ey passed
before her, whilst M. Jerome--exactly in appearance as before, except
that prosperity had begun to round him--was leaning against a pillar
in rather a melodramatic attitude, a white napkin gracefully depending
from his hand. They started on seeing me, and were a little confused,
but soon laughed over their adventure; called Penelope to take her
turn at the counter--the little serf whispered to me as she passed,
that I was 'a traitor, a barbarian,' and insisted on treating me to my
coffee and my _petit verre_, free, gratis, for nothing.

MEMOIRS OF LORD JEFFREY.

In the crisis of the French Revolution, British society was paralysed
with conservative alarms, and all tendency to liberal opinions, or
even to an advocacy of the most simple and needful reforms, was met
with a ruthless intolerance. In Scotland, there was not a public
meeting for five-and-twenty years. In that night of unreflecting
Toryism, a small band of men, chiefly connected with the law in
Edinburgh, stood out in a profession of Whiggism, to the forfeiture of
all chance of government patronage, and even of much of the confidence
and esteem of society. Three or four young barristers were
particularly prominent, all men of uncommon talents. The chief was
Francis Jeffrey, who died in 1850, in the seventy-seventh year of his
age, after having passed through a most brilliant career as a
practising lawyer and judge, and one still more brilliant, as the
conductor, for twenty-seven years, of the celebrated _Edinburgh
Review_. Another was Henry Cockburn, who has now become the biographer
of his great associate. It was verily a remarkable knot of men in many
respects, but we think in none more than a heroic probity towards
their principles, which were, after all, of no extravagant character,
as was testified by their being permitted to triumph harmlessly in
1831-2. These men anticipated by forty years changes which were
ultimately patronised by the great majority of the nation. They all
throve professionally, but purely by the force of their talents and
high character. As there was not any precisely equivalent group of men
at any other bar in the United Kingdom, we think Scotland is entitled
to take some credit to herself for her Jeffreys, her Cranstons, her
Murrays, and her Cockburns: at least, she will not soon forget their
names.

Lord Jeffrey--his judicial designation in advanced life--was of
respectable, but not exalted parentage. After a