Educated at Winchester and Trinity College, Cambridge, he succeeded Sir James Mackintosh as professor of law at the East India College, Haileybury. He wrote for the Edinburgh Review, of which he became editor in 1847.

REFERENCES TO William Empson:

Henry Hallam to John Whishaw, 28 April 1828 in The “Pope” of Holland House: Selections from the Correspondence of John Whishaw and his Friends 1813-1840 (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1906)

Sydney Smith to Sarah Austin, 29 October 1841 in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. By his Daughter, Lady Holland. With a Selection from his Letters, edited by Mrs. Austin 2 vols (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855)

Sydney Smith to Henry Hollad, August 1844 in A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. By his Daughter, Lady Holland. With a Selection from his Letters, edited by Mrs. Austin 2 vols (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855)

Lord Monteagle to Samuel Rogers, [December 1852] in Samuel Rogers and his Contemporaries 2 Vols (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1889)

Charles Webb Le Bas to Francis Hodgson, 16 December 1852 in Memoir of Francis Hodgson 2 Vols (London: Macmillan and Co., 1878)