THE WORKS OF HENRY MACKENZIE, ESQ. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. THE MAN OF FEELING, AND MISCELLANEOUS PIECES. EDINBURGH: PRINTED FOR R. SCHOLEY AND G. COWIE & Co. LONDON ; AND FOR DOIG & STIRLING, EDINBURGH. 1815. 4-29-44 49911 3v. SHORT SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE AND WRITINGS. HENRY MACKENZIE was born about the year 1746. He is descended from a distinguished branch of the MACKENZIES of the north of Scotland. After having received a liberal education, he turned his attention to the study of the law, and in 1766 became an attorney in the Scottish Court of Exchequer. He was, at an early period of his life, a favourite with the muses; for while very young, he wrote several small pieces in verse. From these juvenile attempts in poesy, he was encouraged to aspire to rival the admired masters in the composition of the sentimental and pathetic novel; for he soon after offered his beautiful piece of THE MAN OF FEELING to the public. It was published in 1770, without the author's name; but it was not long until every voice to enthusiasm was eager in its praise. The fair especially, and the young, were its most passionate admirers. Never were the native sentiments of uncorrupted youth represented in a light more enchantingly amiable, than in the character of its Hero. Harley is refined to an angelic purity of soul. He reasons little; he needs not to be guided by the cold precepts of reason; he has moral sensibility to keep him ever amiably in the right : but his moral sensibility is alive, even to a degree of morbid delicacy and tremulous feebleness. His adventures are such as tend to show his character in all the lights necessary to make us see it fully and distinctly. He is educated in retirement he comes to town, and there visits some remarkable scenes, and has a part in several striking incidents: he returns to the country, and after languishing a while in love, which he does not tell, expires in a joy too great not to overpower his feebleness, at the very moment : |