the only one whom he rior to my own. This, I think, will account and rates far higher then than he did afterwards.'— apologise for any peculiarity you may discern i. 28. in my style. I think it superfluous to assure you that, whatever appearance of levity or petuAt Michaelmas, 1791, his father carried lance that may bear, the slightest, the most dis- him to Oxford and entered him as a comtant, shadow of disrespect was never intended. moner at Queen's College. If there still had When I recollect the mass of instruction I have been any hope of a Glasgow exhibition, Balreceived from your care-when I consider the liol would have been a more natural selec excellent principles it was calculated to convey tion. There was no endowment in which -when I contemplate the perspicuous, attentive, and dispassionate mode of conveyancea Scotchman could hope to participate. and when experience the advantages and Among the superiors there was no name of benefits of all these, I cannot refrain the grati- distinction; while, if Jeffrey's testimony is fication of a finer feeling in the acknowledgment to be decisive, the younger members, in of my obligations. I am sufficiently sensible number twenty-seven, were as a set only that these are hackneyed and cant phrases; but, less dissolute than dull. A list of them exas they express the sentiments of my soul, I think they must be tolerated. If you ever find tant in his writing attaches some disparaging leisure to notice this, I shall esteem your answer epithet to every one name, except that of as a particular honour; and that you may more the future Dr. Maton, whose affix is philoso easily accomplish that, I inform you that I lodge pher. Jeffrey had not been there a week at Mr. Milne's, Montrose Lodgings. So this before he began to write to his sisters and is an introductory letter! It wants indeed the female cousins in the bitterest scorn and formality of such a performance; but the ab- derision of the college, the university, and sence of that requisite may for once be supplied all their adjuncts. Though no man ever felt by the sincerity with which I assure you T am, dear sir, yours, &c. &c., F. JEFFREY.-Glasgow, the charms of English scenery more sensiJanuary, 1789.' bly than he did in his maturer years, he ap pears to have gazed with contempt on the by a full-grown Scotchman, which implies the sweet valleys of the Isa and Charwell-even total loss of his Scotch, is fortunately impossion the wonderful congregation of architec- ble, it would have been better if he had merely tural beauties, so entirely unlike anything got some of the grosser matter rubbed off his vernacular tongue, and left himself, unincumhe could have seen at home. 'Nothing is bered both by it and by unattainable English, to be learnt here,' he says, 'except praying to his own respectable Scotch, refined by literaand drinking.' But the regulations of Queen's ture and good society, and used plainly and were, it seems, so lax that he soon found it naturally, without shame, and without affected possible to escape chapel; and from his de- exaggeration. —i. 47. scriptions of a few wine-parties, it may be The Judge testifies that, though thus unsupposed that he declined a regular course happily super-English in his habitual proof Bacchanalian instruction. For the studies, nunciation and accent, his yoke-fellow rereally or nominally inculcated by the tutors, tained the native vocabulary full in recolleche avowed his distaste, and probably as to tion, and to the end could speak Scotch them also got easy absolution. But he la- when he chose as correctly as when the boured with energy in his own way-de- Doric of the Lawnmarket had only been imvoured miscellaneous literature, ancient and proved by that of the Rottenrow of Glasmodern, and filled scores of note-books with gow.' This certificate, we confess, surprised analyses. Many will be amused to hear that us. We more than once heard the flourishanother exercise was the composition of ser- ing advocate examine rustic witnesses, and mons. Lord C. says that they were after- used to think his Doric about as funny as wards presented to clerical friends of differ- his Attic. Cockburn adds that Jeffrey ent denominations-we dare say the doc- always continued to have a lively relish for trines were far from rigid—and that a late the vernacular literature of Scotland. This respectable minister [of the Kirk] imposed we quite believe. We venture to say, howsome of them on his congregation so late as ever, that his taste in it was not over pure. 1825.' Furthermore, he had now become It seems to us that he never adequately disan ardent versifier. Besides numberless criminated between the classics of that diatranslations from Greek and Latin poets, lect (ending in Scott), and writers who, of original rhymes occupied a large share of his necessity, exhibit it in a degraded type-no hours. He concludes a melancholy letter longer the actual speech of any but the comto one of his young ladies with, ‘I have now mon people. really no hope of reaching greatness-unless perhaps as a poet.' The Oxford experiment, in whatever view the old man had hazarded it, was brief. On the expiration of the academical year at midsummer Francis took his name off the books. Whatever indecision there may have been hitherto as to Jeffrey's professional destination, it appears that henceforth he fixed his views steadily on the bar-after a little hesi tation and calculation of costs and risks, on the Scotch bar; and the history of the next four years before he assumed the gown, and One grand object with himself had cer- of the five or six more that elapsed ere he tainly been to get rid of his northern pro- obtained any considerable practice, constinunciation, and we presume he remained tutes, perhaps, the most valuable section of in the despised cloister until he thought he Cockburn's volume. The value, however, had mastered that point. Here, however, being in the fulness and precision of the deRhadamanthus shakes his ambrosial curls :- tails, we can hardly do more than express 'He returned a conspicuously altered lad. our gratitude. We find little evidence inThe change was so sudden and so complete, deed of serious grappling with the arcana of that it excited the surprise of his friends, and jurisprudence proper-but, on the whole, furnished others with ridicule for many years. never did a young man of quick parts, and But he was by no means so successful in acquir- entertaining a sufficient confidence in them, ing an English voice. With an ear which, set before students a more remarkable exthough not alert in musical perception, was deli cate enough to feel every variation of speech ample of industry. At Edinburgh he atwhat he picked up was a high-keyed accent, tended the lectures of many professors, some and a sharp pronunciation. Then the extreme on subjects not obviously connected with rapidity of his utterance, and the smartness of his own plans-for instance, chemistry and some of his notes gave his delivery an air of anatomy-all of which, however, did essenaffectation, to which some were only reconciled by tially tend to enlarge the resources of the fuhabit and respect. The result, on the whole, ture Advocate (as well as of the future Rewas exactly as described by his friend the late Lord Holland, who said that though Jeffrey had viewer) ;-and he continued his sedulity in lost the broad Scotch at Oxford, he had only gained recording whatever their prelections added the narrow English. to his information. The daily public ex 6 As the acquisition of a pure English accent aminations-the weekly essays, subjected not only to the censure of the chair, but to not now be 'called sedition' at Edinburgh. the mutual criticism of the struggling youths Possibly not, nor-after a long course of —but above all, the clubs where they dis- Whig administration-in London either. cussed all topics in nocturnal conclave-But that such facts constituted sedition at these parts of the northern system, which least, if not treason, in 1793, was the opinion no doubt he had sorely regretted while not merely of the then Scottish bench, but among the solemn courts and groves of Ox- of English jurists whom Lord Cockburn is ford, afforded every possible facility for the perhaps hardly entitled to look down upon. development and display of his peculiar No statute since 1793 has touched the nature talents; and he ere long acquired in that and constituents of sedition in Scotland. The sphere a considerable reputation. It should Act 6 George IV. cap. 17, deprived the be told that of the winters succeeding his Scotch bench of the power to punish sedibrief residence in the south, he spent two at tion by transportation; but the very passing Glasgow, which, again, must have been an of that Act proves the previous legality of additional expense to the old man. He also the power it abolished; and that it would at this period passed a good share of his va- have been unwise to alter that ancient syscations in Glasgow, and this, considering his tem at the crisis of 1793 was the decision love of Edinburgh, may seem strange. both of the House of Commons in that Cockburn accounts for it by a hint that at year, when the question was formally brought home he felt the humbleness of his connex- before them, and of the House of Lords. ions; fretted at seeing himself surrounded We have no wish to enter into a debate by circles to which he had no access. He with Lord Cockburn as to the particular had, it is true, says the biographer, no more case of Muir; but we may suggest that access to the better society of Glasgow than Jeffrey's horror about his trial does not seem of Edinburgh; but in the western town he to have been at the moment very profound. was a stranger, and no one would take notice In the letter cited, he never even names of his isolation. The Judge adds, however, Muir; but only indicates him by a ludithat at Glasgow there was a Hebe.' From an entry in the Glasgow note-book, we gather that at one time he was afraid his father would insist on his adopting a mercantile career; but whether some idea of that sort still lingering in the deputy-clerk's mind had any influence in these later excursions to that commercial town, does not appear. Our Judge pauses, to pronounce this little interlocutor: crous sobriquet-the Chancellor'-founded on some story about his mother's dreaming that she was to bring forth a man child who should sit in the marble chair. But there is more to be observed. In March, 1845, after Lord Jeffrey had been eleven years on the bench, a case involving many references to the trials of 1793 was argued with great ability before the Court of Session. Certain persons had subscribed money for a monument in honour of the 'Martyrs,' Muir, He would have made a miserable merchant: Gerald, Margarot, &c., and purchased a site for he had a horror of risk, and a strong sense of for it on Calton-hill. Other people considerthe value of pecuniary prudence. With a ed that such an erection would be, for valiberality of disposition, which was evinced by munificent charity, he had no spirit of adven-rious reasons, unlawful, and petitioned the ture, and therefore one shilling certain had court for an interdict. The court finally recharms for him which twenty shillings doubtful fused the interdict :-the monument is now could not impart. He would have made him- a conspicious feature of that commanding self or his partners crazy, by perpetually de- locality;-and Lord Jeffrey was one of the monstrating, in the midst of their most solid majority that carried this decision; but in prosperity, that they were all bankrupt, or must his speech from the bench, one of the finest speedily become so. The law, and in Edinburgh, was plainly his destiny.-i. 50. On the 30th of August, 1793, says his friend : 'He got one of his first views of the scenes he was to act in, by being present, as a spectator, at the case of Mr. Thomas Muir, advocate, who was that day dealt with at Edinburgh for what was then called Sedition. Jeffrey never mentioned that trial without horror.'-i. 58. It is the natural inference that facts such as those stated in this Muir's indictment, and abundantly proved on his trial, would he ever delivered, he was far from express- mark; but they too fill a page in history, and |