election of a member to represent it in
Parliament, should as freeholder vote
himself chairman, should as chairman receive the
oaths and the writ from himself as sheriff,
should as chairman and sheriff sign them,
should propose himself as candidate, declare
himself elected, dictate and sign the minutes
of election, make the necessary indenture
between the various parties represented solely
by himself, transmit it to the Crown-office,
and take his seat by the same night's mail to
vote with Mr. Addington! We must recollect
such things, when we would really understand
the services of such men as Jeffrey. We
must remember the evil and injustice he so
strenuously laboured to remove, and the cost
at which his labour was given. We must
bear in mind that he had to face day by day,
in the exercise of his profession, the very men
most interested in the abuses actively assailed,
and keenly resolved as far as possible to
disturb and discredit their assailant. ' Oh, Mr.
Smith,' said Lord Stowell to Sydney, 'you
would have been a much richer man if you
had come over to us! ' This was in effect the
sort of thing said to Jeffrey daily in the Court
of Session, and disregarded with generous
scorn. What it is to an advocate to be on the
deaf side of ' the ear of the Court,' none but
an advocate can know; and this, with Jeffrey,
was the twenty-five years' penalty imposed
upon him for desiring to see the Catholics
emancipated, the consciences of dissenters
relieved, the barbarism of jurisprudence
mitigated, and the trade in human souls abolished.

The Scotch Tories died hard. Worsted in
fair fight they resorted to foul; and among
the publications avowedly established for
personal slander of their adversaries, a pre-
eminence so infamous was obtained by the
Beacon, that it disgraced the cause irretrievably.
Against this malignant libeller Jeffrey
rose in the Court of Session again and again,
and the result of its last prosecution showed
the power of the party represented by it
thoroughly broken. The successful advocate,
at length triumphant even in that Court
over the memory of his talents and virtues
elsewhere, had now forced himself into the
front rank of his profession; and they who
listened to his advocacy found it even more
marvellous than his criticism, for power,
versatility, and variety. Such rapidity yet
precision of thought, such volubility yet clearness
of utterance, left all competitors behind.
Hardly any subject could be so indifferent or
uninviting, that this teeming and fertile intellect
did riot surround it with a thousand graces
of allusion, illustration, and fanciful expression.
He might have suggested Butler's hero,

                '—who could not ope
        His mouth but out there flew a trope,'

with the difference that each trope flew to its
proper mark, each fancy found its place in the
dazzling profusion, and he could at all times,
with a charming and instinctive case, put the
nicest restraints and checks on his glowing
velocity of declamation. A worthy Glasgow
baillie, smarting under an adverse verdict
obtained by these facilities of speech, could find
nothing so bitter to advance against the speaker
as a calculation made with the help of
Johnson's Dictionary, to the effect that Mr. Jeffrey,
in the course of a few hours, had spoken the
whole English language twice over!

But the Glasgow baillie made little
impression on his fellow citizens; and from Glasgow
came the first public tribute to Jeffrey's
now achieved position, and legal as well as
literary fame. He was elected Lord Rector of
the University in 1821 and 1822. Some seven
or eight years previously he had married the
accomplished lady who survives him, a
grandniece of the celebrated Wilkes; and had
purchased the lease of the villa near Edinburgh
which he occupied to the time of his death,
and whose romantic woods and grounds will
long be associated with his name. At each
step of his career a new distinction now
awaited him, and with every new occasion
his unflagging energies seemed to rise and
expand. He never wrote with such masterly
success for his Review as when his whole time
appeared to be occupied with criminal
prosecutions, with contested elections, with journeyings
from place to place, with examinings and
cross-examinings, with speeches, addresses,
exhortations, denunciations. In all
conditions and on all occasions, a very
atmosphere of activity was around him. Even as
he sat, apparently still, waiting to address a
jury or amaze a witness, it made a slow man
nervous to look at him. Such a flush of
energy vibrated through that delicate frame,
such rapid and never ceasing thought played
on those thin lips, such restless flashes of
light broke from those kindling eyes. You
continued to look at him, till his very silence
acted as a spell; and it ceased to be difficult
to associate with his small but well-knit figure
even the giant-like labours and exertions of
this part of his astonishing career.

At length, in 1829, he was elected Dean of
the Faculty of Advocates; and thinking it
unbecoming that the official head of a great law
corporation should continue the editing of a
party organ, he surrendered the management
of the Edinburgh Review. In the year following,
he took office with the Whigs as Lord
Advocate, and replaced Sir James Scarlett in
Lord Fitzwilliam's borough of Malton. In
the next memorable year he contested his
native city against a Dundas; not succeeding in
his election, but dealing the last heavy blow to
his opponent's sinking dynasty. Subsequently
he took his seat as Member for Perth,
introduced and carried the Scotch Reform bill, and
in the December of 1832 was declared member
for Edinburgh. He had some great sorrows at
this time to check and alloy his triumphs.
Probably no man had gone through a life of eager
conflict and active antagonism with a heart
so sensitive to the gentler emotions, and the