St. Giles Street] THE DAILY REVIBW: 289
the vehicle for the dissemination of the rich vein
of humour which ran through his character,
His qualities as a writer in a daily journal were
amply displayed during the six years he edited the
Ddy Review, and a melancholy interest attaches
to his connection with that journal, as he literally
?died in harness.? His great reading gave him
genuine mind and culture, was ever and anon made
evident, sometimes with curious solicitude.? When
death came upon Mr. Manson he was only in his
forty-ninth year, and had not been confined by illness
to the house for a single day. After breakfast,
he had seated himself in his study to write a leader
welcoming John Bright to Edinburgh j and the few
*
TRINITY COLLEGE CHURCH (RESTORED).
extensive resources, while his long study of public
matters and knowledge of past political transactions
were remarkable, or equalled only in the parallel
instance of Alexander Russel, of the Scotsman
His tastes were various ; for in classic authors and
in the Scottish vernacuIar he was equally at home.
?He could scourge pretenders, but he loved to
welcome every genline accession to our literary
treasures, and to give a fresh and advantageous
setting to any gFms that might be found in the
volume with which he had to deaL Indeed, amid
the rough strokes of political war, his regard for
any opponent whom he believed to be a man of
31
lines he wrote were penned, as usual, without a
single elision, when Mrs. Manson entering the
room about twelve o?clock, saw him lying back
in his chair, as she supposed asleep-but it was
the sleep of death. This was on the 2nd of November,
1868.
Mr. Manson, who was long regretted by men
of many professions pver the length and breadth
of the kingdom, and by friends who mourned
him as a genial acquaintance, was succeeded by
the late Henry Kingsley, who occupied the editonal
chair for eighteen months, and who was
succeeded in turn by Dr. George Smith, formerly