FRANCIS JEFFREY. THER THE recent death of the most distinguished citizen of Edinburgh, the Hon. Francis Jeffrey, and the national importance of his career as a man of letters, a lawyer, and a politician, have suggested that some brief record of him should appear in this miscellany. A durable and fitting memorial of his life and services will soon, we trust, be raised by worthy hands, but in the meantime we may be allowed, like the Roman soldier at the grave of his general, to collect some fragments for the funeral pile. The history of Francis Jeffrey is of interest to all classes. It furnishes one of those examples which are the peculiar glory of a free state; for it exhibits talents, integrity, and perseverance—without extrinsic aid, and without one shade of subserviency or moral debasement-conducting its possessor to the highest professional rank, to opulence, and fame. It is instructive to note the stages in his onward march, as difficulties disappear, and honours gather round his name, and to perceive that, though endowed by nature with various and exquisite powers, he was no less remarkable for indefatigable study and patient application. It was by the union of those intellectual gifts and acquirements with inflexible principle, with energy, and with the graces of private life, that he won his way to public and social distinction. His course was long and prosperous. 'Another race hath been, and other palms are won.' His work was accomplished. His early and courageous championship of toleration and freedom had been crowned with success; the school of criticism, which he had founded and built up with such incessant care, was crowded with new and worthy disciples, and its essential principles had spread into all lands. He was still able, however, to serve his country on the judicial seat as a most upright, laborious, and penetrating judge. He was still able to counsel and direct, and to dispense a generous but not ostentatious hospitality. There was a sunset brilliancy and benignity in his latter days that made his age beloved as well as venerable. It is to the honour of the profession of the law that some of its most eminent members have been great also in literature and science, and have dignified their legal career with important public services. The names of Sir Thomas More, of Bacon, Coke, and Selden-of Clarendon and Somers --of Mansfield, Blackstone, and Sir William Jones-the unrivalled forensic oratory of Erskine, and the enlightened humanity of Romilly and Mack intosh-form a splendid bead-roll. The Scottish list is less brilliant; but we may instance, not without pride, Viscount Stair, whose 'Insti tutes' form the text-book of the Scottish lawyer, and who was also a philosopher and statesman; Lord Fountainhall, who resisted the tyranny of the Stuarts, and vindicated the independence of the bar; Sir George Mackenzie, who, though the persecutor of the Covenanters, was an elegant author, the friend of Dryden, and the founder of the Advocates' Library; Duncan Forbes, the upright and intrepid judge, the scholar, and the pure self-sacrificing patriot; and Lord Hailes, the early and accurate explorer of Scottish history, and the opponent of Gibbon. We may notice the metaphysical acuteness and learning of Kames and Monboddo, and the accomplished associates of the 'Mirror' and 'Lounger,' with their chief, Henry Mackenzie, the 'Man of Feeling.' To these might be added many living instances of the happy union of law and literature. The world is slow to admit that a man can excel pre-eminently in more than one pursuit, but even the proverbial severity of legal studies need not exclude from more elegant attainments, and extensive legal practice need not extinguish taste or patriotism. FRANCIS JEFFREY-who was destined to afford one more illustrious instance of this intellectual and moral combination—was born in the city of Edinburgh on the 23d of October 1773. He could boast of no high lineage. His family was one of humble industrious Edinburgh citizens; but his father, Mr George Jeffrey, being bred to the law, had attained to the position of a depute-clerk of session, an office now inferring a salary of about four hundred pounds a year. He has been described as a writer or attorney in respectable practice, chiefly from the northern counties. His wife's name was Henrietta Loudon, and she was a native of Lanarkshire. This worthy, careful, and respected couple had several children, of whom Francis was the eldest. The exact spot of his birth has been disputed, and the sarcastic line of Byron 'The sixteenth storey where himself was born'— would of itself give interest to the question in what part of the town he first saw the light. We may therefore state on authority that Francis Jeffrey was born in the fourth storey, or flat, of a house in Buchanan's Court, Lawnmarket, nearly opposite Bank Street. The Lawnmarket is one of the upper sections of that great line of buildings extending about a mile in length from Holyrood Palace to the Castle, and which, from the stupendous height of the houses, their air of antiquity, the steepness of the ascent, the crowded and various population, and the historical associations connected with the Old Town, is perhaps the most remarkable and unique street in Europe. The lines of Scott—which it is impossible not to recall-give a glowing yet accurate picture of the outline of this great thoroughfare: 'Such dusky grandeur clothed the height And all the steep slope down, Whose ridgy back heaves to the sky, It has been related, though we cannot give the anecdote authoritatively, that when Francis Jeffrey was about a year old, his father's house took fire, and in the alarm and confusion of the moment, the child, who was in his crib in the garret, was forgotten. At length one of the neighbours, a slater, volunteered to rescue the infant. With much difficulty, and no little danger, he succeeded in carrying him out of the burning house, and delivered him to his anxious parents. Many years afterwards, when Mr Jeffrey had gone to the bar, the slater, being, through no fault of his own, involved in a series of legal troubles, applied to him for his professional assistance. This was readily and gratefully extended, and with such success, as soon to replace the honest tradesman in comparatively easy circumstances. Francis Jeffrey was of a slight and delicate frame. From his infancy he evinced the greatest quickness of apprehension and lively curiosity; and he could read well when only in his fourth year.* Having made rapid progress at a day-school, he was sent to the High School of Edinburgh, and in October 1781 (when he had about completed his eighth year) was entered in the second Latin class, then taught by Mr Luke Fraser. He remained under Mr Fraser four years, until October 1785, when, according to the usual routine, he was transferred to the class of the rector, Dr Adam, where he continued two years. In Fraser's class Jeffrey distinguished himself; although in the higher department of the rector he never attained the honour of dux. He was, however, a good Latin scholar; and in 1825, when the High School was rebuilt, chiefly by public subscription, he signified his gratitude to the institution by contributing the sum of fifty pounds. From the High School of Edinburgh Jeffrey proceeded to the university of Glasgow. He matriculated as a student of the logic class, under Professor Jardine, in the session of 1787-8, having just completed his fourteenth year. Glasgow was then famous for its professors. Mr Young, who held the Greek chair, was one of the most eminent philologists of his day, and a highly successful teacher. Professor Jardine was not less able in his department of logic and belles lettres; and Jeffrey said he owed to the judicious instructions of this gentleman his taste for letters, and any literary distinction he had attained. Dr John Millar was then professor of law; and being himself a zealous Whig, he seems to have instilled his own opinions into the minds of his admiring pupils. By his learning, sagacity, and wit,' says Thomas Campbell, ‘John Millar made many converts.' Jeffrey has also borne testimony to Millar's extensive learning and penetrating judgment, and to the 'magical vivacity' which he infused into his lectures and conversation. The chair of moral philosophy was held *The late Mr Alexander Smellie printer (son of William Smellie the naturalist, and correspondent of Burns), used to relate the story of Jeffrey's début at school. It took place at a seminary situated in a now unapproachable den of the Old Town, called Bailie Fyfe's Close. Smellie was in the Collection Class, so called from the book taught being a Collection of the Beauties of English Authors,' and which is usually introduced about the third year of an ordinary English course. Jeffrey came, a small creature in petticoats, and was put into the lowest class. From the marvellous quickness of parts shown by the tiny scholar, he was soon transferred to the Collection Class, the top of which he gained in half an hour. Cockburn, the schoolmaster, prophesied that the little fellow would come to something; and Smellie cried heartily at being so completely beaten by a child not yet deemed fit for male attire. by Professor Arthur, but his great predecessor, Dr Thomas Reid, still superintended the progress of the class-hallowing,' as Jeffrey has finely remarked, 'with the sanctity of his venerable age, and the primitive simplicity of his character, the scene over which his genius has thrown so imperishable a lustre.' With such able and congenial instructors, it is to be regretted that Mr Jeffrey did not remain longer than two sessions. His academical career was desultory and incomplete; but he was always preparing himself for the profession of the law, to which he was early destined. In December 1789, his name appears in the records of the university of Edinburgh as a student in the Scots Law Class, taught by Professor Hume. The following winter he was again at the university of Glasgow. In 1791 he proceeded to Oxford, and was entered of Queen's College.* His journey southwards had been very leisurely performed, for he was twelve days in getting to London, and he remained a week in the metropolis. He seems to have entered Oxford with no prepossessions in favour of that ancient seat of learning. Its classical renown had no inspiration for the young metaphysical law-student, and its stately Toryism was alien to his nature. It was a jocular remark of Johnson that much might be made of a Scotchman if he was caught young; but Jeffrey would not be caught. In a letter written six days after his arrival, and addressed to one of his college companions in Glasgow, he says—' Separated as I am from all my friends, and confined to the society of the students of one college, I shall not cease to regret the liberty and variety of intercourse which was permitted, and I hope not abused, at Glasgow. I have been too much in the company of ladies and relations to be much interested with the conversation of pedants, coxcombs, and strangers.' In a second letter to the same friend, without date, but apparently about a month after the former, the young student writes→→ 'You ask me to drop you some English ideas. My dear fellow, I am as much, nay, more a Scotchman, than I was while an inhabitant of Scotland. My opinions, ideas, prejudices, and systems, are all Scotch. The only part of a Scotchman I mean to abandon is the language, and language is all that I expect to learn in England. And indeed, except it be prayers and drinking, I see nothing else that it seems possible to acquire in this place.' He then describes the scenes of uproar and dissipation which took place among the students, and the fragments of broken doors, windows, and stairs, which lay scattered about. Of the fellows and heads of colleges he gives a very unfavourable account. They are men,' he says, 'who had in their youth, by dint of regular, persevering, and indefatigable study, painfully acquired a considerable knowledge of the requisite branches of science, which knowledge served only to make them pedants, and to render still more austere and disgusting that torpid insensibility and awkwardness which they had contracted in the course of their painful retirement from the world-men who accustomed themselves to a vile and sycophantical reverence to their superiors while they had them, now insist upon a similar adoration and observance to themselves. If you add to this a violent attachment to the *The following is an extract from the Register of Matriculations of the University of Oxford:-Termino Sti. Michaelis, 1791. Oct. 17, COLL. REGINE. Franciscus Jeffrey, 17, Georgii de Civitate Edinburgi armigeri Filius.' He was, however, in his eighteenth year. game of whist, and to the wine called port, you will have a pretty accurate conception of the venerable men to whose hands I am now committed.' In a third letter he indulges in the same querulous and lachrymose strain: the home-sickness was evidently strong upon him :— 'As for the times, I know little more of them than that they are such as have succeeded to the past, and must pass away before the future can come on; that they are measured out by hours, and days, and years; and that people observe their lapse with the same testifications of joy and sorrow as have divided their sensations from the creation of the world. To say the truth, I know less of the world than almost any man alive in it. I hardly ever see a newspaper, politics are banished from our conversation, and a man may spend ten years in Oxford without hearing anything but the history of foxes and fox-chases, and riots and trials. Such an institute as your Juridical Society, which seems to occupy so much of your time, would have no more chance of succeeding here than an institution which required a sermon from each of its members once a week. The collected and accumulated study of an Oxonian in a whole year is not in general equivalent to the reflection you bestow upon one of your orations. But I would labour to no purpose to give you an idea of the indolence which prevails here. For my own part, I would attempt to persuade you that I am an exception; but I hate to tell lies, and I had better say nothing at all about it.' These graphic sketches are probably a little exaggerated. The writer, like most young artists, may have been more intent on force and liveliness of colouring than on correctness of outline or literal truth. His opportunities for observation had at least been too limited to justify such wholesale censure of the fellows and heads of colleges. It is clear that the atmosphere of Oxford did not agree with his Scottish tastes and feelings. He might not have been prepared to appreciate the importance which is attached to classical learning at that university, and his patience would be sorely tried by the syllogisms of Aristotle and the system of college tutors, so different from popular lectures in natural and moral philosophy, and from the social studies to which he had been accustomed. That there was at that time, and long previously, as well as afterwards, no small share of bigotry and careless discipline in the colleges and halls of Oxford, has been proved from various sources. Jeffrey's statements agree in a remarkable manner-even to the port-wine potations-with the experiences of Gibbon, which he could not have seen (for the Memoir by Lord Sheffield was not published till 1795); and it is obvious, from the constitution of the colleges, that, along with the quiet and retirement of the monastic life, a considerable portion of its indolence and prejudice had descended to those venerable institutions. It is unfortunate, as Adam Smith had said long before, that the Oxford professors are secure in the enjoyment of a fixed stipend, without the necessity of labour or the apprehension of control. The system is now considerably improved; but the vast wealth of the university can never be efficiently employed until it be freed from the ancient statutes, which fetter its powers of teaching, and directly encourage sloth and inactivity. The letters of Jeffrey at this early period evince his acuteness and discrimination, his love of intellectual pursuits, and that strong attachment |