a high order. Mr. Sydney Smith, in his happy and peculiar vein, (we shall not content ourselves with one extract from his admirable letter,) thus describes the personal appearance of his early friend:

'There was something very remarkable in his countenance-the commandments were written on his face; and I have often told him there was not a crime he might not commit with impunity, as no judge or jury who saw him would give the smallest degree of credit to any evidence against him. There was in his look a calm settled love of all that was honourable and good-an air of wisdom and of sweetness : you saw at once that he was a great man, whom nature had intended for a leader of human beings.'-vol. ii. p. 435.

And this countenance maintained its open sweetness to the last, for it had never been withered by the follies and dissipations of youth, or furrowed by the fierce passions and harassing cares of maturer life. Chantrey's noble statue in Westminster Abbeyfrom a likeness taken, we believe, not long before his last illness— shows the broad and thoughtful forehead, though somewhat too much darkened by eyebrows, which seem heavy, and slightly contracted; the stedfast yet modest attitude; the mouth, which looks as if it could not utter a word of malice-the harmony of gentleness and intellectual strength. This natural gentleness of disposition grew, under the discipline of right principles, into a habit; and though the innate tenderness of his affections wanted that best school, the domestic circle of wife and children, they were constantly exercised:

'I never,' says Mr. Smith, saw any person who took such a lively interest in the daily happiness of his friends. If you were unwell, if there was a sick child in the nursery, if any death happened in your family, he never forgot you for an instant! You always found there was a man with a good heart who was never far from you.'

Mr. Horner had likewise great abilities; a remarkable perspicacity of mind; sure, apparently, rather than quick, powers of comprehension; a retentive and accurate memory; but his abilities were precisely those which benefit most by assiduous cultivation. They were not, as we have said, original or creative, but excellently adapted for the acquisition and the application of knowledge.

As, however, the whole biography of Mr. Horner consists in the history of this intellectual discipline, and of its reward in the fame and influence which he attained as a public man, we must endeavour to trace its development from the work before us, which consists almost entirely of extracts from his own papers, of his letters, and those of his friends. As we can know nothing of the materials at Mr. Leonard Horner's command, we cannot

express

express an opinion on his judgment in the selection of those which he has published; but knowing the extreme delicacy of such a task, we suspect that he has erred rather on the side of suppression. We think, too, that we should willingly have exchanged some of the letters for more of the journal, in which the actual workings of his mind, his daily thoughts and occupation, the formation of his tastes and opinions, are more distinctly shown. In biography we love to get into the closest privacy-into the study, the chamber-into the head and heart of the man.

Francis Horner was born at Edinburgh on the 12th of August, 1778. His father was a merchant in that city, but of English extraction. His mother bore the maiden name of Joanna Baillie:-she was, however, no connection of the excellent woman, and great poetess, who has since made that name so celebratedbut one of the family of Dochfour, in Inverness-shire. Their home was a happy one, with everything to improve a gentle temper, and to encourage, not to force, youthful talents. The glimpse which we have of his parents, and the single letter from each at the commencement of the book, make it easy to believe that their characters, as given by Mr. Leonard Horner, have not been over-coloured by filial partiality. In that of the father there is a tone of good sense-of deep, but not too flattering, interest in his son's pursuits and of liberality as to pecuniary matters, which no doubt would give greater weight to his wise admonitions concerning economy, as the parent of independence.' The earnest unobtrusive piety' of the mother is expressed in her few weighty and affectionate words at the close of her letter. The reminiscences of his youth are somewhat His mother says:meagre.

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'Frank was a delicate infant, and continued long a weakly child. I taught him to read, and thought him dull; but at six years of age he distinguished himself at his first school, and was the pride of his master. His earliest friend was Henry Brougham; for before we left St. David's Street, in May, 1780, they used to run together on the pavement before our house. Frank never was idle, even at that age. When he came home from church he used often to repeat parts of the service in the nursery he said he should like to be a parson, and my mother made him a black gown and bands. One day when Mr. Blair, afterwards President of the Court of Session, was dining with us, my little fellow was invited into the room after dinner, dressed in his gown and bands; and the manner in which he went through his part struck Mr. Blair so much, that he said to me, 'You must bring up that boy to the bar.' He went to the theatre for the first time the winter following: the play was 'Hamlet,' with the afterpiece of the Poor Soldier.' Much to our astonishment, he soon after repeated the soliloquy of Hamlet, acted several of the different characters, even to the ghost, without confusion, did the same with some of those in the Poor Soldier,' and sang the

songs

songs with great humour. He was not unhealthy, but never robust. I often thought that his anxiety to learn his lessons made him indifferent about his meals.'-vol. i. pp. 2, 3.

He was educated at the High School of Edinburgh, and at the age of fourteen entered the University-then distinguished by the names of Dugald Stewart, Playfair, Black, and Hugh Blair. He was then, at seventeen (Nov., 1795), placed under the care of an English clergyman, Mr. Hewlett, at Shacklewell, in Middlesex; one of the great objects of this arrangement being that, in Rolliad phrase, he might unlearn' his broad native dialect. Prescient of his future position, he was not to be exposed to Sheridan's malicious taunt against Henry Dundas. Of all his political transgressions, said that malicious wit of his antagonist, there was one he could not pardon-' his persevering aversion to the English language.' It is not unamusing to read the young Scotchman's own account of his progress in Anglicising his pronunciation. After about a fortnight he says:—

With respect to one great object for which you were at the expense and trouble of placing me here, I think I am beginning to pronounce some words as Englishmen do, and just to feel the difference between the rhythm of their conversation and mine. I find, however, that it will be a much more difficult matter than it would have been two or three years ago, and than it would be now, were I blessed with a more acute and delicate ear.'—vol. i. p. 7.

His first impressions (Feb., 1796) of the great scene, on which he was hereafter to be so distinguished, and of the two famous rivals who then swayed that assembly, cannot be read without interest ::

'I must confess that I was greatly disappointed in my expectations with regard to the eloquence of the British Senate. The best of themand the good are very few-speak with such an unaccountable tone, they have so little grace in their action and delivery, and such a set of cant appropriated phrases have crept into use, that he who has previously formed ideas of eloquence from what he has read of that of Greece and Rome, must find the speeches even of Fox and Pitt miserably inferior. The one, indeed, speaks with great animation, and, I am convinced, from the warmest sincerity of heart; and the other has a most wonderful fluency and correctness, approaching almost to mechanical movement. But neither of them has proceeded so far as the observance of Shakspeare's rule; for the one saws the air with his hands, and the other with his whole body.'-vol. i. pp. 11, 12.

In a letter to Mr. (now Lord) Murray (June, 1796) he gives his first notions of Parliamentary eloquence:

'You say a speaker's object in the House of Commons is not so much to move the passions of his audience as to convince their understandings. What their object is, would, I believe, be very difficult to ascertain; in considering

VOL. LXXII. NO. CXLIII.

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considering what it ought to be, I should be apt to differ from you. When we recollect that perhaps not one member comes into the chapel without his opinion previously formed on the questions that are to be discussed, and that his opinion is almost always established merely on a consideration of the interest of the side to which he has attached himself, without any general discussion,-it would seem fruitless to think of working on that man's understanding, because he has set out from the beginning with a defiance to all argument and reasoning. I should think it necessary to go to the original foundation of his opinions, raise one set of passions to destroy the effect of others; show him it is his interest to adopt the conclusions which I point out; and hurry away his whole thoughts by such a stream of argument and passion as will make it impossible for him to decline being what I am resolved he shall be, and at the same time lead him to consider the change in his mind as the effect merely of his own judgment. This was the object Demosthenes seems to have had in view, and to this effect Lord Chatham's eloquence certainly approximated. From this part of your letter I must pass over your many admirable observations on the action of speakers, because I find it utterly impossible to raise any cavil or shadow of objection, till I come to what you say with regard to the taste of the multitude, of the justness of which permit me to doubt. I should even hesitate with regard to the fact, and that without instituting a comparison between the mob that issued from the purlieus of the Piræus, and the frightful group whom I t'other day saw round the hustings in Covent Garden, for we were speaking of the House of Commons; but admitting the fact to be true, the true seat of eloquence is amid passion, and ignorance, and prejudice, and fury-Ac veluti magno in populo cum sæpe coorta est : I need only mention one line, though I wish to recall the whole to your imagination. Nay, I think that in the House of Commons the manner of the orator ought perhaps to be more artful and more violent than even in addressing such mobs as those already noticed: as I should suppose it more easy to turn the current of enthusiasm, when once it flows, than to excite any considerable degree of it in a cold, selfish, and interested mind.'-vol. i. pp. 12-14.

Nothing could be more diametrically opposite to the style of Mr. Horner's own oratory than this boyish theory. It seems indeed like a paradox thrown out for his own curiosity, and to provoke discussion, for his mind had already taken its speculative and analytic turn. At eighteen years of age he is corresponding with his friend Mr. Murray on the Will of man, and on Mr. Dugald Stewart's definition of Conception-he is meditating metaphysical disquisitions for an Edinburgh Society-he is entering on the study of the Roman law-he is even approaching the profound mysteries of paper-currency-he is deep in Bolingbroke and Junius, not hurried away in blind and youthful admiration of their glowing language, but coolly analysing their style. With Mr. Hewlett's assistance he is detecting the yet un

suspected

suspected Gallicisms and Scoticisms of Hume. Mr. Hewlett, indeed-most of whose observations are marked by strong good sense as well as kindly interest in his pupil-seems to have been apprehensive of his leanings to the vaguer subtleties of metaphysical investigation, and submitted him to the severer discipline of Euler's Algebra-a large part of that work he translated from the French under Mr. Hewlett's auspices.

On his return to Edinburgh (Nov., 1797), he determined to devote himself to his destined profession, the Scottish bar. But his views of the vast range of knowledge, if not necessary, at least becoming a complete lawyer, might (considering how far the limits of knowledge have receded since that day) have appalled Cicero himself. The ideal orator of the Roman had at last but two languages to learn, and to master the literature and philosophy, copious enough indeed, but still within certain limits, of Greece and Rome. The plan of Mr. Horner's studies, laid down at the age of twenty, comprehends a few of the best of the Greek, and many of the greatest of the Roman writers-the history at least of pure mathematics, and the principles of all the leading branches of physical science—the whole range of metaphysics and moralsthe general science of politics, legislation, and jurisprudence-as well as the immediate study of the civil, municipal, and statute laws.' Besides this, we find him laying out extensive schemes for a knowledge of history; and carefully studying poets, and the more finished writers of prose, to enrich and to correct his style of composition. Mr. Horner was fully aware, both from his natural good sense and from experience, of the danger attending such vast schemes, the desultory application to a great number of subjects, instead of concentering attention on a few. The extraordinary point is, that he achieved so much, and neither overloaded nor distracted his mind by the rapid alternation of subjects and variety of books on which, in his imperfect journal, we find him employed. He passes from Heineccius to Bailly's History of Astronomy; from the Pandects to Chesterfield and the Lettres Persanes; from Erskine's treatises and Hume's prelections on Scotch Law, to Delille and the Deserted Village. All this time he is attending the lectures of Stewart, of Allen, and of Playfair; actually setting up a chemical apparatus; he is constantly debating in the Speculative Society" all the profoundest questions of politics and political economy with Jeffrey and Brougham; discussing Dugald Stewart, and analyzing Lord Bacon with the most scrupulous assiduity, in companionship with a very remarkable man, first made known to the general reader in these letters, Lord Webb Seymour; nor does he seem to shrink from lighter and more lively disquisitions in certain symposia, which were en

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lightened