g tribute to
the accomplishments of Sir James Mackintosh is qualified by the remark that
"the Greek language has never crossed the Tweed in any great force." In
brief, be understood and respected classical scholarship. He was keenly
interested in English literature, and kept abreast of what was produced in
France; but German he seems to have regarded as a kind of joke, and Italian
he only mentions as part of a young lady's education.

In 1819 he wrote to his son at Westminster:--

"For the English poets, I will let you off at present with Milton,
Dryden, Pope, and Shakespeare; and remember, always in books, keep the
best company. Don't read a line of Ovid till you have mastered Virgil;
nor a line of Thomson till you have exhausted Pope; nor of Massinger,
till you are familiar with Shakespeare."

He thought Locke "a fine, satisfactory sort of a fellow, but very
long-winded"; considered Horace Walpole's "the best wit ever published in
the shape of letters"; and dismissed Madame de Sevigne as "very much
over-praised." Of Montaigne he says--"He thinks aloud, that is his great
merit, but does not think remarkably well. Mankind has improved in thinking
and writing since that period."

It was, of course, part of his regular occupation to deal with new books in
the _Edinburgh_; and, apart from these formal reviews, his letters are full
of curious comments. In 1814 he declines to read the _Edinburgh's_
criticism of Wordsworth, because "the subject is to me so very
uninteresting." In the same year he writes:--

"I think very highly of _Waverley_, and was inclined to suspect, in
reading it, that it was written by Miss Scott of Ancrum."

In 1818 he wrote about _The Heart of Midlothian_:--

"I think it excellent--quite as good as any of his novels, excepting
that in which Claverhouse is introduced, and of which I forget the
name.... He repeats his characters, but it seems they will bear
repetition. Who can read the novel without laughing and crying twenty
times?"

In 1820:--

"Have you read _Ivanhoe_? It is the least dull, and the most easily
read through, of all Scott's novels; but there are many more
powerful."

Later in the same year:--

"I have just read _The Abbot_; it is far above common novels, but of
very inferior execution to his others, and hardly worth reading. He
has exhausted the subject of Scotland, and worn out the few characters