Talking of Lord Denman: What a face he has! how well he looks his part! He is stamped by nature for a Chief Justice. He is an honourable, high-minded man. I have a great respect for

him.'

I will explain it to you,' said Mr. D. Oh, pray don't, my dear D,' said Sydney laughing; I did understand a little about the Scotch kirk before you undertook to explain it to me yesterday; but now my mind is like a London fog on the subject.'

But I came up to speak to Annie Kay. Where is Annie Kay? Ring the bell for Annie Kay.' Kay appeared. Bring me my medicine-book, Annie Kay. Kay is my apothecary's boy, and makes up my medicines.' Kay appears with the book. I am a great doctor; would you like to hear some of my medicines?' 'Oh yes, Mr. Sydney.' There is the Gentle-jog, a pleasure to take it,-the Bull-dog, for more serious cases,-Peter's puke,-Heart's delight, the comfort of all the old women in the village,-Rub-a-dub, a capital embrocation,-Dead-stop, settles the matter at once,-Up-withit-then needs no explanation; and so on. Now, Annie Kay, give Mrs. Spratt a bottle of Rub-a-dub; and to Mr. Coles a dose of Dead-stop and twenty drops of laudanum."

This is the house to be ill in' (turning to us); indeed everybody who comes is expected to take a little something; I consider it a delicate compliment when my guests have a slight illness here. We have contrivances for everything. Have you seen my patent armour? No? Annie Kay, bring my patent armour. Now, look here: if you have a stiff neck or swelled face, here is this sweet case of tin filled with hot water, and covered with flannel, to put round your neck, and you are well directly. Likewise, a patent tin shoulder, in case of rheumatism. There you see a stomach-tin, the greatest comfort in life; and lastly, here is a tin slipper, to be filled with hot water, which you can sit with in the drawing-room, should you come in chilled, without wetting your feet. Come and see my apothecary's shop.'

We all went downstairs, and entered a room filled entirely on one side with medicines, and on the other with every description of groceries and household or agricultural necessaries; in the centre, a large chest, forming a table, and divided into compartments for soap, candles, salt, and sugar.

6

Here you see,' said he, every human want before you :

'Man wants but little here below,

As beef, veal, mutton, pork, lamb, venison show ;'

Life

spreading out his arms to exhibit everything, and laughing. is a difficult thing in the country, I assure you, and it requires a good deal of forethought to steer the ship, when you live twelve miles

from a lemon.'

By the bye, that reminds me of one of our greatest domestic triumphs. Some years ago my friend C, the arch-epicure of the Northern Circuit, was dining with me in the country. On sitting down to dinner, he turned round to the servant, and desired him to look in his great-coat pocket, and he would find a lemon; For,' he

said, 'I thought it likely you might have duck and green-peas for dinner, and therefore thought it prudent, at this distance from a town, to provide a lemon.' I turned round, and exclaimed indignantly, Bunch, bring in the lemon-bag!' and Bunch appeared with a bag containing a dozen lemons. He respected us wonderfully after that. Oh, it is reported that he goes to bed with concentrated lozenges of wild-duck, so as to have the taste constantly in his mouth when he wakes in the night.'

'Look here, this is a stomach-pump; you can't die here. Bobus roared with laughter when I showed it to him, but I saved my footman's life by it.* He swallowed as much arsenic as would have poisened all the rats in the House of Lords; but I pumped limewater into him night and day for many hours at a time, and there he is. This is my medical department. Saba used to be my apothecary's boy before Dr. Holland carried her off; Annie Kay is now promoted to it.'

We spent some time in examining the wonders of the shop, as he called it; he showing us all sorts of contrivances and comforts for both rich and poor; and, in doing so, exhibiting at the same time that mixture of sense, nonsense, forethought, and gaiety, so peculiar to himself, and which gave a charm even to the details of a grocer's shop. We then returned to the drawing-room: in a short time he followed us up, with another book in his hand. Mrs. Sydney, I find the cook wants yeast and eggs.' Yes, she has not been able to get any.' Why did you not write it down in my book, then? I always tell Mrs. Sydney, when she wants anything, to write it down in my book; once down in my book, and it is done directly. Look here, it is divided into different heads, -the carpenter, the blacksmith, the farm, the sick, the house, etc. etc; that is the way to keep house in the country. Every day I look through these wants, and remedy them. Now, Mrs. Sydney, you want eggs and yeast. I will mount the boys on the ponies, and they shall scour the country forthwith, and you shall be supplied with yeast and eggs till you cry, Hold hold enough!'

Then, looking round on us : I wish I could sew. I believe one reason why women are so much more cheerful, generally, than men, is because they can work, and vary more their employments.

*Literally true. The man had a passion for dough, and, returning hungry one night, found a lump of dough which had been prepared with arsenic for the rats, left most improperly by the gardener, on the kitchen dresser; and, indulging his passion, he devoured a considerable quantity of it. The punishment was speedy; my father was called up, and, on hearing what had happened, put the stomach-pump instantly into use, and, turning to his medical books, applied incessantly the proper remedies all night, till the arrival of the medical man in the morning. The remaining dough was analysed, and 1 am afraid to state from memory the number of grains of arsenic he had swallowed. The medical man said, nothing but the promptness of my father's reme lies could possibly have saved the poor man's life, which remained doubtful for many days; and it was months before he recovered from its effects. But he lived to show his gratitude to his master by his watchful and tender care of him in his last illness.

used to teach her sons carpet-work.

All men ought to

Lady learn to sew.' Speaking of manners as a part of education: Yes, manners are often too much neglected; they are most important to men, no less than to women. I believe the English are the most disagreeable people under the sun; not so much because Mr. John Bull disdains to talk, as that the respected individual has nothing to say, and because he totally neglects manners. Look at a French carter; he takes off his hat to his neighbour carter, and inquires after la santé de madame,' with a bow that would not have disgraced Sir Charles Grandison; and I have often seen a French soubrette with a far better manner than an English Duchess. Life is too short to get over a bad manner; besides, manners are the shadows of virtue.'

It is astonishing the influence foolish apothegms have upon the mass of mankind, though they are not unfrequently fallacies.'

"

"Did you ever hear my definition of marriage? It is, that it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.'

Some one speaking of Macaulay: Yes, I take great credit to myself; I always prophesied his greatness from the first moment I saw him, then a very young and unknown man, on the Northern Circuit. There are no limits to his knowledge, on small subjects as well as great; he is like a book in breeches. Yes, I agree, he

is certainly more agreeable since his return from India. His enemies might perhaps have said before (though I never did so) that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful. But what is far better and more important than all this is, that I believe Macaulay to be incorruptible. You might lay ribbons, stars, garters, wealth, titles, before him in vain. He has an honest, genuine love of his country, and the world could not bribe him to neglect her interests.' Talking of absence: The oddest instance of absence of mind happened to me once in forgetting my own name. I knocked at a door in London; asked, Is Mrs. B at home? Yes, Sir; pray what name shall I say?' I looked in the man's face astonished:what name? what name? ay, that is the question; what is my name? I believe the man thought me mad; but it is literally true, that dur. ing the space of two or three minutes I had no more idea who I was than if I had never existed. I did not know whether I was a Dissenter or a layman. I felt as dull as Sternhold and Hopkins. At last, to my great relief, it flashed across me that I was Sydney Smith.' I heard of a clergyman who went jogging along the road till he came to a turnpike. What is to pay?' Pay, Sir? for what?' asked the turnpike-man. Why, for my horse, to be sure.' Your horse, Sir? what horse? Here is no horse, Sir.' 'No horse? God bless me said he suddenly, looking down between his legs, ‘I thought I was on horseback.''

'Lord Dudley was one of the most absent men I think I ever met in society. myself.

One day he met me in the street, and invited me to meet Dine with me to-day; dine with me, and I will get Sydney

Smith to meet you.' I admitted the temptation he held out to me, but said I was engaged to meet him elsewhere. Another time, on meeting me, he turned back, put his arm through mine, muttering, 'I don't mind walking with him a little way; I'll walk with him as far as the end of the street.' As we proceeded together, Wpassed: That is the villain,' exclaimed he, who helped me yester. day to asparagus, and gave me no toast.' He very nearly overset my gravity once in the pulpit. He was sitting immediately under me, apparently very attentive, when suddenly he took up his stick as if he had been in the House of Commons, and tapping on the ground with it, cried out in a low but very audible whisper, Hear! hear! hear!'

By the bye, it happened to be a charity sermon, and I considered it a wonderful proof of my eloquence, that it actually moved old Lady Cto borrow a sovereign from Dudley, and that he actually gave it her, though knowing he must take a long farewell of it. I was told afterwards by Lady S that she rejoiced to see it had brought iron tears down Pluto's cheek' (meaning by that her husband), certainly little given to the melting mood in any sense.

One speech, I remember, of Dudley's gratified me much.

When I took leave of him, on quitting London to go into Yorkshire, he said to me, 'You have been laughing at me constantly, Sydney, for the last seven years, and yet in all that time you never said a single thing to me that I wished unsaid.' This, I confess, pleased me. But I must go and scour the country for yeast and eggs;'—and off

he went.

After luncheon appeared at the door a low green garden chair, holding two, and drawn by the two donkeys already introduced; but despoiled, to their obvious relief, of their antlers. This was built by my village carpenter,' said he, but its chief merit is that it cannot be overturned. You need not fear my driving now; Mrs. Sydney will give me an excellent character. She was very much afraid of me when I first took to driving her in Yorkshire, but she raised my wages before the first month. I am become an excellent whip, I assure you.' So saying, he mounted into the little vehicle, and set off with his lady at a foot's pace, we following in his train down the pretty valley into which the garden opened, and through his wood walks, till we came out upon a fine table-land above the house, commanding a splendid view of the fine range of the Quantoc Hills on the one side, and the rich vale of Taunton on the other.

There!' said he, behold all the wonders of the world beneath you! can anything be more exquisite, more beautiful? I often come up here to meditate. I think of building a Gazebo here. The landscape is perfect; it wants nothing but water and a wise man. I think it was Jekyll who used to say, that the further he went west, the more convinced he felt that the wise men did come from the east.' We have not such an article. You might ride from the rising up of the sun until the going down thereof in these regions, and not find one (I mean a real philosopher) whom you would consult on the great affairs of life. We are thoroughly primitive; agriculture and agricultural tools are fifty years behind the rest of England.'

A neighbouring squire called on me the other day, and informed me he had been reading a delightful book. The fact of his having any literary pursuits at all was equally agreeable and surprising to me, and I inquired the subject of his studies. 'Oh!' said he, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; I have just got it, and I advise you to read it. I assure you, Mr. Smith, you will find it a most amusing book.' I thanked him, cordially agreed with him, but ventured to suggest that the book was not entirely unknown to

me.'

'A joke goes a great way in the country. I have known one last pretty well for seven years. I remember making a joke after a meeting of the clergy, in Yorkshire, where there was a Rev. Mr. Buckle, who never spoke when I gave his health; saying, that he was a buckle without a tongue. Most persons within hearing laughed, but my next neighbour sat unmoved and sunk in thought. At last, a quarter of an hour after we had all done, he suddenly nudged me, exclaiming, I see now what you meant, Mr. Smith; you meant a joke.'Yes,' I said, Sir, I believe I did.' Upon which he began laughing so heartily, that I thought he would choke, and was obliged to pat him on the back.'

Talking of the singular degree of obstinacy of Miss -, on the most difficult and doubtful subjects, Oh! nothing but a surgical operation will avail; it must be cut out of her.'

I see you will not believe it, but I was once very shy. Were you indeed, Mr. Smith? how did you cure yourself?' Why it was not very long before I made two very useful discoveries: first, that all mankind were not solely employed in observing me (a belief that all young people have ;) and next, that shamming was of no use; that the world was very clear-sighted, and soon estimated a man at his just value. This cured me, and I determined to be natural, and let the world find me out.'

Oh yes! we both talk a great deal, but I don't believe Macaulay ever did hear my voice,' he exclaimed, laughing. Sometimes, when I have told a good story, I have thought to myself, Poor Macaulay he will be very sorry some day to have missed hearing

that.'

Other rules vary; this is the only one you will find without exception, that, in this world, the salary or reward is always in the inverse ratio of the duties performed.'

Some one speaking of Mr. Grenville: 'I always feel better for being in Mr. Grenville's company; it is a beautiful sunset. You know the man in a regiment who is selecteed to stand out before them as their model; he is called the fugleman. Now, Mr. Grenville I always consider as the fugleman of old-age. He has contrived to combine the freshness and greenness of mind belonging to youth, with the dignity and wisdom of age.' Some one wondering at his praises of

and telling Sydney

that he often abused him: Oh!' said my father, laughing, I know he does not spare me, but that is no reason I should not praise him. At all times I had rather be the or than the butcher.'

Talking of Sheridan: Creevy told me, once, when dining with