MACKINTOSH, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JAMES

MACKINTOSH, THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR JAMES, one of the most distinguished men of his time, and who attained to great eminence in literature, philosophy, history, and politics, was born at Aldourie, on the banks of Loch Ness, Scotland, on the 24th of October 1765. His father, Captain John Mackintosh, was the representative of a family which had for above two centuries possessed a small estate called Kellachie, in Inverness-shire. He had served long in the army, which he entered very young, and had been severely wounded at the battle of Fellinghausen, in the Seven Years' War. His mother was Marjory Macgillivray, daughter of Mr Alexander Macgillivray by Anne Fraser, sister of Brigadier-General Fraser, who was killed in General Burgoyne's army in 1777.

In the summer of 1776 young Mackintosh was sent to school at the town of Fortrose; and he had scarcely learned to read when he evinced that predilection for abstract speculation which afterwards formed so prominent a feature of his intellectual character. A gentleman having lent him Burnet's Commentary on the Thirty-nine Articles, he perused it with great avidity; and the part which struck him most forcibly, and which he read with peculiar eagerness and pleasure, was the commentary on the seventeenth article, which relates to predestination; a strange subject to engage the attention and interest the understanding of a mere boy. His mind appears to have revolted at the doctrine of eternal decrees of election and reprobation; though surrounded by orthodox Calvinists, he became a warm advocate for free will; and before he had completed his fourteenth year, he was probably the boldest heretic in the county. About the same time he read the old translation of Plutarch's Lives, Echeard's Roman History, and the works of Pope and Swift. His first poetical attempt was a pastoral, or elegy, on the death of his uncle, Brigadier-General Fraser, who fell on the 7th of October 1777; and in 1779 and 1780 his muse was exceedingly prolific, and he even commenced an epic poem on the defence of Cyprus by Evagoras, King of Salamis, against the Persian army.

In October 1780 he entered King's College, Aberdeen, where he remained during that and the three following sessions. At Aberdeen he was by common consent recognised inter studiosos facile princeps; whilst his courteous demeanour, refined manners, playful fancy, and easy flow of elocution, rendered him a general favourite amongst his companions. His chief associate at King's College was the late Reverend Robert Hall, whom the exclusive system of the English universities had forced to seek in this northern

seminary for that academical education which was denied to him, as a Dissenter, in his own country. Like Castor and Pollux, these young men were assimilated in the minds of all who knew them by reason of the equal splendour of their talents, although in other respects they were extremely unlike.

In the spring of 1784, having previously taken his degree of Master of Arts, he finally quitted King's College, "with," he says, "but little regular and exact knowledge, but with considerable activity of mind, and boundless literary ambition;" and in the October following he set out for Edinburgh to commence the study of physic, which he had made choice of as a profession. His arrival in that city opened a new world to his mind. Edinburgh was then the residence of many eminent men; of Adam Smith, Dr Black, John Home, Henry Mackenzie, Dr Cullen, Principal Robertson, Dr Ferguson, Dr Hutton, Professor Robison, Mr Dugald Stewart, and others. He was admitted a member of the Speculative Society, which had been established about twenty years before, and which had general literature and science for its objects. In this exciting atmosphere, speculation rather than study engrossed his attention. Speculators, indeed, are seldom submissive learners. Those who will make proficiency in useful knowledge, must for a time trust to their teachers, and believe in their superiority; but those who too early think for themselves must sometimes imagine themselves wiser than their masters; and hence docility is often extinguished when the work of education is scarcely commenced. After three years spent in Edinburgh, he obtained the degree of M.D. in 1787; and early in 1788 he set out for London. His views were, in the first instance, directed to the medical profession; and he was led from circumstances to contemplate a medical appointment in Russia. But this project, in which he was supported by Mr Dugald Stewart, did not take effect; and it is probable that he felt but little regret at the failure of a scheme which would have removed him from such a scene of interest and enjoyment as London then presented. On the 18th of February 1789 he was privately married to Miss Catharine Stuart, a young lady of a respectable Scotch family; and at the age of twenty-four he found himself with no prospect of any immediate professional settlement, his little fortune rapidly diminishing, and a wife to provide for.

The struggle regarding the regency that followed the announcement of the malady with which the king had been attacked in the autumn of 1788, was the occasion of a pamphlet by Mr Mackintosh, in support of the analogy which Mr Fox endeavoured to establish between the actual state of his majesty and a natural demise of the crown. This seems to have been his first public appearance in the field of politics, for which his mind had now taken a decided turn. About the same time he made the acquaintance of Horne Tooke, whose cause he warmly espoused at the election for Westminster. In the autumn of 1789 he made a tour, in company with his wife, through the Low Countries to Brussels; and, upon his return to London, contributed a number of articles on Belgium and France to the Oracle newspaper, with which he appears to have been for some time connected. To the same date must be referred his resolution to devote himself to the study of the law. Hitherto the exercise of his powers had been almost exclusively confined to the columns of a newspaper; but although the most successful efforts of ability are often passed unheeded, or make but a feeble and transitory impression where such are neither looked for nor expected, yet this preliminary training was not without its advantage, and the time now approached when he was to appear before the world in a higher and more independent character.

The extraordinary impression produced by the publication of Mr Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, the

admiration excited by the work in some quarters, and the vehement indignation with which it was greeted in others, are matters of universal notoriety. By some it was regarded as the most marvellous union of wisdom and genius that had ever appeared in the world, whilst to others it seemed inconsistent with the former life and opinions of the author, notwithstanding that an abhorrence for abstract politics, a predilection for aristocracy, and a dread of innovation, had always been articles of his political creed. A multitude of pamphlets appeared in opposition to it, and each shade of opinion was warmly defended against the common enemy of all change. The great majority of these productions, however, with the exception of Paine's Rights of Man, soon fell into oblivion. But whilst Mr Burke was sustaining the attack of the man who had been his fellow-combatant in the American contest for freedom, "a bolt was shot from amongst the undistinguished crowd, but with a force which showed the vigour of no common arm." The Vindictæ Gallicæ was published in April 1791. It had been finished in a great hurry, but, with all its imperfections and defects, it at once placed the author in the first rank of the party in this country who were upholding the cause of France. He was courted and caressed on all hands, his company was eagerly sought for, and, as he himself expressed it, he was for a few months the lion of the place.

In Michaelmas term 1795, Mr Mackintosh was called to the bar, and attached himself to the home circuit. Having thus entered upon a path which, when pursued by the patient steps of genius and industry, so often leads to wealth and distinction, he evidently enjoyed the satisfaction which arises from having in view a constant and honourable occupation. But a severe affliction awaited him in the death of his wife, which took place early in 1797. In 1799 Mr Mackintosh formed the plan of giving lectures upon the Law of Nature and of Nations. The benchers of Lincoln's Inn granted him the use of their hall, and he commenced his course by an exposition of the general aim and scope of the undertaking, as well as of the views and feelings which had led him to embark in it. This discourse, which the lecturer was induced to publish, had no sooner issued from the press than commendations poured in upon him from every quarter. Mr Pitt, Lord Loughborough, Dr Parr, and others, united their suffrages in its praise; and it must be confessed that if Mackintosh had published nothing else than this discourse, he would have left a striking monument of his intellectual strength and symmetry. His political opinions, indeed, had undergone a considerable change; and as the tone of these lectures differed materially from that of the Vindictæ Gallicæ, and of the Letter to Mr Pitt, this circumstance, together with the support ostentatiously given to them by the ministers of the day and their connections, served to alienate from him several of his old political friends, and to beget suspicions for which there existed no solid foundation.

We come now to an event of great importance in the life of Mr Mackintosh; we mean the trial of M. Peltier, an emigrant royalist, for a libel on the First Consul of France. The address delivered by Mr Mackintosh, as counsel for the accused, formed one of the most splendid displays of eloquence ever exhibited in a court of justice, and it will, beyond all doubt, maintain its place amongst the few efforts of forensic oratory which have survived the occasions that produced them, and are preserved as models for future artists in the same line. "I perfectly approve of the verdict," said Mr, afterwards Lord Erskine; "but the manner in which you opposed it, I shall always consider as one of the most splendid monuments of genius, learning, and eloquence." This trial took place on the 21st February 1803, and some months afterwards, Mr Mackintosh was appointed to the office of recorder of Bombay, vacant by the death of Sir William Syer. Upon his appointment, he received the

customary honour of knighthood, and, early in 1804, sailed with his family for India. His time there appears to have been divided between the discharge of his official duties, literary occupations somewhat irregularly pursued, correspondence with his numerous friends in Europe, and occasional excursions into different parts of the country. The experiment, however, was not successful, in as far as regarded the views which had induced him to solicit the appointment. For although we now know that his mind was in a state of great vigour and activity during the whole of his residence in India, yet he was not enabled to accomplish, indeed scarcely to commence, any of the great works he had contemplated; whilst his habitual inattention to economy prevented any great improvement in the state of his worldly affairs. The consequence was, that he returned to England in 1812, with broken health and spirits, uncertain prospects, and vast materials for works which were never to be completed.

Mr Percival, now at the head of the government, offered him a seat in parliament, and an early promotion to the head of the Board of Control. These tempting offers, however, he declined. But he was almost immediately returned on the Whig interest, as member for the county of Nairn. After this his life scarcely admits of any detailed abstract. He continued in parliament, and true to liberal principles for the remainder of his days. In 1818 he was appointed professor of law at Hayleybury, and resigned that situation in 1827. He contributed articles of great value to the Edinburgh Review; and in a "Preliminary Discourse" to the present work, being the second in order, furnished a very able history of ethical philosophy, which has been printed separately in 8vo, with a preface by Professor Whewell of Cambridge. After printing several volumes of a popular and abridged History of England, which contains more thought and more lessons of wisdom than any other history with which we are acquainted, he left at his death the invaluable fragment of the History of the Revolution of 1688, of which a very masterly account will be found in Mr Macaulay's Crit. and Hist. Essays, 1852, p. 305. Under Lord Grey's administration, in 1830, he was appointed to a seat at the Board of Control, and cordially co-operated in all the great measures of reform which were then brought forward and carried after a severe struggle. He died in 1832, regretted with more sincerity, and admired with less envy, than any man of his age. In him, perhaps more than in any man of his time, was exemplified that mitis sapientia, which formed the distinguishing attribute of the illustrious friend of Cicero, and which wins its way into the heart, whilst it at once enlightens and satisfies the understanding.

With regard to the intellectual character of Sir James Mackintosh, we cannot do better than quote the words in which the able writer who reviewed the Memoirs of his Life, by his son, in that journal to which he was so valuable a contributor, has described, or rather portrayed it:—"His intellectual character cannot be unknown to any one acquainted with his works, or who has even read many pages of the memoirs now before us; and it is needless, therefore, to speak here of his great knowledge, the singular union of ingenuity and soundness in his speculations—his perfect candour and temper in discussion—the pure and lofty morality to which he strove to elevate the minds of others, and in his own conduct to conform,—or the wise and humane allowance which he was ready, in every case but his own, to make for the infirmities which must always draw down so many from the higher paths of their duty. These merits, we believe, will no longer be denied by any who have heard of his name or looked at his writings. But there were other traits of his intellect which could only be known to those who were of his acquaintance, and which it is still desirable that the readers of these memoirs should

Macklin bear in mind. One of these was that ready and prodigious memory, by which all that he learned seemed to be at once engraved on the proper compartment of his mind, and to present itself at the moment it was required; another, still more remarkable, was the singular maturity and completeness of all his views and opinions, even upon the most abstruse and complicated questions, though raised, without design or preparation, in the casual course of conversation. In this way it happened that the sentiments he delivered had generally the air of recollections—and that few of those with whom he most associated in mature life could recollect of ever catching him in the act of making up his mind in the course of the discussions in which it was his delight to engage them. His conclusions, and the grounds of them, seemed always to have been previously considered and digested; and though he willingly developed his reasons, to secure the assent of his hearers, he uniformly seemed to have been perfectly ready, before the cause was called on, to have delivered the opinion of the court, with a full summary of the arguments and evidences on both sides. In the work before us, we have more peeps into the preparatory deliberations of his great intellect—that scrupulous estimate of the grounds of decision, and that jealous questioning of first impressions, which necessarily precede the formation of all firm and wise opinions,—than could probably be collected from the recollections of all those who had most familiar access to him in society. It was owing, perhaps, to this vigour and rapidity of intellectual digestion that, though all his life a great talker, there never was a man that talked half so much, who said so little that was either foolish or frivolous; nor any one perhaps who knew so well how to give as much liveliness and poignancy to the most just and even profound observations as others could ever impart to startling extravagance and ludicrous exaggeration. The vast extent of his information, and the natural gaiety of his temper, made him independent of such devices for producing effect, and, joined to the inherent kindness and gentleness of his disposition, made his conversation at once the most instructive and the most generally pleasing that could be imagined." (J. B.—E.)