ties its shoe; the mind washes its hands in a innumerable persons (may we not say the basin. All is incongruous.

Shallow. Certain, 'tis certain; very sure, very sure; death, as the Psalmist saith, is certain to all; all shall die. How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?

Silence. Truly, cousin, I was not there.
Shallow. Death is certain. Is old Double,
of your town, living yet?
Silence. Dead, Sir.

Silence. Thereafter as they be; a score of ewes may be worth ten pounds.

Shallow. And is old Double dead!

It is because Sydney Smith had so little of this Shakspearean humor, that there is a glare in his pages, and that in the midst of his best writing, we sigh for the soothing superiority of quieter writers.

majority of mankind?) who have a belief in God and immortality, have, nevertheless, scarcely any consciousness of the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel. They seem to live aloof from them in the world of business or of pleasure, the common life of all men,' not without a sense of right, and a rule of truth and honesty, yet insensible" to much which we need not name. "They have nev

in

Shallow. Dead. See! See! He drew a good er in their whole lives experienced the love bow,- and dead. He shot a fine shoot. John of God, the sense of sin, or the need of for of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much mon-giveness. Often they are remarkable for the ey on his head.-Dead! He would have clapped purity of their morals; many of them have i' the clout at fourscore, and carried you a fore- strong and disinterested attachments and handshaft, a fourteen and fourteen and-a-half, quick human sympathies; sometimes a stothat it would have done a man's heart good to ical feeling of uprightness, or a peculiar sensee. - How a score of ewes now? sitiveness to dishonor. It would be a mis take to say that they are without religion. They join in its public acts; they are of fended at profaneness or impiety; they are thankful for the blessings of life, and do not rebel against its misfortunes. Such men meet us at every step. They are those whom we know and associate with; honest in their dealings, respectable in their lives, decent in Sydney Smith was not only the wit of the their conversation. The Scripture speaks first Edinburgh, but likewise the divine. He to us of two classes, represented by the was, to use his own expression, the only church and the world, the wheat and the clergyman who in those days" turned out" tares, the sheep and the goats, the friends to fight the battles of the Whigs. In some and enemies of God. We cannot say sort this was not so important. A curious which of these two divisions we should find abstinence from religious topics characterizes a place for them." They believe always the original Review. There is a wonderful a kind of "natural religion." Now these omission of this most natural topic of specu- are what we may call, in the language of lation in the lives of Horner and Jeffrey. In the past, Liberals. Those who can remem truth, it would seem, that living in the in-ber, or who will re-read, our delineation of cessant din of an essentially Calvinistic coun- the Whig character, may observe its contry, the best course for thoughtful and seri- formity. There is the same purity and delous men was to be silent, at least they icacy, the same tranquil sense; an equal instinctively thought so. They felt no invol- want of imagination, of impulsive enthusi untary call to be theological teachers them- asm, of shrinking fear. You need not speak selves, and as refined and gentle men neces- like the above writer of "peculiar doc sarily recoiled from the coarse admonition trines," the phenomenon is no speciality of around them. Even in the present milder a particular creed. Glance over the whole time, few cultivated persons willingly think of history, as the classical world stood be on the special dogmas of distinct theology. They do not deny them, but they live apart from them: they do not disbelieve them, but they are silent when they are stated. They do not deny the existence of Kamschatka, but they have no call to busy themselves with Kamschatka; they abstain from peculiar tenets. Nor in truth is this, though much aggravated by existing facts, a mere accident of the present times. There are some people to whom such a course of conduct is always natural: there are certain persons who do not, as it would seem cannot, feel all that others feel; who have, so to say, no ear for much of religion; who are in some sort out of its reach. It is impossible," says a late divine of the Church of England, "not to observe that

side the Jewish; as Horace beside St. Paul; like the heavy ark and the buoyant waves, so are men in contrast with one another. You cannot imagine a classical Isaiah; you cannot fancy a Whig St. Dominic; there is no such thing as a Liberal Augustine. The deep sea of mysticism lies opposed to some natures; in some moods it is a sublime wonder; in others an "impious ocean," they will never put forth on it at any time.

All this is intelligible, and in a manner beautiful as a character; but it is not equally excellent as a creed. A certain class of Liberal divines have endeavored to petrify! into a theory a flowing and placid disposi tion. In some respects Sydney Smith is one of these; his sermons are the least excellent

of his writings; of course they are sensible ble men connected at its origin with the Edand well-intentioned, but they have the de-inburgh Review. And that exception is a fect of his school. With misdirected energy, man of too fitful, defective, and strange these divines have labored after a plain re- greatness to be spoken of now. Henry ligion; they have forgotten that a quiet and Brougham must be left to after-times. Indefinite mind is confined to a placid and defi- deed, he would have marred the unity of our inite world; that religion has its essence in article. He was connected with the Whigs, awe, its charm in infinity, its sanction in but he never was one. His impulsive ardor dread; that its dominion is an inexplicable is the opposite of their coolness; his irregudominion; that mystery is its power. There lar, discursive intellect contrasts with their is a reluctance in all such writers; they quiet and perfecting mind. Of those of whom creep away from the unintelligible parts of we have spoken, let us say, that if none of the subject; they always seem to have some-them attained to the highest rank of abstract thing behind; not to like to bring out what intellect; if the disposition of none of them they know to be at hand. They are in their was ardent or glowing enough to hurry them nature apologists; and, as George the Third forward to the extreme point of daring greatsaid, "I did not know the Bible needed an ness; if only one can be said to have a lastapology." As well might the thunder be ing place in real literature, it is clear that ashamed to roll, as religion hesitate to be they vanquished a slavish cohort; that they too awful for mankind. The invective of upheld the name of freemen in a time of Lucretius is truer than the placid patronage bondsmen; that they applied themselves to of the divine. Let us admire Liberals in that which was real, and accomplished much life, but let us keep no terms with Paleyans which was very difficult; that the very critin speculation. ics who question their inimitable excellence will yet admire their just and scarcely imitable example.

And so we must draw to a conclusion. We have in some sort given a description of, with one great exception, the most remarka

HIGGLEDY PIGGLEDY.-I can offer an amusing illustration of the use of this term in the sense of tantum quantum, as indicated by the Latin quotation of T. B. M. The party I well knew, and the occurrence I well remember, though it was long years ago. An old farmer in Staffordshire sent for a lawyer to make his will. Upon the legal gentleman inquiring for some preliminary instructions how the property was to be distributed, the old man replied that he meant to leave it higgledy piggledy. The lawyer observed that he did not understand what he meant, and begged him to explain, which elicited this ungracious rejoinder: "If you dunna know what higgledy piggledy means, you bayn't fit to be a lawyer." Now, the honest farmer intended, as he proceeded to explain, that his property should be equally divided among his children; which shows the use of the term in the very sense of tantum quantum. — Notes and Queries.

then we come to a time when the club took ex-
clusive possession of the house, and strangers
could be only introduced, under regulations, by
the members; in the third stage, the clubs build
houses, or rather palaces, for themselves. The
club at the Mermaid Tavern in Friday Street was,
according to all accounts, the first select company
established, and owed its origin to Sir Walter
Raleigh, who had here instituted a meeting of men
of wit and genius, previously to his engagement
with the unfortunate Cobham. This society coni-
prised all that the age held most distinguished
for learning and talent, numbering amongst its
members Shakspeare,. Ben Jonson, Beaumont
and Fletcher, Selden, Sir Walter Raleigh, Donne,
Cotton, Carew, Martin, and many others. There
it was that the "wit-combats" took place be-
tween Shakspeare and Ben Jonson, to which,
probably, Beaumont alludes with so much affec-
tion in his letter to the old poet, written from the
country:

"What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! heard 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."

Ben Jonson had another club, of which he ap-
pears to have been the founder, held in a room
of the old Devil Tavern, distinguished by the
name of the "Apollo." It stood between the
Temple Gates and Temple Bar. It was for this
club that Jonson wrote, the "Leges Conviv-
iales," printed among his works. —Notes and
Queries.

From Household Words. companied the visits of kings and emperors and their ambassadors. He came to this PETER THE GREAT IN ENGLAND. country from the Hague with Vice-Admiral THERE was to be seen till lately in the Pal- Mitchell, and arrived among us on Tuesday, ice at Hampton Court, a fine full-length the eleventh of January, sixteen hundred portrait of a beardless young man (inten- and ninety-seven-eight. His arrival was ionally beardless), in armor, with a broad soon made public, but the privacy of his visit and vigorous expression of face, with large was still as far as possible maintained. On eyes that betray a fixed determination of pur- the day after his arrival he went incognito in pose, and, I must add, a liking for strong a hackney-coach to Kensington, to see Wildrinks. I refer to the portrait of Peter the liam the Third and his court at dinner, Great, which Sir Godfrey Kneller painted dining in public being then a custom still for King William the Third during the brief lingering about royalty. On the following visit of three months which the Czar paid to day he called on the Marquis of Caermarthen England in the exceeding sharp and cold in Leicester Square, then an invalid, having season of the year sixteen hundred and hurt his leg at the fire which, only a week ninety-eight. Kneller was never happier before the Czar arrived among us, ceased to than in this picture. He knew his strength; make Whitehall the palace of a sovereign. and in the background-a sea-scape (as On the Friday following he received a visit painters affect to call such things)-he ob- from King William the Third. It was a tained the assistance of the younger Valder- private visit, made by the king in the coach velde, a master in the treatment of maritime of the Earl of Romney, the brother of Algermatters. This picture is now, I believe, at non Sidney, and the handsome Sidney of De Buckingham Palace. Prince Albert took it Grammont's Memoirs. The Czar accompaaway during the visit to England of the late nied the king in Lord Romney's coach as far Emperor Nicholas; but his royal highness, as Whitehall, where he stepped into his own now that the case is altered, may perhaps carriage, and, attended by the Guards, went think proper to return it to its old quarters. in his robes to the House of Peers. The Peter was in his twenty-sixth year when he first set foot in England. He had been learning ship-building at Amsterdam, and his visit to England was for no other avowed purpose than that of improving his mechanical skill by steady labor in our naval dockyards. He came among us with the approbation of King William the Third: houses were hired for him and his rough retinue, and paid for by the king.

penny-a-liner of the time, from whom we derive these particulars, adds: "His Czarish majesty was there, it is said, incognito." But this I see reason to doubt.

Peter the Great while in England was as shy and unwilling to be seen as Peter the Wild Boy. He was present at a ball given at Kensington by King William in honor of the birthday of the Princess Anne, afterwards Queen; or rather he may be said to His first London lodging was in Norfolk have seen the ball, for his shyness confined Street, in the Strand, then a newly-built him to a small room, from which he could street, and one of the best inhabited streets see without being seen. When he saw King in London. Some red-brick houses of Peter's William on his throne in the House of Lords time still exist. His second house-I might (a sight he had expressed a particular wish almost call it his country house- was at to see), it was not from the gallery nor from *Saye's Court, in Deptford, on the banks of below the bar of the house, but from a gutthe Thames, contiguous to the Royal Dock- ter in the housetop, from which he was enayard-then in the tenancy of Evelyn, au- bled to peep through a window into the thor of the Sylva (now better known by his house. He retired from this unpleasant Memoirs), but recently sub-let by him to no point of view sooner, it is said, than he inless a person than the bluff and brave Admi- tended; for he made so ridiculous a figure ral Benbow. (says Lord Dartmouth, who was present) that neither king nor peers could forbear laughing.

The chief native attendant of the Czar bore a name that has lately become familiar enough in English ears: he was called Prince Menzikoff. His English attendant was Osborne Marquis of Caermarthen, afterwards the second Duke of Leeds. The marquis was a naval officer of talent and distinction; -and this selection by the king was in every way appropriate.

His visit was one of entire privacy, and consequently without those courtly ceremonies attending his arrival which usually ac

He was taken to all our London sights at that time of any moment. To the lions and armories in the Tower; to the monuments and wax figures in Westminster Abbey; to Lambeth Palace; to the masquerade on the last night of the Temple revels; and to the two theatres in Drury Lane and Dorset Gardens. He was chiefly attracted by the Tower and the performances at Drury Lane. The wild beasts and implements of war were

adapted to his rougher nature, while the when, in eighteen hundred and fourteen, on charms of a Miss Cross, the original Miss the visit of the allied sovereigns, he passed Hoyden, in Vanbrugh's Relapse, and the through Godalming to Portsmouth, to retum first actress who had Miss prefixed to her to the capital of the Czar Peter! name in playbills, were so engaging that the There was a natural curiosity among the rough Czar of Russia became enamored of English people to see a sovereign from 80 her beauty. Of this Miss Cross the story is remote a country as Muscovy; and Overton, told in the Spectator, that when she first ar- the printseller (he is immortalized by Pope), ived in the Low Countries, she was not took advantage of this desire, and borrowing computed to be so handsome as Madam van a plate from Holland of the effigies of he Brisket by near half a ton. There is a fine Czarish majesty, immediately worked off suf old mezzotinto which still preserves to us the ficient impressions to satisfy the public. beautiful features that won the youthful Other proofs of his popularity have been heart of Peter the Great. preserved. A song in praise of the Czar of He did not speak English, nor is he known Muscovy was performed on Thursday, the to have been desirous of learning it. Few tenth of February, in the Music Room of of his sayings have therefore been preserved. York Buildings, the Hanover Square Room Three, however, have reached us. He told of the then London; and the History of the Admiral Mitchell that he considered the Ancient and Present State of Muscovy, by condition of an English admiral happier Abel Roper, was advertised to be published than that of a Czar of Russia. To King this term-the lawyer then, as indeed long William he observed, "If I were the adviser after, materially regulating the London of your majesty, I should counsel you to season. remove your court to Greenwich, and to convert St. James' once more into an hospital." When in Westminster Hall, he inquired who the busy gentlemen were in wigs and gowns; and being told they were lawyers "Lawyers!" said he; "why, I have but two my whole dominions, and I design to hang one of them the moment I get home."

in

the

I have discovered the name of the opera which the Czar went to hear. It was Beaumont and Fletcher's Prophetess, or the His tory of Diocletian, with alterations and ad ditions, after the manner of an opera, made by Betterton the great actor. It was a new opera. The music was by Purcell, dances by Mr. Priest, and the scenes, maThe Marquis of Caermarthen was very chinery, and clothes were costly and effec attentive to the wishes of the Czar. On tive. It was a perfectly successful piece, and Tuesday last (records the penny-a-liner of there was enough in it to attract the Czar, to the period) the Marquis of Caermarthen whom everything of the kind was an entire treated the Czar of Muscovy in a splendid novelty.

manner. He took him to Chatham to a A new entertainment was advertised for launch, and to Spithead to a naval review. Thursday, the seventeenth of February, sixThey went to Spithead by the old Ports- teen hundred and ninety-seven-eight. It mouth road, and returned the same way, was at Exeter Change, in the Strand, and resting at Godalming for a day, where (at was called (corruptly enough) A Redoubt the King's Arms Inn, in the High Street) after the Venetian manner, "where," they had two meals: breakfast and dinner. continues the advertisement," there will be The bills of fare on the occasion have been some considerable Basset Banks and a varie preserved by Wanley, the learned keeper of ty of other entertainment." No person was Lord Oxford's library. They were thirteen to be admitted without a mask. Tickets at table (an uncomfortable number), and were to be had at the well-known chocolate twenty-one in all. At breakfast they had houses, Ozinda's and White's, and the enter half a sheep, a quarter of lamb, ten pullets, tainment was to begin exactly at ten o'clock twelve chickens, nine quarts of brandy, six at night. Peter came from Deptford to quarts of mulled wine, seven dozen eggs, London to see this Venetian importation; with salad in proportion. At dinner they but he found it suppressed, with six constat had five ribs of beef (weight three stone), one bles at the door to prohibit the performance. sheep (weight fifty-six pounds three-quar- To relieve his disappointment-so a Mr. ters), a shoulder of lamb, and a loin of veal Bertie writes to Dr. Charlett of Oxford-he boiled, eight pullets, eight rabbits, two dozen fell to drinking hard at one Mr. Morley's; and a half of sack, and one dozen of claret. and the Marquis of Caermarthen, it being Here is a bill reminding us by its locality late, resolved to lodge him at his brother-in-t and rabbits of Mary Tofts, who has given an law's. Here (and still with the Marquis) he o unhappy celebrity to the pleasant little post- dined the next day-drank a pint of sherry town of Godalming in Surrey. I have often and a bottle of brandy for his morning wondered if the story of the Czar's two meals draught; after that, about eight more bot was remembered by the Emperor Alexander tles of sack, and so went to the playhouse.