ce, attending only a couple of law
classes at Edinburgh University. Then his father insisted on his going
to Oxford: a curious step, the reasons for which are anything but clear.
For the paternal idea seems to have been that Jeffrey was to study not
arts, but law; a study for which Oxford may present facilities now, but
which most certainly was quite out of its way in Jeffrey's time, and
especially in the case of a Scotch boy of ordinary freshman's age.

It is painful to have to say that Jeffrey hated Oxford, because there
are few instances on record in which such hatred does not show the hater
to have been a very bad man indeed. There are, however, some special
excuses for the little Scotchman. His college (Queen's) was not perhaps
very happily selected; he had been sent there in the teeth of his own
will, which was a pretty strong will; he was horrified, after the free
selection of Scotch classes, to find a regular curriculum which he had
to take or leave as a whole; the priggishness of Oxford was not his
priggishness, its amusements (for he hated sport of every kind) were not
his amusements; and, in short, there was a general incompatibility. He
came up in September and went down in July, having done nothing except
having, according to a not ill-natured jest, "lost the broad Scotch, but
gained only the narrow English,"--a peculiarity which sometimes brought
a little mild ridicule on him both from Scotchmen and Englishmen.

Very soon after his return to Edinburgh, he seems to have settled down
steadily to study for the Scotch bar, and during his studies
distinguished himself as a member of the famous Speculative Society,
both in essay-writing and in the debates. He was called on 16th December
1794.

Although there have never been very quick returns at the bar, either of
England or Scotland, the smaller numbers of the latter might be thought
likely to bring young men of talent earlier to the front. This
advantage, however, appears to have been counterbalanced partly by the
strong family interests which made a kind of aristocracy among Scotch
lawyers, and partly by the influence of politics and of Government
patronage. Jeffrey was, comparatively speaking, a "kinless loon"; and,
while he was steadily resolved not to put himself forward as a candidate
for the Tory manna of which Dundas was the Moses, his filial reverence
long prevented him from declaring himself a very violent Whig. Indeed,
he gave an instance of this r