to love literature for its own sake that, be his occupation what it might, his
favourite recreations would still he found in criticism and the belles-lettres.
This he afterwards more distinctly intimated in a letter to his brother, where
he writes: "I shall study on to the end of my days. Not law, however, I believe, though that is yet in a manner to begin; but something or other I shall I am determined." But what was that something? as critic or poet reviewer or reviewed? It will scarcely be believed that while studying law he had also been equally diligent in verse-making, so that a poetical translation of the "Argonauticon" of Appollonius Rhodius, two dramatic productions, and a large
bundle of descriptive and sentimental poems, were the fruits of this dangerous
pursuit. Happily, however, a healthier spirit was rising within him; and it
was manifested by keeping his poetry not merely from the press, but the perusal
of his friends. At length, the full cure of this intermittent disease was effected
on the 16th of December, 1794, for on that day he was admitted to practise as
an advocate at the Scottish bar an occupation from which there is no retreat
except to politics or agriculture, and a place at which, of all others, the Muses
have least dared to intrude.
The position which the northern barristers at that period occupied, could only be peculiar to such a country as Scotland. In England, indeed, the occupation could raise a talented practitioner to greater wealth and higher political rank; but the English bar was only a part of the great whole, and had but a single voice in the complicated administration of the common weal; and to whatever height it might lead its best and ablest, there was still a summit above them which they could not reach, and under which they were overshadowed. But in Scotland the case was different. The Union, that had annihilated every national distinction, had left our tribunal untouched. Here, then, was the place around which the whole nationality of the country could rally, and through which the ingenium perfermdum could find utterance; and therefore, the Parliament House, besides being a court of law, was palace, council, and senate of the now abrogated kingdom of Scotland. Such were the attractions which the Scottish bar possessed, and hitherto they had sufficed, not only for the highest talent, but the beat aristocracy of the country. But here, also, the old feudalism of Scotland had made its last rallying effort, so that the divine right of kings, the unquestionable right of lairds, and the superiority of everything that was ancient, were the favourite axioms of the Edinburgh Court of Session. All this, indeed, would soon have died out, had it not been for the French Revolution, which ministered new fuel to an already decaying flame, and made it burst forth with greater vigour than ever. While every nation took the alarm, and began to draw the old bands of order more tightly around its institutions, this process was judged especially necessary for Scotland, which had neither king nor parliament of its own, and was therefore deemed the more likely to join the prevalent misrule. Modern Toryism was therefore ingrafted upon the ancient Scottish feudalism, and unqualified submission became the order of the day. Even the distance from the seat of government only made our northern politics the more sensitive to every indication of independent thought or action; and thus, what was nothing more than Whiggery within the precincts of West- minster, was sheer rebellion and high treason in the Parliament Square of Edinburgh.
Such was the condition of that honoured and influential class into which Jeffrey was now admitted. It will at once be seen that the difficulties of his
