MACKENZIE, Henry

MACKENZIE, Henry, was born at Edinburgh, in August 1745. His father, Dr. Joshua Mackenzie, was an eminent physician of Edinburgh, the author of a volume of Medical and Literary Essays; his mother was the eldest daughter of Mr. Rose of Kilravock, of an ancient family in Nairnshire.

After being educated at the High School and University of Edinburgh, Mr. Mackenzie was articled to Mr. Inglis of Redhall, to qualify him for exchequer business. In 1765 he went to London to study the modes of English exchequer practice. Whilst there, his talents induced a friend to solicit his remaining in London to qualify himself for the English bar; but the wishes of his family, and the moderation of his own unambitious mind, decided his return to Edinburgh; and there he became, first partner of, and afterwards successor to, Mr. Inglis, in the office of attorney for the crown. When in London, he sketched some part of his first and very popular work, The Man of Feeling, which was published anonymously in 1771. The great popularity of this volume gave occasion to a remarkable fraud on the part of a Mr. Eccles of Bath, who, taking advantage of the book being anonymous, laid claim to the authorship, transcribed the whole in his own hand, with interlineations and corrections, and maintained his right with such plausible pertinacity, that Messrs. Cadell and Strahan, Mr. Mackenzie's publishers, found it necessary to undeceive the public by a formal contradiction. The Man of the World was published a few years after the Man of Feeling, and breathes the same tone of exquisite sensibility. In his first publication 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 vice and ruin, and spreading misery all around him, by grasping at happiness in defiance of the moral sense. His next production was Julia de Roubigné, a novel in a series of letters. The fable is very interesting, and the letters are written with great elegance and propriety of style. In 1777 or 1778, a society of gentlemen in Edinburgh, mostly lawyers, projected the publication of a series of papers on morals, manners, taste, and literature, similar to those of the Spectator. This society, originally designated The Tabernacle, but afterwards The Mirror Club, consisted of Mr. Mackenzie, Mr. Craig, Mr. Cullen, Mr. Bannatyne, Mr. Macleod, Mr. Abercrombie, Mr. Solicitor-General Blair, Mr. George Home, and Mr. George Ogilvie, several of whom afterwards became judges in the Supreme Courts of Scotland. Their scheme was speedily carried into effect, and the papers, under the title of the Mirror, of which Mr. Mackenzie was the editor, were published in weekly numbers, at the price of threepence per folio sheet. The sale never

reached beyond three or four hundred in single papers; but the whole, with the names of the respective authors, were republished in three duodecimo volumes. From the price of the copyright, the writers presented a donation of £100 to the Orphan Hospital, and purchased a hogshead of claret for the use of the club. To the Mirror succeeded the Lounger, a periodical of a similar character, and equally successful. Mr Mackenzie was the most valuable contributor to both these works. His papers are distinguished from all the rest by that sweetness and beauty of style, and tenderness of feeling, which form the peculiar character of his writings. In the Lounger Mr Mackenzie was the first to appreciate the genius of Burns, in a review of his poems, then recently published, which at once drew the unknown poet from obscurity into the full blaze of a fame that will never die. On the institution of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Mr Mackenzie became one of its members; and amongst the papers with which he enriched the volumes of its Transactions are, an elegant tribute to the memory of his friend Judge Abercrombie, and a memoir on German Tragedy, the latter of which bestows high praise on the Emilia Galotti of Lessing, and on the Robbers by Schiller. Whilst prosecuting his study of German literature, he was induced to publish, in the year 1791, a small volume containing translations of the Set of Horses by Lessing, and of two or three other dramatic pieces. Mr Mackenzie was one of the original members of the Highland Society, and wrote the accounts of the institution and principal proceedings of the society which appear in their Transactions. In the Transactions of the same society he published a view of the controversy respecting the poems of Ossian, in which he attempted to vindicate their authenticity; and in the same paper gave a spirited and interesting account of Gaelic poetry. In 1793 he wrote the Life of Dr Blacklock, prefixed to the quarto edition of the works of the blind poet. In 1812 he read to the Royal Society a memoir of John Home, in which he gives a sketch of the literary society of Edinburgh during the latter part of the last century, with the great ornaments of which he lived in habits of friendly intercourse.

Mr Mackenzie was not so fortunate as a writer of dramas. Several of his plays were brought out at different theatres, but, though possessed of considerable merit as literary productions, they were not successful on the stage. He wrote several political tracts, which procured him the countenance and respect of Mr Pitt, and other illustrious statesmen of his time. Mr Mackenzie was not more distinguished by the wit with which he enlivened a numerous circle of attached friends, than the benevolence and wisdom with which he counselled and assisted them. This ornament of his native city died at Edinburgh, at an advanced age, rather from the decay of nature than from disease, on the 14th of January 1831.

A complete edition of his works was published at Edinburgh, in eight volumes 8vo, in 1808.