was prefixed to a quarto edition of that blind poet's works. In 1812, he wrote the "Life of John Home," which was published in a separate volume, and also was prefixed to an edition of Home's works. This memoir is interesting to those who care for Mackenzie, as it gives a picture of the literary circles in which he passed his days.

Amongst his several dramatic pieces, were a tragedy, called "The Spanish Father," and a comedy, named "The White Hypocrite," which last was performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, once and only once! To help the reader to form an estimate of the merits of "The White Hypocrite," more need not be said. The curious may find it in the complete edition of its author's works, published in 1808, through which weary eight volumes we have conscientiously plodded our way. Let no man do likewise.

To complete the list of Mackenzie's writings we ought to mention his contributions to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Highland Society, of both which societies he was an original member. Nor ought we to omit a political tract, "An Account of the Proceedings of the Parliament of 1784," which gained the author the recognition of Mr. Pitt, and which was revised and corrected by that statesman's hand. Some years after the publication of this pamphlet, Mackenzie was presented with the lucrative office of Comptroller of the Taxes for Scotland.

Henry Mackenzie's life was a singularly fortunate one. With poor talents, and no fitness save ambition for the profession of an author, he achieved a brilliant reputation which "lasted out his time," at least in Edinburgh; he enjoyed the intimate society of men celebrated for genius; he married well; he had a first-rate business; his eldest son distinguished himself; and his political respectability, and his infinitessimal political services were rewarded with wealth. He had, moreover, excellent health, and great

length of days wherein to enjoy deliberately his prosperity. Adored in his native capital as "the last link of the chain which connected the Scottish literature of the present age, with the period when there were giants in the land-the days of Robertson, and Home, and Smith, and Hume, and Clerk, and Ferguson," he died on Friday, the 14th of January, 1881, in his 86th year.

CHAPTER XVI.

THOMAS HOLCROFT.

On the 10th day of December, 1745, old style, was born in Orange-court, Leicester-fields, London, Thomas Holcroft. His father was a shoemaker, having a shop in Orange-court, where he laboured at constructing the peculiar shoes then worn (for the sake of secure footing) by the chairmen of the town. The business was a poor one, and not sufficient to maintain a string of children belonging to the industrious mechanic. It was necessary to throw out another line to catch fish. Sixty years afterwards, Thomas Holcroft said, when dictating his autobiography in the presence of death, "I have a faint recollection that my mother dealt in greens and oysters.”

Take all the miseries of David Copperfield's childhood, make each tenfold more bitter than any that young gentleman experienced, and then multiply their number by ten, and you will, if you take care to banish from your mind every thought of childish glee and frolic, arrive at what was the opening life of Tommy Holcroft. Such privations, such exposure, and such brutal treatment child has rarely gone through, to arrive at length at honourable fame. Most affecting are the reminiscences he had of his early career!

Poor as his parents were, they were ambitious for their children, and Tommy, ere he had reached his sixth year, had learnt not only to read, but also to play the violin, to the great wonder and edification of Orange-court. His uncle John, however, took alarm at the music, and exclaimed "do you mean to make a fiddler of the boy?"

The

British mind has ever had a deeply-rooted contempt for violinists.

Between his birth and the end of his sixth year the boy lived in a tolerable degree of comfort (or discomfort), for his father got by some means money to start as horse dealer and jobber, and so to attempt success in a line of life somewhat above his vocation of cobbler. But Holcroft (father) failed, parted with his property, and went into Berkshire. When people just above the rank of labourers become bankrupts in country districts, they forthwith go to London; and, vice versa, London commoners under similar circumstances go into the country.

Lower and lower Holcroft and his family fell in distress. They became pedlars. "My father was so straitened in his circumstances," says Thomas, in his interesting autobiography, "that my mother very soon after agreed to turn pedlar, hung a basket with pins, needles, tape, garters, and other small haberdashery, on her arm, and hawked them through the outskirts and neighbourhood of London, while I trotted after her. I might at first feel some disgust at this employment; but use soon reconciled me to it, as the following anecdote will show:

"I cannot say what my father's employment was, while I and my mother were, what they emphatically term tramping the villages, to hawk out pedlary. It may be presumed, however, that it was not very lucrative, for he soon after left it, and he and my mother went into the country, hawking their small ware and dragging me after them. They first went to Cambridge, and afterwards, as their hopes of success led them, traversed the neighbouring villages. Among these, we came to one which I thought most remarkably clean, well built, and unlike villages in general; my father said it was the handsomest in the kingdom. We must have been very poor and hard driven upon this occasion; for here it was that I was either encouraged or commanded,

one day to go by myself from house to house, and beg. Young as I was, I had considerable readiness in making out a story, and on this day, my little inventive faculties shone forth with much brilliancy. I told one story at one house, another at another, and continued to vary my tale just as the suggestions arose; the consequence of which was, that I moved the good country people exceedingly. One called me a poor fatherless child; another exclaimed, 'what a pity! I had so much sense!' a third patted my head, and prayed God to preserve me, that I might make a good man. And most of them contributed either by scraps of meat, farthings, bread and cheese, or other homely offerings, to enrich me, and send me away with my pockets loaded. I joyfully brought as much of my stores as I could carry, to the place of rendezvous my parents had appointed, where I astonished them by again reciting the false tales I had so readily invented. My father, whose passions were easily moved, felt a conflict of mind as I proceeded. I can now in imagination see the working of his features. 'God bless the boy! I never heard the like!' Then turning to my mother, he exclaimed with great earnestness-'this must not be the poor child will become a common-place liar! A hedge-side rogue! He will learn to pilfer! Turn s confirmed vagrant! Go on the highway when he is older, and get hanged. He shall never go on such errands again.'” The father was unquestionably fond of his child, and showing his affection in true old English style, he treated him with a ferocious cruelty, beating him, pulling his hair out by the roots, and dragging him by the ears along the ground till they ran with blood.

Having once taken to the hawking business, they kept to it for years. Holcroft and his boy, with the aid of one or two asses, and in times of prosperity a shambling pony, laden with all kinds of wares, traversed the country. Sometimes, Mrs. Holcroft accompanied them-sometimes she