JEFFREY, one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review, was born in Edinburgh, October 23d, 1773, and educated for the bar. He began practice in 1794, but the claims of his business as a young advocate left him ample leisure and he joined with Brougham, Sidney Smith, and others, in establishing the Edinburgh Review, the first number of which (October 10th, 1802) was edited by Sidney Smith and the next three by Jeffrey, with Brougham as the principal political contributor. The Review which remained chiefly under the editorship of Jeffrey, was a success from the beginning, and it made all its principal contributors famous. But Jeffrey never wholly recovered from the ex cathedra style which the critical reviewer of that period used as an indispensable part of his offensive armament. In 1829 he gave up the editorship of the Review to become Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, and the rest of his life was largely devoted to law and public affairs. He became Lord Rector of Glasgow University in 1820, Lord Advocate in 1830, Member of Parliament in 1832, and Judge of the Court of Sessions in 1834. He died January 26th, 1850. He had a strong and active intellect, and it appears in his essays, saving many of them from the deserved oblivion which has overtaken most of the overbearing geniuses of that period of talented and insolent reviewers. Of his best essay—his Obituary of Watt—it is at once simple justice and the highest possible praise to say that it is worthy of the subject.