man with his degree of timidity will ever be very great, either as a philosopher or as a man of deeds. He was a brilliant writer—the most brilliant, and, with one exception, the most versatile in his age; but to this we would limit his panegyric, apart from the glory of his long and consistent career as a politician, which we think can scarcely be overestimated.

So many of the most remarkable passages of the work have been already hackneyed through the medium of the newspapers, that we feel somewhat at a loss to present any which may have a chance of being new to our readers. So early as his twentieth year, we find Mr Jeffrey thus sensibly expressing himself on an important subject:—

'There is nothing in the world I detest so much as companions and acquaintances, as they are called. Where intimacy has gone so far as to banish reserve, to disclose character, and to communicate the reality of serious opinions, the connection may be the source of much pleasure—it may ripen into friendship, or subside into esteem. But to know half a hundred fellows just so far as to speak, and walk, and lounge with them; to be acquainted with a multitude of people, for all of whom together you do not care one farthing; in whose company you speak without any meaning, and laugh without any enjoyment; whom you leave without any regret, and rejoin without any satisfaction; from whom you learn nothing, and in whom you love nothing—to have such a set for your society, is worse than to live in absolute solitude; and is a thousand times more pernicious to the faculties of social enjoyment, by circulating in its channels a stream so insipid.'

At the peace of Amiens, Jeffrey wrote thus to his friend Morehead, 7th October 1801: 'It is the only public event in my recollection that has given me any lively sensation of pleasure, and I have rejoiced at it as heartily as it is possible for a private man, and one whose own condition is not immediately affected by it, to do. How many parents and children, and sisters and brothers, would that news make happy? How many pairs of bright eyes would weep over that gazette, and wet its brown pages with tears of gratitude and rapture? How many weary wretches will it deliver from camps and hospitals, and restore once more to the comforts of a peaceful and industrious life? What are victories to rejoice at, compared with an event like this? Your bonfires and illuminations are dimmed with blood and with tears, and battle is in itself a great evil, and a subject of general grief and lamentation. The victors are only the least unfortunate, and suffering and death have, in general, brought us no nearer to tranquillity and happiness.' It may be well thus to bring the value of a peace before the public mind. Let those who only know of war from history, reflect how great must be the evils of a state the cessation of which gives such a feeling of relief.

Here is a curious passage about the society of Liverpool in 1813, and his love of his native country. We must receive the statement respecting the Quakers with something more than doubt, at least as to the extent to which it is true:—'I have been dining out every day for this last week with Unitarians, and Whigs, and Americans, and brokers, and bankers, and small fanciers of pictures and paints, and the Quaker aristocracy, and the fashionable vulgar, of the place. But I do not like Liverpool much better, and could not live here with any comfort. Indeed, I believe I could not live anywhere out of Scotland. All my recollections are Scottish, and consequently all my imaginations; and though I thank God that I have as few fixed opinions as any man of my standing, yet all the elements out of which they are made have a certain national cast also. In short, I will not live anywhere else if I can help it; nor die either; and all old Esky's[3] eloquence would have been thrown away in an attempt to persuade me that banishment furth the kingdom might be patiently endured. I take more to Roscoe, however: he is thoroughly good-hearted, and has a sincere, though foolish concern for the country. I have also found out a Highland woman with much of the mountain accent, and sometimes get a little girl to talk to. But with all these resources, and the aid of the Botanical Garden, the time passes rather heavily; and I am in some danger of dying of ennui, with the apparent symptoms of extreme vivacity. Did you ever hear that most of the Quakers die of stupidity—actually and literally? I was assured of the fact the other day by a very intelligent physician, who practised twenty years among them, and informs me that few of the richer sort live to be fifty, but die of a sort of atrophy, their cold blood just stagnating by degrees among their flabby fat. They eat too much, he says; take little exercise; and, above all, have no nervous excitement. The affection is known in this part of the country by the name of the Quaker's disease, and more than one-half of them go out so. I think this curious, though not worth coming to Liverpool to hear, or writing from Liverpool, &c.'

He was at this time about to sail for America, in order to marry a lady of that country. In a letter to Morehead, he recalls his old-fashioned country residence of Hatton, in West Lothian, and Mr Morehead's family now resident there. Tuckey was a nickname for one of Mr Morehead's daughters; Margaret was another. Till the last, he had pet names for all his own descendants and relatives, having no doubt felt how much they contribute to the promotion of family affection. 'I am almost ashamed of the degree of sorrow I feel at leaving all the early and long-prized objects of my affection; and though I am persuaded I do right in the step which I am taking, I cannot help wishing that it had not been quite so wide and laborious a one. You cannot think how beautiful Hatton appears at this moment in my imagination, nor with what strong emotion I fancy I hear Tuckey telling a story on my knee, and see Margaret poring upon her French before me. It is in your family that my taste for domestic society and domestic enjoyments has been nurtured and preserved. Such a child as Tuckey I shall never see again in this world. Heaven bless her, and she will be a blessing both to her mother and to you.' After touching upon a volume of poems which Mr Morehead had published—'If I were you, however, I would live more with Tuckey, and be satisfied with my gardening and pruning—with my preaching—a good deal of walking and comfortable talking. What more has life? and how full of vexation are all ambitious fancies and perplexing pursuits! Well, God bless you! Perhaps I shall not have an opportunity to inculcate my innocent epicurism upon you for a long time again. It will do you no harm.'

It will be a new fact to most of the admirers of Jeffrey, that he had in early life devoted himself to the writing of poetry. Of what he wrote between 1791 and 1796, the greater part has disappeared from his repositories. 'But,' says his biographer, 'enough survives to attest his industry, and to enable us to appreciate his powers. There are some loose leaves and fragments of small poems, mostly on the usual subjects of love and scenery, and in the form of odes, sonnets, elegies, &c.; all serious, none personal or satirical. And besides these slight things, there is a completed poem on Dreaming, in blank verse, about 1800 lines long. The first page is dated Edinburgh, May 4, 1791, the last Edinburgh, 25th June 1791; from which I presume that we are to hold it to have been all written in these fifty-three days—a fact which accounts for the absence of high poetry, though there be a number of poetical conceptions and flowing sentences. Then there is a translation into blank verse of the third book of the Argonauticon of Apollonius Rhodius. The other books are