that had much of hazard in it.  A Frenchman is always at home amid earthquakes and volcanoes and hurricanes, and the immediate prospect of an end to everything that is and a beginning of something the like of which never has been.  The spirit of the great French Revolution was to exterminate all the results of time up to that point, and, having made a clear field, to begin over again.  Hence heads went off, religion was proscribed, thrones were burned, the calendar was changed; even the heavenly bodies should no longer bear down their freight of old associations, and Orion received the name of Napoleon.  Could the earth have in any way been transformed, could grass possibly have been made blue and the heavens green, or could man have been done over into any other sort of animal, there is not the slightest doubt that those Frenchmen would have undertaken it.  In comparison with such men, Sydney Smith sank into insignificance as a reformer.  He lived under a religion, government, and system of manners, all of which he was desirous to retain.  He did not wish for his children any institutions very much more comfortable than England offered at the moment.  He regarded the advantages of life with great complacency, thinking, doubtless, that men had better opportunities than they availed themselves of; and the chief intensity of his purpose was not to make better opportunities, but to improve them better.  He probably did not approve of all the men and customs that he saw, was decidedly opposed both to wickedness and stupidity; but he did not propose, like a Frenchman, at the first fault, to blot out the heavens and the earth.  He demonstrated in his life how genial, under existing institutions, a clergyman could be, how discreet a young enthusiast could be, how widely active a curate could be, how acceptable in society an honest man could be, how brilliant a plain Englishman could be.  A great reformer he was, —­but the spirit of his reform consisted chiefly, not in changing, but in making better use of the blessings which we already possess.  Compared with this prevailing spirit of personal reform, the reformatory public measures which he was prominent in advocating were of slight consequence.  Merry on the surface, with an iron core of stubborn resolution within, he equally delighted his most homely and his most elegant friends, and while he sympathized with humble life, he had a profound respect for the technically best society.

Charles Lamb lived within a narrower and peculiar range.  With more of concentration, he had a less abounding energy than Sydney Smith.  His character was an odd and elegant miniature, while that of Sydney Smith was voluminous.  He loved a particular sort of men, and that sort was honest men; while the merry divine could deal with politicians and even with Talleyrand himself.  Sydney was playing a part in the Whig party, among the advocates of reforms; the sympathies of Elia went for the reform of the United Kingdom,