careful education at
Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Oxford, he entered at the bar in 1793, when
not yet much more than twenty years of age. His father, being himself
a Tory, desired the young lawyer to be so too, seeing that it would be
favourable to his prospects; but he could not yield in this point to
paternal counsel. The consequence was, that this able man practised
for ten years without gaining more than L. 100 per annum. All this
time, he cultivated his mind diligently, and was silently training
himself for that literary career which he subsequently entered upon.
His talents were at that time known only to a few intimates: there
were peculiarities about him, which prevented him from being generally
appreciated up to his deserts. His figure, to begin with, was almost
ludicrously small. Then, in his anxiety to get rid of the Scottish
accent, he had contracted an elocution intended to be English, but
which struck every one as most affected and offensive. His manners
were marked by levity, and his conversation to many seemed flippant.
His literary musings also acted unfavourably on the solicitors, the
leading patrons of young counsellors. Reduced by dearth of business
almost to despair, he had at one time serious thoughts of flinging
himself upon the London press for a subsistence. The first smile of
fortune beamed upon him in 1802, when the _Edinburgh Review_ was
started--a work of which he quickly assumed the management. That it
brought him income and literary renown, we gather from Lord Cockburn's
pages; but we do not readily find it explained how. While more
declaredly a literary man than ever, he now advanced rapidly at the
bar, and quickly became a man of wealth and professional dignity. We
suspect that, after all that is said of the effect of literary
pursuits on business prospects, the one success was a consequence in
great measure of the other.

The value of this work rests, in our opinion, on the illustration
which it presents of the possibility of a man of sound though
unpopular opinions passing through life, not merely without suffering
greatly from the wrath of society, but in the enjoyment of some of its
highest honours. After reading this book, one could almost suppose it
to be a delusion that the world judges hardly of any man's speculative
opinions, while his life remains pure, and his heart manifestly is
alive to all the social charities. The heroic consistency of Jeffrey
is the more remarkable, when it n