Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/78

342 ford we may trace his querulous murmurs; so that the whole world was changed when he looked at it from Arthur s Seat or the Pentlands.

On returning to Edinburgh, at the age of nineteen, Jeffrey appeared little changed by his sojourn in England. He was the same vivacious, slim, short stripling as before, with the same wide range of thought and fluency of language that had so often charmed or nonplussed his companions. In one respect, however, a material change had occurred: he had abandoned his native Doric dialect for that sharp, affected, ultra-English mode of pronunciation, that afterwards abode with him more or less through life, and which was in such bad taste, that Lord Holland declared, "though he had lost the broad Scotch at Oxford, he had only gained the narrow English." It was now full time to make choice of a profession in good earnest, and prepare for it, as hitherto his law studies at Oxford had been little more than nominal. He might, if he pleased, be a merchant under his paternal uncle, who was settled at Boston, in America; but he felt no vocation for mercantile labour and adventure. Literature he would have chosen in preference to anything, and, of all literary occupations, that of poetry; but authorship as a trade was too precarious, and the fame of a poet too unsubstantial. Then, there was the English bar, which gave full scope to the utmost ambition; but Jeffrey knew withal that the great expense of preparation, followed by that of waiting for practice, was more than his resources could encounter. Nothing remained for him but the profession of a Scottish advocate, for which his father's legal acquaintanceships could secure him as much practice as would suffice for a commencement. Here, then, his choice rested, and he became a student of the classes of Scotch Law in the university of Edinburgh. But besides these he had, in the Speculative Society, of which he became a member at the end of 1792, a still more effectual spur to progress, as well as better training both for law and criticism. This society had been established in the college of Edinburgh, in 1764, for the purposes of reading literary and scientific essays, and holding forensic debates upon the subjects of these essays; it had already produced, during the forty-eight years of its existence, some of the most distinguished characters of the day; and when Jeffrey enrolled he found himself a fellow-debater of those who afterwards obtained the foremost name in their respective walks of life. Of these it is sufficient to name Sir Walter Scott, Lord Brougham, Lord Moncrieff, Francis Horner, and William Scarlett, at that time young men, but with whom it was impossible for the most talented to contend without being braced by such formidable exercise. It was no wonder, therefore, that by such weekly meetings Jeffrey soon perfected himself in the practice of composition, and became a ready and eloquent debater. Three years was the usual period of attendance; but after this term he continued for four years a voluntary visitor, and took part in its proceedings with unabated interest. In 1834, when he had reached the full summit of his reputation as sovereign of the empire of criticism and champion of the Scottish bar, he presided at a dinner, to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the institution, and gloried in acknowledging the benefits he had derived from it.

Jeffrey had now reached his twentieth year, and was busy in preparation for passing as a Scottish advocate, while he thus characterized himself: "I have lived on this earth very nearly one score of years, and am about to pass some professional trials in a few months, who have no fortune but my education, and who would not bind myself to adhere exclusively to the law for the rest of my life for the bribery of all the emoluments it has to bestow." He had so learned