Memoir of Mr. Alexander Jeffrey, by George Hilson. 479 



In private life Mr. Jeffrey was a man of singularly retiring 

 habits, and while no man was more gratified than he was 

 by the attention and courtesy of his superiors in social life, 

 he never resorted to any of those manoeuvres, so common in 

 daily life, to obtain them. He always felt that whatever 

 share of these he had obtained — and it was not little^ — was 

 the natural tribute to his abilities. He was a model of a 

 domestic man. He had no sources of enjoyment beyond the 

 bosom of his own family — to whom he was most ardently 

 devoted — and for whom he made sacrifices which the world 

 little knew of, to obtain their worldly advancement. With 

 the daily newspaper or magazine at his own fire side, in the 

 midst of his family, at the close of the labours of the day, 

 no man could be happier. He was deeply read in the works 

 of Scott, Hogg, Burns, Shakspeare, Dickens, and what may 

 appear strange to those who had not much intercourse with 

 him, his acquaintance with the Old Calvinistic and Protest- 

 ant theology was considerable. He derived great enjoyment 

 from such books as "Boston's Fourfold State," and the 

 " Marrow of Modern Divinity." He had an intense dislike 

 to everything that inclined to modern innovations in public 

 worship, and his Protestantism was fierce and rather bigoted. 

 He was long associated with the Anti-Burgher Meeting-house 

 in Jedburgh, but shortly before its dissolution, owing to 

 some difference of opinion with its authorities, he withdrew 

 to the Parish Kirk. He had great powers of conversation, 

 and effectively could tell a good story. He delighted in 

 cracks with congenial friends, and where a tumbler of toddy 

 or a glass of wine intervened — but in which he seldom 

 indulged — he was the best of company ; stories local, 

 literary and professional, flowing from him in a stream of 

 great variety. Physically, he was a fine looking man. 

 Of good height, of comfortable stoutness, with a good 

 formed head, well set on his body, and with rather finely 

 formed, expressive features, and with careful dressing — 

 which he never neglected — he was rather a noticeable man 

 in the highways of life. The photographs which were pub- 

 lished by the Jedburgh booksellers, are excellent likenesses 

 of him. 



Owing to some peculiarity of character, of which he was 

 not altogether unconscious, he could not fight successfully 

 with fortune. Though opportunities in his professional 

 career occurred, when, in the estimate of those who knew 



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