Henry Mackenzie author of The Man of Feeling (1771) pleads the insignificance of his Life

 

In 1771 the London publisher Thomas Cadell published anonymously The Man of Feeling which became a best seller and still serves as an exemplar of the eighteenth-century Sentimental Novel. It was also stylistically innovative, something not always appreciated at the time. The author was Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831), an energetic lawyer and from 1804 Comptroller for Taxes in Scotland, who combined this professional career with extensive literary and journalistic activity and in 1783 co-founded the Royal Society of Edinburgh with Sir James Grant of Grant whose sister Penuel he had married. That explains the dateline of the letter transcribed below . 

In the letter Mackenzie pleads the insignificance of his life as his reason for refusing to collaborate beyond a bare minimum on a proposed biography. In contrast, in  1808 he was involved in the production of an eight-volume collection of his works by his original publisher Cadell.  In Robert Chambers’ 1853 Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen the biographer says that, except in one case, when asked for his recollections of famous men, “he never could be persuaded to commit them to paper”. In the present instance, it could also be that Mackenzie, a lifelong Tory in politics, had his doubts about collaborating with Richard Phillips (1767-1840) in the recent past a political radical who in 1793 had served jail time in Leicester for selling Paine’s Rights of Man; Phillips was also a life-long vegetarian. About Mr Ritchie I discover nothing.

In 1803 Phillips included an entry for Mackenzie in volume 5 of his vast six volume Public Characters (a book with one of those sub-titles which goes on forever); it occupies twenty pages (pp 351-371) and is now  online with  open access. Also currently (August 2026) online I discover a later version 1823 of that biographical entry, torn from the original volume,  annotated with factual corrections in what may be Mackenzie’s own hand. No full-length biography was published until 1931 on the centenary of his death.

The letter was written on inferior paper which has aged badly and is now falling apart.

Transcription

Addressed to: Mr Philips [sic – spelt as the usual Phillips at the end of the letter]    Bookseller    No. 71 St Paul’s Churchyard    London

Datelined: Castle Grant Inverness-shire   16 August 1800

Postmarked NAIRN [the nearest post town], transit postmark of Edinburgh AU 22, London arrival mark AUG 23. Unusually, the letter is enclosed in an outer wrapper which doubles the postal charge paid by the recipient and is calculated to a final total of 1 shilling and 10d (written as 1/10) and equivalent to about £7.50 in 2026. Postage charges did not drop significantly until the introduction of postage stamps and Penny Postage in 1840.

Sir

Having left Edinr. [Edinburgh] on a journey to the North I did not receive your letter till withing these two Days.

I mentioned to you in London, very sincerely, that the Circumstances of a Life so private as mine were of too little importance to be recorded, & that O reall had no “Tracts or Notices” wh I think was the phrase in Mr Ritchie’s Letter, to communicate. That my publications were before the World, & that any one had a Title to make what remarks on them they might be thought liable to. That any Information as to Dates, which was one object of Mr Ritchie’s Enquiry, that my Memory or Papers afforded I should very willingly give him if he would let me know those which he particularly wished to be informed of. This, Sir, was the precise Extent of my promise, which, if a Life so insignificant as mine shall still be reckoned an Object for such a Work, I  ..… willing to abide me. I shall return to Edinr. about the Beginning of Sept.

I am, Sir, Your most obdt. Servt   Henry Mackenzie

Mr Phillips [sic]

 

References

Wikipedia: Henry Mackenzie

Wikipedia: Richard Phillips (publisher)

Wikipedia: Sir James Grant, 8^th Baronet

https://blog.nls.uk/henry-mackenzie-and-the-man-of-feeling/  Author Robert Bettereidge 2021

https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Public_Characters/6QxEAQAAMAAJ?hl=en

https://www.abebooks.com/Henry-Mackenzie-Scottish-Novelist-Autograph-Signature/30986377216/bd