some one threw a series of thoughts across his line of vision.
He could tell all about those thoughts,--how large each was, what
complexion they had, how they stood in order with each other, and how
they compared with other thoughts which he remembered having seen
before. Such a mind might have achieved success among the technicalities
of the law, but nowhere else, had not the "Edinburgh Review" been
created. Jeffrey's critical articles have little value when regarded
according to their aim and as integral compositions; the arguments which
they contain are often insufficient, and the literary judgments wrong.
But they are full of the scattered elements of thought. Many of the best
ideas of the books and men of which they treat are stated in them with
admirable clearness and piquancy, and they are, therefore, pleasant
secondary sources of information.

Francis Horner died of consumption in Italy before he was forty years of
age, and there is nothing of surpassing brilliancy or power in any of
his writings. Yet he made a most extraordinary impression upon his
contemporaries. His name is never mentioned by his associates except
with unusual respect. Brougham, when he alludes to him, even in a
letter, seems to check his pen into soberness, and to be as cautious as
if he were speaking on a religious subject. Search through the published
correspondence of Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Mackintosh, and Horner is
found uniformly mentioned, not with peculiar affection or kindness, not
with any intention of doing him honor, but as a man whose qualities were
quite superior to those of other men, and whose destiny it was to be the
first statesman of his country. Lord Cockburn, who was a schoolmate of
Horner, relates that the latter was at one time selected by his class to
present a book to the master, and adds: "As he stepped forward at
the close of a recitation, and delivered the short Latin
presentation-address, I thought him to be a god." This fascination is
hard to be explained. The great seriousness of Horner's character may in
part account for it. He could not bear trifling on important subjects,
and could not help frowning on all jests which were not more wise
than witty. The calm determination, the unvarying earnestness of his
character, may aid in explaining it. From a boy, he never swerved from
great purposes, pursued the most useful though difficult knowledge, and
cultivated with equal zeal the ornaments of taste and those r