LORD

JEFFREY.

COMPILED FROM THE LONDON ATHENEUM AND MORN-
ING CHRONICLE, BY THE N. Y. EV. POST.

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FRANCIS JEFFREY, editor of the Edinburgh Review, and "one of the Judges of the Court of Session in Scotland," died at his seat called Craigerook, near Edinburgh, on Saturday the 26th of January, in his 67th year. His judicial appointment gave him what in Scotland is called the 'paper title" of a lord-in other words, a title by courtesy, one not recognized by the heralds, nor conferring any distinction on his issue, but restricted to himself. He will, however, be best remembered by his early name of Mr. Jeffrey-or as Lord Campbell would have written, plain Francis Jeffrey.

|bers, beyond all precedent in publications of a
similar nature. Nor is this to be wondered at
when we look at the character and variety of its
articles, and contrast its vigor and wit with the
tame productions of any publication then at all
approaching it in matter or in manner.
The new
review contained the views and thoughts, most
fearlessly expressed, of a young and vigorous set
of thinkers, on some of the most important subjects
of the day, connected with politics, religion, juris-
prudence, and literature. The writers flew at all
kinds of game-nor was it difficult to see from
the first (what was indeed obvious afterwards)
that the politics of the whig school gave a turn
and color to the whole character of the Review.
"The Review," said Jeffrey, "has but two legs
to stand on; Literature, no doubt, is one of them

Thirty years ago—or even forty-the death of-but its right leg is Politics." Mr. Jeffrey would have been a much more impor- Mr. Sydney Smith was the editor of the first tant subject for comment and conversation than it three numbers; and would, no doubt, have conis now in a ripe old age. No critic ever filled-tinued his editorial care had not his views of profor good or for evil-a more important position in motion in the church called him away from Edinthe world of letters than Mr. Jeffrey filled uninter-burgh to London. On Mr. Smith's retirement, ruptedly for seven-and-twenty years in the litera- Mr. Jeffrey took his place; which he continued ture of the nineteenth century. Whenever the to fill without interruption till late in the year history of English literature shall be written, his name must always find a place; less prominent, it is true, than that which he occupied in his lifetime, but still one of distinction-not so much from the intrinsic value of his own contributions, as from the particular influence which his writings exercised on the public mind, and on the destinies, for a time, of some of our greatest poets.

The history of his life may be briefly told. He was the eldest son of George Jeffrey, Esq., one of the Court of Session in Scotland, by his wife, the daughter of a Mr. Loudoun, of Lanarkshire-and was born in Edinburgh, on the 23d of October, 1773. He was educated at the high school of his native city, and at Glasgow university, but completed his university education at Queen's college, Oxford. In 1794, he was called to the bar, where he soon became distinguished for the vigor of his eloquence and the wit and boldness of his invective. He attended debating clubs-spoke with readiness and knowledge; and with no other introduction than his own talents, formed the acquaintance, at the Speculative Society, of Sir Walter Scott, then a young man, busy with his "Minstrelsy," and of the Rev. Sydney Smith and Lord Brougham, both ardent for distinction in the church and at the bar. Acquaintanceship soon ripened into intimacy; and at a late supper, after a debate at the Speculative Society, the Edinburgh Review was projected by Smith, and approved of by Jeffrey and Lord Brougham. Assistants were soon found; and in October, 1802, appeared the first number of the new periodical, under the editorial care of the Rev. Sydney Smith—its original projector, as he is called by Lord Jeffrey, "and long," he adds, "its brightest ornament."

The success of the new review was beyond the expectation of its founders-and after a few num

1829, when he was elected to the office of Dean of the Faculty of Advocates-a judicial appointment of distinction at the Scottish bar, hardly to be held, it was thought, in conjunction with the editorship of a party Review. He continued, however, to write occasionally, not on politics, it is understood, but on literary subjects, from which his judicial functions could not be held by any means to have excluded him.

His retirement from literature as a part of his profession gave him fresh opportunities of distinction in his original pursuit of the law, and in the line of politics to which he seems to have been especially partial. He was elected member of Parliament for his native city-was listened to in the house more for his reputation's sake, and for what he might say, than for anything that he said, or for his manner of delivery and soon growing weary of attendance even in a reformed house," (to which he had so long looked forward, and which he had in a great measure contributed to bring about,) he asked from Lord Melbourne (1834) what he had long coveted—a seat on the Scottish Bench-received the appointment, and retired to Edinburgh and the beautiful scenery of Craigcrook.

He is described by an intelligent biographer as excelling "in acuteness, promptness, and clearness in the art of stating, illustrating, and arranging-in extent of legal knowledge-in sparkling wit, keen satire, and strong and flowing eloquence." The same writer, quoting a contemporary critic, the author of "Sketches of the Scottish Bar," says: "Ever quick, but never boisterous nor pushing, Jeffrey wound his way, like an eel, from one bar to the other. If what he had to do was merely a matter of form, it was despatched in as few words as possible; generally wound up, when circumstances permitted, with

skill--and that he showed great judgment as to the writers whom he brought about him. He was well supported by men like Sydney Smith, Mackintosh, Brougham, Horner, Allen, and Hazlitt. His subjects were well chosen for the time, and generally maintained consistent principles, both in politics and in taste; but his great object, it should not be concealed, was to attract attention and to draw readers. We are not, however, to tax him with all the editorial errors of the Review. Let us remember his own apologetical defence to Sir Walter Scott, that he was "a feudal monarch, who had but slender control over his greater barons, and really could not prevent them from occasionally waging little private wars upon griefs or resentments of their own."

Lord Jeffrey's position as editor led him now and then into more than one unpleasant quarrel. Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, scldom spoke of him except in terms of hatred and contempt; and his memorable duel at Chalk Farm, in 1806, with Mr. More, partly occasioned by a clever application of a passage in Spenser to Tom Little's Poems, will long be remembered by the 'Little's leadless pistol" of the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," and the contemporary epigram which ends,

some biting jest. If a cause was to be formally the Edinburgh Review with admirable tact and argued, his bundle of papers was unloosed, his glass applied to his eye, and his discourse began, without a moment's pause. He plunged at once into the mare magnum of the question, confident that his train of argument would arrange itself in lucid order, almost without any exertion on his part. He possessed a most retentive memory, and could proceed from one subject to another at a moment's warning." The same writer quotes the following anecdote of Lord Jeffrey, in his professional character:-" As Mr. Jeffrey sat down one day, at the close of a long and argumentative speech, an attorney's clerk pulled him by the gown, and whispered in his ear, that a case in which he was retained had just been called on in the inner house. 'Good God!' said Jeffrey, 'I have heard nothing of the matter for weeks; and that trial has driven it entirely out of my head; what is it?'-The lad, in no small trepidation, began to recount some of the leading facts, but no sooner had he mentioned the first, than Jeffrey exclaimed, 'I know it,' and ran over, with the most inconceivable rapidity, all the details, and every leading case that bore upon them; and the speech he delivered on the occasion was the most powerful that ever fell from him."— "His oratory," the same writer says, "is not commanding; and it is like the frog striving to stretch itself to the size of the ox when he attempts to be impressive;" but once, indeed, says the writer before quoted, we remember an apostrophe, startling, nay commanding, from its native dignity and moral courage. A baronet having brought an action, in which, to gain his point, he had shown his disregard of all moral or honorable The great defect in Lord Jeffrey's editorship restraint, Mr. Jeffrey made the following observa- of the Edinburgh Review was his short-sightedtions on his conduct:-"My lords, there is no ness in appreciating the merits of Scott, Byron, person who entertains a higher respect for the Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and others. English aristocracy than I do, or who would be He praised Scott for a time-but a cold notice of more loath to say anything which could hurt the "Marmion" threw the future novelist into the feelings or injure the reputation of any oue mem- arms of the Quarterly Review. The criticism ber of that illustrious body; but after all that we on the "Hours of Idleness," though attributed to have this day heard, I feel myself warranted in Mr. Jeffrey at the time, was, as is well known, saying [here he turned round, faced the plaintiff, written by Lord Brougham. Jeffrey himself who was immediatety behind him, and fixing on afterwards praised Byron, and the noble poet was him a cold, firm look, proceeded in a low deter- not ungrateful to the critic; witness his "Don mined voice] that Sir has clearly shown | Juan”

himself to be a notorious liar and a common

swindler."

A few further particulars of his life, in a notice brief as this must necessarily be, may not be thought unimportant. He was chosen, in 1821, lord rector of the university of Glasgow; was twice married, first to the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Wilson, of St. Andrew's-and, secondly, to the daughter of Charles Wilkes, Esq., of New York, grand-niece of the famous Wilkes "and liberty.' Let us add, (what future ages will no doubt care to know,) that he was swarthy in countenance, and diminutive in stature.

Lord Jeffrey is to be looked on as an editor and as an author, not as a Dean of Faculty or even as a Judge."Fuvy must own" that he conducted

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They only fire blank cartridge in Reviews.

The quarrels with the Lake School were never made up; but the author of Little's Poems, and the editor of the Edinburgh Review, were afterwards reconciled, and the critic even courted by a friendly dedication.

All our little feuds, at least all mine,
Dear Jeffrey, once my most redoubted foe,
(As far as rhyme and criticism combine,
To make such puppets of us things below,)
Are over: here's a health to "Auld lang sayne!"

I do not know you, and may never know
Your face-but you have acted on the whole
Most nobly, and I own it, from my soul.

We cannot say of Byron, on this occasion, what
has been said with propriety of another great
satirist of our nation, that he was wanton in his
attack and mean in his retreat. Mr. Jeffrey, in
his capacity as editor, had given the young and
noble poet great ground of provocation; and the
satirist repaid censure with ferocious scorn-as
afterwards he did praise from the saine quarter
with appropriate panegyric.

One of the last acts of Lord Jeffrey's life was to write a long, and, as we hear, a beautiful letter of thanks to the widow of the Rev. Sydney Smith for the copy of Sydney Smith's Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution and privately printed by his widow. Lord Jeffrey, it will be remembered, dedicates his "Essays" to his friend Smith.

A TESTIMONY CONCERNING WILLIAM PENN.

FROM THE MONTHLY MEETING FOR BERKSHIRE, HELD AT READING, ENGLAND, 31ST OF FIRST MONTH, 1719.

We are now to look on Lord Jeffrey as andation of the dean's character that we have yet author and it is somewhat singular, we may received-while his articles on Penn and the observe, of one who has written so much, that he Quakers exhibit qualities of mind not easily to be is not an author in any other sense than as a critic found in authors of even greater celebrity. in a Review. This cannot be said of any of his leading associates, or of any of the opposition writers in the Quarterly—or, indeed, of any other writer who has exercised one half the influence in literature that Mr. Jeffrey possessed. His legal as well as his editorial duties must, it is true, have left him very little time for anything else; and we are not, perhaps, to suppose that he was without the ambition of being an author, or that he wanted leisure for the consideration of any subject of importance. We may attribute more justly his not appearing as an author in his own person to an unwillingness to endanger his high reputation by the production of a separate work, and to some fear of the "wounded great" who were ready to attack him on all sides and with every kind of weapon. He is, therefore, to be judged by the four volumes of his "Essays," or contributions to the Review, which he was induced to collect and revise in the year 1843. These volumes, he tells us, form less than a third of what he wrote in the Review; but they, no doubt, embrace his best productions-those, in short, by which he was willing to stand. His friends would have made a somewhat different selection; one that would have represented the history of his mind and opinion-and that would have thrown more light on the history of critical judgment in this country than can be gathered from his volumes as they at present stand.

his home at Ruscomb, in the county of Berks, on OUR friend, WILLIAM PENN, departed this life at the 30th of the fifth month, 1718; and his body was conveyed thence the 7th of the sixth month following, to Friends' Burying Ground at Jordan, in the county of Berks, when he was honorably interred, being accompanied by many friends and others from distant parts.

And being a member of our Monthly Meeting at Reading, at the time of his decease, and for some years before, we can do no less than, in giving the foregoing account, say something of the character of so worthy a man; and not only refer to other meetings, where his residence was in former times, who were witnesses of the great self-denial he underwent in the prime of his youth, and the patience think it our duty to cast in our mite to set forth, in with which he bore many a heavy cross-but also part, his deserved commendation. He was a man It is much to his praise as a man, though little of great abilities-of an excellent sweetness of disto his early discernment as a critic, that the bitter position, quick of thought, and of ready utterance; reviews of Southey, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and full of the qualifications of true discipleship, even others, were excluded from his "Collected Es-love without dissimulation; as extensive in charity says;" while his eulogies on his favorite poets, malice and ingratitude were utter strangers; so as comprehensive in knowledge, and to whom Campbell, Crabb, and Rogers, were one and all ready to forgive enemies, that the ungrateful were admitted. He had outlived the resentment or not excepted. Had not the management of his temimpetuosity of youth with which they were writ-poral concerns been attended with some deficiencies, ten, as the great writers themselves had outlived envy itself would have to seek for matter of accuthe injury which their injustice had done to them; sation; and even in charity, that part of his conto have inserted them would therefore have only duct may be attributed to a peculiar sublimity of been renewing an unprofitable contest-and conmind. Notwithstanding which, without flattering necting his name even more lastingly than it is the good, and the great, whose abilities are suffihis character, he may be ranked among the learned, likely to be with the great names of the writers ciently manifested throughout his elaborate writwhose hostility he both courted and incurred. ings, which are so many lasting monuments of his These " Essays," it must be confessed-and admired qualifications, and are the esteem of learned we have just risen from a reperusal of some of and judicious men among all persuasions. And the best are not very remarkable productions. though in old age, by reason of some shocks of a They are little distinguished for subtlety of opin-violent distemper, his intellect was much impaired, ion, nicety of disquisition, or even for beauty of ed its utmost effects, and remained when reason yet his sweetness and loving disposition surmountstyle. Though printed uniformly with the con- almost failed. tributions to the same Review of Sydney Smith In fine, he was learned without vanity-apt, withand Mr. Macaulay, they have not made the same out forwardness-facetious in conversation, yet impression on the public mind, nor been read weighty and serious—of an extraordinary greatness with the same avidity. So that, while the Es- of mind, yet void of the stain of ambition-as free Bays of Mr. Smith and Mr. Macaulay are now in from rigid gravity as he was clear of unseemly levity fourth editions, the public have been content tilla man, a scholar, a friend-a minister surpassing in speculative endowments-whose memorial will very recently with a single impression of Lord be valued by the wise, and blessed with the just. Jeffrey. Yet his "Essays" will more than repay Signed in behalf, and on appointment of said perusal. His paper on Swift is the best eluci-meeting. WILLIAM LAMBOle, Clerk.

From the Home Journal.

THE LIFE-BOOK.

WRITE, mother, write!

A new, unspotted book of life before thee,
Thine is the hand to trace upon its pages
The first few characters; to live in glory,

Or live in shame through long, unending ages!
Write, mother, write!

Thy hand, though woman's, must not faint nor
falter ;

The lot is on thee-nerve thee then with care;
A mother's tracery time may never alter-

Be its first impress, then, the breath of prayer.
Write, mother, write!

Nay, shrink not, for a sister's love is holy!
Write words the angels whisper in thine ears;
No bud of sweet affection, howe'er lowly,

But planted here will bloom in after years.
Write, sister, write!

Something to cheer him, his rough way pursuing ;
For manhood's lot is sterner far than ours;
He may not pause-he must be up and doing,
Whilst thou art idly dreaming among flowers.
Write, sister, write!

Sons of the captivity,

Prince and peasant, warrior, slave, There lay naked to the sky

'Twas a ruined nation's grave; Death sat on his loneliest throne In that wilderness of bone.

Morn arose and twilight fell,

Still the bones lay bleached and bare;
Midnight brought the panther's yell
Bounding through his human lair,
Till above the world of clay,
Ages seemed to wear away.

On my spirit came a sound
Like the gush of desert springs
Bursting o'er the burning ground-
"Prophet of the King of kings,
Shall not Israel live again?—
Shall not these dry bones be men?"
Then I stood and prophesied,

"Come together, bone to bone."
Sudden as the stormy tide,

Thick as leaves by tempest strown,
Heaving o'er the mighty vale,
Shook the remnants cold and pale!
Flesh to flesh was clinging now;

There was seen the warrior limb,
There was seen the princely brow-
But the stately eye was dim;
Mailed in steel, or robed in gold,
All was corpse-like, all was cold.
Then the voice was heard once more

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Prophet, call the winds of heaven!" As along the threshing-floor