"How is ?" "He is not very well." "Why, what is the matter?" "Oh, don't you know he has produced a couplet? When our friend is delivered of a couplet, with infinite labour and pain, he takes to his bed, has straw laid down, the knocker tied up, expects his friends to call and make inquiries, and the answer at the door invariably is, Mr. and his little couplet are as well as can be expected.' When he produces an Alexandrine he keeps his bed a day longer."

You will find a Scotchman always says what is undermost. I, on the contrary, say everything that comes uppermost, and have all sorts of bad jokes put upon me in consequence. An American published a book, and declared I had told him there were more mad Quakers in lunatic asylums than any other sect; quite an invention on his part. Another time Prince P————— Mpublished my conversations; so when I next met him, I inquired whether this was to be a printed or manuscript one, as I should talk accordingly. He did his best to blush.

Never neglect your fireplaces: I have paid great attention to mine, and could burn you all out in a moment. Much of the cheerfulness of life depends upon it. Who could be miserable with that fire? What makes a fire so pleasant is, I think, that it is a live thing in a dead

room.

Such is the horror the French have of our cuisine that at the dinner given in honour of Guizot at the Athenæum, they say his cook was heard to exclaim, "Ah, mon pauvre maître! je ne le reverrai plus.”

I believe the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Hyde Park, encloses more intelligence and human ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world has ever collected in such a space before.

When I praised the author of the New Poor Law the other day, three gentlemen at the table took it to themselves, and blushed up to the eyes.

Yes! you find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.

It is a great proof of shyness to crumble bread at dinner. "Oh, I see you are afraid of me" (turning to a young lady who sat by him), "you crumble your bread. I do it when I sit by the Bishop of London, and with both hands when I sit by the Archbishop."

Addressing Rogers: "My dear R., if we were both in America, we should be tarred and feathered; and lovely as we are by nature, I should be an ostrich and you an emu."

I once saw a dressed statue of Venus in a serious house -the Venus Millinaria.

You flavour everything; you are the vanille of society.

I fully intended going to America; but my parishioners held a meeting, and came to a resolution that they could not trust me with the canvas-back ducks: and I felt they were right, so gave up the project.

My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.

Of course, if ever I do go to a fancy ball at all, I should go as a Dissenter.

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I think it was Luttrell who used to say face always reminded him of boiled mutton and near relations."

Don't you know, as the French say, there are three sexes-men, women, and clergymen ?

One of my great objections to the country is, that you get your letters but once a day; here they come every five minutes.

On some one offering him oat-cake, "No, I can't eat oat-cake, it is too rich for me."

Harrowgate is the most heaven-forgotten country under the sun. When I saw it there were only nine mangy fir trees there; and even they all leaned away from it.

Dining at Mr. Grenville's, Sydney Smith as usual arrived before the rest of the party. Some ladies were shortly after announced; as Mr. Grenville, with his graceful dignity and cheerfulness, went forward to receive them, Sydney Smith, looking after him, exclaimed to Mr. Panizzi, "There, that is the man from whom we all ought to learn how to grow old!"

The conversation at table turned on a subject lately treated of in Sir Charles Lyell's book, the phenomena which the earth might present to the geologists of

some future period; "Let us imagine," said Sydney Smith, "an excavation on the site of St. Paul's. Fancy a lecture, by the Owen of some future age, on the thigh-bone of a Minor Canon, or the tooth of a Dean,— the form, qualities, the knowledge, tastes, propensities, he would discover from them."

Some one spoke of the state of financial embarrassment of the London University. "Yes, it is so great, that I understand they have already seized on the air-pump, the exhausted receiver, and galvanic batteries; and that bailiffs have been seen chasing the Professor of Modern History round the quadrangle.”

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Conversing in the evening, with a small circle, round Miss Berry's tea-table, Sydney Smith observed the entrance of a no less remarkable person, both for talents and years, dressed in a beautiful crimson velvet gown. He started up to meet his fine old friend, exclaiming, 'exactly the colour of my preaching cushion!" and leading her forward to the light, he pretended to be lost in admiration, saying, "I really can hardly keep my hands off you; I shall be preaching on you, I fear," &c., and played with the subject to the infinite amusement of his old friend and the little circle assembled round her.

Playfair was certainly the most delightful philomath I ever knew.

Have you heard of Niebuhr's discoveries? All Roman history reversed; Tarquin turning out an excellent family man, and Lucretia a very doubtful character, whom Lady Davy would not have visited.

The ladies having left the room, at a dinner at Sir G. Philip's, the conversation turned on the black population of America. Sydney Smith turning to an eminent American jurist, who was here some years ago, said, "Pray, Mr. —, do tell us why you can't live on better terms with your black population." "Why to tell you the truth, Mr. Smith, they smell so abominably that we can't bear them near us." "Possibly not," said Sydney Smith, "but men must not be led by the nose in that way: if you don't like asking them to dinner, it is surely no reason why you should not make citizens of them.

Et si non alium latè jactaret odorem,
Civis erat.'

Some one complaining of the interminable length of the speeches in Parliament, he said, "Don't talk to me of not being able to cough a speaker down: try the whooping-cough."

Mr. Monckton Milnes was talking to Alderman when the latter turned away: "You were speaking,' said Sydney, "to the Lord Mayor elect. I myself felt in his presence like the Roman whom Pyrrhus tried to frighten with an elephant, and remained calm.”

When so showy a woman as Mrs. appears at a place, though there is no garrison within twelve miles, the horizon is immediately clouded with majors.

To take Macaulay out of literature and society, and put him in the House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of London during a pestilence.

* Virgil, Georgics, ii. 132. Laurus in the original.