out nothing between them against the simple and natural supposition of all old historical fables having in them a germ or substratum of truth. There is nothing, I believe, so rare and difficult as absolute invention or pure fiction, nor anything so nearly universal as engrafting fiction on truth by the method of exaggeration and solution of difficulties: and have. seldom seen anything more strained and pedantic than this attempt to deny its application to the primæval history of Greece. I also think the revival of the doubt as to the personal identity (or unity rather) of Homer very washy and almost puerile, and am half inclined to disable the learned author's critical taste and judgment out and out, when I find him presuming, in his zeal for his paltry Wolffian heresy, to describe the ninth book of the Iliad, the most splendid and glorious perhaps of the whole, as an unworthy interpolation! I read it all through this morning, and am entitled, therefore, to resent this blasphemy on this old testament of our classical Scriptures. The English Lawyers1 is pleasant reading on the whole, though the abstract given of some of the biographies is too dry and meagre. I do not know what ground the reviewer has for his very confident assertion, or assumption rather, that the profession-Judges as well as Counsel-is going down, and deservedly, in public estimation. The concluding part about Law Education, and the usurpations or embezzlements of the Benchers, seems valuable and may lead to practical good.

I am glad we are to see Macaulay, but he must take care what he says this time.-Ever yours, F. JEFFREY.

T. B. MACAULAY.

Edinburgh, November 5, 1846.

MY DEAR NAPIER,-I had hoped that I should find you here, but on my arrival I learned that you were still in the country. I must absolutely start to-morrow morning before daybreak; and in truth at this time I ought not to be where I am even now. I must, therefore, give up the expectation of seeing you. Besides the pleasure of your society, I had a

1 "Lives of Eminent Lawyers," by Hayward.

particular motive for wishing to have some talk with you. I am charged with a sort of embassy from Palmerston. I had some talk with him a few hours before I left London, and I found that he was very desirous to lay before the world an explanation of the late transactions in Spain. The January Number of the Edinburgh Review would, he thinks, be the very thing. The article would be written by Bulwer at Madrid, and would be revised by Palmerston before it was transmitted to you. Of course, secrecy would be necessary. Now, have you any objection to keep the last place in the January Number for such an article? Be so kind as to let me have an answer immediately, for the distance between London and Madrid is such that there is no time to lose; and if the paper does not appear in January, it may as well not appear at all. If you approve the scheme, let me know what is the latest day on which the manuscript ought to be in your hands. I need not tell you how much pain the bad accounts of your health have lately given to me and to your other friends in the South.-Ever yours truly, T. B. MACAULAY.

Albany, December 15, 1846. MY DEAR NAPIER,-I was sitting down to write to you when I received your letter. Things have turned out most unluckily, but you must not think that I have neglected you. As soon as I received your assent, I went to the Foreign Office and wrote to Bulwer myself by the courier who started that day. He answered that he was about to leave Madrid. for the country, where he hoped to pass a few days in preparing his paper for you, and that he should carry all the official documents with him. I fully expected, therefore, that he would be able to do what was wished. To-day I have received a few lines from him written evidently in great discomposure. It seems that, in his rural retreat, he heard of the late Ministerial crisis at Madrid, and was forced to hurry back to his post. He declares that he had not had even the time necessary to draw up his weekly despatch for the Foreign Office. I do most earnestly hope that this vexatious business will not really be injurious to the Review. I am encouraged

by remembering that you had an ample supply of matter, and that the Foreign Office article would have been a superfluity. I shall see Palmerston to-morrow, and condole with him on this disappointment. I am truly sorry that you speak mournfully of your own health.-Ever yours most truly,

LORD JEFFREY.

T. B. MACAULAY.

December 11, 1846.

MY DEAR NAPIER,-I send you the last of these weary proofs. Empson is unreasonable with his endless corrections. It will be a relief when we are fairly done with them; for not only does his dirty linen require a deal of washing, but he will be soiling it again after we have done our rinsings. But, patience, and shuffle the cards.-Ever yours, F. JEFFREY.

This refers to Empson's article on "David Hume" in the Number for January, 1847-the last that my father edited. He died on the 11th of February. The following tribute to his memory appeared in the Scotsman shortly after his death. It was written by Thomas Thomson, one of the most intimate and valued of his friends, and will form no inappropriate conclusion to this collection.

"Few literary men in this country have been more in the public eye for the last thirty years, and the high degree of general estimation in which he has been held as a scholar and a gentleman, will be readily admitted even by those who may have entertained no partiality for the opinions of which he had long been the acknowledged advocate. It was at a very early period of his life that he began to discover a decided bias to literary pursuits, preferably to the more active and lucrative occupations in the law, for which he had been carefully trained, and in which his talents and great attainments. might have conducted him to high professional success. How far a more than usual share of constitutional sensibility might have impeded his progress in the rough and contentious

1 The article on the "Spanish Marriages," by Lord Dalling and Bulwer, was not published till April, 1847.

business of the law, it may be difficult to conjecture; but fortunately for the public as well as for himself, his preeminent acquirements found a more congenial field as an academical instructor in the principles and rules of those branches of the law in which the rights of parties become embodied in written documents, and in the illustration of which his literary tastes happily enabled him to render the study more graceful and attractive. In this important station he had been placed by the unanimous voice of his legal brethren; and to the laborious discharge of its duties, imposing on him the necessity of adapting his prelections to the progressive and fluctuating state of the law, he continued to devote his most anxious attention down (it may be said with literal truth) to the latest hour of his existence. It is almost superfluous to add, that the success of his instructions in legal science was of the most unequivocal kind; and to his numerous hearers during the last twenty years, it would be a cause of bitter regret if the learned and elegant compositions they were accustomed to admire as flowing from his own lips, should be allowed to perish with his life.1

"To his other pursuits more purely of a literary character, it would be difficult to do justice in a few sentences. Of his earlier contributions to some of the leading periodical works of the day, a few of which only are known, it may be enough to say that they afforded most promising specimens of rapid advance in his favourite departments of moral and political science. For the more full development of these he afterwards found ample opportunities as Editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica and of the Edinburgh Review. The former of these well-known works had already passed through several editions, under the guidance and with the aid of men of very distinguished talents, and of great eminence in the sciences, when Mr. Napier was invited to superintend its publication in a greatly improved form. To this arduous undertaking he accordingly devoted himself for several years with the utmost zeal and perseverance, and with the utmost success.

'I think it right to state that, in obedience to my father's own directions, his lectures on Conveyancing have not been published.

Independently of his own original compositions, he was eminently fortunate in securing the co-operation of some of the most eminent philosophers and scholars of the age, whose contributions have given to the work a character and value which have justly placed it beyond all competition. And above all, the admirable skill displayed in casting and arranging the parts of which this vast and comprehensive whole is composed, will continue to afford ample evidence of the sound judgment and taste with which it was conducted and accomplished. Unlike all other works of the same class, it seems destined to maintain its place among the standard works of our national literature.

"The association into which Mr. Napier was thus brought with many of the most eminent men of letters of the age, became an excellent prelude to his labours as editor of the Edinburgh Review. In the conduct of that brilliant publication it is well known that he was preceded by men of the finest genius, as well as of the purest, firmest, and most consistent principles; and it is no light praise to say that this leading organ of constitutional and liberal doctrines, and of manly and enlightened criticism, suffered no decay under his steady and unflinching management. In these respects the absolute and unassailable purity of his character as a public man, had the natural consequence of bringing him into close and confidential intercourse with many of the highest and most influential men of the age; and nothing can reflect brighter honour on his character than the strict fidelity, and truthfulness, and independence with which that intercourse was invariably maintained. Within the circle of his private acquaintance-more remarkable, perhaps, for its intimacy than its extent-his memory will be always cherished as that of a most intelligent, kindly, and pleasing companion-a zealous, disinterested, and devoted friend."