which I mentioned elsewhere. The mutual esteem was accordingly very great, and arose from circumstances most honourable to both parties." I believe," said Mr. Shelley on another occasion, "that I have only to say to Horace Smith that I want a hundred pounds or two, and he would send it me without any eye to its being returned; such faith has he that I have something within me beyond what the world supposes, and that I could only ask his money for a good purpose." And he would have sent for it accordingly, if the person for whom it was intended had not said nay. I will now mention the circumstance which first gave my friend a regard for Mr. Smith. It concerns the person just mentioned, who is a man of letters. It came to Mr. Smith's knowledge, some years ago, that this person was suffering bitterly under a pecuniary trouble. He knew little of him at the time, but had met him occasionally; and he availed himself of this circumstance to write him a letter as full of delicacy and cordiality as it could hold, making it a matter of grace to accept a banknote of 100%. which he enclosed. I speak on

the best authority, that of the obliged person himself; who adds that he not only did accept the money, but felt as light and happy under the obligation, as he has felt miserable under the very report of being obliged to some; and he says, that nothing could induce him to withhold his name, but a reason which the generous would excuse. From his friends in private he has no reason to conceal it; and he does not, as I can testify: and there is one thing more which, he says, he will conceal from nobody; which is, that subsequently to that obligation, he incurred others from the friend in question, which not only taxed his friend's kindness, but his patience; and that, notwithstanding these trials, the other was still so generous to discern in him what was well-intentioned from what was badly managed, and has retained to this hour so kind an opinion of him, that he never makes a step in better management (for his slow progress in which he has had more excuses than most people, in sickness, temperament, and a total want of education for it,) but he is accompanied, and assisted, with the hope of pleasing him before long, with the

sight of the fruits of it.

Such friends, and such only, (including those whose wish to act like them is as unequivocal as their inability,) are the friends that do a man all the good that can be done him, because they are not only generous to his virtues, but as humane to his faults as other people are to their own. For my part, I scarcely ever write a page which the public think worth reading, and which they like because it serves to keep them in heart with nature and mankind; but Horace Smith is one of those friends whom I fancy myself talking with, and whom I wish to gratify. It is such as he that a humanist would have the world become, and that furnish a proof that the wish is not founded in impossibility. Swift said, that if the world contained a dozen Arbuthnots, he would burn his books. I am convinced that the world contains hundreds of Arbuthnots, if education would but do their natures justice. Give me the education of a community, in which mutual help, instead of selfish rivalry, was the principle inculcated, and riches regarded not as the end but the means, and I would undertake, not upon the strength

of my own ability, but on the sole ground of the absence of what is at present taught us, to fill the place full of Arbuthnots and Horace Smiths; not, indeed, as to wit and talent, but with all their geniality and sense and openheartedness; with the same reasonableness of gain, and readiness of enjoyment.

When Mr. Horace Smith sees this account of himself, he will think that too much has been said of his generosity; and he would be right, if society were constituted otherwise than it is. Actions of this kind are not so common in trading communities as in others; because people learn to taste the value of every sixpence that passes through their hands. And, for the same reason, they are more extravagantly admired; sometimes with a fatuity of astonishment, sometimes with an envy that seeks relief in sarcasm. All these excesses of homage are painful to a man, who would fain have every body as natural and generous as himself; but the just tribute must not be withheld on that account; otherwise there would be still fewer counteractions to the selfishness so abundantly taught us. At the period in

question, I have said that Mr. Smith was a stockbroker. He left business with a fortune, and went to live in France, where, if he did not increase, he did not seriously diminish it; and France added to the pleasant stock of his knowledge.

On returning to England, he set about exerting himself in a manner equally creditable to his talents and interesting to the public. I will not insult either the modesty or the understanding of Mr. Horace Smith, by comparing him with the author of "Old Mortality" and "Guy Mannering:" but I will venture to say, that the earliest of his novels, "Brambletye House," ran a hard race with the novel of "Woodstock," and that it contained more than one character not unworthy of the best volumes of Sir Walter. I allude to the ghastly troubles of the Regicide in his lone house; the outward phlegm and merry inward malice of Winky Boss (a happy name), who gravely smoked a pipe with his mouth, and laughed with his eyes; and, above all, to the character of the princely Dutch merchant, who would cry out that he should be ruined, at seeing a few nut