single case, when he retired, in arrear for judgment. His contributions to the Edinburgh Review, political, historical and miscellaneous, have been published by themselves.

Francis Horner (1778-1817), a distinguished lawyer, orator and statesman, was the fourth member of the brilliant group whose names have been associated with the first quarterly periodical. His career was cut short by ill health, and his articles in the Edinburgh, chiefly on political economy, form his only contributions to literature.

The Edinburgh was not begun as a strictly political review; but its whig tendencies after a time became so prominent that Scott, who was himself always a tory, and at first was a contributor to it, induced a set of conservative writers to set up (1809) an opposition review, the "Quarterly," in order to counteract its tendencies. The first editor was William Gifford (1757-1826), who in the previous century had produced two satires, the "Baviad" and the "Mæviad," aimed respectively at the "Della Cruscan "* writers and the corruptions of the drama. He was for a time editor of the "Anti - Jacobin," for which Canning, one of its contributors, wrote the famous satire, "The Knife - Grinder." As a critic he was acrid, delighting in abuse rather than praise, though perhaps scarcely deserving the saying of Southey, that he regarded authors "as a fishmonger regards eels, or as Isaac Walton regarded worms, slugs and frogs." He retired in 1824, and was succeeded by Sir John Taylor Coleridge, the eminent jurist, nephew of the poet; and he, in 1826, by J. G. Lockhart, of whom we shall speak hereafter. Before this time, however, the Scotch tories had started a magazine of

* So named from the Della Crusca Academy in Florence, after which certain verse - makers living there called what they tried to erect into a "School of Poetry." They published their inanities in the "Florence Miscellany," and actually found admirers and imitators for some of the most absurd, affected, insipid and fantastic bathos that ever appeared in verse.

their own, the famous "Blackwood's" (1817). The first numbers were dull, but from the next year, when the contributors' staff was joined by Lockhart, the poet Hogg, and John Wilson, the world was electrified by such a display of wit, satire and brilliant personal attacks, as far exceeded any thing the Edinburgh had been able to show. The magazine, which included articles of a lighter and more sparkling kind than its older competitor, sprang at once into popularity and has held its own ever since.

John Wilson (1785-1854), better known to us under his pen-name of Christopher North, was, like Jeffrey, Brougham, and Horner, a Scotchman. Having inherited a fortune he bought a place at Lake Windermere, where he enjoyed the society of the "Lake Poets." Here he wrote his first poem, "The Isle of Palms," which was followed after several years by "The City of the Plague." Having lost most of his large fortune through the dishonesty of a relative, he went to Edinburgh (though without giving up his home at Elleray), and applied himself to earning a living. His literary labors did not bring much pecuniary reward, but he entered the law, and political influence secured him the professorship of Moral Philosophy in the University. His varied abilities and splendid physical health enabled him to accomplish an immense amount of work. The "Noctes Ambrosiana" are his contributions to Blackwood, in which, under the form of conversations, he poured out witty and brilliant thoughts on almost every imaginable subject, beside writing special essays on some of the poets. His "Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life," and "The Trials of Margaret Lindsay" are his main efforts in fiction.

John Gibson Lockhart (1794-1854), the fellow country. man and son-in-law of Scott, was a fine scholar and a most attractive man. He was one of the noted contributors to Blackwood; wrote "Peter's Letters to his Kinsman," a

pungent satire on the Scottish society of the day, and "Valerius," a classical novel, and made an admirable translation of the best "Spanish Ballads." He was editor of the Quarterly from 1825 to 1853; and, as his crowning piece of work, has left us that inestimable "Life of Sir Walter Scott," which is a precious possession to all lovers of literature. Lockhart was no Boswell; he did not photograph, with laborious minuteness, every feature of his idol; he wrote of him tenderly, reverently, truthfully, dwelling on what was great and noble and neither obtruding nor suppressing the imperfections inseparable from all human lives.

Lockhart's domestic life was checquered by keen sorrows. His eldest son, the "Hugh Littlejohn,” for whom Sir Walter wrote "The Tales of a Grandfather," died first, and the deaths of Sir Walter, Miss Anne Scott and Mrs. Lockhart followed in the course of five years. Some fifteen years later, the loss of his surviving son, Walter, broke down what remained of his once high spirits and keen enjoyment of life. He left a daughter, Mrs. Hope Scott, the mother of the present Mrs. Maxwell Scott of Abbotsford.

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) was one of the wits of the early part of the nineteenth century. Son of a country gentleman of ability and eccentricity, he was carefully educated and ultimately became a "fellow" (salaried instructor) of New College, Oxford. His fellowship not being sufficient to support him while reading for the bar, he was compelled, against his will, to enter the church, and all through his life to be a clergyman rather in spite of himself than by natural bent. While curate in a small parish on Salisbury Plain he chanced to be invited to dinner by the squire of the parish, who was surprised and captivated as men always were-by the charm of his talk and manThe squire engaged him as traveling tutor to his son, and the two started for Weimar; but they were turned back by threatenings of war on the continent (1797) and found

ners.

themselves in Edinburgh, where Smith, as usual, began to make numberless friends. Among the number was Francis Jeffrey (afterward Lord Jeffrey), and Henry Brougham (afterward Lord Brougham), and after some years spent there they together established the "Edinburgh Review," of which he was editor for one number and contributor for

the next twenty-five years. His articles were the very life of the great magazine; not merely brilliant and readable but solid, serious and consistent. So gay and good-natured was he even as a controversialist that his opponents as well as his friends laughed with him. He is perhaps the most brilliant of reviewers, though not the greatest.

In 1803 he went to London, where he was highly prized as a preacher, a lecturer and a social favorite. There was often not standing-room in his church; and when he lectured on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution, the London world crowded to hear him. When the whigs came into power in 1806, he was presented with the living of Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire, and in 1809 most reluctantly moved from the gay metropolis to this out-of-the-way place, where he was embargoed by muddy roads and was, as he says, "twelve miles from a lemon.”

Nevertheless, he served there for twenty years with the utmost cheerfulness and efficiency. Then his high qualities won preferment, even from an adverse government, the tories, against whose tenets he had always used his trenchant pen. He became a canon of Bristol Cathedral and exchanged Foston for Combe Florey. Either because of his reputation as a humorist and wit, or because of his uncompromising spirit, of which persons having partisan ends to gain were afraid, he was never made a bishop, much to the surprise and regret of his friends.

His best-known book is "Peter Plymley's Letters on Catholic Emancipation" whereof he was a warm advocate. His sermons are also much read; but the delightful "Life

and Letters," edited by his daughter, will always be the favorite reading for those who wish to know the man “in his habit as he lived."

One of the innumerable “good things” attributed to him —some doubtless without reason—is a reply said to have been made by him to a friend who suggested that he should sit for his portrait to Landseer, the celebrated animalpainter: "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?”

CHAPTER XLVIII.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS.

ILLIAM WILBERFORCE (1759-1833), the philanthropist who spent his life in efforts to promote the abolition of slavery in the British colonies, belongs to literature only as the author of a "Practical View" of the contrast between real and professed Christianity, which passed through five editions in six months, and was translated into four foreign languages. His life was written by his sons, of whom Samuel (1805-73) became successively Bishop of Oxford and Bishop of Winchester, and was the author of several ecclesiastical works, notably a "History of the American Church." He was an eloquent preacher, as is shown by his published sermons, and a man of great breadth and activity of mind. He died in consequence of a fall from his horse.

The sermons of Robert Hall (1764-1831), a Baptist minister, rank among the most perfect specimens of pulpit oratory. An eloquent writer has remarked that what Hall said of Burke might be applied to himself—"his imperial fancy laid all nature under tribute," and that "he collected riches from every scene of the creation and every work of art."