tween November, 1786, and July of the following year. Nine of its papers, chiefly grave studies of history or serious reflections, are set down to Robert Smith. He was, also, joint author with Canning, of one of the essays. Leaving Eton, he became a student of King's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself by the excellence of his Latin verses, amongst which were some admired compositions after the manner of Lucretius on the systems of Plato, Descartes and Newton.* He received his degree of Master of Arts, in 1797, and was the same year called to the bar by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn. It was also the year of his marriage to Miss Caroline Vernon, daughter of Richard Vernon and Lady Ossory, aunt of Lord Lansdowne. The ceremony was performed by Sydney Smith, then a needy * A number of Robert Smith's Latin compositions are preserved in the Musa Etonenses, where we find this elegant Latin version of the exquisite Danae of Simonides. EX SIMONIDE. "Ventus quum fremeret, superque cymbam Non siccis Danaë genis puellum O quæ sustineo! sopore dulci Formidas iter; impetumque fluctûs Cassum hoc consilium sit et quod ultra (Forte audacius) oro, tu parentis Ultorem puerum, supreme, serves." Some fine and eloquent Latin lines on Death, found in his desk, after his decease, are printed in Lady Holland's Memoir. young curate, who wrote in a letter to his mother: "The marriage took place in the library at Bowood, and all I can tell you of it is, that he cried, she cried, and I cried.”* This alliance was afterward of use in the introduction of Sydney to the leading whig families. Robert became highly esteemed as a barrister, and was sent to India with the profitable appointment of Advocate-General of Bengal. Eight years of official duty, performed to the admiration of the natives, secured to him a considerable fortune,† with which he returned to London, in 1812. He soon after entered the House of Commons, as member for Grantham; but, notwithstanding his acute argumentative turn is said to have failed in his maiden speech. He spoke seldom and briefly afterward, during his extended parliamentary career; while his talents were exerted as a valuable business member of committees. In 1818, he contested, unsuccessfully, the city of Lincoln; but carried that place in the election of 1820, finally, retiring from Parliament at the dissolution in 1826. The concluding period of his life was passed in lettered and social ease and in retirement. His sympathies were intimately associated with those of his brother Sydney. The death of one followed closely that of the other. Robert survived the canon of St. Paul's but a fortnight. Thirty years * Lady Holland's Memoir, 4th Eng. ed., p. 14. ↑ His personal estate was sworn, at his death, in 1845, as not exceeding £180,000. De Quincey his a curious reminiscence of this circumstance in his Essay on Dr. Parr, to be found at page 137 of vol. II., of "Essays on Philosophical Writers and other Men of Letters,” published by Ticknor and Fields. Sydney Smith, who wrote of his brother Robert about this time, as “a capital personage; full of sense, genius, dignity, virtue, and wit," addressed to him, in his manly, courageous way, a felicitous letter on this subject, in which personal chagrin and disappointment are smothered under kindness, and a genuine solicitude. "Whether," he writes, "you turn out a consummate orator or not, will neither increase nor diminish my admiration for your talents, or my respect for your character; but when a man is strong, it is pleasant to make that strength respected; and you will be happier for it, if you can do so, as I have no doubt you will soon." (Letter 93 in Mrs. Austin's Collection, March 17, 1813.) before, when the former had been attacked by a serious illness, Sydney wrote to him, "Dear Bobus, pray take care of yourself. We shall both be a brown infragrant powder in thirty or forty years. Let us contrive to last out for the same, or nearly the same time. Weary will the latter half of my pilgrimage be, if you leave me in the lurch." Robert was a man of high honour and integrity. Those who knew him intimately spoke in strong terms of his wit and powers of mind. Moore tells us, in his Diary, of his agreeable qualities, and of his being ranked, in his best time, by some people, superior to Sydney. The remark is not unusual in such cases. Friendship readily exaggerates a question of capacity; but the execution must decide. As the ability to succeed with the public in exhibitions of mental power generally brings the desire along with it, it may, in most instances be taken for granted-certainly with the healthiest of developments—that all is claimed from the world which can be enforced. There is sometimes, perhaps, in imputing these extraordinary merits to the less-known brothers of eminent authors a compensation to self-love for the honours which are grudgingly paid to acknowledged attainments. The testimonies, however, to the intellectual strength and charm of polished conversation of Robert Smith are not to be discredited. Dr. Parr bestowed upon him, while both were living, a Latin inscription, in his famous lapidary style, written in the presentation copy of a book. He commended his fertile and skilful Latinity; his strong, manly, vehement mode of pleading, free from captiousness or cunning, and, when the occasion demanded, even magnificent and splendid; his integrity and humanity in the regulation of life; his greatness of mind in public affairs. Sir James Mackintosh * Lady Holland's Memoir, p. 361. ↑ Diary, March 13, 1833. The inscription is given in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1845, p. 441. Dr. Parr, in the enumeration of college worthies, in a note to his Spital Sermon, pays this compliment to Robert Smith, rñ áxpɩßɛíṛ, xaì deivothti, και μεγαλοπρεπείᾳ εὐδοκιμοῦντος.—(Parr's Works, ii. 543.) bears witness, in his Diary, to the eclat of his legal career in India, and to his social qualities. "His fame," he records, "among the natives is greater than that of any pundit since the days of Menu;" and again: "I hear from Bobus; always merry and always kind. Long live Bobus!" The sincere strength of expression of his conversation was held in esteem. "Bobus's lan guage," said Canning, "is the essence of English." His old friend, Lord Carlisle, remarks, in a careful memorial in the Gentleman's Magazine: "There was much in him of the sturdy Saxon, combined with the refined and thoroughly finished scholar. No one was ever so clear of all frippery, and the only thing for which he probably felt no toleration, was a prig."* Rogers, the poet and fastidious critic of society, pronounced Sir James Mackintosh, Malthus, and Bobus Smith, the three acutest men with whom he was ever acquainted. The sound mind was enclosed in a fair body, as we learn from a pleasant anecdote related by Lady Holland. "When Talleyrand," she writes, "was an emigrant in England, he was on very intimate terms with Robert Smith. The conversation turned on the beauty often transmitted from parents to their children. My uncle, who was singularly handsome (indeed, I think I have seldom seen a finer specimen of manly beauty, or a countenance more expressive of the high moral qualities he possessed), perhaps, with a little youthful vanity, spoke of the great beauty of his mother, on which Talleyrand, with a shrug and a sly disparaging look at his fine face, as if he saw nothing to admire, exclaimed, Ah, mon ami, c'était donc apparemment monsieur votre père qui n'était pas bien."" 6 The younger brothers of Sydney were Cecil and Courtenay. The former was educated with Robert at Eton, the latter with Sydney at Winchester. Both were fitted out for India. Courtenay gained distinction there in the Judiciary as Supreme Judge of the Adawlut Court at Calcutta. He was also a good oriental * Obituary, Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1845. † Dyce's Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers, p. 194. scholar. Having accumulated a large fortune, he returned to England late in life and died suddenly in London, in 1843, at the age of sixty-nine. Maria, the only sister lived unmarried. She died in 1816 at her father's residence at Bath. Delicate in constitution, ill health did not obscure the good temper and amiability of her disposition. Her brother Sydney spoke of her as one whom he would have cultivated as a friend, if nature had not given her to him as a relative. Robert Smith, the father, lived to an advanced age. His son Sydney, visited him, at his residence at Bishop's Lydiard in Somersetshire, in 1821. A letter to Jeffrey has this picture of the old man:-"I have travelled all across the country with my family, to see my father, now eighty-two years of age. I wish, at such an age, you, and all like you, may have as much enjoyment of life; more, you can hardly have at any age. My father is one of the very few people I have ever seen improved by age. He is become careless, indulgent, and anacreontic." The mother of Sydney Smith died many years earlier at the beginning of the century. In feeble health, she devoted herself, in the absence of her husband, to the care of her children; wrote letters to her sons at Winchester which the school-boys "gathered round to hear read aloud;" lived to see Robert and Sydney married, and left to her descendants a pathetic memory of her grace, and virtues. The boyhood of Sydney Smith was passed at school at Southampton and Winchester. At the celebrated foundation of William of Wykeham he acquired a good classical education and became the leader of the school, entitling himself by his position to a scholarship and afterward a fellowship at New College, Oxford. But though he was thus indebted to Winchester for an early and important move in life, his impression of the habits and conduct of the place fastened upon him a permanent dislike to that boasted institution of learning and manliness, the English public school. |