MACKENZIE, HENRY, one of the most illustrious names
connected with polite literature in Scotland. He was born at Edinburgh
in August 1745, while the citizens were preparing, by ineffectual
fortifications, for the dreaded attack of prince Charles Stuart, then
collecting his army in the Highlands. [Sir Walter Scott, in the memoir
of Mr Mackenzie, prefixed to his novels in Ballantyne’s Novelist’s
Library, states that his birth took place "on the same day on which
prince Charles landed." This, however, is incompatible with the fact of
Mr M. having been born in August, as the prince landed on the 25th of
July. We may here also mention, that the original source of the memoir
itself was not, as implied by Sir Walter, a Paris edition of the Man of
Feeling, but a publication, entitled "The British Gallery of
Contemporary Portraits."] The nativity of Mr Mackenzie was fixed by
himself, at a public meeting which he attended late in life, upon the
venerable alley denominated Liberton’s Wynd, now removed in order
to admit of a bridge for the connexion of the High Street with the
southern districts of the city. His father was Dr Joshua, or (as his
name is spelt in the Scots Magazine for 1800, where his death is
recorded) Josiah Mackenzie, an eminent physician. Dr Mackenzie was, we
believe, a native of Fortrose, upon the Moray frith, but had removed in
early life to Edinburgh, where he acquired an extensive practice as a
physician, and distinguished himself in the world of letters as author
of a volume of Medical and Literary Essays. [We have heard that some of
Harley’s feelings were taken from those of the author himself, when, at
his first entrance on the dry and barbarous study of municipal law, he
was looking back, like Blackstone, on the land of the Muses, which he
was condemned to leave behind him. It has also been said, that the fine
sketch of Miss Walton was taken from the heiress of a family of
distinction, who ranked at that time high in the Scottish fashionable
world. But such surmises are little worth the tracing; for we believe no
original character was ever composed by any author, without the idea
having been previously suggested by something which he had observed in
nature." –Sir Walter Scott, in Ballantyne’s Novelists’ Library.]
The mother of the author of the Man of Feeling was Margaret, eldest
daughter of Mr Rose of Kilravock, a gentleman of ancient family in
Nairnshire.
After being educated at the high school and
university of Edinburgh, Mr Mackenzie, by the advice of some friends of
his father, was articled to Mr Inglis of Redhall, in order to acquire a
knowledge of the business of the Exchequer, a law department, in which
he was likely to have fewer competitors than in any other in Scotland.
To this, though not perfectly compatible with the literary taste which
he very early displayed, he applied with due diligence; and, in 1765,
went to London to study the modes of English Exchequer practice, which,
as well as the constitution of the court, were similar in both
countries. While there, his talents induced a friend to solicit his
remaining in London, and qualifying himself for the English bar. But the
anxious wishes of his family that he should reside with them, and the
moderation of an unambitious mind, decided his return to Edinburgh;
where he became, first, partner, and afterwards successor, to Mr Inglis,
in the office of attorney for the crown.
His professional labour, however, did not prevent his
attachment to literary pursuits. When in London, he sketched some part
of his first and very popular work, The Man of Feeling, which was
published in 1771, without his name, and was so much a favourite with
the public, as to become, a few years after, the occasion of a
remarkable fraud. A Mr Eccles of Bath, observing the continued mystery
as to the author, laid claim to the work as his own, and, in order to
support his pretensions, transcribed the whole with his own hand, with
an appropriate allowance of blottings, interlineations, and corrections.
So plausibly was this claim put forward, and so pertinaciously was it
adhered to, that Messrs Cadell and Strachan, the publishers, found it
necessary to undeceive 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 which the Scottish
capital abounded. 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. He was an early intimate
of the ingenious blind poet, Dr Blacklock; and at the house of that
gentleman, as we have been informed by a survivor of the party, then a
youthful boarder in the house, met Dr Johnson and Boswell, when the
former was passing through Edinburgh on his journey to the Hebrides. To
quote the words of our informant—"Several strangers had been invited on
the occasion, (it was to breakfast;) and, amongst others, Dr Mackenzie,
and his son, the late Mr Henry Mackenzie. These gentlemen went away
before Dr Johnson; and Mrs Blacklock took the opportunity of pronouncing
a panegyric upon the father and son, which she concluded by saying, that
though Dr Mackenzie had a large family, and was married to a lady who
was his son’s step-mother, nevertheless the son lived with his own wife
and family in the same house, [Their residence was in one of the floors
of a tall house at the junction of the Cowgate and Grassmarket, either
above or below a floor occupied by Mrs Syme, the maternal grandmother of
Lord Brougham.] and the greatest harmony obtained among all
the parties. On this Dr Johnson said, ‘That’s wrong, madam;’ and stated
a reason, which it were as well to leave unchronicled. This settled Mrs
Blacklock’s opinion of the doctor. Several years ago, on calling to
remembrance the particulars of this breakfast with Mr Henry Mackenzie,
he said there was another reason for Mrs Blacklock’s dislike: she had
filled no less than twenty-two cups of tea to Dr Johnson at this
breakfast; which, I told Mr M., was too many, for Mrs Blacklock had
appointed me to number them, and I made them only nineteen!"[Our
correspondent’s introduction to this anecdote may be deemed worthy of
the reader’s notice. "I was twice in company with Dr Johnson, when he
came to Edinburgh, on his journey to the Hebrides. Being then a boarder
in Dr Blacklock’s, my request to be present at the breakfast given to Dr
Johnson was readily granted. The impression which I then received of him
can never be effaced; but it was not of an unpleasant nature. He did not
appear to me to be that savage which some of my college companions had
described him: on the contrary, there was much suavity and kindness in
his manner and address to Dr Blacklock. The blind poet generally
stood in company, rocking from one side to another; he had
remarkably small white hands, which Dr Johnson held in his great paws
during the most part of the time they conversed together, caressing and
stroking them, as he might have done those of a pretty child." It is
necessary to mention, that the great moralist was, by Boswell’s showing,
in one of his gentlest moods on this occasion.]
Some years after the publication of the Man of
Feeling, Mr Mackenzie 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 Roubigné, a novel
in a series of letters, designed, in its turn, as a counterpart to the
Man of the World. "A friend of the author," says Sir Walter Scott, "the
celebrated Lord Kames, we believe, had represented to Mr Mackenzie, in
how sunny poems, plays, and novels, the distress of the piece is made to
turn upon the designing villany of some one of the dramatic persons. On
considering his observations, the author undertook, as a task fit for
his genius, the composition of a story, in which the characters should
be all naturally virtuous, and where the calamities of the catastrophe
should arise, as frequently happens in actual life, not out of schemes
of premeditated villany, but from the excess and over-indulgence of
passions and feelings in themselves blameless, nay, praiseworthy, but
which, encouraged to a morbid excess, and coming into fatal and
fortuitous concourse with each other, lead to the most disastrous
consequences. Mr Mackenzie executed his purpose; and as the plan fell in
most happily with the views of a writer, whose object was
less to describe external objects, than to read a lesson to the human
heart, he has produced one of the most heart-wringing histories which
has ever been written. The very circumstances which palliate the errors
of the sufferers, in whose distress we interest ourselves, point out to
the reader that there is neither hope, remedy, nor revenge."
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. An account of this fraternity,
of its members, and of the way in which they conducted their
meetings, has already been given under the article "WILLIAM
CRAIG," being derived from the oral information of Sir William Macleod
Bannatyne, the latest survivor of the society. [ rSir William
MacLeod Bannatyne was born, January 26, 1743, O.S., and died November
30, 1833, in his ninety-first year. He was the son of Mr Roderick
Macleod, W.S., whose sister, lady Clanranald, for protecting Prince
Charles in his wanderings, was made prisoner, and kept for some time in
confinement in London. The "young Clanranald," who led out his clan in
1745, and took the town of Dundee, was therefore cousin-german to Sir
William. The venerable subject of this note, passed advocate, January
22, 1765, and was the intimate friend of the first lord Melville, when
at the bar, and of several other eminent persons in that profession,
with whom he used to meet regularly for mutual improvement in forensic
and legal business. His contributions to the Mirror were five papers,
which are pointed out in the latest edition. On the resignation of lord
Swinton, in 1799, he was raised to the bench, where he performed the
duties of a judge till 1823. On his retirement, he received the honour
of knighthood. The remainder of his life was spent by Sir William in a
cheerful and hospitable leisure at his residence in Whiteford House,
near the bottom of the Canongate, where he was for many years the only
surviving specimen of the old town gentleman. Sir William was
full of anecdote and information respecting the political history of
Scotland during the last century, and showed, in conversation with the
present writer, as intimate an acquaintance, and as lively a
recollection of the secrets of the Walpole and Bute administrations, as
could be displayed by any living man, respecting that of Mr Canning or
the Duke of Wellington.] Of the Mirror Club, Mr Mackenzie was readily
acknowledged chief; and, accordingly, when it was resolved to issue
their literary essays in a small weekly paper, resembling the
Spectator, he was appointed 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 contributed by Mr Mackenzie, including La Roche, and
several others of the most admired of his minor pieces. The sale, during
the progress of the publication, 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-published in duodecimo volumes, a considerable sum was realized
from the copyright, out of which the proprietors presented £100 to the
Orphan Hospital, and treated themselves to a hogshead of claret, to 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 Burns, which were just then
published, and had not yet been approven by the public voice. As might
have been expected, Mackenzie 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 Edinburgh,
Mr Mackenzie became one of the members; and amongst the papers 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
Leasing, 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 dramatic 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 Walter Scott, then a very young man. It gave a direction
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 proceedings of the society. In these Transactions
is also to be found his view of the controversy respecting Ossian’s
Poems, and an interesting account of Gaelic poetry.
Among Mackenzie’s compositions are several political
pamphlets, all upon the Tory side; the first being "An Account of the
Proceedings of the Parliament of 1784," in which he strongly defended
the views of his friend, Mr Henry Dundas, afterwards viscount Melville.
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, Mr Mackenzie wrote the life of Dr Blacklock,
prefixed to a quarto edition of the blind poet’s works, which was
published for the benefit of his widow. Mr Mackenzie’s intimacy with
Blacklock, gave him an opportunity of knowing the habits of his life,
the bent of his mind, and the feelings peculiar to the privation of
sight under which Blacklock laboured. 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 also published
separately. At the time he read this paper to the Society, he also laid
before them, in connexion with it, some Critical Essays, chiefly
relative to dramatic poetry, which have not been published.
Mackenzie 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 represented; 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 leading 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 Edinburgh 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 forcible characters. His
novels and tales charm by other means altogether; but in the drama,
striking characters, and a skilful management of them, are
indispensable.
In 1808, Mackenzie published a complete edition of
his works in eight volumes. From that period, and indeed from one
considerably antecedent to it, he might be said to have abandoned
literature, though, to use his own affecting image, as employed at one
of the meetings of the Royal Society, the old stump would still
occasionally send forth a few green shoots. The patronage of the
government was unfortunately extended in a somewhat improper shape, in
as far as the office bestowed upon him, though lucrative, required
unremitting personal labour. He was thus unable, even if he had been
willing, to cultivate literature to any considerable purpose. Such
leisure as he possessed, he spent chiefly in healthy recreations—in
shooting, particularly, and angling, to which he was devotedly attached,
and the former of which he had practised in early life, on the ground
now occupied by the New Town of Edinburgh. He thus protracted his days
to a healthy old age, until he finally stood amidst his fellow men, like
Noah amongst his descendants, a sole-surviving specimen of a race of
literary men, all of whom had long been consigned to the dust. His
recollections of the great men who lived in his youth, were most
distinct and interesting; but it is to be regretted, that with the
exception of what he has given in his Life of Home, he never
could be prevailed upon to commit them to paper. The sole physical
failing of his latter years was a slight deafness, which, however,
seemed only to give him the greater power of speech, as, by a natural
deception of the mind, he probably conceived, that what was inaudible to
himself, was so, or ran the risk of being so, to his hearers also. At
length, after a comparatively brief period of decline, he died, January
14, 1831, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.
By his wife, Miss Penuel Grant, daughter of Sir
Ludovick Grant, of Grant, Bart., and lady Mary Ogilvie, Mr Mackenzie had
eleven children, the eldest of whom was a judge of the courts of session
and justiciary—and a younger, Mr Holt Mackenzie, one of the members of
the privy council.
As a novelist and essayist, Mackenzie still ranks in
the first class, though, perhaps, rather by a reflection of his former
fame, than through any active or sincere appreciation of his writings by
the present generation. It is, perhaps, unfair to judge of the
intellectual efforts of an author, by any other age than his own, seeing
that, as Johnson well remarks, the most of men content themselves if
they only can, in some degree, outstrip their predecessors. Yet it is
impossible to overlook that Mr Mackenzie’s works are not of a kind to
retain the highest degree of popularity beyond the age in which they
were written, and that they have been surpassed by many later writers,
who, from the greater competition which they had to contend with, have
not attained nearly so high an eminence. Mr Mackenzie lived in an age,
when to attain certain proprieties in language, was looked upon as
almost the summum bonum of authorship of any kind: men had not
yet become sufficiently at ease about the vehicle of their thoughts, to
direct their attention solely, or even chiefly, as they do now, to the
sense which is conveyed. Hence, we find, in his works, a faultless
sweetness and delicacy of diction, which, however, is only a mannerism,
though not exactly that of an individual--while the whole scenery,
incidents, and characters, instead of being taken directly from nature,
are little more than a vivification of what have been the stock of
fictitious writers from the commencement of the art. The real life
with which Mr Mackenzie was acquainted, must have been, in a great
measure, the same from which Sir Walter Scott afterwards fashioned his
immortal narratives; but this, to Mackenzie, fashion had forbidden, and
he had not the force to break through the rules of that tawdry deity. He
was content to take all his materials at second-hand, to grapple only
with that literary human nature, which, like certain dresses on the
stage, runs through all books from perhaps some successful model of
antiquity, without ever gathering a spark of the genuine article of the
living world in its course. Dexterously, we allow, is the mosaic
composed, and beautiful is the crust of sentiment in which it was
presented. As works of art, the novels and minor stories of Mackenzie
are exquisite; but, nevertheless, they could never have attained so
great a celebrity, if they had not appeared at a time when mere art was
chiefly regarded by the public, and when, as yet, men esteemed nature as
something not exactly fitted for drawing-room intercourse.
While we thus, with great deference, express an
unfavourable opinion of his merits as a writer of fiction, we allow to
Mr Mackenzie the highest credit as a moralist, and also as a composer of
language, which is to be esteemed as no mean accomplishment, and depends
more upon native gifts than is generally supposed. The moral sense of
Mackenzie was in the highest degree pure, tender, and graceful; and has
imbued his writings with a character for which they can hardly ever fail
to be esteemed. "The principal object of all his novels," says Sir
Walter Scott, "has been to reach and sustain a tone of moral pathos, by
representing the effect of incidents, whether important or trifling,
upon the human mind, and especially on those which were not only just,
honourable, and intelligent, but so framed as to be responsive to those
finer feelings to which ordinary hearts are callous." The sweet
collocation of the words in which all these efforts are made, combines
to render the effect, to an extraordinary degree, soothing, refining,
and agreeable.