JET. 23.] LORD JEFFREY. 243 



a point of law pronounced by so distinguished a 

 lawyer ;" and this remark met with the universal con- 

 currence of the profession.* 



The great professional success of Jeffrey was owing 

 to extraordinary abilities carefully cultivated, and his 

 literary superiority was helped by the opportunities 

 which the Scotch bar affords of cultivating letters 

 without interrupting its practice. The law is not so 

 jealous a mistress there as with us in England : the 

 literary reputation which would inevitably prove 

 fatal in Westminster Hall, rather aids than impedes 

 the lawyer's progress in Edinburgh. So at least it 

 was in Jeffrey's time ; but I am not aware of any 

 other in which great eminence was attained in both 

 departments. Sir Walter Scott had no success at the 

 bar ; and the works of Monboddo and Kaimes were 

 rather the fruit of their leisure, when they had been 

 raised to the bench, than of the intervals between 

 session and session while struggling at the bar. 

 Jeffrey had studied partly at Edinburgh, partly at 

 Glasgow, and was for some time at Queen's College, 

 Oxford. He had well grounded himself in the prin- 

 ciples both of the civil and the Scottish law, and he 

 had diligently applied his great talents to the cultiva- 

 tion of eloquence, as well in speech as in written com- 



* It is to be regretted that everything about the personal history of 

 Reddie is lost after his leaving the Edinburgh circle. Those who re- 

 member the portions of that circle remaining, between thirty and forty 

 years ago, will remember his name often referred to in the same tone of 

 high praise. He died in Calcutta, where he was First Judge of the 

 Court of Small Causes, 28th Nov. 1852 (obit. Gent. Mag.) 



