the morning to look after his farm; or, if botany be his object, that he should voyage to Iceland in pursuit of it. He is the happier however for his eagerness; his mind is more fully employed, and he is much more effectually guaranteed from all the miseries of ennui. When a very clever man, or a very great man, takes to cultivating turnips and retiring, it is generally an imposture. The moment men cease to talk of their turnips, they are wretched and full of self-reproach. Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best! -[Memoir.] OF FRIENDSHIP. LIFE is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence. If I lived under the burning sun of the equator, it would be a pleasure to me to think that there were many human beings on the other side of the world who regarded and respected me; I could and would not live if I were alone upon the earth, and cut off from the remembrance of my fellow-creatures. It is not that a man has occasion often to fall back upon the kindness of his friends; perhaps he may never experience the necessity of doing so; but we are governed by our imaginations, and they stand there as a solid and impregnable bulwark against all the evils of life. Friendships should be formed with persons of all ages and conditions, and with both sexes. I have a friend who is a bookseller, to whom I have been very civil, and who would do anything to serve me; and I have two or three small friendships among persons in much humbler walks of life, who, I verily believe, would do me OF CHEERFULNESS. 299 a considerable kindness according to their means. It is a great happiness to form a sincere friendship with a woman; but a friendship among persons of different sexes rarely or ever takes place in this country. The austerity of our manners hardly admits of such a connection;-compatible with the most perfect innocence, and a source of the highest possible delight to those who are fortunate enough to form it. -[Memoir.] FRANK EXPLANATIONS. I AM for frank explanations with friends in cases of affronts. They sometimes save a perishing friendship, and even place it on a firmer basis than at first; but secret discontent must always end badly. — [Memoir.] OF CHEERFULNESS. CHEERFULNESS and good spirits depend in a great degree upon bodily causes, but much may be done for the promotion of this turn of mind. Persons subject to low spirits should make the rooms in which they live as cheerful as possible; taking care that the paper with which the wall is covered should be of a brilliant, lively colour, hanging up pictures or prints, and covering the chimney-piece with beautiful china. A bay-window looking upon pleasant objects, and, above all, a large fire whenever the weather will permit, are favourable to good spirits, and the tables near should be strewed with books and pamphlets. To this must be added as much eating and drinking as is consistent with health; and some manual employment for men, -as gardening, a carpenter's shop, the turning-lathe, &c. Women have always manual employment enough, and it is a great source 300 A COUNTRY DINNER PARTY. of cheerfulness. Fresh air, exercise, occupation, society, and travelling, are powerful remedies. — [Memoir.] A COUNTRY DINNER PARTY. DID you ever dine out in the country? What misery human beings inflict on each other under the name of pleasure! We went to dine last Thursday with Mr. a neighbouring clergyman, a haunch of venison being the stimulus to the invitation. We set out at five o'clock; drove in a broiling sun, on dusty roads, three miles, in our best gowns; found Squire and parsons assembled in a small hot room, the whole house redolent of frying; talked, as is our wont, of roads, weather, and turnips; that done, began to grow hungry, then serious, then impatient. At last a stripling, evidently caught up for the occasion, opened the door and beckoned our host out of the room. After some moments of awful suspense, he returned to us with a face of much distress, saying, "the woman assisting in the kitchen had mistaken the soup for dirty water, and had thrown it away, so we must do without it; " we all agreed it was perhaps as well we should, under the circumstances. At last, to our joy, dinner was announced; but oh, ye gods! as we entered the dining-room what a gale met our nose! the venison was high; the venison was uneatable, and was obliged to follow the soup with all speed. Dinner proceeded, but our spirits flagged under these accumulated misfortunes. There was an ominous pause between the first and second course; we looked each other in the face-what new disaster awaited us? The pause became fearful. At last the door burst open, and the boy rushed in, calling out aloud, "Please Sir has Betty any right to leather I?" What human gravity SYDNEY SMITH IN A YORKSHIRE LIVING. 301 could stand this? We roared with laughter; all took part against Betty, obtained the second course with some difficulty, bored each other the usual time, ordered our carriages, expecting our post-boys to be drunk, and were grateful to Providence for not permitting them to deposit us in a wet ditch. So much for dinners in the country. [Memoir.] IMPROMPTU ON MR. JEFFREY RIDING ON A DONKEY. WITTY as Horatius Flaccus, As great a Jacobin as Gracchus, Short, though not as fat, as Bacchus, SYDNEY SMITH IN A YORKSHIRE LIVING. A DINER-OUT, a wit, and a popular preacher, I was suddenly caught up by the Archbishop of York, and transported to my living in Yorkshire, where there had not been a resident clergyman for a hundred and fifty years. Fresh from London, not knowing a turnip from a carrot, I was compelled to farm three hundred acres, and without capital to build a parsonage-house. I asked and obtained three years' leave from the Archbishop, in order to effect an exchange, if possible; and fixed myself meantime at a small village two miles from York, in which was a fine old house of the time of Queen Elizabeth, where resided the last of the squires, with his lady, who looked as if she had walked straight out of the Ark, or had been the wife of Enoch. He was a perfect specimen of the Trullibers of old; he smoked, hunted, drank beer at his door with his grooms and dogs, and spelt over the county paper on Sundays. 302 SYDNEY SMITH IN A YORKSHIRE LIVING. At first, he heard I was a Jacobin and a dangerous fellow, and turned aside as I passed: but at length, when he found the peace of the village undisturbed, harvests much as usual, Juno and Ponto uninjured, he first bowed, then called, and at last reached such a pitch of confidence that he used to bring the papers, that I might explain the difficult words to him; actually discovered that I had made a joke, laughed till I thought he would have died of convulsions, and ended by inviting me to see his dogs. All my efforts for an exchange having failed, I asked and obtained from my friend the Archbishop another year to build in. And I then set my shoulder to the wheel in good earnest; sent for an architect; he produced plans which would have ruined me. I made him my bow: "You build for glory, Sir; I, for use." I returned him his plans, with five-and-twenty pounds, and sat down in my thinking-chair; and in a few hours Mrs. Sydney and I concocted a plan which has produced what I call the model of parsonage-houses. I then took to horse to provide bricks and timber; was advised to make my own bricks of my own clay; of course, when the kiln was opened, all bad; mounted my horse again, and in twenty-four hours had bought thousands of bricks and tons of timber. Was advised by neighbouring gentlemen to employ oxen: bought four,Tug and Lug, Haul and Crawl; but Tug and Lug took to fainting, and required buckets of sal-volatile, and Haul and Crawl to lie down in the mud. So I did as I ought to have done at first,-took the advice of the farmer instead of the gentleman; sold my oxen, bought a team of horses, and at last, in spite of a frost which delayed me six weeks, in spite of walls running down with wet, in spite of the advice and remonstrances of friends who |