Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey (1773–1850) was a Scottish critic, political writer, judge, and lawyer. He was the founder and longtime editor of The Edinburgh Review, the preeminent organ of British political and literary criticism in the early 19th century.
Born in Edinburgh, Jeffrey studied at Glasgow and Oxford. He was called to the Scottish Bar in 1794 but discovered that his liberal Whig politics hindered his professional advancement.
In 1802, still struggling for success in law, Jeffrey joined with Sydney Smith, Henry Brougham, and other writers to launch a liberal critical periodical, The Edinburgh Review. Jeffrey served its editor 1803–29, after which he continued to contribute essays on criticism, biography, politics, and ethics.
Jeffrey was a great admirer of many writers, including John Keats and Charles Dickens. He is noted for his personal bias against Romanticism and failed to appreciate the ‘Lake Poets,’ infamously beginning his review of William Wordsworth’s The Excursion (1814) with the words ‘This will never do.’
When the Whig Party, which the Edinburgh Review had powerfully supported, came into office in 1830, Jeffrey was appointed lord advocate. As a member of the House of Commons, he introduced the Scottish Reform Bill in 1831. In 1834, he was made a judge of the Court of Session and assumed the title of Lord Jeffrey.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
The tendency to whining and complaining may be taken as the surest sign symptom of little souls and inferior intellects.
—Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
Topics: Complaints, Pessimism, Complaining
Simplicity of manner is the last attainment. Men are very long afraid of being natural, from the dread of being taken for ordinary.
—Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
Topics: Manners
There is nothing respecting which a man may be so long unconscious, as of the extent and strength of his prejudices.
—Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
Topics: Prejudice
Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one.
—Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
Topics: Reputation
Satire is a composition of salt and mercury; and it depends upon the different mixture and preparation of those ingredients, that it comes out a noble medicine, or a rank poison.
—Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
The disease and its medicine are like two factions in a besieged town; they tear one another to pieces, but both unite against their common enemy, Nature.
—Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
Topics: Medicine, Disease
Many who have tasted all the pleasures of sin have forsaken it and come over to virtue; but there are few, if any, who having tried the sweets of virtue could ever be drawn off from it, or find in their hearts to fall back to their former course.
—Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey
Topics: Virtue
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Hugh Blair Scottish Minister, Scholar
Van Wyck Brooks American Literary Critic
John Churton Collins English Literary Critic
Bayard Taylor American Poet
George Edward Woodberry American Literary Critic
Diana Trilling American Literary Critic
Anatole Broyard American Literary Critic
F. L. Lucas English Literary Critic
Harold Bloom American Literary Critic, Author
Thomas Carlyle Scottish Historian, Essayist