rights, as well as a most able and accomplished pleader. Yet, with this great
addition to his professional duty, neither his diligence nor productiveness as a
writer was abated, so that, independently of his wonted labours in the "Review,"
he wrote the article "Beauty" in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" a treatise
that, notwithstanding the fluctuating nature of every theory upon that subject, will always continue to be admired for the metaphysical depth of its sentiments, and the classic finished elegance of its style. This tide of success, however, was on one occasion interrupted. Strange to tell, Jeffrey stuck a speech! In 1818, John Kemble was about to take leave of the Scottish stage; and as his
admirers proposed to give him a public dinner in Edinburgh, Jeffrey was commissioned to present him a snuff-box at the banquet. He rose for the purpose
with full confidence in that extemporaneous power which had never failed him; but when the dramatist raised his kingly form at the same instant, and confronted him with magnificent obeisance, the most fluent of speakers was suddenly struck dumb he sat down, with his speech half-finished and his gift unpresented!
It was now time that honorary distinctions as well as substantial profits should descend upon the successful critic and barrister, so that he should become something more than plain Francis Jeffrey. These were now at hand; and the first that adorned him, appropriately enough came from a seat of learning. His own college of Glasgow had not lost sight of its early alumnus; and after having elected the highest and most talented to the office of Lord Rector of the University, the claims of the prince of critics to fill it ought not to be overlooked. So felt the young students, by whose suffrages the rector is chosen, and in 1820, notwithstanding the hostility of the professors, whose dislike of Jeffrey's Whiggism could not be overcome, he was invested with the honoured distinction. After this, proposals were made from influential quarters to obtain for him a seat in parliament; but these he declined: it was from the court of law and not the senate that his next honours were to be obtained. Accordingly, in 1829, he was unanimously elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, the highest honour which his own profession can bestow, and all the more honourable that the election was by the votes of his brethren. It was no trivial indication of political change, that the editor of the "Edinburgh Review" should have been appointed to such an office, in the very heart of Edinburgh, and by a body of men who had in former times been the keenest and most influential champions of Toryism. It was necessary, however, that his editorship should cease, and he gladly resigned it into younger hands. On his election to the deanship, he thus announced the fact of his resignation, and its reason: "It immediately occurred to me that it was not quite fitting that the official head of a great law corporation should continue to be the conductor of what might be fairly enough represented as in many respects a party journal, and I consequently withdrew at once, and altogether, from the management." It was not an easy sacrifice to relinquish an office so congenial to his tastes and habits, which he had held for twenty-seven years, and which he had raised by the force of his talents to such high distinction in the literary and political world. The list of his contributions during this period is truly astounding, not only for quantity, but variety. They amounted in all to 201 articles, a selection from which was published in eight volumes, under his revision, in 1843. After having been Dean of Faculty for a very short period, Jeffrey, in 1830, was appointed Lord Advocate. This office, although resembling that of the Attorney-General in
