England, has few recommendations beyond those of mere distinction, to a successful practitioner at the Scottish bar; for, besides affording a salary of only £300 per annum, it has legal and political duties attached to it, sufficient for the utmost energies of the most talented individual. For three years and a
half he continued in this laborious office, during which period he was almost
exclusively occupied with the important measures of parliamentary and burgh
reform, and spent much of his time in attendance upon the House of Commons,
which he did as member for the Forfarshire burghs, and finally for the burgh
of Malton. His situation in the House of Commons was anything but a sinecure, as the passing of the Reform Bill for Scotland, of which he was the official manager, cost him many speeches and sleepless nights, as well as a vast
amount of daily anxiety. After this great work was successfully accomplished, his chief ambition was to represent his native city in the first reformed parliament. Nothing, indeed, could be more legitimate than such ambition after the toils he had undergone in the cause of reform, not merely as Lord Advocate
of Scotland, but also as the ablest of political writers in behalf of the measure, when its very idea was reckoned tantamount to high treason. His wish was gratified. He was put in nomination as candidate for the representation of
Edinburgh, and returned by a majority of votes on the 19th of December, 1832, after which he resumed his parliamentary duties, and the incessant worry with
which the adjustment of the details of the Reform Bill was connected. While thus employed, a vacancy occurred on the bench of the Court of Session, in
1833, and Jeffrey was appointed to this, the highest office which a Scottish
lawyer can attain. But what he valued more highly was, that it freed him
from the harassing labours of parliament, and those of Lord Advocate, and
restored him to the society of his friends, and full enjoyment of his home. It
was the natural feeling of one who had already passed threescore years of life,
and passed them in toil and intellectual exertion such as had well purchased the boon of repose.
Having ceased from his avocations as lawyer and reviewer, and passed into that peaceful but dignified office to which his merits had so honourably won their way, the rest of the narrative of Jeffrey's life may be briefly told. On the 7th of June, 1834, he took his seat on the bench, with the title of Lord Jeffrey, instead of assuming a territorial one from the landed property which he possessed. Was this humility, eschewing a pompous designation as savouring too much of aristocracy and feudalism? or pride, that felt as if his own family name had now been raised to such distinction as to make a lordly change unnecessary? Both feelings may have been so curiously blended in the choice, that it would be better to leave them unquestioned. At all events, the familiar name of Jeffrey was more grateful to the literary ear than Lord Craigcrook, or any other such title could have been. His official duties required his attendance in the court every morning at nine o'clock, and thus, with him, the virtue of early rising was enforced by necessity. During the winter, when the court was sitting, his place of residence was Edinburgh; he then usually repaired in spring to London or its neighbourhood; and in autumn he lived at his residence of Craigcrook, which seemed every year to become more and more endeared to his affections. Having now so much leisure upon his hands, and that, too, it may be added, for the first time in his life, he was often urged by his friends to write some important original work, in which his whole intellectual power would be condensed, and his fame embodied for the esteem of posterity when
