AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

SYDNEY SMITH's Life: he who opens this book under the expectation of reading in it curious adventures, important transactions, or public events, had better close the volume, for none of these things will he find therein.

Nothing can be more thoroughly private and eventless than the narrative I am about to give; yet I feel myself, and I have reason to believe there are many who will feel with me, that this Life is not therefore uninteresting or unimportant: for, though circumstances over which my father had no control forbade his taking that active share in the affairs of his country, for which his talents and his character so eminently fitted him, yet neither circumstances nor power could suppress these talents, or subdue and enfeeble that character; and I believe I may assert, without danger of contradiction, that by them, and the use he has made of them, he has earned for himself a place among the great men of his time and country.

Such being the case, however, his talents, and the employment of them, are alone before the world. This is but half the picture, and I believe few who have known so much do not wish to know more.

The mode of life, the heart, the habits, the thoughts and feelings, the conversation, the home, the occupations of such a man-all, in short, which can give life and reality to the picture—are as yet wanting; and it is to endeavor to supply this want that I have ventured to undertake this task.

It is always more difficult to write the life of a pri