We regret to announce the death of this eminent literary character, and venerable citizen, so well known as the author of The Man of Feeling, and many other productions.  Mr. Mackenzie had been confined almost to his room for a considerable time past by the general decay attending old age, and expired, we understand, on the evening of Friday the 14th.  There will no doubt in time come from his friends a biographical account of so distinguished and excellent a man; and although it might not be proper to enter into detail at present, we cannot but with feelings of regret notice the departure of almost the last of that eminent class of literary men, who, above fifty years ago, cast such a lustre on our city.  They were succeeded, indeed, by a more stern, and probably more philosophical class of writers, as displayed in the papers of the Edinburgh Review, and similar productions; but in that delicate perception of human character and human manners, so correctly, so elegantly, and often so humourously delineated in the numbers of the Mirror and Lounger, where Mr. Mackenzie was the chief contributor, as well as in his other works, and in his general views of the great principles of moral conduct, there have been few authors more distinguished.  The elegant society in Edinburgh, well known in former days by the name of the “Mirror Club,” consisted, besides Mr. Mackenzie, of several gentlemen who were afterwards Judges in the Court of Session—­viz.  Lord Bannatyne, Lord Cullen, Lord Abercrombie, Lord Craig, and also Mr. George Home and Mr. George Ogilvie.  The first, now Sir William Bannatyne, a venerable and most accomplished gentleman of the old school, is the only survivor.  Mr. Mackenzie was in his 86th year, having been born in 1745.  His eldest son is Lord Mackenzie, at present an eminent Judge in the Courts of Session and Justiciary.

—­Edinburgh Evening Courant.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

  A snapper up of unconsidered trifles.

SHAKSPEARE.

ARCH POETRY.

Pope Leo X. was particularly fond of Querno, a poet, the author of “The Alexiad,” and who, at an entertainment given by some young men of rank, had been dignified with the appellation of “The Arch Poet.”  Leo used occasionally to send him some dishes from his table; and he was expected to pay for each dish with a Latin distich.  One day, as he was attending Leo at dinner, and was ill of the gout, he made this line: 

  Archi-poeta facit versus pro mille poetis:

  What pains for others the arch poet takes,
  He for a thousand poets verses makes.

As Querno hesitated for the next line, the good-humoured Pontiff replied—­

  Et pro mille aliis Archi-poeta bibit:

  If for a thousand he’s obliged to think,
  He chooses for as many more to drink.