Jeffrey, Francis, Lord

(1773-1850)

   Born in Edinburgh, he was educated at the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Queen's College, Oxford, and was admitted to the Scottish bar in 1794. He joined with Sydney Smith and others to establish The Edinburgh Review- a liberal critical periodical that supported the Whig Party-and was editor from 1803 until 1829. He took part in the foundation of the Edinburgh Academy (1824) and was afterwards a director. When the Whig Party came into office in 1830, Jeffrey, who had built up a reputation as an advocate, was appointed lord advocate and introduced the Scottish Reform Bill in 1831. In 1834 he was made a judge and assumed the title of Lord Jeffrey. He wrote a great quantity of verse and two plays, and was severely critical of the "Lake Poets" (a group of Romantic poets-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, and William Wordsworth-who lived in the "Lake District" in northwestern England). He was buried very quietly in the Dean Cemetery near Edinburgh. Some of his poems: "Epitaph on Richard Hind," "In Christ Church, Bristol, on Thomas Turner," "On Peter Robinson."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Faber Book of Epigrams and Epitaphs. Geoffrey Grigson, ed. Faber and Faber, 1977. The Norton Book of Light Verse. Russell Baker, ed. W.W. Norton, 1986. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. What Cheer: An Anthology of American and British Humorous and Witty Verse. David McCord, ed. Coward-McCann, 1945.