use which he made of Dogberry, and the application to the Irish constabulary, was extremely felicitous. Its efficacy was remarkable: the junior baron was forced to smother a laugh with a tortuous sneeze. His brethren always treated him with the most deep and marked respect, although the little philosopher was often slow to reciprocate their kindness. Very fond of occasionally indulging in a morceau of humour, he sometimes took very direct and annoying modes of bringing it into requisition. On one occasion he openly lugged one of his judicial brethren by the ears. Baron G, a quiet and inoffensive man, though not very remarkable for the profundity of his knowledge, was in the habit of illustrating the clearness of a subject by the frequent use of a figure, which certainly did not prove his great mastery over metaphor." Gentlemen of the jury: you have heard the evidence; the matter appears to me as plain as plain as a pike-staff!" This familiar illustration was perpetually on his lips-in figurative language he never cared to go deeper. This was tartar emetic to the taste of Baron Smith; the pike-staff threw him into unutterable agony-it fell on his ears like the grating of a saw. At length he determined at all hazards to abate the tremendous nuisance. A chandler's shop near the Brighton Pavilion could not have more annoyed George the Fourth. Well, one day the homely baron handled his staff with the usual effect. Baron Smith followed.-" To borrow," said he, with his thin lips screwed to the true sarcastic point, "a very familiar, though a very classical and profound illustration, with which my brother G- often enriches his eloquent language, the matter is as plain as a pike-staff!"

A titter ran through the court: the little baron threw himself back on his cushion with the seriousness of a Brahmin-not a muscle stirred in his countenance; but the victim of his amusing irony from that day abandoned the unlucky pike-staff to its fate. It was the first and last of his metaphors. At another time he vented a very happy though bitter sarcasm against a member of the bar not very remarkable for the cleanliness of his habits. Sitting beside each other at dinner, on circuit, the barrister complained of a severe rheumatic pain in his right shoulder, for which he had used all kinds of cataplasms: the baron whispered dryly, "Did you try a clean shirt ?" A friend told 'me that the same anecdote is related in “ Wraxall's Memoirs of Dudley North and the Earl of Surrey." We give priority to the baron, for of him we first heard it; besides, there were more men of unclean habits than the Earl of Surrey who complained of rheumatism, and more wits than Dudley North to indulge in a sharp sarcasm; and lastly, because Wraxall was one of those amusing gossipers who picked up everything worthy and unworthy of recording, and attributed to the heroes of his own times every good thing that he heard of others. He has contrived to stuff into his "Posthumous Memoirs" a number of Curran's and Keller's best sayings. Even disastrous twilight is shed over the reputation of Burke Bethel, for he is pilfered of a fair half-dozen, for which he was not compensated even by a good dinner.

I had once, and only once, an opportunity of meeting the baron in private; and if I had formed an elevated opinion of his understanding

from his public character, the impression was augmented by the variety and brilliancy of his sentiments in conversation. When Lord Brougham's "Natural Theology" summoned into the field of controversy a host of disputatious philosophers, the baron was among the number, in a series of metaphysical papers, which showed how deeply he meditated on the moral mysteries. He contemplated with the eye of a metaphysician, and the result of his speculations was often striking and beautiful-the style, though always polished and classical, is sometimes weak-precision is sacrificed to elegance, and a principal thought is buried under a heap of ornamental illustration which diverts the mind from the subject, and distracts the understanding with all kinds of quotations-ease is melted down to effeminate sweetness, and an over-dress of sentiment conceals the object of investigation. But there is also deep and subtle discussion, and a strong sinewy sense which sets the world of reason in movement, and if he searches for truth through fancy, he often finds her. Of his "Metaphysical Rambles" I shall speak at a little more length hereafter. A friend connected with the Dublin press asked me to write a few lines on the subject, and, though levelled at the unsoundness of the baron's theory, they had the good fortune to attract his attention. His admiration, however, was less excited by the truth of my assertions than by a flattering compliment paid to his philosophic taste and genius. So it was, however: I was ushered into the study of the Rambler, where he was refreshing himself over a ponderous tome of old Jeremy Taylor. Most reverentially I handed my introductory note, and was asked to take a chair. "I wish to reason you out of the ingenious, but, excuse me for saying, very mistaken principles on which you raise a groundwork against the palpable truths of Mr. Search (the name which the baron assumed.) I am in full possession of all his sentiments, and most reluctantly have we both come to the conclusion that you have misunderstood his principles."

"Very well, my lord; I shall listen with the most serious attention; but permit me to say, if I have misunderstood Mr. Search, he too has not rendered ample justice to his great adversary, Lord Brougham."

He laughingly replied, "The charge is a serious one; let us see how it stands.' And he continued to speak for five or ten minutes in a strain of animated eloquence, starred with all the graces of brilliant sentiment. Arguments crowded on him almost too fast for utterance. In fact, I never heard anything spoken which more closely approximated my conception of true oratory, and wanted only the infection of gesture to render the picture complete. I was struck with admiration, and though a depth of respect prevented my open expression of pleasure, he saw that I was moved.

"Well," said he, "have I shivered your paradoxes? I believe I was so ungracious as to call them so."

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Charge them on the head of Lord Brougham, my lord. I took them second-hand."

"Well, may I reckon on you? I am recruiting for my Christian Philosophy."

He then talked of a variety of subjects, among which politics were prominent. I left him, gratified and delighted.

Baron Smith was the eldest son of Sir Michael Smith, a member of the Irish Parliament, who preceded Curran in the Rolls, and of a Miss Cusack, a Roman Catholic lady of an ancient and honourable descent. He was born in 1766, and received his early education in Dublin, when he gave an early promise of a brilliant maturity. A precocious proficient in all the elements of school education, he excited admiration by the rapidity of his acquirements, and the eagerness with which he devoted his youthful energies to the groundwork of his future fame. Ambitious to an extreme degree, and directing all his powers, in boyhood as well as in manhood, to realise his objects, he wept bitterly whenever he lost his accustomed place in the juvenile form. Whenever he sustained defeat from a celebrated senator now no more, his schoolfellow and rival, he set himself down, with an avidity worthy of a more mature understanding, to retrieve his lost character, and was generally successful. Once when the pain of defeat at the yearly examination before the summer vacation very sensitively affected him, he determined to exhibit, by a great effort, the superiority of his intellect. At that time, and I believe in many of the present schools, large portions of the classics were marked out for preparation in the interval; the bonus for due attention to Justin by young Smith and his classfellows, was a promised elevation to Cæsar's Commentaries. Having been beaten for the first premium, he looked on the six weeks' vacation as six weeks of torment before

he could meet his adversary. He went home with a heavy heart, laid out his pocket-money in the purchase of a Cæsar, worked at it with the resolution of despair, despising the thousand allurements of summer, and the fascinating attraction of a ride on his favourite pony. He thought of literary victories; and when the first of August came -a day of such melancholy auspice to many-he returned with a light and joyous heart. Repetitions were called-the poor truants were sadly in arrear-not a syllable of the Hanging Gardens: they knew nothing of the device of Darius to obtain the sovereignty of Persia. With Smith alone all went off trippingly. Still the master hesitated about his promotion, but he boldly "appealed to Cæsar;" and the pedagogue was not more surprised than delighted to find that he understood the construction of the famous bridge as well, perhaps better than himself: he laid the foundation of the piles with mathematical precision, and marched with the triumph of a conqueror through every passage of difficulty. This anecdote I have heard from a worthy and venerable man, his intimate friend and schoolfellow, who often shared in his intellectual conversation. To question its truth would be almost to doubt the existence of truth itself. Many of Sir William's friends have heard him narrate the same curious fact with a high degree of exultation. The Gallic Wars was one of his favourite books. The present Marquis of Wellesley introduced him at Oxford in his eighteenth year, where he entered Christ's Church as gentleman commoner. There he eminently distinguished himself, not less by the depth and elegance of his classical erudition than the universality of his acquirements: he translated the orations of Cicero into English, and rendered them again into Latin-a feat which Lord Mansfield accomplished before him, although there is less of what

pas

Grattan called "the splendid conflagration of Tully in his speeches, than of his philosophical sentiments in his writings. He passed for one of the most accomplished wits in Oxford, and his society was courted with ardour. The centre of a brilliant circle, he diffused through all the light and warmth of his genius and vivacity. A sion for poetry raged at that time like a fever, and he was one of its most fervent adorers. He possessed a striking command over some of the richest sources of poetic embellishment-a quick and fiery imagination-a sharp and polished wit-language sublimed into loftiness by his metaphysical studies, and adorned with shining qualities drawn from the dazzling storehouses of past ages, with which too were blended an enthusiastic love and appreciation of natural beauties;-all these qualities peculiarly fitted him for distinction in that fascinating art. He cultivated it with assiduity, and had he not devoted his subsequent years to acquirements with which the daughters of memory have very little communion, he might have taken a lofty stand in the rolls of poetic literature. Much of his future splendour, as a speaker and writer, was derived from that early attachment; and though the avocations of his office necessarily withdrew him from the path of flowers, the literary attraction still exercised considerable sway over his mind, and he withdrew himself from it only with the termination of his existence. The following lines, written after entering his name at Lincoln's Inn, and a solemn resolution to forego the society of the Muses, (a venial resolution, which he was not slow to break,) will, in our opinion, stand a comparison with the pleasing farewell of Sir W. Blackstone. The rhythm is very sweet and bold, and the images much more rich and natural than were usually found in the cold correctness of the last century.

LINES TO POESY.

Beautiful vision! I kneel no more

At thy radiant throne

The dreams of a world I loved are o'er,
And I am alone-

Alone: for the world of beautiful things,
Where fancy flutters on rainbow-wings,
And Hope with her lute of silver sings
Her warbling song,

Is passed away like a pleasing thought,
Or a midnight dream that comes unsought,
And soon is gone!

Beautiful vision! when scarce a boy,
Untamed and free,

One day I wandered with heedless joy
In search of thee:

I well remember the time-'twas spring-
The new-born winds were abroad on the wing,
And the azure of heaven did tremble and ring
With the lark's sweet note;

I followed him upward with straining eyes,
And panted for pinions with him to arise,
And heavenward float!

When a spirit in form and shape like thine,
Kissed me in sleep with her lips divine-
I woke and wept !

Beautiful vision !-full many a day

Since that sweet dream,

I've seen thy form of glory play

In blossom and beam,

At morn, when glittered the diamond dew-
At noon, when the soft winds warmly blew-
At eve, when the mountains their tall shades threw
Away from the sun-

At night, when the young moon rose from the main,
And far over forest and fountain her chain

With tears I abandon my own sweet lute,

My heart is sick, and my lips are mute,

As I yield up to silence the friend of my youth,

Whose warblings brought

Shadows of beauty to whisper with me—
Love, Hope, Feeling, and Fantasy,

From the realms of thought!

Europe beheld with wonder a great people starting from the sleep of centuries, and shaking off, with a mighty effort, their oppressors and their fetters. A new spirit seemed to have passed over the world, and awakened men into a sudden consciousness of their dignity. Communities vibrated as if from the shock of an earthquakeancient systems, which had so long governed the world, seemed to be verging to their end; while a fresh and divine light from the enlarging orb of reason was hailed by reanimated millions with idolatrous enthusiasm, for which there is no parallel in human history. Empire did not stagger in France alone-the tremendous convulsion of all the elements of social order spread into other countries, and surrendered the human mind to an undefined fascination, that hurried it on to something vast and incomprehensible. The disease was fearful— it required the application of a powerful remedy. In England the contagion was terrific-a multitudinous host of associations sprang up in every quarter of the land. Every person knows the noble energy with which Burke encountered the revolutionary frenzy, though few will at the same time deny that his advocacy was more ardent than just or judicious-that he beheld everything through the excessive glow of his imagination, and that his judgment was weakened and his passions inflamed by the unfortunate conflict of opinions