which cannot be denied to him who can excite the passions of fear and of pity, must be awarded to the author of The Castle of Otranto.

MACKENZIE.

FOR the biographical part of the following memoir, we are chiefly indebted to a short sketch of the life of our distinguished contemporary, compiled from the most authentic. sources, and prefixed to a beautiful duodecimo edition of The Man of Feeling, printed at Paris a few years since. We have had the farther advantage of correcting and enlarging the statements which it contains from undoubted authority.

HENRY MACKENZIE, Esq. was born at Edinburgh, in August, 1745, on the same day on which Prince Charles Stuart landed in Scotland. His father was Dr Joshua Mackenzie, of that city, and his mother, Margaret, the eldest daughter of Mr Rose, of Kilravock, of a very ancient family in Nairnshire. After being educated at the High-school and University of Edinburgh, Mr Mackenzie, by the

advice of some friends of his father, was articled to Mr Inglis of Redhall, in order to acquire a knowledge of the business of the exchequer, a law department in which he was likely to have fewer competitors than in any other in Scotland.

To this, although not perfectly compatible with that literary taste which he very early displayed, he applied with due diligence; and in 1765, went to London to study the modes of English exchequer practice, which, as well as the constitution of the courts, are similar in both countries. While there, his talents induced a friend to solicit his remaining in London, and qualifying himself for the English bar. But the anxious wishes of his family that he should reside with them, and the moderation of an unambitious mind, decided his return to Edinburgh; and here he became, first partner, and afterwards successor to Mr Inglis, in the office of Attorney for the Crown.

His professional labour, however, did not prevent his attachment to literary pursuits. When in London he sketched some part of his first, and very popular work, The Man of Feeling, which was published in 1771, without his name; and was so much a favourite with the public, as to become, a few years after, the occasion of a remarkable fraud. A Mr Eccles, of Bath, observing that this work was

accompanied by no author's name, laid claim to it, transcribed the whole in his own hand, with blottings, interlineations, and corrections, and maintained his right with such plausible pertinacity, that Messrs Cadell and Strahan (Mr Mackenzie's publishers) found it necessary to undeceive the public by a formal contradiction.

In a few years after this, he published his Man of the World, which seems to be intended as a second part to The Man of Feeling. It breathes the same tone of exquisite moral delicacy, and of refined sensibility. In his former fiction, he imagined a hero constantly obedient to every emotion of his moral sense. In The Man of the World he exhibited, on the contrary, a person rushing headlong into misery and ruin, and spreading misery all around him, by pursuing a happiness which he expected to obtain in defiance of the moral His next production was Julia de Roubigné, a novel in a series of letters. The fable is very interesting, and the letters are written with great elegance and propriety of style.

sense.

In 1776, Mr Mackenzie was married to Miss Penuel Grant, daughter of Sir Ludovick Grant, of Grant, bart., and Lady Margaret Ogilvy, by whom he has a numerous family, the eldest of whom, Mr Henry Joshua Mackenzie, has, while these sheets are passing the press, been called to the situation of a Judge of the Su

preme Court of Session, with the unanimous approbation of his country.

In 1777 or 1778, a society of gentlemen of Edinburgh were accustomed at their meetings to read short essays of their composition, in the manner of the Spectator, and Mr Mackenzie being admitted a member, after hearing several of them read, suggested the advantage of giving greater variety to their compositions by admitting some of a lighter kind, descriptive of common life and manners; and he exhibited some specimens of the kind in his own writing. From this arose the Mirror,' a well-known periodical publication, to which Mr Mackenzie performed the office of editor, and was also the principal contributor. The success of the Mirror naturally led Mr Mackenzie and his friends to undertake the Lounger,2 upon the same plan, which was not less read and admired.

When the Royal Society of Edinburgh was instituted, Mr Mackenzie became one of its most active members, and he has occasionally enriched the volumes of its Transactions by his valuable communications, particularly by an elegant tribute to the memory of his friend Judge Abercromby, and a memoir on German

1

1780.

2

Begun the 23d January, 1779; ended 27th May,

Begun the 6th February, 1785; ended 6th January,