Blacklock. The gentle, modest, and unaffectedly elegant manners of Mr. Mackenzie avoided all offence to the irritable English philosopher, But, unluckily, after Mr. Mackenzie had gone, Mrs. Blacklock spoke with a zeal in his praise, which excited a sort of conversation-quarrel between her and Johnson. She justly commended Mr. Mackenzie, as joining to tenderness and elegance of genius, the most amiable social virtues; and mentioned, in proof of his filial piety, that his father and he lived still together, in one house, in such harmony, that it were difficult to say, whether the father shewed greater esteem and kindness for his son, or the son more of reverence and affectionate attachment to his father. "They ought not to live, thus, together, Madam," answered Johnson, roughly. Mrs, Blacklock, much astonished and even shocked, asked," how Dr. Johnson could think so?"" The son, Madam, having attained the years of manhood and discretion, ought to become the master of a family for himself: the order of nature and the uses of society require, that it should be so. If it were the intention of Providence, that parents and their grown-up children should continue to make one family; it would be less rare than we, now, sce that it is, for them to live in harmony together." Even this observation could not reconcile the lady to the idea of making that a subject of reprehension in Mr. Mackenzie, which appeared to her, to be the most amiable quality any young man could possess. In her polite attention to her guest, she soon after asked Dr. Johnson to

take

take another cup of tea; though he had before declined to have any more. "I tell thee, no! woman!" replied Johnson, with fierce rudeness. They parted with mutual irritation. Johnson afterwards remembered the Blacklocks with respect and kindness. But, their gentleness and benevolence had been so much shocked by the roughness of his manners and the harshness of his remarks, that it was at least with no common exercise of christian forbearance and charity, if they were able afterward to think of him with the same benignity of judgment and of wishes which they were accustomed to exercise toward every person else.

Julia de Roubigné, a novel, in letters, is the last work larger in extent than a tale of a few pages, which Mr. Mackenzie has been known to attempt in this way. The fable is not uninteresting: the letters are written with great elegance and propriety of style. But, the sentiments and characters are out of nature; and yet not among those felicities of imagination, for which we are well content to see the limits of nature overleaped. The events are romantically tragic, and not of pleasing example. This piece has been less frequently reprinted than either the "Man of Feeling," or the " Man of the World." Yet, there is in it, much to give delight to a tender and elegant mind, much that might even transport a youthful fancy to a delirium of wild melancholy and love.

He produced a tragedy, under the title of the Prince of Tunis," which was acted at the Edin

burgh

burgh Theatre. The representation was repeated with applause, for six nights.-Mrs. Yates, then, at Edinburgh, appeared in the principal female character. It has never been performed at any of the theatres in London.

In the year 1776, Mr. Mackenzie married Miss Penuel Grant, sister to Sir James Grant, of Grant.

Some years after, he and a few of his friends who used to meet, occasionally, for convivial conversation, at a tavern kept by one Bayll, a Frenchman, projected the publication of a series of papers similar to the Spectator, on morals, manners, taste, and literature. They were united in a club which had the name of the Tabernacle, and were all, or almost all, lawyers. Mr. Mackenzie was at the head of the project. Mr. Craig, Mr. Cullen, Mr. Bannatyne-Macleod, now judges in the supreme courts of Scotland, the late Mr. Abercrombie who died a Judge, Mr. Solicitor-general Blair, and Mr. George Home clerk of session, agreed to become his coadjutors. The papers were to be published in weekly numbers; and, in allusion to the representations which they were to exhibit of human life, sentiments, and manners, it was settled to give them the common title of "The Mirror."

This scheme was carried into effect. The papers were published in weekly numbers, each filling a sheet in folio. The succession was continued for more than two years. The price of a single copy of each number was threepence. About three or four hundred only were sold, in single papers; but this sale, though inconsiderable, served at least to make the whole very advan

advantageously known. The succession of the numbers was no sooner closed, than the whole were republished in three duodecimo volumes. In England especially, they were now read with great applause. The approbation they received in London, which for such a species of compositions in particular, is the very Athens of modern Europe, seemed to stamp an authority on the praises of those by whom they were commended in Scotland, sufficient to put all censure to silence. As the authors mingled in the highest circles of fashionable and literary life, they wanted not opportunity, while their names remained unknown, to promote the reputation of their work, by many little artifices, which, though perfectly honourable and disingenuous-for, of none else was any of them capable-could not have been equally used, if they had, from the first, openly avowed it to be theirs. They had the discretion to hide their names from being at all mentioned in relation to it, till its success was complete; and then, the appropriation of the different papers, in a new edition, to those by whom they had been respectively written, served but to renew and augment the public curiosity respecting the whole. They took money for the copy-right; out of which they, first, bestowed an hundred pounds in charity to the Orphan Hospital; and with the rest, purchased an hogshead of claret for the use of the club.

Some years afterwards, conceiving that they had still materials sufficiently fresh and original among them, to furnish out another series of similar papers, they produced, in the same manner, the numbers of

the

the Lounger, which were equally received with favour, at their first appearance; were collected in subsequent editions in duodecimo and octavo; were at last publicly avowed by the authors; and continue still to be read with pleasure wherever the English language is known. Mr. Frazer-Tytler, now Lord Woodhouselie of the court of session, the late Dr. Henry the historian, Dr. Currie of Liverpool, and some few other correspondents, had furnished contributions, not in great quantity, which were inserted, in the Mirror and Lounger, among the writings of the club.

In attempting to judge of the merits of these two publications, one must begin with owning, that they are but imitations. The imitation of the plan of the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guardians, is, indeed, common to the Mirrors and Loungers, with many other series of papers of a similar nature. But, I doubt, whether there be any other similar set of papers that has less than these of originality to boast, in the two great provinces of ethical observations penetrating beyond the mere surface of life, to the general nature of man, and of light, airy fictions illustrative of the familiar manners of society. Of serious morality, they have nothing of which the elements may not be found in the papers of Steele, Addison, Johnson, and Hawkesworth. Their dreams have been dreamed, told, and interpreted before: their visions have been scen by former seers: their letters from feigned characters, are merely echoes: their allegorical ironies scarce ever present Humour otherwise than in old clothes which she had before worn threadbare.

It