MACKENZIE. 



605 



order to support his pretensions, transcribed the 

 whole with his own li;ind, with an appropriate allow- 

 ance of blottings, interlineations, and corrections. 

 So plausibly was this claim put forward, and so per- 

 tinaciously was it adhered to, that Messrs Cadell and 

 Strachan, the publishers, found it necessary to un- 

 deceive the public by a formal contradiction. Though 

 Mr Mackenzie preserved the anonymity of the Man 

 of Feeling for some years, (probably from prudential 

 motives with reference to his business,) he did not 

 scruple to indulge, both before and after this period, 

 in the literary society with winch the Scottish capital 

 abounde I. He informs us in his Life of Home, that 

 he was admitted in boyhood as a kind of page to the 

 tea-drinkings which then constituted the principal 

 festive entertainment of the more polished people in 

 Edinburgh; and his early acquaintance with Hume, 

 Smith, Robertson, Blair, and the rest of the literary 

 galaxy, then in the ascendant, is evidenced from the 

 same source. 



Some years after the publication of the Man of 

 Feeling, he published his Man of the World, which 

 was intended as a counterpart to the other. 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 sense. 

 His next production was Julia de Roubigne, a novel 

 in a series of letters, designed, in its turn, as a 

 counterpart to the Man of the World. 



In 1777 or 1778, a number of young men of literary 

 taste, chiefly connected with the Scottish bar, formed 

 themselves into an association for the prosecution of 

 their favourite studies, which came to bear the name 

 of the Mirror Club. Of this club, Mr Mackenzie 

 was readily acknowledged chief; and when it was 

 resolved to issue their literary essays in a small 

 weekly paper, resembling the Spectator, he was ap- 

 pointed to undertake the duties connected with the 

 publication. The Mirror was commenced on the 

 23d of January, 1779, in the shape of a small folio 

 sheet, price three halfpence, and terminated on the 

 27th of May, 1780; having latterly been issued twice 

 a week. Of the one hundred and ten papers to 

 which the Mirror extended, forty-two were con- 

 tributed by Mr Mackenzie, including La Roche, and 

 several others of the most admired of his minor 

 pieces. The sale, during the progress of the pub 

 lication, never exceeded four hundred copies; but 

 this was more than sufficient to bring it under the 

 notice of a wide and influential circle, and to found 

 the reputation it has since enjoyed. When re-pub- 

 lished in duodecimo volumes, a considerable sum was 

 realized from the copyright, out of which the pro- 

 prietors presented 100 to the Orphan Hospital, and 

 treated themselves to a hogshead of claret, 10 be 

 drunk at their ensuing meetings. The Lounger, a 

 work of exactly the same character, was commenced 

 by the same writers, and under the same editorship, 

 February 6, 1785, and continued once a week till 

 the 6th of January, 1787; out of the hundred and 

 one papers to which it extended, fifty-seven are the 

 production of Mackenzie. One of the latter papers 

 the editor devoted to a generous and adventurous 

 critique on the poems of Bums, which were just then 

 published, and had not yet been approven by the 

 public voice. As might have been expected, Macken- 

 zie dwells most fondly on the Addresses to the Mouse 

 and the Mountain Daisy, which struck a tone nearest 

 to that prevailing in his own mind. 



On the institution of the Royal Society of Edin- 

 burgh, Mr Mackenzie became one of the members ; 

 and among the uapers with which he enriched its 



transactions, are an elegant tribute to the memory of 

 his friend lord Abercromby, and a memoir on German 

 tragedy ; the latter of which bestows high praise 

 on the Emelia Galotti of Lessing, and on the Robbers 

 by Schiller. For this memoir he had procured the 

 materials through the medium of a French work ; 

 but desiring afterwards to enjoy the native beauties 

 of German poetry, he took lessons in German from a 

 Dr Okely, who was at that time studying medicine 

 in Edinburgh. The fruits of his attention to German 

 literature appeared further in the year 1791, in a 

 small volume, containing translations of the Set of 

 Horses by Lessing, and of two or three other Ger- 

 man pieces. But the most remarkable result of his 

 studies in this department, was certainly the effect 

 which his memoir produced on the mind of Sir Wal- 

 ter Scott, then a very young man. It gave a direc- 

 tion to the genius of this illustrious person, at a time 

 when it was groping about for something on which 

 to employ itself ; and harmonizing with the native 

 legendary lore with which he was already replete, 

 decided, perhaps, that Scott was to strike out a new 

 path for himself, instead of following tamely on in 

 the already beaten walks of literature. 



Mr Mackenzie was also an original member of the 

 Highland Society ; and by him were published the 

 volumes of their Transactions, to which he prefixed 

 an account of the institution, and the principal pro- 

 ceedings of the society. In these Transactions is 

 also to be found his view of the controversy respect- 

 ing Ossian's Poems, and an interesting account of 

 Gaelic poetry. 



At the time of the French Revolution, he wrote 

 various tracts, with the design of counteracting the 

 progress of liberal principles in his own country. 

 These services, with the friendship of lord Melville 

 and Mr George Rose, obtained for him, in 1804, the 

 lucrative office of comptroller of taxes for Scotland 

 which he held till his death. 



In 1793, he wrote the life of Dr Blacklock, pre- 

 fixed to a quarto edition of the blind poet's works, 

 which was published for the benefit of his widow. 

 In 1812, he read to the Royal Society his Life of 

 John Home, which was some years after prefixed to 

 an edition of that poet's works, and was also published 

 separately. At the time he read this paper to the 

 Society, he laid also before them, in connexion with 

 it, some Critical Essays, chiefly relative to dramatic 

 poetry, which have not been published. He was 

 himself a dramatic writer, though not a successful 

 one. A tragedy, written by him in early life, under 

 the name of The Spanish Father, was never repre- 

 sented ; in consequence of Mr Garrick's opinion, that 

 the catastrophe was of too shocking a kind for the 

 modern stage ; although he owned the merit of the 

 poetry, the force of some of the scenes, and the scope 

 for fine acting in the character of Alphonso, the lead- 

 ing person in the drama. In 1773, Mr Mackenzie 

 produced a tragedy under the title of The Prince of 

 Tunis, which, with Mrs Yates as its heroine, was 

 performed with applause for six nights, at the Edin- 

 burgh theatre. Of three other dramatic pieces by 

 Mr Mackenzie, the next was The Shipwreck, or Fatal 

 Curiosity, which might be described as an alteration 

 of Lilly 's play under the latter of the two names. 

 The comedies entitled The Force of Fashion, and The 

 White Hypocrite, both of which were unsuccessful, 

 complete the list. Mr Mackenzie's grand deficiency 

 as a dramatic author, was his inability to draw forci- 

 ble characters. His novels and tales charm by other 

 means altogether ; but in the drama, striking char- 

 acters, and a skilful management of them, are indis- 

 pensable. 



In 1808, he published a complete edition of his 

 works in eight volumes. From tliat period, and 



