We have, however, a notion of our own, | sharp, clear, and decided-wrought and moved which we mean, as a close to the article, to in a rich medium of humor. Each thought, as indicate. The laureateship was too long a sop it came forth from his brain, issued as "in dance,' for parasites, whose politics and poetry were and amid a flood of inextinguishable laughter. equally tame. It seems now to have become The march of his mind through his subject the late reward of veteran merit-the Popedom resembled the procession of Bacchus from the of poetry. Why not, rather, hang it up as a conquest of India-joyous, splendid, straggling crown, to be won by our rising bards-either to the sound of flutes and hautboys-rather a as the reward of some special poem on an appointed subject, or of general merit? Why not delay for a season the bestowal of the laurel, and give thus a national importance to its decision?

IT

SIDNEY SMITH.

SIDNEY SMITH.

BY GEORGE GILFILLAN.

T is melancholy to observe how speedily, successively, nay, almost simultaneously, our literary luminaries are disappearing from the sky. Every year another and another member of the bright clusters which arose about the close of the last, or at the beginning of this century, is fading from our view. Within nineteen years, what havoc, by the "insatiate archer," among the ruling spirits of the time! Since 1831, Robert Hall, Andrew Thomson, Goethe, Cuvier, Mackintosh, Crabbe, Foster, Coleridge, Edward Irving, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Lamb, Southey, Thomas Campbell, &c., have entered on the "silent land;" and latterly has dropped down one of the wittiest and shrewdest of them all-the projector of the "Edinburgh Review" -the author of "Peter Plymley's Letters"the preacher-the politician-the brilliant converser-the "mad-wag"-Sidney Smith.

It was the praise of Dryden that he was the best reasoner in verse who ever wrote; let it be the encomium of our departed Sidney that he was one of the best reasoners in wit of whom our country can boast. His intellect-strong,

His

victory than a march-rather a revel than a
contest. His logic seemed always hurrying
into the arms of his wit. Some men argue in
mathematical formula; others, like Burke, in
the figures and flights of poetry; others in the
fire and fury of passion; Sidney Smith in exub-
erant and riotous fun. And yet the matter of
his reasoning was solid, and its inner spirit earn-
est and true. But though his steel was strong
and sharp, his hand steady, and his aim clear,
the management of the motions of his weapon
was always fantastic. He piled, indeed, like a
Titan, his Pelion on Ossa, but at the oddest of
angles; he lifted and carried his load bravely,
and like a man, but laughed as he did so; and
so carried it that beholders forgot the strength
of the arm in the strangeness of the attitude.
He thus sometimes disarmed anger; for his
adversaries could scarcely believe that they had
received a deadly wound while their foe was
roaring in their face. He thus did far greater
execution; for the flourishes of his weapon might
distract his opponents, but never himself, from
the direct and terrible line of the blow.
laughter sometimes stunned, like the cachination
of the Cyclops, shaking the sides of his cave.
In this mood-and it was his common one-
what scorn was he wont to pour upon the oppo-
nents of Catholic emancipation-upon the ene-
mies of all change in legislation-upon any
individual or party who sought to obstruct
measures which, in his judgment, were likely
to benefit the country. Under such, he could
at any moment spring a mine of laughter; and
what neither the fierce invective of Brougham,
nor the light and subtle raillery of Jeffrey could
do, his contemptuous explosion effected, and,
himself crying with mirth, saw them hoisted
toward heaven in ten thousand comical splinters.
Comparing him with other humorists of a sim-
ilar class, we might say, that while Swift's ridi-
cule resembles something between a sneer and
a spasm (half a sneer of mirth, half a spasm
of misery)-while Cobbett's is a grin-Fon-
blanque's a light but deep and most significant
smile-Jeffrey's a sneer, just perceptible on his
fastidious lip-Wilson's a strong, healthy, hearty
laugh-Carlyle's a wild unearthly sound, like
the neighing of a homeless steed-Sidney Smith's
is a genuine guffaw, given forth with his whole
heart, and soul, and mind, and strength.
from his matchless humor, strong, rough, instinct-
ive, and knotty sense was the leading feature of
his mind. Every thing like mystification, soph-
istry, and humbug, fled before the first glance
of his piercing eye; every thing in the shape of
affectation excited in him a disgust "as implac-
able" as even a Cowper could feel. If possible,

Apart

66

with still deeper aversion did his manly nature | eternized in one of John Foster's most ponder regard cant in its various forms and disguises; ous pieces of sarcasm? In an evil hour the and his motto in reference to it was, spare no dexterous and witty critic came forth from bearrows." But the mean, the low, the paltry, hind the fastnesses of the Edinburgh Review, the dishonorable, in nations or in individuals, whence, in perfect security he had shot his moved all the fountains of his bile, and awak- quick glancing shafts at Methodists and Misened all the energy of his invective. Always sions, at Christian Observers and Eclectic Relively, generally witty, he is never eloquent, views, at Owens and Styles, and (what the more except when emptying out his vials of indigna- wary Jeffrey, in the day of his power, always tion upon baseness in all its shapes. His is the avoided) became himself an author, and, miraire of a genuine "English gentleman, all of the bile dictu, an author of sermons. It was as if olden time." It was in this spirit that he re- he wished to give his opponents their revenge; cently explained, in his own way, the old distinc- and no sooner did his head peep forth from betions of Meum and Tuum to Brother Jonathan, neath the protection of its shell than the elephantwhen the latter was lamentably inclined to for- ine foot of Foster was prepared to crush it in get them. It was the same sting of generous the dust. It was the precise position of Saladin indignation which, in the midst of his character with the Knight of the Leopard, in their memof Mackintosh, prompted the memorable picture orable contest near the Diamond of the Desert. of that extraordinary being who, by his tran- In the skirmish Smith had it all his own way ; scendent talents and his tortuous movements- but when it came to close quarters, and when his head of gold, and his feet of miry clay- the heavy and mailed hand of the sturdy Baphas become the glory, the riddle, and the regret tist had confirmed its grasp on his opponent, of his country, his age, and his species. the disparity was prodigious, and the discomfiture of the light horseman complete. But why recall the memory of an obsolete quarrel and a forgotten field? The sermons-the causa belli-clever but dry, destitute of earnestness and unction-are long since dead and buried; and their review remains their only monument.

As a writer, Smith is little more than a very clever, witty, and ingenious pamphleteer. He has effected no permanent chef d'auvre; he has founded no school; he has left little behind him that the "world will not willingly let die;" he has never drawn a tear from a human eye, nor excited a thrill of grandeur in a human bosom. His reviews are not preserved by the salt of Even when, within his own stronghold, our original genius, nor are they pregnant with author intermeddled with theological topics, it profound and comprehensive principle; they have was seldom with felicity or credit to himself. no resemblance to the sibylline leaves which His onset on missions was a sad mistake; and Burke tore out from the vast volume of his mind, in attacking the Methodists, and poor, pompous and scattered with imperial indifference among John Styles, he becomes as filthy and foulthe nations; they are not the illuminated indices mouthed as Swift himself. His wit forsakes of universal history, like the papers of Macaulay; him, and a rabid invective ill supplies its place; they are not specimens of pure and perfect En- instead of laughing, he raves and foams at the glish, set with modest but magnificent ornaments, mouth. Indeed, although an eloquent and poplike the criticism of Jeffrey or of Hall; nor are ular preacher, and in many respects an ornathey the excerpts, rugged and rent away by ment to his cloth, there was one radical evil violence, from the dark and iron tablet of an about Smith; he had mistaken his profession. obscure and original mind, like the reviews of He was intended for a barrister, or a literary Foster; but they are exquisite jeux d'esprit, man, or a member of parliament, or some occuadmirable occasional pamphlets, which, though pation into which he could have flung his whole now they look to us like spent arrows, yet soul and strength. As it was, but half his heart assuredly have done execution, and have not was in a profession which, of all others, would been spent in vain. And as, after the lapse of require the whole. He became consequently a a century and more, we can still read with rather awkward medley of buffoon, politician, pleasure Addison's "Old Whig and Freeholder," preacher, literateur, divine, and diner-out. Let for the sake of the exquisite humor and inimit-us grant, however, that the ordeal was severe, able style in which forgotten feuds and dead logomachies are embalmed, so may it be, a century still, with the articles on Bentham's Fallacies and on the Game Laws, and with the letters of the witty and ingenious Peter Plymley. There is much at least in those singular productions in their clear and manly sense-in their broad native fun in their rapid, careless, energetic style-and in their bold, honest, liberal, and thoroughly English spirit-to interest several succeeding generations, if not to secure the rare and regal" palm of immortality.

Sidney Smith was a writer of sermons as well as of political squibs. Is not their memory

and that, if a very few have weathered it better, many more have ignominiously broken down. No one coincides more fully than we do with Coleridge in thinking that every literary man should have a profession; but in the name of common sense let it be one fitted for him, and for which he is fitted-one suited to his tastes as well as to his talents-to nis habits as wel. as to his powers-to his heart as well as to his head.

As a conversationist, Sidney Smith stood high among the highest-a Saul among a tribe of Titans. His jokes were not rare and refined, like those of Rogers and Jekyll; they wanted

the slyness of Theodore Hook's inimitable equiv-| oque; they were not poured forth with the prodigal profusion of Hood's breathless and bickering puns; they were rich, fat, unctuous, always bordering on farce, but always avoiding it by a hair's-breadth. No finer cream, certes, ever mantled at the feasts of Holland House than his fertile brain supplied; and, to quote himself, it would require a "forty-parson power" of lungs and language to do justice to his convivial merits. An acquaintance of ours sometimes met him in the company of Jeffrey and Macaulay-a fine concord of first-rate perform

THOMAS CARLYLE.

too, as we may see hereafter, Emerson, on his way home from Italy, dropped in like a spirit, spent precisely twenty-four hours, and then "forth uprose that lone wayfaring man," to return to his native woods. He has, for several years of late, resided in Chelsea, London, where he lives in a plain, simple fashion; occasionally, but seldom, appearing at the splendid soirées of Lady Blessington, but listened to, when he goes, as an oracle; receiving, at his tea-table, visitors from every part of the world; forming an amicable centre for men of the most opposite opinions and professions, Poets and Preachers, Pantheists and Puritans, Tennysons and Scotts, Cavanaighs and Erskines, Sterlings and Robertsons, smoking his perpetual pipe, and pouring out, in copious stream, his rich and quaint philosophy. His appearance is fine, without being ostentatiously singular—his hair dark-his brow marked, though neither very broad nor very lofty—his cheek tinged with a healthy red-his eye, the truest index of his genius, flashing out, at times, a wild and mystic fire from its dark and quiet surface. He is above the middle size, stoops slightly, dresses carefully, but without any approach to foppery. His address, somewhat high and distant at first, softens into simplicity and cordial kindness. His conversation is abundant, inartificial, flowing on, and warbling as it flows, more practical than you would expect from the cast of his writings-picturesque and graphic in a high measure-full of the results of extensive and minute observation-often terribly direct and strong, garnished with French and German phrase, rendered racy by the accompaniment of the purest Annandale accent, and coming to its climaxes, ever and anon, in long, deep, chest-shaking bursts of laughter.

self one very peculiar charm in the perusal of them-they seemed such perfect transcripts of the conversation of Thomas Carlyle. With something more of set continuity-of composi tion-but essentially the same thing, the 'Latter Day Pamphlets' are in their own way a 'Boswell's Life' of Carlyle. As I read and read, I was gradually transported from my clubroom, with its newspaper-clad tables, and my dozing fellow-loungers, only kept half awake by periodical titillations of snuff, and carried in spirit to the grave and quiet sanctum in Chelsea, where Carlyle dispenses wisdom and hospitality with equally unstinted hand. The long, tall, spare figure is before me—wiry, though, and elastic, and quite capable of taking a long, tough spell through the moors of Ecclefechan, or elsewhere-stretched at careless, homely ease in his elbow-chair, yet ever with strong natural motions and starts, as the inward spirit stirs. The face, too, is before me-long and thin, with a certain tinge of paleness, but no sickness or attenuation, form muscular and vigorously marked, and not wanting some glow of former rustic color-pensive, almost solemn, yet open, and cordial, and tender, very tender. The eye, as generally happens, is the chief outward index of the soul-an eye is not easy to describe. but felt ever after one has looked thereon and therein. It is dark and full, shadowed over by a compact, prominent forehead. But the depth, the expression, the far inner play of it-who could transfer that even to the eloquent canvas, far less to this very in-eloquent paper? It is not brightness, it is not flash, it is not power even-something beyond all these. The expression is, so to speak, heavy laden--as if betokening untold burdens of thought, and long, long fiery struggles, resolutely endured—endured until they had been in some practical manner overcome; to adopt his own fond epithet, and it comes nearest to the thing, his is the heroic eye, but of a hero who has done hard battle against Paynim hosts. This is no dream of mine-I have often heard this peculiarity remarked. The whole form and expression of the face remind me of Dante-it wants the classic element, and the mature and matchless harmony which distinguish the countenance of the great Florentine; but something in the cast and in the look, especially the heavy laden, but dauntless eye, is very much alike. But he speaks to me. The tongue has the sough of Annandale-an echo of the Solway, with its compliments to old Father Thames. A keen, sharp, ringing voice, in the genuine Border key, but tranquil and sedate withal-neighborly and frank, and always in unison with what is uttered. Thus does the presence of Thomas Carlyle rise before me-a 'true man' in all his bearings and in all his sayings. And in this same guise do I seem to hear from him all those 'Latter Day Pamphlets.' Even such in his "Passing from the political phase of these conversation-he sees the very thing he speaks productions (the 'Latter Day Pamphlets'), which of; it breathes and moves palpable to him, and is not my vocation to discuss, I found for my-hence his words form a picture.

Altogether, in an age of singularities, Thomas Carlyle stands peculiarly alone. Generally known, and warmly appreciated, he has of late becomepopular, in the strict sense, he is not, and may never be. His works may never climb the family library, nor his name become a household word; but while the Thomsons and the Campbells shed their gentle genius, like light, into the hall and the hovel-the shop of the artisan and the sheiling of the shepherd, Carlyle, like the Landors and Lambs of this age, and the Brownes and Burtons of a past, will exert a more limited but profounder power-cast a dimmer but more gorgeous radiance-attract fewer but more devoted admirers, and obtain an equal, and perhaps more enviable immortality.

To the foregoing sketch of CARLYE, which is from the eloquent critical description of Gilfillan, we append the following, which is from a letter recently published in the Dumfries and Galloway Courier. The writer, after remarking at some length upon the "Latter Day Pamphlets," which are Carlyle's latest productions, proceeds to give this graphic and interesting sketch of his personal appearance and conversation :

When you

come from him, the impression is like having read. An open, true, patient, and valiant soul seen a great brilliant panorama; every thing is needed; that is the one thing needful.”

had been made visible and naked to your sight. But more and better far than that; you bear home with you an indelible feeling of love for the man-deep at the heart, long as life. No man has ever inspired more of this personal

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

THE GENTLEMAN BEGGAR.
AN ATTORNEY'S STORY

affection. Not to love Carlyle when you know ONE morning, about five years ago, I called

him is something unnatural, as if one should say by appointment on Mr. John Balance, the they did not love the breeze that fans their fashionable pawnbroker, to accompany him to cheek, or the vine-tree which has refreshed them Liverpool, in pursuit for a Levanting customer both with its leafy shade and its exuberant-for Balance, in addition to pawning, does juices. He abounds, himself, in love and in a little business in the sixty per cent. line. It good works. His life, not only as a writer of rained in torrents when the cab stopped at the books,' but as a man among his fellows, has passage which leads past the pawning boxes to been a continued shower of benefits. The young his private door. The cabman rang twice, and men, more especially, to whom he has been the at length Balance appeared, looming through good Samaritan, pouring oil upon their wounds, the mist and rain in the entry, illuminated by and binding up their bruised limbs, and putting his perpetual cigar. As I eyed him rather imthem on the way of recovery of health and use- patiently, remembering that trains wait for no ful energy-the number of such can scarcely man, something like a hairy dog, or a bundle be told, and will never be known till the great of rags, rose up at his feet, and barred his passday of accounts. One of these, who in his ori-age for a moment. Then Balance cried out sons will ever remember him, has just read to with an exclamation, in answer apparently to a me, with tears of grateful attachment in his something I could not hear, “What, man alive! eyes, portions of a letter of counsel and en--slept in the passage!-there, take that, and couragement which he received from him in get some breakfast, for Heaven's sake!" So the hour of darkness, and which was but the saying, he jumped into the "Hansom," and we prelude to a thousand acts of substantial kind-bowled away at ten miles an hour, just catchness and of graceful attention. As the lettering the Express as the doors of the station were contains no secret, and may fall as a fructifying closing. My curiosity was full set-for although seed into some youthful bosom that may be en- Balance can be free with his money, it is not tering upon its trials and struggles, a quotation exactly to beggars that his generosity is usually from it will form an appropriate finale at this displayed; so when comfortably ensconced in a time. He thus writes: 'It will be good news, coupé, I finished with— in all times coming, to learn that such a life as yours unfolds itself according to its promise, and becomes in some tolerable degree what it is capable of being. The problem is your own, to make or to mar-a great problem for you, as the like is for every man born into this world. You have my entire sympathy in your denunciation of the 'explosive' character. It is frequent in these times, and deplorable wherever met with. Explosions are ever wasteful, woeful; central fire should not explode itself, but fie silent, far down at the centre; and make all good fruits grow! We can not too often repeat to ourselves, Strength is seen, not in spasms, but in stout bearing of burdens.' You can take comfort in the meanwhile, if you need it, by the experience of all wise men, that a right heavy burden is precisely the thing wanted for a young strong man. Grievous to be borne; but bear it well, you will find it one day to have been verily blessed. 'I would not, for any money,' says the brave Jean Paul, in his quaint way. 'I would not, for any money, have had money in my youth!' He speaks a truth there, singular as it may seem to many. These young obscure years ought to be incessantly employed in gaining knowledge of things worth knowing, especially of heroic human souls worth knowing. And you may believe me, the obscurer such years are, it is apt to be the better. Books are needful; but yet not many books; a few well

'You are liberal with your money this morning: pray, how often do you give silver to street cadgers ?-because I shall know now what walk to take when flats and sharps leave off buying law."

Balance, who would have made an excellent parson if he had not been bred to a case-hardening trade, and has still a soft bit left in his heart that is always fighting with his hard head, did not smile at all, but looked as grim as if squeezing a lemon into his Saturday night's punch. He answered slowly, "A cadger-yes; a beggar—a miserable wretch, he is now; but let me tell you, Master David, that that miserable bundle of rags was born and bred a gentleman; the son of a nobleman, the husband of an heiress, and has sat and dined at tables where you and I, Master David, are only allowed to view the plate by favor of the butler. I have lent him thousands, and been well paid. The last thing I had from him was his court suit; and I hold now his bill for one hundred pounds that will be paid, I expect, when he dies."

"Why, what nonsense you are talking! you must be dreaming this morning. However, we are alone, I'll light a weed, in defiance of Railway law, you shall spin that yarn; for, true or untrue, it will fill up the time to Liverpool.”

"As for yarn," replied Balance, "the whole story is short enough; and as for truth, that you