ABSTRACT
Born on August 6, 1745, ‘the same day [sic] that Prince Charles Stuart landed in Scotland’, and dying in 1831, Henry Mackenzie represented to Walter Scott the last link between Scott’s era and that of Robertson, Hume, Smith, Home, Clerk, and Ferguson (Eminent Novelists, vol. 2, p. 1, p. 7). A lawyer who eventually became Comptroller of the Taxes for Scotland, Mackenzie wrote a trilogy of sentimental novels: The Man of Feeling (1771), Man of the World (1773), and Julia de Roubigné (1777). His subsequent literary pursuits included drama (The Prince of Tunis, The White Hypocrite, and The Spanish Father), biography (Life of Dr. Blacklock and Life of John Home) and periodical writing in the Mirror and Lounger that earned him Scott’s accolade of being ‘the Northern Addison who revived the art of periodical writing... and showed himself a master of playful satire’ (Eminent Novelists, vol. 2, p. 17).
