[By Flaxman.]
429. Sir James Mackintosh. Historian and Metaphysician.
[Born in Scotland, 1765. Died, 1832. Aged 67.]
A strong and shrewd intellect: determined by native impulse and aptness to the metaphysical speculations, which, in the country where he was born, make regularly an important part of a liberal education. He sought and maintained the character of a dispassionate inquirer, reading extensively and carefully weighing conflicting opinions. More a student than a man of action; yet, even in study, his energies clogged by a natural indolence. Mackintosh, though descended from Jacobites, was a Whig. In 1791, he wrote a defence of the French Revolution, in answer to Burke; but, in less than four years, confessed that bitter experience had overthrown his generous argument. Adopting the law as a profession, he received promotion in India at the hands of his political allies. After seven years’ service, entered Parliament. He wrote an admirable “Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy” for the “Encyclopædia Britannica,” and he was engaged on a “History of the Revolution of 1688,” when he died. A man of great learning, philosophical clearness, and fine perception. Yet his works lack method and elegance, and fail, from the absence of these qualities, to do justice to the intellect that fashioned them.
[By Christopher Moore. Executed in 1829 for Lord Nugent.]
430. Francis Jeffrey. Critic and Essayist.
[Born at Edinburgh, 1773. Died, 1850. Aged 77.]
One of the founders, and for many years the editor, of the “Edinburgh Review,”—a publication which he enriched by his essays on poetry and general literature. He had an acute, ingenious, and spirited intellect, a sensibility of taste, and a constant flow and vivacity of style; but his apprehensions in literature and the arts, were rather trained and authorized than free and original. He had a leaning, scarcely a special gift, to speculate on the questions of the Mind—questions early and familiarly brought before him, as rife in the Scottish school in which he was educated. The influence of Jeffrey upon literature and public opinion, during his life-time, was very great—partly from the character of the Review which he governed, partly from the independence, brilliancy, and ability with which he maintained his principles of taste. Many of his criticisms contain the soundest views, and are eloquently written: others have been signally refuted by time and the public verdict; and their style is defaced by wanton and unjustifiable flippancy of language. Jeffrey studied for the law, and, being always a liberal in politics, was promoted by his Whig friends to the Scottish bench. With the reputation of a brilliant and ingeniously argumentative speaker, he disappointed, in the House of Commons, the general expectation. He was esteemed a very kind and friendly feeling man.
[By Christopher Moore. Executed in 1846.]
431. Francis Baily. Astronomer.