appointment to a canonry in connection with St. Paul's Cathedral.*

He also has the gift of a new country "living" in Somersetshire, where he passes his later summer in another delightfully equipped home; and between these two church holdings, and certain legacies conveniently falling due, he has a large income at command, and enjoys it, and makes the poor of his parishes enjoy it too.

He has taken a lusty hand in that passage of the Reform bill (1832), and while its success seemed still to be threatened by the sullen opposition of the House of Lords, he made that famous witty comparison in which he likened the popular interest in Reform to a great storm and tide which had set in from the Atlantic, and the opposition of the Lords, to the efforts of Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, and—

"who was seen at the door of her house with mops and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and

* This was arranged through Lord Grey, in exchange for a place in Bristol Cathedral, which had been bestowed by his Tory friend Lyndhurst. To the same friend he was indebted for his living at Combe Fleurey.

SYDNEY SMITH'S WIT.

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vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up. But I need not tell you the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest."

And this happy and droll comparison was met with a great roar of laughter and of applause that ran all over England. The same tactics of witty ridicule belonged also to his attacks upon Tractarianism and Puseyism, which made stir in his latter days. Indeed, his bump of veneration was very small; and his drollery creeps into his letters as into his speech. He writes of a visit to Edinboro':

"My old friends were glad to see me; some were turned Methodists, some had lost their teeth, some had grown very fat, some were dying, and, alas! many were dead. But the world is a coarse enough place; so I talked away, comforted some, praised others, kissed some old ladies, and passed a very riotous week.” *

He writes to Moore, the poet :

"DEAR MOORE: I have a breakfast of philosophers at ten, punctually, to-morrow-' muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction.' Will you come ?"

* Life and Times of Rev. Sydney Smith, by Stuart J. REID, p. 226, 1885.

When Mrs. Smith is ailing at her new home in

Somersetshire he says:

"Mrs. S

has eight distinct illnesses, and I have nine. We take something every hour, and pass the mixture between us."

One part of his suffering comes of hay fever, as to which he says:

"Light, dust, contradiction

-

the sight of a dissenter

anything sets me sneezing; and if I begin sneezing at twelve, I don't leave off till two, and am heard distinctly in Taunton (when the wind sets that way), a distance of six miles."

This does not show quite so large a reserve and continence of speech as we naturally look for in the clerical profession; but this, and other such do, I think, set the Rev. Sydney Smith before us, with his witty proclivities, and his unreserve, and his spirit of frolic, as no citations from his moral and intellectual philosophy could ever do. And I easily figure to myself this portly, well-preserved gentleman of St. Paul's, fighting the weaknesses of the gout with a gold-headed cane, and picking his way of an afternoon along the pavements of Piccadilly, with eye as bright as a bird's, and beak as

MACKINTOSH.

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sharp as a bird's-regaling himself with the thought of the dinner for which he is booked, and of the brilliant talkers he is to encounter, with the old parry and thrust, at Rogers's rooms, or under the noble ceiling of Holland House.

A Highlander.

Another writer-whose sympathies from the beginning were with the Liberalism of the Edinburgh Review (though not a contributor till some years after its establishment) was Sir James Mackintosh.* A Highlander by birth- he was at Aberdeen University — afterwards in Edinboro', where he studied medicine, and getting his Doctorate, set up in London-eking out a support, which his medical practice did not bring, by writing for the papers.

This was at the date when the recent French Revolution and its issues were at the top of all men's thoughts; and when Burke had just set up his glittering bulwark of eloquence and of sentiment in his famous "Reflections"; and

* James Mackintosh, b. 1765; d. 1832; Vindicia Gallica (reply to Burke), 1791; Memoirs, by his son, 1835.

our young Doctor (Mackintosh) — full of a bumptious Whiggism, undertook a reply to the great statesman a reply so shrewd, so well-seasoned,

so sound that it brought to the young Scotchman (scarce twenty-five in those days) a fame he never outlived. It secured him the acquaintance of Fox and Sheridan, and the friendship of Burke, who in his latter days invited the young pamphleteer, who had so strongly, yet respectfully, antagonized his views, to pass a Christmas with him at his home of Beaconsfield. Of course, such

a success broke up the doctoring business, and launched Mackintosh upon a new career. He devoted himself to politics; was some time an accredited lecturer upon the law of nations; was knighted presently and sent to Bombay on civil service. His friends hoped he might find financial equipment there, but this hope was vain; redtape was an abomination to him always; cashbook and ledger represented unknown quantities; he knew no difference between a shilling and a pound, till he came to spend them. He was in straits all his life.

His friendship for Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and