Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 35.djvu/157

Rh (1789); and the ‘White Hypocrite’ (1789). These were all unsuccessful (cf., vi. 310; Gent. Mag. 1831, i. 183).

Mackenzie belonged to a convivial and literary club all the members of which, except himself, were young Edinburgh advocates, and at his suggestion they established a weekly periodical on the model of the ‘Spectator.’ It was entitled the ‘Mirror,’ and was the first Scottish periodical of the kind. It appeared, under Mackenzie's superintendence, weekly from 23 Jan. 1779 to 27 May 1780, when it was reissued in volume form. Of the hundred and ten papers which it contained, forty-two were written by Mackenzie. Occasionally he followed so closely in Addison's footsteps as to suggest plagiarism (cf. Notes and Queries, 5th ser. ii. 325). Among Mackenzie's chief contributions were two pathetic stories, ‘La Roche,’ one of the characters in which was an idealised portraiture of Mackenzie's friend, David Hume the philosopher, and ‘Louisa Venoni.’ Both tales were translated into French and Italian, and of the many reprints of them, that in vol. i. of ‘Classic Tales, Serious and Lively’ (1806), is noticeable, because Leigh Hunt, the editor of the series, prefixed to it a discriminating essay on the writings and genius of Mackenzie. Selections from the ‘Mirror,’ with a eulogistic notice of Mackenzie, were published at London in 1826 by Robert Lynam [q. v.] With the aid of former contributors to the ‘Mirror,’ and again under Mackenzie's superintendence, a periodical of the same kind, ‘The Lounger,’ was issued from 6 Feb. 1785 to 6 Jan. 1787. Of its hundred and one papers, fifty-seven were written by Mackenzie. One of them, that for 9 Dec. 1786, was a glowing tribute to the genius of Burns, the first edition of whose poems had been published in the preceding July, and it included an appeal to the Scottish public to exert itself to avert Burns's contemplated migration to the West Indies.

Mackenzie was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In volume ii. of its ‘Transactions’ was published his ‘Account of the German Theatre,’ a paper read before it 21 April 1788. He did not then know German, and his acquaintance with the contemporary German drama was derived solely from French translations. Nevertheless his paper excited so much attention that Sir Walter Scott ascribed to it the beginning in Scotland of that general interest in German literature which had so marked an effect upon himself (, Life of Scott, 1850 edit. p. 56). It is said that, after studying German, Mackenzie published in 1791 ‘Translations of the Set of Horses by Lessing, and of two or three other Dramatic Pieces’ (cf., Dict. p. 1177), but there is no trace of the work in the catalogue of the British Museum Library or in that of the Edinburgh Advocates' Library. Among his other contributions to the ‘Transactions of the Edinburgh Royal Society’ were memoirs, in the volume for 1796, of Lord Abercromby, the Scottish judge, and William Tytler of Woodhouselee, the champion of Mary Queen of Scots. Mackenzie was also one of the most active members of the Highland Society of Scotland. To vol. i. of its ‘Prize Essays and Transactions’ (1799–1824) he contributed an ‘Account of its Institution and Principal Proceedings,’ and to each of the succeeding five volumes an account of its principal proceedings during the period embraced in it. He was the convener and chairman of its committee appointed to inquire into the nature and authenticity of the poems of Ossian, and drew up its report (published in 1805), the gist of which was that Macpherson had greatly altered and added to fragments of poetry which were recited in the highlands of Scotland as the work of Ossian [see, 1738–1796].

Mackenzie also wrote much, though always anonymously, on contemporary politics. Of his political writings the only one which he subsequently acknowledged was his elaborate defence of Pitt's policy, in a ‘Review of the Principal Proceedings of the Parliament of 1784,’ which he wrote at the instance of his friend Henry Dundas, first viscount Melville [q. v.] According to his own statement it was ‘anxiously revised and corrected’ by Pitt himself. ‘The Letters of Brutus to certain Celebrated Political Characters,’ issued collectively in 1791, and strongly Pittite in tone, Mackenzie contributed to the ‘Edinburgh Herald’ in 1790–1. Another volume, ‘Additional Letters of Brutus,’ brought them down to February 1793. In 1793 appeared, still anonymously, his abridgment of the depreciatory ‘Life of Thomas Paine, by Francis Oldys,’ one of the pseudonyms of George Chalmers [q. v.] Mackenzie's services to the constitutional cause, as it was then called, were recognised when, in 1804, through the joint influence of Henry Dundas and George Rose, he was appointed to the lucrative office of comptroller of taxes for Scotland, which he held until his death. It required and received from him unremitting personal attention.

In 1807 his three principal fictions, with some of his tales and sketches in the ‘Mirror’ and the ‘Lounger,’ were issued at Edinburgh in three volumes as ‘The Works of Henry Mackenzie.’ There being only the printer's