consider a serious fault and inconsistency, by no means peculiar to Mr. Sydney Smith, but common to him with very many of his contemporaries. We do it without mentioning names. He says (II. 278), “Every

principle of suspicion and fear would be excited in me by a man who professed himself an infidel." And yet he frequented, and extolled with unqualified praise, a society to which not only a moral objection existed, such as is usually recognized in England, but of which some of the leading members were, according to universal repute, not only infidels, but atheists, and in which religion never could be mentioned. This was habitually done, from social and political motives, by scores of persons: and from the undeniable character of many of them, we can only repeat that it was one of the strangest inconsistencies ever committed by those who professed to be guided by the most obvious precepts of their religion.

We cannot, indeed, say that this is the only thing recorded in this book which is out of harmony with the clerical character; but it is almost the only one. Certainly we are surprised to find, in two letters (II. 10, 22), an expression in those days at least never used by clergymen, seldom by laymen, and at all times, we imagine, hardly ever written by any one; and this in a book which professes (I. viii., II. vi.), to contain nothing which can “impair the reputation of" the subject of it.

We must say a word on a passage in I. 331, and the note referring to it. We entirely believe that so far from being irreverently meant, it was piously meant and said; but we apprehend the "two very sensible

persons" who wished it omitted, believed the same, and that they meant only that, from the strong verbal resemblance of the words to one of the most awful passages (unthought of by the speaker) of Scripture, they might jar against the feelings of the reader.

It was said above that a qualification must be noted to Mr. Sydney Smith's character as a parochial minister. When he became Canon of Bristol, he took a small living called Halberton, and held it with his other preferments during the rest of his life, but he never appears to have gone near it. It is certainly an omission in the Memoir that this fact is never mentioned, though it is once alluded to in the Letters (II. 418); but we hardly think it was intentional, for though the neglect was censurable, we imagine it was common enough in the times of pluralities and non-residence.

These few are the only blots which we could point out in Lady Holland's share of the book, which appears to us admirably performed in all respects. In a second edition, marginal dates would be a luxury to the reader.

Of Mrs. Austin's part, the selecting and editing of the Letters, we would speak in the same terms, and with the respect due to so eminent a writer. Small inaccuracies, however, have not been wholly avoided. A certain imaginary Protest (II. 323), put under the year 1831, should be in 1823; Letter 340 should be after 345; 347 before the date of the Whig expulsion of 1834; 357 before 353; in the Preface (II. xix), foregoing" should be "following ;" and we are puzzled to think why so experienced a writer should take the trouble to inform us (II. xvii.) that she has "generally omitted the usual formulæ at the conclusion of letters,"

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when, in fact, they are sometimes put in and sometimes left out with the most arbitrary caprice, but, we believe, they are much oftener in than out.

We may add, that besides Sydney Smith, there are a few sayings of Talleyrand (I. 255, 256) of genuine excellence; and a letter of Lady Morley (II. 514), concerning Quaker babies, which, as might have been expected, is as good as that to which it is a reply.

A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT SHAKSPEARE.

Read at a Meeting of the Stourbridge Literary and Scientific Society, 1855.

YOU may remember that verse towards the end of the Book of Proverbs, "The conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks."* An article

in a Review, on the different Editions and Critics of Shakspeare, which I read long ago, ended with these words, "On the whole we must conclude that these Commentators are but a feeble folk, and that they have no business to make their houses in the rocks which support the everlasting monument of Shakspeare.”

I have no ambition whatever to add to the number of these coney-commentators. I have only attempted to set down a few reflections, with no pretensions to completeness or originality, which have occurred to me in reading Shakspeare; together with a few illustrations and comparisons from other writers.

In both these respects I have felt a continued sense of imperfection, from my limited acquaintance with literature, and especially with the great language and writings of Germany. In some regards I hardly regret my ignorance of German. I have a strong sympathy with an ancient Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,† whom I well remember, who on being asked whether he had been to a book-sale, replied, "The book-sale? *Prov. xxx. 26. Mr. Greenwood.

No: I have not yet got through the Public Library.” So, I feel so oppressed by the hopelessness of ever getting through half of the books worth reading in the languages that I do know, that I feel some satisfaction in being sheltered, by the floodgates of ignorance, from the additional inundation of that vast German ocean. But with regard especially to my present subject, I am well aware that this is a loss, as I have said, both as to poetry which may compare with Shakspeare, and criticisms which have expounded him. It seems generally acknowledged that the German commentators on Shakspeare are better than those of his own country. Indeed it has been said of Tieck and Schlegel, that they have probably found many things in the great poet which he himself never meant to put there. Such a thing is not impossible. It is said to have occurred recently in the kindred art of painting, with respect to a very remarkable picture of the Pre-Raphaelite School, by Mr. Hunt, called "The Light of the World." The celebrated Mr. Ruskin, who acts as a sort of nurse to that infant and promising school of art, being displeased at the ignorance and neglect with which the picture seemed to him to be treated in some quarters, wrote concerning it in the newspapers a long, striking, and ingenious description of the object and intention of every part of the picture—a description which must have greatly enlightened the public, and may have been all the more gratifying to the painter, as it was in great measure new to him.

Such a supposition, however, would be most rash, touching a genius so vast as that of Shakspeare.

Now, I am not about to enter on any general defini