one of the best specimens of that species of description in which Jeffrey not unfrequently indulged. It is a description of the sea under a gale of wind, by no means intended to be poetic, but which paints the scene very correctly to the eye-which is all that, in any attempts of this kind, he succeeds in. We have not space to quote the whole of it; but the two following sentences will convey as accurate a picture of a sea view as words could easily accomplish: "The sky was very dark, and the water blue-black, with a little foam, and many broad spots of dirty green, where the swell had recently broke. The only things that had a sort of dreary magnificence were some black-looking birds screaming through the mist, and a sort of smoking spray which the wind swept from the water, and kept hanging like a vapour all over its surface."

Celebrity and wealth, and professional advancement, contributed to render his lot in life a very enviable one. His country residence at Craigcrook, three miles to the north-west of Edinburgh, was for himself a delightful retreat, and formed a centre of attraction to a most agreeable society. "It was the favourite resort," writes Lord Cockburn, "of his friends, who knew no such enjoyment as Jeffrey at that place; and, with the exception of Abbotsford, there were more interesting strangers there than in any house in Scotland."

But now the Whigs come into office, and Jeffrey is appointed Lord-Advocate. The tenor of his life is changed, is disturbed.

"He had hitherto," says his biographer," lived entirely in Edinburgh, or its neighbourhood, enjoying his fame and popularity with his private friends-in honourable and private life. But he had now to interrupt his profession; to go into Parliament, at alarming pecuniary risk; to forego the paradise of Craigcrook, and his delicious vacations, to pass many weary months, and these summer ones, in London; to be no longer the easy critic of measures, but their responsible conductor; and to be involved, without official training, in all the vexation of official business. These calamities he would have aroided if he could. But being assured that his party and the public were concerned, he submitted."

Quotations are made from his correspondence which show how bitterly the eminent Whig barrister lamented his promotion. Lord Cockburn on more than one occasion manifests that strong shrewd sense which has an especial enmity to every species of affectation. If Jeffrey has been talking of retiring to a cottage with £300 a-year, he pooh-poohs the idea. It is mere stuff-the Bar was now fairly open to him-he never dreamt of retirement, and cottages, and £300 a-year: "it makes a good sentence in a letter," nothing more. How is it that on this occasion he so readily adopts or acquiesces in a still more glaring affectation? The calamity of being made Lord-Advocate was one he most assuredly could have avoided if he pleased. He had not as yet taken office of any description—it was a new step in life-his party might have claimed his literary exertions, they had no peculiar claim on him to fill the place of Lord-Advocate, and there were others who could have performed the troublesome functions of this office quite as ably as himself. The Whigs did not want another orator in Parliament; they had more already than could obtain audience. The simple truth is, that Jeffrey was borne along, as most men are, by the tide of ambition. He could not resist the temptation to mingle in the higher and greater scenes of life. We have no desire that he should have resisted it; we are rather pleased that such men should be in public life;—but it was the same ambition which drove him from Craigerook that would not allow him to think seriously of "retirement, and cottages, and £300 a-year." If you once enter on this career, this chase after wealth and distinction, the difficulty to stop increases as you proceed.

"Retire-and timely from the world, if ever Thou hopest tranquil days!"

The passing of the Reform Bill is an event too close at hand to make it needful or agreeable that we should here dwell on it, or on the part which the new Lord-Advocate took in forwarding the measure. That which will strike the reader of this biography as being peculiarly characteristic of

Jeffrey is the extreme despondency, rising into terror, with which he looks at the political horizon. With or without a Reform Bill, the future prospects of England are to him exceedingly gloomy. From this measure he hopes little positive benefit: its great utility is to appease the tumults, and avert, if possible, the coming storm. His correspondence throughout this agitating period is marked by as deep a despondency as that of the most decided opponent of the measure could have been.

His success in Parliament was not equal to what his friends had anticipated. This is partly attributed to a weakness in the throat, which embarrassed his exertions, and, in some measure, prevented him from being heard. Neither in those negotiations which took place out of Parliamentthose private discussions with members of his own party, which, as Lord-Advocate, he had to sustain on the details and remodelling of the measure does he seem to have given uniform satisfaction. Lord Cockburn was Solicitor-General at the same period. He speaks of his friend in the following enigmatical manner. Is it here that we are to look for whatever explanation is given of that dark sentence in the Preface, where we read of "public matters" connected with "severe condemnation?" Jeffrey has been defending himself against the accusation of some members of his party who had blamed him for indecision, and for conceding too much to artful opponents :

"Notwithstanding all this," says the biographer, "the scold was not ill deserved. His own constant sincerity and reasonableness made him always incredulous of the opposite qualities in others; and hence his having more charity for cunning enemies than toleration for honest friends, was an infirmity that too often beset him."

Why his constant sincerity and reasonableness should operate only in favour of his enemies one does not see; but through this haze of language one gathers that the speculative politician of the Edinburgh Review did not prove the warm decided partisan that was required.

His political life did not last long: his official career occurred at a very

excited period, but it was of brief duration. He was promoted to the Bench; and, as is customary with the Judges of the highest court of Scotland, took the title of Lord Jeffreychoosing rather to associate the title with his own name than with a territorial appellation. It is said that he not only became an excellent judge, but a remarkably patient one: he was never wearied of listening to the pleadings of either party; he would indeed take a more active part than is usual in a judge, performing some of the functions of the counsel as well as his own; but as long as there was anything more to be said by either party, he was always willing to listen. He seems, from Lord Cockburn's account, to have disliked the spoiling of a good controversy by coming to a decision.

66 Though not exactly denying the necessity of rules for ending discussion, he scarcely liked them, and half pitied a party whose desire to say still more on his own matter, which was everything to him, was resisted for the convenience of other matters, for which he cared nothing. He has been known to say, that if there was only one cause in the world it would never end; and why should it? What are other causes to a man who has not done with his own?"

On the 26th January 1850 this most amiable and versatile and intelligent man closed his career: he died in his seventy-seventh year. The summary which Lord Cockburn gives of his public and private life, of his moral character, of his person, of his conversation, we should, so far as the substance of it is concerned, quote with approbation. We regret that the literary style of the biographer is not equal to his judgment, his shrewdness and sagacity. If it had been, he would have written a very excellent book. Unfortunately the English language has, on most occasions, proved so intractable in his hands, that he can rarely deliver his judgments simply and clearly, rarely without mingling something odd and grotesque in the composition. But the critical opinion he passes on the eloquence of Jeffrey, and on the character of his conversation, appears to us to be perfectly correct. Of the last, especially, he has given what we

THREE weeks! Three misty enchanted weeks, with only words, and looks, and broken reveries in them, and all the common life diverted into another channel, like the mill-burn. True it is, that all day long Katie sits strangely dim and silent, spinning yarn for her mother, dreamily hearing, dreamily answering-her heart and her thoughts waging a perpetual warfare; for always there comes the mystic evening, the ruddy firelight, the attendant circle behind, and Katie's valour steals away, and Katie's thoughts whirl, and reel, and find no standing ground. Alas! for the poor little pride, which now tremblingly, with all its allies gone, has to fight its battle single-handed, and begins to feel like a culprit thus deserted; for the climax hour is near at hand.

Lady Anne has returned to Kellic. Only two or three days longer can Katie have at the mill-only one day longer has Willie Morison; for the little Levant schooner has received her cargo, and lies in Leith Roads, waiting for a wind, and her lingering mate must join her to-morrow.

The last day! But Katie must go to Kilbrachmont to see Isabell. The little imperious mother will perceive no reluctance ; the little proud daughter bites her lip, and with tears trembling in her eyes-indignant, burning tears for her own weakness-will not show it; so Katie again threw on the black-laced mantle, again arranged her gloves under her cambric rufles, and with her heart beating loud and painfully, and the tears only restrained by force under her downcast eyelids, set out towards kindly Kellie Law yonder, to see her sister.

It is late in October now, and the skies are looking as they never look except at this time. Dark, pale, colourless, revealing everything that projects upon them, with a bold sharp outline, which scarcely those black

VOL. LXXII.-NO, CCCCXLIII.

rolling vapours can obscure. Overhead there is a great cloud, stooping upon the country as black as night; but lighter are those misty tissues sweeping down pendant from it upon the bills, which the melancholy wind curls and waves about like so many streamers upon the mystic threatening sky. There has been a great fall of rain, and the sandy country roads are damp, though not positively wet; but that great black cloud, say the rural sages, to whom the atmosphere is a much-studied philosophy, will not dissolve to-day.

Dark is the Firth, tossing yonder its white-foam crest on the rocks; dark the far-away cone of North Berwick Law, over whose head you see a long retreating range of cloudy mountains, piled high and black into the heavens; and there before us, the little steeple of this church of Pittenweem thrusts itself fearlessly into the sky; while under it cluster the low-roofed houses, looking like so many frightened fugitive children clinging to the knees of some brave boy, whose simplicity knows no fear.

And drawing her mother's crimson plaid over her slight silken mantle, Katie Stewart turns her face to Kellie Law, along this still and solitary road, while the damp wind sighs among the trees above her, and, detaching one by one these fluttering leaves, drops them in the path at her feet. Never before has Katie known what it was to have a "sair heart." Now there is a secret pang in that young breast of hers-a sadness which none must guess, which she herself denies to herself with angry blushes and bitter tears; for "she doesna care"-no, not if she should never see Willie Morison more "she doesna care!"

Some one on the road behind pursues the little hurrying figure, with its fluttering crimson plaid and laced apron, with great impatient strides. She does not hear the foot, the road

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