strings to the music-book. His "Lay of the Humble," "Long Ago," and other names of melodies, strike upon the memory as softly and deeply as a note of the melodies themselves-while (apart from these lyrics) he has written some of the fullest and finest sonnets, not merely of our age, but of our literature.

The three other poets mentioned in this paper have each written very fine sonnets. Those of Charles Tennyson are extremely simple and unaffected; the spontaneous offspring of the feelings and the fancy-those of Thomas Wade are chiefly of the intellect; high-wrought, recondite, refined, classical, and often of sterling thought, with an upward and onward eye those of Hartley Coleridge are reflective; the emanations of a sad heart, aimless, of little hope, and resigned, seeming to proceed from one who has suffered the best of his life to slip away from him unused. Sonnet IX. pathetically expresses this.

"Long time a child, and still a child, when years
Had painted manhood on my cheek, was I;
For yet I lived like one not born to die;
A thriftless prodigal of smiles and tears,
No hope I needed, and I knew no fears.

But sleep, though sweet, is only sleep, and waking,
I waked to sleep no more, at once o'ertaking
The vanguard of my age, with all arrears
Of duty on my back. Nor child, nor man,
Nor youth, nor sage, I find my head is grey,
For I have lost the race I never ran,

A rathe December blights my lagging May;
And still I am a child, tho' I be old,

Time is my debtor for my years untold."

The prose writings of Hartley Coleridge-particularly his "Yorkshire Worthies," and his Introduction to "Massinger and Ford,"-are all of first-rate excellence. It is much to be regretted they are not more numerous.

02

REV. S. SMITH, A. FONBLANQUE,

AND

DOUGLAS JERROLD.

"Hard words that have been

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,

As if that every one from whom they came

Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest."-BEAUMONT.
"His fine wit

Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it."-SHELLEY.

"I shall talk nothing but crackers and fire-works to-night."-BEN JONSON.

"Hold out, ye guiltie and ye galled hides,

And meet my far-fetched stripes with waiting sides."-HALL'S SATIRES.

THE present age is destined for the first time in the history of literature and of the human mind, to display Wit systematically and habitually employed by the great majority of its possessors in the endeavour to promote the public good. While great satirists like Juvenal and Horace have been " on virtue's side," they shone all the more for being exceptions to the fraternity. Not only the vices, the follies, the vanities, the weaknesses of our fellow-creatures, have furnished the best subjects for the shafts of wit; but little self-denial was practised with reference to the nobler feelings and actions of humanity. To take a flight directly to modern times, let us alight at once upon the days of Charles the Second, when the laugh was raised indiscriminately at vice or virtue, honesty or knavery, wisdom or folly. Whatever faults such great writers as Swift and Butler, or Moliere and Voltaire, may sometimes have committed in directing their ridicule amiss, their intentions, a least, were reformatory, and therefore their errors ale not to be compared with the licentious poison whic spurted glistening from the pens of Wycherly, Farqu har, Congreve, and Vanbrugh, who had no noble aim o object, or good intention, whether sound or self-deluding but whose vicious instinct almost invariably prompted them to render heartless vice and wanton dishonesty, as attractive and successful as possible, and make every sincere and valuable quality seem dull or

REV. S. SMITH, A. FONBLANQUE, AND D. JERROLD. 163

ridiculous. All the great writers of Fables - writers who are among the best instructors, and noblest benefactors of their species- have been humorists rather than wits, and do not properly come into the question.

Up to the present period, the marked distinction between humour and wit has been that the former evinced a pleasurable sympathy; the latter, a cutting derision. Humour laughed with humanity; wit at all things. But now, for the first time, as a habit and a principle, do all the established wits, and the best rising wits, walk arm-in-arm in the common recognition of a moral aim. The very banding together of a number of genuine and joyous wits in the London Charivari," instead of all being at "daggers drawn" with each other in the old way, is in itself a perfectly novel event in the history of letters; and when this fact is taken in conjunction with the unquestionable good feeling and service in the cause of justice and benevolence displayed by its writers, the permanent existence and extensive success of such a periodical is one of the most striking and encouraging features of the age.

The strongest instances of the commencement of this change are to be found in the writings of Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt. No man has left such a number of axiomatic sayings, at once brilliant and true, as Hazlitt. That they are mixed up with many things equally brilliant, and only half-true, or, perhaps, not true at all, is not the question: he always meant them for honest truths, and invariably had a definite moral purpose in view. Perhaps in the works of Charles Lamb, and the prose writings of Leigh Hunt, wit and humour may be said to unite, and for the production of a moral effect. An anxiety to advance the truth and promote the happiness, the right feeling, the knowledge, and the welfare of mankind, is conspicuous in all the principal essays of these three authors. That the same thing should ever come to be said of wits in general, shows that the good feeling of mankind has at length enlisted on its side those brilliant "shots" who had previously refused all union or co-operation, and who, having been equally unsparing of friend or foe, rendered every noble action liable to be made ridiculous, and therefore, to a certain extent, impeded both private and public improvement and, elevation of character. It should here be observed that the office of the poetical

Satirist appears to have died out, not because there are no such men (as the world always says when no "such" man appears), but because there is no demand for him.

The three writers, each of whose names possesses a peculiar lustre of its own, have a lively sense of the humorous, but are not in themselves great as humorists. Mr. Jerrold is the only one of the three who exercises any of the latter faculty in a consecutive and characterizing form, and even with him it is apt to ramble widely, and continually emerges in caustic or sparkling dialogue and repartee, which are his forte.

The Reverend Sydney Smith gives a laconic account of the commencement of his own career in the Preface to his published works, and as his own words usually "defy competition," the best plan will be to let him speak for himself.

"When first I went into the Church," says he, "I had a curacy in the middle of Salisbury Plain. The Squire of the parish took a fancy to me, and requested me to go with his son to reside at the University of Weimar; before we could get there, Germany became the seat of war, and in stress of politics we put into Edinburgh, where I remained five years. The principles of the French Revolution were then fully afloat, and it is impossible to conceive a more violent and agitated state of society. Among the first persons with whom I became acquainted were, Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray (late Lord Advocate for Scotland,) and Lord Brougham; all of them maintaining opinions upon political subjects a little too liberal for the dynasty of Dundas, then exercising a supreme power over the northern division of the island.

"One day we happened to meet in the eighth or ninth story or flat in Buccleugh-place, the elevated residence of the then Mr. Jeffrey. I proposed that we should set up a Review; this was acceded to with acclamation. I was appointed Editor, and remained long enough in Edinburgh to edit the first number of the Edinburgh Review. The motto I proposed for the Review was,

'Tenui musam meditamur avena.'

'We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal.'

But this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom none of us had, I am sure, ever read a single line; and so began what has since turned out to be a very important and able journal. When I left Edinburgh, it fell into the stronger hands of Lord Jeffrey and Lord Brougham, and reached the highest point of popularity and

success."

After giving various good reasons for a high appreciation of the "Edinburgh Review" at the time it started, Sydney Smith says

"I see very little in my Reviews to alter or repent of: I always endeavoured to fight against evil; and what I thought evil then, I think evil now. I am heartily glad that all our disqualifying laws for religious opinions are abolished, and I see nothing in such measures but unmixed good and real increase of strength to our Establishment."

The few words with which he introduces the celebrated "Letters of Peter Plymley" (which were so very instrumental in assisting the Catholic emancipation by

extreme ridicule of all needless alarms upon the occasion) are inimitable :

"Somehow or another, it came to be conjectured that I was the author: I have always denied it; but finding that I deny it in vain, I have thought it might be as well to include the Letters in this Collection: they had an immense circulation at the time, and I think above 20,000 copies were sold.”

As displaying the political and social opinions of Sydney Smith, the following may suffice :

"It is always considered as a piece of impertinence in England, if a man of less than two or three thousand a year has any opinions at all upon important subjects; and, in addition, he was sure at that time to be assailed with all the Billingsgate of the French Revolution-Jacobin, Leveller, Atheist, Deist, Socinian, Incendiary, Regicide, were the gentlest appellations used and the man who breathed a syllable against the senseless bigotry of the two Georges, or hinted at the abominable tyranny and persecution exercised upon Catholic Ireland, was shunned as unfit for the relations of social life. Not a murmur against any abuse was permitted; to say a word against the suitorcide delays of the Court of Chancery, or the cruel punishments of the Game Laws, or against any abuse which a rich man inflicted or a poor man suffered, was treason against the Plousiocracy, and was bitterly and steadily resented."

"We believe," says the 'Times,' in a notice of the works of Sydney Smith, "that the concession of full defence to prisoners by counsel, is a boon for which humanity is in great measure indebted to the effect produced upon the public mind by his vigorous article in the Edinburgh Review,' for December, 1828." Previous to this a man might be hanged before he had been half heard.

Something remains to be added to this: Sydney Smith is opposed to the Ballot, and the Penny Postage, and is in favour of capital punishment-apparently preferring retribution to reformation. His feelings are always generous and sincere, whatever may be thought of his judgment in certain things, and his Sermons are replete with pure doctrine, toleration, and liberality of sentiment. The Irish Catholics ought to erect a monument to him, with his statue on the top-looking very grave, but with the hands "holding both his sides," and the tablets at the base covered with bas-relief selected from the graphic pages of Peter Plymley.

Although wit is the great predominating characteristic of the writings of Sydney Smith, the finest and most original humour is not unfrequently displayed. Under this latter head may be classed his review in the "Edinburgh" of Dr. Langford's Anniversary Sermon of the Royal Humane Society." The review is so laconic that we give it entire.