Mackenzie, HENRY

Mackenzie, HENRY, the 'Man of Feeling,' was born in Edinburgh, 26th August 1745. A physician's son, he passed from the High School to the university, in 1765 went up to London to pursue his law studies, and, returning to Scotland, became crown attorney in the Court of Exchequer, and in 1804 comptroller of taxes. For upwards of half a century he was 'one of the most illustrious names connected with polite literature in Edinburgh,' where he died at the great age of eighty-five, on 14th January 1831. His Man of Feeling was published anonymously in 1771; The Man of the World followed in 1773, and Julia de Roubiqué in 1777. All three have something of Richardson, and more of Sterne, but nothing of their genius. The first, which alone is not wholly forgotten, which indeed was reprinted by Professor Henry Morley in 1886, is perhaps the most namby-pamby effusion that ever 'attained classical celebrity.' His other writings include some Tory pamphlets, lives of Blacklock and Home, ninety-nine papers in the Mirror and Lounger, and four very weak plays. At least, he deserves recognition for his own recognition of Burns, and as an early admirer of Lessing and of Schiller.