Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/89

Rh the "Edinburgh Review" itself would be supplanted by younger and more popular candidates. But to this his answer was, "I have no sense of duty that way, and feel that the only sure, or even probable result of the attempt, would be hours and days of anxiety, and unwholesome toil, and a closing scene of mortification." It was the apology of one who had already written so much that he had become weary of the task—or who had written so well, that he was afraid of risking all he had already won upon such a final and decisive cast. At all events, he rested satisfied with the fame he had already acquired, and in this way it may be that he acted wisely. On the 27th of June, 1838, his daughter, and only child, was married to William Empson Esq., professor of Law in the East India College, Haileybury; and this union, besides imparting an additional charm to his yearly visits to England, produced to him those solaces for his old age, which, perhaps, a new successful literary undertaking would have failed to impart. These were the little grandchildren, who were soon entwined like rich tendrils around his affectionate heart, and in whose society he renewed all the freshness and buoyancy of his early youth.

In his capacity of judge, Lord Jeffrey was connected with those decisions of the Court of Session that preceded the disruption of the Church of Scotland; and his award was in favour of that party by whom the Free Church was afterwards constituted. He took an intense interest in the whole controversy from the commencement, and even at an early period foresaw that a disruption was inevitable, while he lamented such a fatal necessity. But still his heart was with the dissentients, for he saw that they could not act otherwise, consistently with their convictions as to the spiritual independency of the church. Thus he felt while their case was discussed in the Court of Session, and afterwards removed by appeal to the House of Lords, and he regarded the final award of the supreme tribunal as short sighted, unjust, and tyrannical. At length, the crisis approached, for the meeting of the General Assembly of 1843 was at hand. His interest about the result in the great coming conflict of the church was thus expressed: "I am anxious to hear what her champions and martyrs are now doing, and what is understood to be their plan of operation at the Assembly. It will be a strange scene any way, and I suppose there will be a separation into two assemblies." He knew too well the elements of the Scottish character, and was too conversant with the history of our national church, to believe, as most of the politicians of the day believed, that the opposition of the evangelical party would break down at the last moment under the argument of manse, glebe, and stipend. But would the secession be on such a scale as to constitute a great national movement? Or when the crisis came, might there not be such a fearful winnowing as would reduce the protesting party to a mere handful? At length the day and the hour of trial arrived. Jeffrey was reading in his study, when tidings were brought to him that the whole body had departed as one man—that four hundred and fifty ministers had fearlessly redeemed their pledge to sacrifice their earthly interests at the command of duty, and had left the Assembly to constitute another elsewhere! He threw the book from him, and exclaimed, in a tone of triumph, "I am proud of my country! no other than Scotland," he added, "would have acted thus."

The remainder of Lord Jeffrey's life was passed in the enjoyment of a happy old age, his duties of judge, to which he attended to the last, being alternated with social intercourse, domestic enjoyment, and reading that incessant process of acquiring new ideas, without which it seemed as if he could not have sur-