Editing Henry Cockburn, Lord Cockburn (section)

==Literary career==
Cockburn contributed regularly to the ''[[Edinburgh Review]]''. In this popular magazine of its day he is described as: "rather below the middle height, firm, wiry and muscular, inured to active exercise of all kinds, a good swimmer, an accomplished skater, an intense lover of the fresh breezes of heaven. He was the model of a high-bred Scotch gentleman. He spoke with a [[Doric dialect (Scotland)|Doric]] breadth of accent. Cockburn was one of the most popular men north of the Tweed."<ref name="turnbull">Monuments and Statues of Edinburgh, Michael T.R.B. Turnbull (Chambers)p. 53</ref> He was a member of the famous [[Speculative Society]], to which [[Sir Walter Scott]], [[Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux|Henry Brougham]] and [[Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey|Francis Jeffrey]] belonged.

The extent of Cockburn's literary ability only became known after he had passed his 70th year, on the publication of his biography of lifelong friend [[Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey|Lord Jeffrey]] in 1852, and from his chief literary work, the ''Memorials of his Time'', which appeared posthumously in 1856. His published work continued with his ''Journal'', published in 1874. These constitute an autobiography of the writer interspersed with notices of manners, public events, and sketches of his contemporaries, of great interest and value.