Such
an One;' 'Mrs. Doctor Such an One,' and so on. Toasts were _de rigueur_:
no glass of wine was to be taken by a guest without comprehending a
lady, or a covey of ladies. 'I was present,' says Lord Cockburn, 'when
the late Duke of Buccleuch took a glass of sherry by himself at the
table of Charles Hope, then Lord Advocate, and this was noticed as a
piece of ducal contempt.' Toasts, and when the ladies had retired,
_rounds_ of toasts, were drunk. 'The prandial nuisance,' Lord Cockburn
wrote, 'was horrible. But it was nothing to what followed.'

At these repasts, though less at these than at boisterous suppers, a
frequent visitor at the same table with Sydney Smith was the illustrious
Sir James Mackintosh, a man to whose deep-thinking mind the world is
every day rendering justice. The son of a brave officer, Mackintosh was
born on the banks of Loch Ness: his mother, a Miss Fraser, was aunt to
Mrs. Fraser Tytler, wife of Lord Woodhouselee, one of the judges of the
Court of Session and mother of the late historian of that honoured name.

Mackintosh had been studying at Aberdeen, in the same classes with
Robert Hall, whose conversation, he avowed, had a great influence over
his mind. He arrived in Edinburgh about 1784, uncertain to what
profession to belong; somewhat anxious to be a bookseller, in order to
revel in 'the paradise of books;' he turned his attention, however, to
medicine, and became a Brunonian, that is, a disciple of John Brown, the
founder of a theory which he followed out to the extent in practice. The
main feature of the now defunct system, which set scientific Europe in a
blaze, seems to have been a mad indulgence of the passions; and an
unbridled use of intoxicating liquors. Brown fell a victim to his vices.
Years after he had been laid in his grave, his daughter, Euphemia, being
in great indigence, received real kindness from Sir James and Lady
Mackintosh, the former of whom used to delight in telling the story of
her father's saying to her: 'Effy, bring me the mooderate stimulus of a
hoonderd draps o' laudanum in a glass o' brandy.'

Mackintosh had not quitted Edinburgh when Sydney Smith reached it. Smith
became a member of the famous Speculative Society. Their acquaintance
was renewed years afterwards in London. Who can ever forget the small,
quiet dinners given by Mackintosh when living out of Parliament, and out
of office in Cadogan Place? Simple but genial were those repasts,
forming a strong