Immortal, drawn by his cart-horse in shafts, and guided by the carter on foot. At the barn-like church fifty persons were, on one occasion, probably an average one, present.

The portrait of Bunch, that important portion of the Foston family, is immortal; a sketch from reality equal to the imagination of Dickens. Mrs. Marcet, the author of the Conversations on Political Economy, an old friend of the host, exhibits her in full play :

"I was coming down stairs one morning, when Mr. Smith suddenly said to Bunch, who was passing, 'Bunch, do you like roast duck or boiled chicken?' Bunch had probably never tasted either the one or the other in her life, but answered, without a moment's hesitation, 'Roast duck, please, sir,' and disappeared. I laughed. 'You may laugh,' said he, 'but you have no idea of the labour it has cost me to give her that decision of character. The Yorkshire peasantry are the quickest and shrewdest in the world, but you can never get a direct answer from them; if you ask them even their own names, they always scratch their heads, and say, ‘A's sur ai don't knaw, sir;' but I have brought Bunch to such perfection, that she never hesitates now on any subject, however difficult. I am very strict with her. Would you like to hear her repeat her crimes? She has them by heart, and repeats them every day.' 'Come here, Bunch!' calling out to her, 'come and repeat your crimes to Mrs. Marcet;' and Bunch, a clean, fair, squat, tidy little girl, about ten or twelve years of age, quite as a matter of course, as grave as a judge, without the least hesitation, and with a loud voice, began to repeat: 'Plate-snatching, gravy-spilling, doorslamming, blue-bottle-fly-catching, and courtesy-bobbing.' 'Explain to Mrs. Marcet what blue-bottle-fly-catching is.' 'Standing, with my mouth open and not attending, sir.' 'And what is courtesy-bobbing?' 'Courtesying to the centre of the earth, please, sir.' 'Good girl! now you may go.' 'She makes a capital waiter, I assure you; on state occasions Jack Robinson, my carpenter, takes off his apron and waits too, and does pretty well, but

he sometimes naturally makes a mistake and sticks a gimlet into the bread instead of a fork.""

Mrs. Marcet also supplies to the "Memoir" some pleasing anecdotes of those medical traits, the foundation of which had been laid at Edinburgh. Sydney is taking her the rounds of his Foston parsonage :

"But I came up to speak to Annie Kay. Where is Annie Kay? Ring the bell for Annie Kay.' Kay appeared. Bring me my medicine-book, Annie Kay. Kay is my apothecary's boy, and makes up my medicines.' Kay appears with the book. 'I am a great doctor; would you like to hear some of my medicines?" 'Oh yes, Mr. Sydney. There is the gentlejog, a pleasure to take it the Bull-dog, for more serious cases- -Peter's pukeHeart's delight, the comfort of all the old women in the village— Rub-a-dub, a capital embrocation-Dead-stop, settles the matter at once- -Up-with-it-then needs no explanation; and so on. Now, Annie Kay, give Mrs. Spratt a bottle of Rub-a-dub; and to Mr. Coles a dose of Dead-stop and twenty drops of laudanum.'

"This is the house to be ill in,' turning to us; 'indeed everybody who comes is expected to take a little something; I consider it a delicate compliment when my guests have a slight illness here. We have contrivances for everything. Have you seen my patent armour? No? Annie Kay bring my patent armour. Now, look here: if you have a stiff-neck or swelled-face, here is this sweet case of tin filled with hot water, and covered with flannel, to put round your neck, and you are well directly. Likewise, a patent tin shoulder, in case of rheumatism. There you see a stomachtin, the greatest comfort in life; and lastly, here is a tin slipper, to be filled with hot water, which you can sit with in the drawingroom, should you come in chilled, without wetting your feet. Come and see my apothecary's shop.'

"We all went down stairs, and entered a room filled entirely on one side with medicines, and on the other with every description of groceries and household or agricultural necessaries; in the

centre, a large chest, forming a table, and divided into compart ments for soap, candles, salt, and sugar.

"Here you see,' said he, 'every human want before you :

"Man wants but little here below,

As beef, veal, mutton, pork, lamb, venison show ;'

spreading out his arms to exhibit everything, and laughing."

Sydney Smith wrote a great deal about prisons and prisoners, crimes and penalties, and justice's justice. It is of positive value that we have this account of his own management in matters of rural police as a Justice of the Peace :

:

"He set vigorously to work to study Blackstone, and made himself master of as much law as possible, instead of blundering on, as many of his neighbours were content to do. Partly by this knowledge, partly by his good-humour, he gained a considerable influence in the quorum, which used to meet once a fortnight at the little inn, called the Lobster-house; and the people used to say they were going to get a little of Mr. Smith's lobster-sauce.' By dint of his powerful voice, and a little wooden hammer, he prevailed on Bob and Betty to speak one at a time; he always tried, and often succeeded, in turning foes into friends. Having a horror of the Game laws, then in full force, and knowing, as he states in his speech on the Reform Bill, that for every ten pheasants which fluttered in the wood one English peasant was rotting in jail, he was always secretly on the side of the poacher (much to the indignation of his fellow-magistrates, who in a poacher saw a monster of iniquity), and always contrived, if possible, to let him escape, rather than commit him to jail, with the certainty of his returning to the world an accomplished villain. He endeav oured to avoid exercising his function as magistrate in his own village when possible, as he wished to be at peace with all his parishioners.

"Young delinquents he never could bear to commit; but read them a severe lecture, and in extreme cases called out, John

bring me my private gallows" which infallibly brought the little urchins weeping on their knees, and, Oh! for God's sake, your honour, pray forgive us!' and his honour used graciously to pardon them for this time, and delay the arrival of the private gallows, and seldom had occasion to repeat the threat."*

Such was the life at Feston, the poverty of a scholar and a country clergyman, supported by self-respect. His independence led him to make many sacrifices, but he had no hesitation in honourably accepting a favour. He received a hundred a year from his brother Robert, to support his son Douglas at Westminster school; but "Aunt Mary," an old lady, dying not long after, and unexpectedly leaving him a moderate legacy, he at once released his brother from the obligation.† Other accessions of prosperity followed, those affluent rills which the river is sure to meet with if its course be long continued. The neighbouring living of Londesborough, vacant for a short time, was added to his resources by the Earl of Carlisle, in 1825, which enabled him to visit Paris the next year. The three weeks' journey, as it is recorded in daily letters to Mrs. Sydney Smith, supplies one of the most delightful and amusing portions of his always profitable and entertaining pondence. It is full of the novelty, the gusto and enjoyment of the Englishman's or American's first pleasant impressions of the Continent, when everything appears gayer, brighter, better than ever before, and the senses are feasted by the brilliant theatrical display. Sydney Smith had a happy temperment, never above being surprised and delighted. From the moment of his crossing the channel his latent Gallic blood is all of a tingle. Calais is full of fine sensations. The bedroom at Dessein's is superb, and so is * Lady Holland's Memoir, p. 150.

corres

To the Countess Grey, Foston, Nov. 21, 1821 :-" An old aunt has died and left me an estate in London; this puts me a little at my ease, and will, in some degree save me from the hitherto necessary, but unpleasant practico of making sixpence perform the functions and assume the importance of a shilling.

"Part of my little estate is the Guildhall Coffee-house, in King strect, Cheap side. I mean to give a ball there. Will you come?"

the dinner. "I wish you could see me," he writes, with a husband's and a child. delight, to Mrs. Sydney, "with my wood fire and my little bed-room and fine sitting-room." The streets please him "exceedingly." Calais "is quite another world, and full of the greatest entertainment." As for the propriety and civility of the people, "I have not seen," he says, "a cobbler who is not better bred than an English gentleman." Everything is better than in England. The tea is better, the cookery "admirable;" and after a day's surfeit on the raree show, he throws himself to profound slumber "on a charming bed." One thing only is wanting-the presence of Mrs. Sydney and the family. They are well remembered. "You shall all see France; I am resolved upon that;" and again, "I most sincerely hope, one day or another, to conduct you all over it; the thought of doing so is one of my greatest pleasures in travelling." Paris, at which he arrives in a day or two, is great, but perhaps not quite equal to Calais. Under the influence of those rose-coloured first impressions, a hovel at the seaboard rivals a palace at Versailles, and a signboard a masterpiece at the Louvre. How many thousand Americans have been so overcome, on arriving at Havre, after a sea-voyage, by the raree show, and how human, caustic, witty, Sydney Smith appears in writing down all this nonsensical delusion-this capital trick of the Gallic puppets and scenery. At Paris we see the same process. Sydney takes lodgings in the Rue St. Honoré:-"My sitting-room is superb; my bed-room, close to it, very good; there is a balcony which looks upon the street. * I am exceedingly pleased

*

with everything I have seen at the hotel, and it will be, I think, [to Mrs. Sydney] here we shall lodge." Rather too fast this. The next letter has an amendment, with an apology for undue haste in locating the future air-castle-"of course, my opinions, from my imperfect information, are likely to change every day; but at present I am inclined to think that I ought to have will go, to the Boulevards." Then comes a course of dinners, under the auspices of the Holland family; talk, gossip, and visits. The

gone,

and that we