"high prizes" in the Clerical lottery are still quoted by those who wish entirely to abolish these Institutions. His attack on American repudiation we believe proceeded almost solely from his abhorrence of dishonest practices. It was understood that his venture in the Pensylvanian funds was something ludicrously small, compared with the outcry he made on his possible loss. No pecuniary interest could be alleged to have actuated him in this controversy, however he might have felt his interests at stake in opposing the Chapter Reforms. His Petition to the American Congress is a model of serious and dignified writing. The phrase of "a gigantic bankruptcy extending over many degrees of latitude and longitude," may perhaps be objected to, as savouring of his humorous exaggerations. However, the Petition itself is in remarkable contrast to the manner in which he defended it from successive attacks, where he allowed his genius to run riot as if in compensation for its previous restraint. But instead of lingering over these fugitive pieces, we shall conclude by a short account of the posthumous work on Moral Philosophy, which has just appeared.

Sydney Smith was well known in London, at the commencement of the century, as a fashionable preacher. His Sermons at the Foundling and at Fitzroy Chapel, were published, as we have already said, by himself in two vols., and a third has appeared since his death. We will not speak of him as a theologian. In the increased earnestness of the times, probably no school of divines would now be willing to identify itself with his religious teaching. We are afraid that his heart was not in the work.

Fond as he was of talking of the improvements of the age, he recognized the need of no improvement in the department of the pulpit. In his usual course of preaching, as Canon of St. Paul's, he composed a Sermon on the Queen's Accession, and which he has inserted in his collected works. It is entirely employed in enforcing the political duties of the Sovereign, except that he gives a warning not to encourage fanaticism, and not to become righteous overmuch. This was a special occasion, demanding a new sermon; but at other times, he contented himself with preaching again the discourses which had been in print thirty years before, and which had drawn fashionable crowds when first delivered. But this is a painful subject, and we turn to another part of his carcer, where at least he exerted himself inoffensively. During the seasons of 1804, and of the two following years, he delivered courses of Lectures at the Royal Institution, then recently established, on Moral Philosophy. Not however as the students of Paley would suppose-grave lectures on the duties of life; but rather, as himself describes the science, as it admitted of being taken in contrast with Natural Philosophy. In other words, it was neither more nor less than a course of what was generally then called, "Scotch Metaphysics" -a study to which he had been introduced, through his residence in Edinburgh. The subject was new to his audience, and

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in his manner of treating it he certainly rescued Philosophy from the obsolete charge of being " sour and crabbed." The lectures, we can easily believe, were very popular. They were afterwards neglected by their author, who probably was conscious how little original matter they contained. Some portions seem to have been destroyed, or worked up as articles in the Edinburgh Review. What remained has now been published by his widow, owing to the advice of Lord Jeffrey, to whom it appears the MS. had been some time before submitted, and who, in the first instance, dissuaded its publication. His letter to Mrs. Smith is valuable for the candour with which he retracts his former opinion, and has besides a melancholy interest as having been written only three days before his own short and fatal illness. Edinburgh, January 18th, 1850. "MY EVER DEAR MRS. SMITH,-I cannot tell you how grateful I am to you for having sent me this book; not merely (or chiefly) as a proof of your regard, or as a memorial of its loved and lamented author, but for the great and unexpected pleasure I have already derived, and feel sure I shall continue to derive, from its perusal. Though it came to me in the middle of my judicial avocations, and when my infirm health scarcely admitted of any avoidable application, I have been tempted, in the course of the last two days, to read more than the half of it! and find it so much more original, interesting, and instructive, than I had anticipated, that I cannot rest till I have not merely expressed my thanks to you for the gratification I have received, but made some amends for the rash, and, I fear, somewhat ungracious judgment I passed upon it, after perusing a few passages of the manuscript, some years ago. I have not recognised any of these passages in any part of the print I am now reading, and think I must have been unfortunate in the selection, or chance, by which I was then directed to them. But, however that be, I am now satisfied that in what I then said, I did great and grievous injustice to the merit of these Lectures, and was quite wrong in dissuading their publication, or concluding that they would add nothing to the reputation of the author; on the contrary, my firm impression is, that, with few exceptions, they will do him as much credit as anything he ever wrote, and produce, on the whole, a stronger impression of the force and vivacity of his intellect, as well as a truer and more engaging view of his character, than most of what the world has yet seen of his writings. The book seems to me to be full of good sense, acuteness, and right feeling very clearly and pleasingly written -and with such an admirable mixture of logical intrepidity, with the absence of all dogmatism, as is rarely met with in the conduct of such discussions. Some of the conclusions may be questionable; but I do think them generally just, and never propounded with anything like arrogance or in any tone of assumption, and the whole subject treated with quite as much, either of subtlety or profundity, as was compatible with a popular exposition of it. "I retract therefore, peremptorily and firmly, the advice I formerly gave against the publication of these discourses: and earnestly recommend you to lose on time in letting the public at large have the pleasure and benefit of their perusal. The subject, perhaps, may prevent them from making any great or immediate sensation; but I feel that they will excite considerable interest, and command universal respect; while the previous circulation of your 100 eleemosynary copies among persons who probably include the most authoritative and efficient guides of public taste and opinion now living, must go far to secure its early and favourable notice.

"I write this hurriedly, after finishing my legal preparations for to-morrow, and feel that I shall sleep better, for this disburdening of my conscience. I feel, too, as if I was secure of your acceptance of this tardy recantation of my former heresies; and that you will be pleased,and even perhaps a little proud, of your convert? But if not, I can only say that I shall willingly submit to

any penance you can find in your heart to impose on me. I know enough of that heart of old, not to be very apprehensive of its severity; and now, good night, and God bless you! I am very old, and have many infirmities; but I am tenacious of old friendships, and find much of my present enjoyments in the recollections of the past. With all good and kind wishes, ever very gratefully and affectionately yours, "F. JEFFREY."

We believe the remark of Lord Jeffrey to be well founded, that the Lectures in question give a more engaging view of our author's character, than most of what the world has yet seen of his writings. In becoming a lecturer, he occupied neutral ground. His audience was not merely a frivolous and fashionable body, such as too frequently flocked to the eloquent preacher on Sundays. Among them were many of the religious world who were interested in the popularization of science, and who desired to see more solid acquirements generally diffused throughout society. Thus they hailed Sydney Smith's Lectures as a good substitute for cards, and introductory of something better than the usual inanities of a fashionable party. He, on his part, introduced nothing into his prelections that could excite controversy, while there was much in which all his hearers could join in approving.

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A work of this kind, fragmentary at best, and whose subjects since his time have received such different treatment as to make his method antiquated if not obsolete, would not be a fair theme for rigid criticism. Accordingly we are not about to examine his theories of "Conception," "Memory," "Imagination," and so forth, as these are successively propounded in accordance with the approved philosophy of Reid and Dugald Stewart. It is enough to say generally, that if his views are not original, his illustrations are eminently so. Many of them might be quoted as specimens of his best style. He has devoted two Lectures to the subject of "Wit and Humour," on which he probably found himself most at home-Hannibal lecturing on the art of war. We give the following extract on the evil effect of yielding to ridicule.

"I know of no principle which it is of more importance to fix in the mind of young people than that of the most determined resistance to the encroachments of ridicule. Give up to the world, and to the ridicule with which the world enforces its dominion, every trifling question of manner and appearance; it is to toss courage and firmness to the winds, to combat with the mass upon such subjects as these. But learn from the earliest days to inure your principles against the perils of ridicule: you can no more exercise your reason, if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life, if you are in the constant terror of death. If you think it right to differ from the times, and to make a stand for any valuable point of morals, do it, however rustic, however antiquated, however pedantic it may appear ;-do it, not for insolence, but seriously and grandly,-as a man who wore a soul of his own in his bosom, and did not wait till it was breathed into him by the breath of fashion. Let men call you mean, if you know you are just; hypocritical, if you are honestly religious; pusillanimous, if you feel that you are firm. Resistance soon converts unprincipled wit into sincere respect; and no aftertime can tear from you those feelings which every man carries within him who has made a noble and successful exertion in a virtuous cause."

The two Lectures on the Conduct of the Understanding contain many valuable precepts. The following passage on the Love of Study, and how it ought to be pursued, may be taken as an instance.

:

"Besides the shame of inferiority, and the love of reputation, curiosity is a passion very favourable to the love of study; and a passion very susceptible of increase by cultivation. Sound travels so many feet in a second; and light travels so many feet in a second. Nothing more probable: but you do not care how light and sound travel. Very likely but make yourself care; get and very soon up, shake yourself well, pretend to care, make believe to care, you will care, and care so much, that you will sit for hours thinking about light and sound, and be extremely angry with any one who interrupts you in your pursuits; and tolerate no other conversation but about light and sound; and catch yourself plaguing every body to death who approaches you, with the discussion of these subjects. I am sure that a man ought to read as he would grasp a nettle :-do it lightly, and you get molested; grasp it with all your strength, and you feel none of its asperities. There is nothing so horrible as languid study: when you sit looking at the clock, wishing the time was over, or that somebody would call on you and put you out of your misery. The only way to read with any efficacy, is to read so heartily, that dinnertime comes two hours before you expected it. To sit with your Livy before you, and hear the geese cackling that saved the capitol; and to see with your own eyes the Carthaginian suttlers gathering up the rings of the Roman knights after the battle of Cannæ, and heaping them into bushels; and to be so intimately present at the actions you are reading of, that when any body knocks at the door, it will take you two or three seconds to determine whether you are in your own study, or in the plains of Lombardy, looking at Hannibal's weather-beaten face, and admiring the splendour of his single eye-this is the only kind of study which is not tiresome; and almost the only kind which is not useless: this is the knowledge which gets into the system, and which a man carries about and uses like his limbs, without perceiving that it is extraneous, weighty, or inconvenient." (pp. 277, 278.)

His cure for the love of contradicting is conveyed in our Author's peculiar vein.

"I touched a little, in my last Lecture, upon that habit of contradicting, into which young men,--and young men of ability in particular,-are apt to fall; and which is a habit extremely injurious to the powers of the understanding. I would recommend to such young men an intellectual regimen, of which I myself, in an early period of life, have felt the advantage: and that is, to assent to the two first propositions that they hear every day; and not only to assent to them, but, if they can, to improve and embellish them; and to make the speaker a little more in love with his own opinion than he was before. When they have a little got over the bitterness of assenting, they may then gradually increase the number of assents, and so go on as their constitution will bear it and I have little doubt that, in time, this will effect a complete and perfect cure.' (pp. 283, 284.)

In a Lecture on Habit, while he allows the fact that, so far as relates to the body, habit weakens our passive impressions, at the same time that it strengthens our active determinations, he doubts whether the principle holds true in regard of mental habits—thus opposing his immediate teacher Dugald Stewart, as well as Bishop Butler, who first announced the principle in the famous 5th Chapter of the Analogy. He adduces some apparent instances to the contrary, but ends the discussion by saying, "it may very likely be true; and in dissenting from such truly great authorities, I am only stating the nature and extent of my own ignoCHRIST OBSERV. No. 150.

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rance;

but it is better to do this candidly at once, than to subscribe to opinions which, after all the attention I am capable of giving to them, appear to me to be wrong." This is probably what Lord Jeffrey would call an instance of "logical intrepidity, together with the absence of all dogmatism."

We might give further extracts from this interesting volume— passages too of striking eloquence and of great beauty; and which might have an additional attraction for some of our older readers, as perhaps recalling the time when they heard them fall from his own lips. But these are sufficient for our present purpose, as conveying generally the character and contents of the work. Whether, as Lord Jeffrey hints, there are more of his writings than have yet been published, and which may hereafter see the light-we do not know. Meantime Sydney Smith has taken his place among English writers, though what that place is, and for how long he may retain it, is hardly within the province of contemporaries to judge. He will probably, however, be as long remembered as any of the writers who were associated with him, and who in active life held more prominent and higher positions; and he will stand as the representative of the spirit of the journal which stimulated his earliest efforts in literature. We have already indicated what we consider to have been his leading fault and defect-namely, a low appreciation of his sacred responsibilities, a worldliness of mind, a wit which, while it often did good service, was too often allowed undue scope in regard of matters beyond and above its province. But in all the public and private relations of life, he uniformly maintained a high moral bearing. He appears to have had an attached circle of friends. No one can look at the portrait prefixed to this Edition, and suppose that levity was the prevailing feature of his disposition. On the contrary-assuming this as evidence, it is probable that whoever was exhilarated by his ceaseless sallies of wit and humour, "himself was not." Indeed the general impression left on the mind by the perusal of his writings is a grave, if not a melancholy, onc. On closing the volume, we discover that we have been engaged with a writer of great mental vigour, one who takes a practical common sense view of every subject that comes within the sphere of his vision, and that consequently his estimate of life is not unmixed with sadness-a feeling, however, which he unhappily endeavours to dissipate by acting on the favourite maxim of Swift, "vive la bagatelle;" whereas, had he followed (it was equally within his reach) a far different model-had he, like Pascal under similar circumstances, taken refuge from vexing thoughts in similar consolations-he might, like him also, have commanded the undivided admiration of the wise and good.

Memoirs of John Howard. By Hepworth Dixon. London: Jackson and Walford. 1849.

WE cannot but regard it as a sign of the especial favour of God