CHAPTER XIV.

HENRY MACKENZIE.

THE best memoir of Henry Mackenzie is that written by Sir Walter Scott, who in his grateful affection for the author of the "Man of Feeling," and out of politeness to the old man who was still living, failed to perform honestly his biographic duties, by substituting pompous eulogy for candid criticism, and by indulging in complaisant compliments when there was need of censure. But Sir Walter was a Scotchman, and patriotism compelled him to represent Mackenzie as the equal of Addison, Richardson, and Sterne, just as the same sentiment had induced him to place Smollett on the same level with Fielding, in respect of descent, education, and intellect. Sir Walter, moreover, was something better than a mere Scotchman, he was a man endowed with a large amount of chivalric love and veneration for "the fathers" of his generation, for the men whom a general fair repute, joined to venerable years and decorous manners, distinguished as the "elders of the land." When, therefore, he was called upon, in his young and growing fame, to state his opinion of the literary achievements of the grand old man he had looked up to from boyhood, he was disposed to applaud rather than condemn; and even when his judgment reproved him for the warmth of his praise, he re-assured himself with reflecting, that under the circumstances to refrain from causing pain was the part of good taste, and to flatter was a duty. Still at this date, when Mackenzie has long been dead, and his courteous biographer has long been in his grave, we feel

that it would have been well had the latter been less extravagantly kind.

On the 25th of July, 1745, the unfortunate Prince Charles Stuart landed in Scotland, and on the 19th of August following, he raised his standard. On that same 19th of August, Henry Mackenzie raised in Edinburgh his first infantile cry, to let the world know that he too was entitled to make a little fuss, and to grumble at men's ways. His parents were of the middle class of society, his father being a Dr. Joshua Mackenzie, and his mother having, as the eldest daughter of Mr. Rose, of Kilravock, some claims to antiquity of descent.

After having received an education at the High-school and University of Edinburgh, Henry Mackenzie was articled to a Mr. Inglis of Redhall, for the purpose of learning exchequer business, a department of the law where as an attorney, he would meet with the fewest opponents to his success. In 1765, he proceeded to London to complete his legal studies. Of course, in the capital he met with friends (what articled clerk does not?) who urged him to give up the thought of applying to the humble vocation of a Scotch attorney, and to prepare himself for the English bar, and the English bench. At first he was tickled with the complimentary proposal, and would fain have acted upon the advice; but his family dissuaded him from so mad a scheme, and he was sensible enough to obey their wise counsels. He returned to Edinburgh, entered into partnership with his old master, Mr. Inglis, and eventually succeeded that gentleman in the office of attorney for the Crown.

Henry Mackenzie went to London in 1765, with some slight literary reputation, for his tragedy, "The Prince of Tunis," was acted with success in Edinburgh, when he was about eighteen years old, in the year 1763. He, therefore, commenced authorship early enough.

After fixing in his native city for good and ay, he was

for many years as industrious a workman in literature as the demands of his clients allowed him to be.

In 1771, was published his most famous novel, "The Man of Feeling." If success-the success indicated by a publisher's account books, is to be the standard of literary excellence, then, indeed, few better books than "The Man of Feeling" have ever been written. It was seized on with avidity by all classes, and all who read it were delighted with it. It was commenced when the author was in a Shandean fever, and burned to outstrip Sterne. Without any disguise as to who his model was he opened his vapid tale with a scene in which Yorick's manner was broadly caricatured, but which was not illumined by one faint spark of that jester's piquant wit. But the wit of the original was not what Mackenzie wished to reproduce; he only desired to mimic "the sentimentality," the tear-dribbling, the crying over dead donkies. The hero was "The Man of Feeling;" and he must be a strange mortal who would not rather have for a companion the most obdurate ruffian, than that same man of feeling! At that time, however, society was in the very hottest of its admiration for Sterne: and the masses of readers, not such educated and discriminating judges as now, were ready to receive any author with favour who was infected with the universal mania, and honestly did his best to make them weep when there was no appropriate occasion for tears. Mackenzie, moreover, had one fair title to the support of a public taste, daily becoming more refined,-in the moral purity of his pages. "The Man of Feeling" was free from indecent pictures and coarse expressions: good women could read it without suffering the anguish of a blush of shame, and bad ones were content to study "The Sentimental Journey" in their private closets, and in public to declare their admiration of their favourite author by enlarging on the moral book that had just been sent forth by the Shandean school.

The success of this wretched imitation of the worst

points of a bad model, was so great that it aroused the cupidity of a young clergyman named Eccles, who boldly proclaimed himself the author of "The Man of Feeling." As evidence of the truth of his assertion, he produced a manuscript copy of the novel, in his own writing, with blottings, erasures, and interlineations. The impostor resided at, and was well known in Bath, and it was in "his own country" that he first uttered the lie. For a time his fraud was not suspected, and he was fêted by the wealthy and great as "a man of genius;" but gradually the news travelled to the north, and as soon as Cadell and Strachan (Mackenzie's publishers) heard of it, they gave a flat contradiction to the impudent falsehood, on

the folly of the young man was justly punished by the contempt of all who knew him. His death, however, made amends to society for this act of dishonour; for he perished in the river Avon, while attempting to save the life of a fellow-creature. The Gentleman's Magazine, for September 1777, contains an epitaph on Mr. Eccles, beginning

"Beneath this stone the Man of Feeling lies."

Impostures similar to this one have been of frequent occurrence in literature. Many will remember the number of aspirants to the honour of being supposed to have written Wolfe's Elegy on Sir John Moore. And only a year or so ago, a poor simpleton, residing in some mud-fog or other of an English county, proclaimed himself to his parish, the author of Mr. Hannay's excellent sea-novel, "Singleton Fontenoy." Information of the circumstance was by "the next post" conveyed to Mr. Hannay, but that gentleman did not care to give a public contradiction to the absurd pretender.

In 1778, Mackenzie published his "Man of the World," which was intended as a sequel to "The Man of Feeling." Unlike its predecessor it is not a copy of Sterne, but is in

many respects a discreetly proper imitation of Fielding and Smollett.

In 1777, his third and last novel, "Julia de Roubigné,” was published in a series of letters. The material as well as the form of the work came from Richardson.

In 1776, our author married Penuel, daughter of Sir Ludovick Grant of Grant, Bart., by Lady Margaret Ogilvy. Of this marriage the consequence was a large family, of which the eldest, Henry Joshua Mackenzie, rose to be a judge of the Supreme Court of Session.

At this time of his life Mackenzie was a member of a club composed of some of the most gifted young men of the Scotch capital. On its lists were Mr. (afterwards Lord) Craig, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Cullen, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Macleod, Bannatyne, George Hume, (afterwards Lord Wedderburn), and many other equally celebrated men. It was the custom at the meetings of this club for members to read papers composed by themselves in imitation of the "Spectator." From this sprung the two deservedly shortlived periodical publications, under the guidance of Mackenzie, the "Mirror," and the "Lounger." The former commenced on the 27th of January, 1779, and ended on the 27th of May, 1780. The latter was born on the 6th of February, 1785, and died on the 6th of January, 1787. We have elsewhere expressed our dislike, as a general rule, to revivals, but of all the literary revivals we know of none much more ghastly and unlifelike than these of the "Spectator," under the names of the "Mirror," and the "Lounger." Mackenzie's contributions to these periodicals are as inferior to the papers of the "Spectator," as his novels were to the originals he copied from.

In 1792, Mackenzie wrote several little political tracts, addressed to the lower orders, and urging them not to be led away by the doctrines of the French revolution. In 1798, his pen produced a memoir of Dr. Blacklock, which