Sir Alexander, a well-known navigator, was a native of Scotland, and emigrated to Canada at an early age. After being engaged for some years at Fort Chipewyan in the north-west fur trade, he formed the project of reaching, by an overland route, the coast of the Northern Polar Ocean. Starting from Chipewyan on the 3d of June 1789, with a company, in four canoes, he sailed down the Slave River to its outlet in the Slave Lake. He then coasted along the lake, and reaching its western extremity, entered the river which afterwards received his name. Following the stream in its N.W. course, he issued forth into the Great Frozen Ocean on the 15th of July, and had thus achieved an important discovery. Mackenzie returned by the same route, and reached Chipewyan after an absence of more than a hundred days. A more arduous adventure was his overland journey to the North Pacific. He set out in October 1792, sailed for a considerable distance up Peace River, and after braving numerous hardships and dangers, reached his destination in July 1793. He followed the same track on his return. Mackenzie afterwards repaired to England, and published his Voyages through North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in 1789 and 1793, 4to, London, 1801. In 1802 his successful enterprises were rewarded by the honour of knighthood. He died in 1820.

Sir George, a learned writer and eminent lawyer of Scotland, was the grandson of Kenneth, first Lord Mackenzie of Kintail, and the nephew of Colin and George, first and second Earls of Seaforth. He was born at Dundee in 1636; and after passing through the usual course of education in his own country, he was sent to the university of Bourges, at that time denominated the Athens of lawyers, where he remained three years. Young Scotchmen intended for the bar, having no sufficient means of instruction in the Roman law at home, were then accustomed to frequent the university of Bourges, as in later times they repaired to those of Utrecht and Leyden. He was called to the bar in the year 1656, and had risen into considerable practice before the Restoration. Immediately after the Restoration he was appointed one of the justices-depute,—criminal judges who exercised that jurisdiction which was soon afterwards vested in five lords of sessions, under the denomination of commissioners of justiciary; and in 1661, he and his colleagues were ordained by the parliament "to repair, once in the week at least, to Musselburgh and Dalkeith, and to try and judge such persons as are there or therabouts delate of witchcraft."

Mackenzie's name appears in the parliamentary proceedings as counsel in almost every cause of importance; and

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1 See Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvii., pp. 213, 214. Mackenzie's connection in that character with the Marquis of Argyll gives no small weight to a passage in his Memoirs respecting a circumstance in the trial of that nobleman, which has been the subject of much historical controversy. Between the years 1663 and 1667 he was knighted. He represented the county of Ross during the four sessions of the parliament which was called in 1669. In 1667 he had been appointed lord-advocate in the room of Sir John Nisbet. By that preferment he was, unhappily for his character, implicated in all the worst acts of the Scotch administration of Charles II. Having betrayed some repugnance, however, to concur in those measures which openly and directly led to the re-establishment of Popery, he was removed from his office in 1686, and (which is not a little remarkable) reinstated in 1688, when such measures were still more avowedly pursued.

At the Revolution he adhered to the fortunes of his royal master. Being elected a member of the convention, he supported the pretensions of King James with courage and ability. King William had been solicited by some eager partisans to declare Mackenzie and a few others incapable of holding any public office; but he refused to accede to the proposal. At this critical juncture Sir George Mackenzie composed and delivered his inaugural address on the foundation of the library of the Faculty of Advocates, which he had been mainly instrumental in establishing; a circumstance evincing no inconsiderable degree of firmness and intrepidity. When the death of Dundee destroyed the hopes of his party in Scotland, he took refuge in Oxford, the natural asylum of so learned and inveterate a Tory. But, under the tolerant government of King William, he appears to have enjoyed, in perfect security, his ample fortune, the fruit of his professional labours.

In the spring of 1691, Sir George Mackenzie went to London, where he contracted a disorder which carried him off. He died in St. James's Street, on the 2d of May 1691; and his death is mentioned as that of an extraordinary person by several of those who recorded the events of their time. His body was conveyed by land to Scotland, and interred with great pomp and splendour in the Greyfriars churchyard, Edinburgh; a circumstance which shows how little the administration of William was disposed to discourage the funereal honours paid to its most inflexible opponents.

The writings of Sir George Mackenzie are literary, legal, and political. His Miscellaneous Essays, both in prose and verse, considered as the elegant amusements of a statesman and lawyer, afford evidence of the refinement of his taste and the variety of his accomplishments. In several of his moral essays, both the subject and the manner betray an imitation of Cowley; and we find Evelyn and Dryden speaking highly of his merits as a writer.

His work, On the Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal, published in 1678, and dedicated to the Duke of Lauderdale, is an ingenious and plausible production.

The works of Sir George Mackenzie were published at Edinburgh in two volumes folio, in 1716 and 1722. A History of the Affairs of Scotland from the Restoration of King Charles II. 1660, to the [year] 1691, was published at Edinburgh in 1821, 4to, under the editorial superintendence of Mr. Thomas Thomson, who, in an able preface, related the singular circumstances in which the manuscript was rescued from destruction. It is to be regretted, however, that the portion thus published ends at the very time when the author's means of information became more ample. For many reasons, it would be highly desirable to possess the sequel of these Memoirs. (See Edinburgh Review, xxxvi. 1.)

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

After being educated at the High School and University of Edinburgh, Mr Mackenzie entered upon the study of 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, where he ultimately became 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. 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. The whole, with the names of the respective authors, were afterwards republished in three duodecimo volumes. 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. He contributed forty-two papers to the Mirror, and fifty-seven to the Lounger. They 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 enriched the volumes of its Transactions with 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. He also published, in 1791, a small volume containing translations of the Set of Horses by Lessing, and of two or three other dramatic pieces. In the Transactions of the Highland Society he wrote an account of the origin and proceedings of that association, and 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; and in 1812 he read to the Royal Society a memoir of John Home, author of Douglas, in which he gives a sketch of the literary society of Edinburgh during the latter part of the last century. 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 in the Tory interest, which procured him the countenance and respect of Mr Pitt and other illustrious statesmen of his time, and led to his being appointed, in 1804, comptroller of taxes for Scotland. He died at Edinburgh on the 14th of January 1831, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.

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