in the one responsible office with which he was intrusted, yet he cannot be taxed, taking all in all, with deliberate peculation.  His drinking and playing were bad—­very bad.  His improper connection was bad—­very bad; but perhaps the worst feature in his career was his connection with ‘John Bull,’ and his ready giving in to a system of low libel.  There is no excuse for this but the necessity of living; but Hook, had he retained any principle, might have made enough to live upon in a more honest manner.  His name does, certainly, not stand out well among the wits of this country, but after all, since all were so bad, Hook may be excused as not being the worst of them. Requiescat in pace.

SYDNEY SMITH.

The ’Wise Wit.’—­Oddities of the Father.—­Verse-making at Winchester.—­ Curate Life on Salisbury Plain.—­Old Edinburgh.—­Its Social and Architectural Features.—­Making Love Metaphysically.—­The Old Scottish Supper.—­The Men of Mark passing away—–­The Band of Young Spirits.—­ Brougham’s Early Tenacity.—­Fitting up Conversations.—­’Old School’ Ceremonies.—­The Speculative Society.—­A Brilliant Set.—­Sydney’s Opinion of his Friends.—­Holland House.—­Preacher at the ’Foundling.’—­Sydney’s ’Grammar of Life.’—­The Picture Mania.—­A Living Comes at Last.—­The wit’s Ministry.—­The Parsonage House at Foston-le-Clay.—­Country Quiet.  The Universal Scratcher.—­Country Life and Country Prejudice.—­The Genial Magistrate.—­Glimpse of Edinburgh Society.—­Mrs. Grant of Laggan.  A Pension Difficulty.—­Jeffrey and Cockburn.—­Craigcrook.—­Sydney Smith’s Cheerfulness.—­His Rheumatic Armour.—­No Bishopric.—­Becomes Canon of St. Paul’s.—­Anecdotes of Lord Dudley.—­A Sharp Reproof.—­Sydney’s Classification of Society.—­Last Strokes of Humour.

Smith’s reputation—­to quote from Lord Cockburn’s ’Memorial of Edinburgh’—­’here, then, was the same as it has been throughout his life, that of a wise wit.’  A wit he was, but we must deny him the reputation of being a beau.  For that, nature, no less than his holy office, had disqualified him.  Who that ever beheld him in a London drawing-room, when he went to so many dinners that he used to say he was a walking patty—­who could ever miscall him a beau?  How few years have we numbered since one perceived the large bulky form in canonical attire—­the plain, heavy face, large, long, unredeemed by any expression, except that of sound hard sense—­and thought, ’can this be the Wit?’ How few years is it since Henry Cockburn, hating London, and coming but rarely to what he called the ‘devil’s drawing room,’ stood near him, yet apart, for he was the most diffident of men; his wonderful luminous eyes, his clear, almost youthful, vivid complexion, contrasting brightly with the gray, pallid, prebendal complexion of Sydney? how short a time since Francis Jeffery, the smallest of great men, a beau in his old age, a wit to the last, stood hat in hand to bandy words with Sydney ere he rushed off to some still gayer scene, some more fashionable circle:  yet they are all gone—­gone from sight, living in memory alone.