Henry Mackenzie FRSE (August 1745 – 14 January 1831, born and died in Edinburgh)[1] was a Scottish lawyer, novelist and writer sometimes seen as the Addison of the North.

While remembered mostly as an author, his main income came from legal roles, which led in 1804–1831 to a lucrative post as Comptroller of Taxes for Scotland, whose possession allowing him to follow his interest in writing.

[3] His father, Dr Joshua Mackenzie, was a distinguished Edinburgh physician[4] and his mother, Margaret Rose, belonged to an old Nairnshire family.

[5] Inglis had his Edinburgh office on Niddry Wynd, off the Royal Mile,[7] a short distance from Mackenzie's family home.

The "Man of Feeling" is a weak creature, dominated by futile benevolence, who goes up to London and falls into the hands of those who exploit his innocence.

[5] The sentimental key in the book shows the author's acquaintance with Sterne and Richardson, but in Sir Walter Scott's summary assessment, his work lacked the story construction, humour and character of those writers.

[10] A clergyman from Bath named Eccles claimed authorship of the book, supporting his pretensions with a manuscript full of changes and erasures.

He wrote many tracts intended to counteract doctrines of the French Revolution, contributing to the Edinburgh Herald under the pseudonym "Brutus".

[16] Most remained anonymous, but he acknowledged his Review of the Principal Proceedings of the Parliament of 1784, a defence of the policy of William Pitt written at the desire of Henry Dundas.

There is admiring but discriminating criticism of his work in a Prefatory Memoir affixed by Sir Walter Scott to an edition of Mackenzie's novels in Ballantyne's Novelist's Library (vol.

The building was listed based on a "historical connection", but appears absurd, as it never featured among Mackenzie's official addresses.