have denominated them-the wit of words. They are exactly the same to words which wit is to ideas, and consist in the sudden discovery of relations in language. A pun, to be perfect in its kind, should contain two distinct meanings; the one common and obvious, the other more remote; and in the notice which the mind takes of the relation between these two sets of words, and in the surprise which that relation excites, the pleasure of a pun consists. Miss Hamilton, in her book on Education, mentions the instance of a boy so very neglectful that he could never be brought to read the word patriarchs; but whenever he met with it he always pronounced it partridges. A friend of the writer observed to her that it could hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it appeared to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was making game of the patriarchs. Now here are two distinct meanings contained in the same phrase: for to make game of the patriarchs is to laugh at them; or to make game of them is by a very extravagant and laughable sort of ignorance of words, to rank them among pheasants, partridges, and other such delicacies, which the law takes under its protection and calls game: and the whole pleasure derived from this pun consists in the sudden discovery that two such different meanings are referable to one form of expression. I have very little to say about puns; they are in very bad repute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas that it is very deservedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a pun makes its appearance which seems for a moment to redeem its species; but we must not be deceived by them it is a radically bad race of wit. By unremitting persecution, it has been at last got under, and driven into cloisters from whence it must never again be suffered to emerge into the light of the world. One invaluable blessing produced by the banishment of punning is an immediate reduction of the number of wits. It is a wit of so low an order, and in which some sort of progress is so easily made, that the number of those endowed with the gift of wit would be nearly equal to those endowed with the gift of speech. The condition of putting together ideas in order to be witty operates much in the same salutary manner as the condition of finding rhymes in poetry;-it reduces the number of performers to those who have vigour enough to overcome incipient difficulties, and make a sort of provision that that which need not be done at all should be done well whenever it is done.

Mrs Trimmer.

This is a book written by a lady who has gained considerable reputation at the corner of St Paul's Churchyard; who flames in the van of Mr Newberry's shop; and is, upon the whole, dearer to mothers and aunts than any other author who pours the milk of science into the mouths of babes and sucklings. Tired at last of scribbling for children, and getting ripe in ambition, she has now written a book for grown-up people, and selected for her antagonist as stiff a controversialist as the whole field of dispute could well have supplied. Her opponent is Mr Lancaster, a Quaker, who has lately given to the world new and striking lights upon the subject of Education, and come forward to the notice of his country by spreading order, knowledge, and innocence among the lowest of mankind.

(From Article in the Edinburgh, 1806.)

Botany Bay.

This land of convicts and kangaroos is beginning to rise into a very fine and flourishing settlement. And great indeed must be the natural resources and splendid the endowments of that land that has been able to survive the system of neglect and oppression experienced from the mother-country, and the series of ignorant and absurd governors that have been selected for the administration of its affairs. But mankind live and flourish not only in spite of storms and tempests, but (which could not have been anticipated previous to experience) in spite of colonial secretaries expressly paid to watch over their interests. The supineness and profligacy of public officers cannot always overcome the amazing energy with which human beings pursue their happiness, nor the sagacity with which they determine on the means by which that end is to be promoted. Be it our care, however, to record, for the future inhabitants of Australasia, the political sufferings of their larcenous forefathers; and let them appreciate, as they ought, that energy which founded a mighty empire in spite of the afflicting blunders and marvellous cacœconomy of their government.

...

Such is the climate of Botany Bay; and, in this remote part of the earth, Nature (having made horses, oxen, ducks, geese, oaks, elms, and all regular and useful productions for the rest of the world), seems determined to have a bit of play, and to amuse herself as she pleases. Accordingly, she makes cherries with the stone on the outside; and a monstrous animal, as tall as a grenadier, with the head of a rabbit, a tail as big as a bed-post, hopping along at the rate of five hops to a mile, with three or four young kangaroos looking out of its false uterus, to see what is passing. Then comes a quadruped

as big as a large cat, with the eyes, colour, and skin of a mole, and the bill and web-feet of a duck-puzzling Dr Shaw, and rendering the latter half of his life miserable, from his utter inability to determine whether it was a bird or a beast. Add to this a parrot with the legs of a sea-gull, a skate with the head of a shark, and a bird of such monstrous dimensions that a side-bone of it will dine three real carnivorous Englishmen— together with many other productions that agitate Sir Joseph [Banks], and fill him with mingled emotions of distress and delight. (From Article in the Edinburgh, 1819.)

His Life, with a selection from his Letters, was published in 1855 by his daughter Saba (1802-66), who in 1834 married Dr (Sir) Henry Holland. See also Hayward's Essays (1858), Stuart J. Reid's Life and Times of Sydney Smith (1884; new ed. 1896), Professor Saintsbury's Essays in English Literature (1890), Selections from Sydney Smith by Ernest Rhys (1894), and a French study by Chevrillon (1894); also an interview with him by Miss Martineau (see below).

Thomas Henry Lister (1800-42), well born, and educated at Westminster and Trinity College, Cambridge, wrote half-a-dozen novels, of which the best known are Granby (1826), Herbert Lacy (1828), and Arlington (1832) — largely interesting pictures of aristocratic life set in a strain of graceful reflection after the style of the essays in the Mirror and Lounger. Lister produced also a tragedy and a Life of the Earl of Clarendon, and at the time of his death was Registrar - General for England and Wales-the first to hold the post, established only in 1836.

James and Horace Smith, extraordinarily clever, lively, and amusing authors in both prose and verse, were sons of an eminent legal prac

JAMES SMITH.

From an Engraving after the Portrait by Lonsdale.

titioner in London, solicitor to the Board of Ordnance, and noted for his accomplishments. Both James (1775-1839) and Horatio (usually Horace; 1779-1849) were educated at Chigwell in Essex, and for this retired 'school-boy spot' James ever retained a strong affection. After school-days James Smith was articled to his father, was taken into partnership in due time, and in 1812 succeeded to the business, as well as to the post of solicitor to the Ordnance. With a quick sense of the ridiculous, a strong passion for the stage and the drama, and a love of London society and manners, Smith became a town wit and humourist -delighting in parodies, dramatic dialogues, and current criticism. His first pieces appear to have been contributed to The Pic-nic newspaper, afterwards merged in The Cabinet. He wrote for the London Review, a short-lived journal established by Cumberland the dramatist, on the principle that every writer's name must be appended to his critique; and next became a constant writer in The Monthly Mirror, where there appeared a series of parodies and poetical imitations, Horace in London, the joint work of the brothers. Some of the pieces are sprightly and humorous, many only trifling and tedious. To London he was as strongly attached as Dr Johnson himself. 'A confirmed metropolitan in all his tastes and habits, he would often quaintly observe that London was the best place in summer, and the only place in winter; or quote Dr Johnson's dogma: "Sir, the man that is tired of London is tired of existence." He did sometimes condescend to go as far as

Yorkshire to stay with friends. But when at a country house he excused himself from joining in a stroll by asking his host to note the gouty shoe he wore, the host only said, 'You don't really mean to say that you have got the gout? I thought you had only put on that shoe to avoid being shown over the improvements.'

The Rejected Addresses, 'one of the luckiest hits in literature,' appeared in 1812, having kept James and Horace busy for six weeks. The directors of Drury Lane Theatre had offered a premium for the best poetical address to be spoken at the opening of the new building; and a casual hint from the secretary of the theatre suggested to the witty brothers a series of humorous addresses, professedly composed by the principal authors of the day. The work was ready by the opening day, but, marvellous to record, it was with difficulty that a publisher could be found, although the authors asked nothing for copyright. At length John Miller, a dramatic publisher, undertook to publish and give half profits, should there be any. In an advertisement prefixed to the twenty-second edition it is put on record that Mr Murray, who had refused without even looking at the manuscript, purchased the copyright for £131 in 1819, after the book had run through sixteen editions. The success of the work was indeed almost unexampled. James's contributions were imitations of Wordsworth, Cobbett, Southey, Coleridge, and Crabbe. Horace

Effusion is irresistibly ludicrous), and others. The Byronic piece was a joint work, James contributing the first stanza, the keynote, and Horace the remainder. The talent displayed was wonderfully equal; none of James's parodies are more felicitous than Horace's Scott.

The popularity of the Rejected Addresses seems to have satisfied the ambition of the elder poet; he afterwards confined himself to short anonymous pieces in The New Monthly Magazine and other periodicals, and some humorous sketches and anecdotes for Charles Mathews's theatrical entertainments, the authorship of which was known only to a few. The Country Cousins, Trip to France, and Trip to America, mostly written by Smith, and brought out by Mathews at the English Opera House, not only filled the theatre and replenished the treasury, but brought the lucky writer a thousand pounds-a largess James seldom mentioned without shrugging his shoulders and ejaculating, 'A thousand pounds for nonsense!' For a still slighter exertion of his muse he was even more amply rewarded; for, having met at a dinner-party Mr Strahan, the king's printer, then suffering from gout and old age, though with faculties unimpaired, James sent him next morning the following jeu d'esprit :

Your lower limbs seemed far from stout
When last I saw you walk;

The cause I presently found out
When you began to talk.

The power that props the body's length,
In due proportion spread,

In you mounts upwards, and the strength
All settles in the head.

Strahan made an immediate codicil to his will, bequeathing £3000 to the writer of the neat compliment. James made a happier, though less remunerative, epigram on Miss Edgeworth:

We every-day bards may anonymous' sign-
That refuge, Miss Edgeworth, can never be thine.
Thy writings, where satire and moral unite,

Must bring forth the name of their author to light.
Good and bad join in telling the source of their birth;
The bad own their EDGE, and the good own their WORTH.
The easy social bachelor-life of James Smith was
much disturbed by hereditary gout, which began
to assail him in middle life, and gradually deprived
him of the use of his limbs. His wide knowledge,
his inexhaustible wit and humour, his accom-
plishments, winning ways, and genial temper,
made him a fascinating companion; and as usual
in such cases, his published works give but a
faint idea of the man's powers.

Horace Smith, the surviving partner of this literary duumvirate-perhaps the closest and most constant since that of Beaumont and Fletcherwas a stockbroker by profession, and realised a handsome fortune, retiring in 1820, and three years later settling at Brighton. He was one of the first imitators of Sir Walter Scott in the

department of historical romance. His Brambletye House (1826), a tale of the civil wars, was received with favour, though some of its descriptions of the plague in London were copied too literally from Defoe, and there was a want of vitality and truth in the embodiment of many of the historical characters. The success of this effort inspired Horace to venture into various fields of fiction-Tor Hill; Zillah, a Tale of the Holy City; The Midsummer Medley; Walter Colyton; The Involuntary Prophet; Jane Lomax; The Moneyed Man; Adam Brown; The Merchant; and others. But none of these was destined to live. The variously gifted author was as remarkable for generosity as for wit and playful humour. Shelley said, 'Is it not odd that the only truly generous person I ever knew, who had money to be generous with, should be a stockbroker! And he writes poetry too,' continued Shelley; 'he writes poetry and pastoral dramas, and yet knows how to make money, and does make it, and is still generous.' The fastidious and ethereal poet also put in verse his regard for his facetious friend : Wit and sense,

Virtue and human knowledge, all that might
Make this dull world a business of delight,
Are all combined in Horace Smith.

Apart from the parodies, James Smith did nothing. so good as Horace Smith's Address to the Mummy, which is a felicitous compound of fact, humour, and sentiment, aptly, pithily, and neatly put.

The Theatre.-By the Rev. G. C. [Crabbe].
'Tis sweet to view, from half-past five to six,
Our long wax-candles, with short cotton wicks,
Touched by the lamplighter's Promethean art,
Start into light, and make the lighter start:
To see red Phoebus through the gallery pane
Tinge with his beam the beams of Drury Lane,
While gradual parties fill our widened pit,
And gape, and gaze, and wonder, ere they sit.

What various swains our motley walls contain !
Fashion from Moorfields, honour from Chick Lane;
Bankers from Paper Buildings here resort,
Bankrupts from Golden Square and Riches Court;
From the Haymarket, canting rogues in grain,
Gulls from the Poultry, sots from Water Lane ;
The lottery cormorant, the auction shark,
The full-price master, and the half-price clerk ;
Boys who long linger at the gallery door,
With pence twice five, they want but twopence more,
Till some Samaritan the twopence spares,
And sends them jumping up the gallery stairs.
Critics we boast who ne'er their malice balk,
But talk their minds-we wish they'd mind their talk;
Big-worded bullies, who by quarrels live,
Who give the lie, and tell the lie they give;
Jews from St Mary Axe, for jobs so wary,
That for old clothes they'd even axe St Mary;
And bucks with pockets empty as their pate,
Lax in their gaiters, laxer in their gait ;
Who oft, when we our house lock up, carouse
With tippling tipstaves in a lock-up house.

Yet here, as elsewhere, chance can joy bestow,
Where scowling fortune seemed to threaten woe.
John Richard William Alexander Dwyer
Was footman to Justinian Stubbs, Esquire ;
But when John Dwyer listed in the Blues,
Emanuel Jennings polished Stubbs's shoes.
Emanuel Jennings brought his youngest boy
Up as a corn-cutter-a safe employ ;

In Holywell Street, St Pancras, he was bred—
At number twenty-seven, it is said—
Facing the pump, and near the Granby's Head.
He would have bound him to some shop in town,
But with a premium he could not come down:
Pat was the urchin's name, a red-haired youth,
Fonder of purl and skittle-grounds than truth.

Silence, ye gods! to keep your tongues in awe,
The muse shall tell an accident she saw.

Pat Jennings in the upper gallery sat;
But leaning forward, Jennings lost his hat;
Down from the gallery the beaver flew,
And spurned the one, to settle in the two.
How shall he act? Pay at the gallery door
Two shillings for what cost when new but four?
Or till half-price, to save his shilling, wait,
And gain his hat again at half-past eight?
Now, while his fears anticipate a thief,

John Mullins whispers: 'Take my handkerchief.'
'Thank you,' cries Pat, but one won't make a line.'
'Take mine,' cried Wilson; 'And,' cried Stokes, ' take
mine.'

A motley cable soon Pat Jennings ties,
Where Spitalfields with real India vies.
Like Iris' bow, down darts the painted hue,

Starred, striped, and spotted, yellow, red, and blue,
Old calico, torn silk, and muslin new.
George Green below, with palpitating hand,
Loops the last 'kerchief to the beaver's band;
Upsoars the prize; the youth, with joy unfeigned,
Regained the felt, and felt what he regained,
While to the applauding galleries grateful Pat
Made a low bow, and touched the ransomed hat.

The Baby's Début.-By W. W. [Wordsworth). Spoken in the character of Nancy Lake, a girl eight years of age, who is drawn upon the stage in a child's chaise by Samuel Hughes, her uncle's porter.

My brother Jack was nine in May,
And I was eight on New-Year's Day;
So in Kate Wilson's shop

Papa (he's my papa and Jack's)
Bought me, last week, a doll of wax,
And brother Jack a top.

Jack 's in the pouts, and this it is,
He thinks mine came to more than his,
So to my drawer he goes,

Takes out the doll, and, O my stars!
He pokes her head between the bars,
And melts off half her nose!

Quite cross, a bit of string I beg,
And tie it to his peg-top's peg,
And bang, with might and main,
Its head against the parlour-door;
Off flies the head, and hits the floor,
And breaks a window-pane.

This made him cry with rage and spite;
Well, let him cry, it serves him right.

A pretty thing, forsooth!
If he's to melt, all scalding hot,
Half my doll's nose, and I am not
To draw his peg-top's tooth!

Aunt Hannah heard the window break,
And cried: O naughty Nancy Lake,
Thus to distress your aunt :

No Drury Lane for you to-day!'
And while papa said: 'Pooh, she may!'
Mamma said: 'No, she shan't!'

Well, after many a sad reproach,
They got into a hackney-coach,
And trotted down the street.

I saw them go one horse was blind;
The tails of both hung down behind;
Their shoes were on their feet.

The chaise in which poor brother Bill Used to be drawn to Pentonville, Stood in the lumber-room:

I wiped the dust from off the top, While Molly mopped it with a mop, And brushed it with a broom.

My uncle's porter, Samuel Hughes,
Came in at six to black the shoes
(I always talk to Sam):
So what does he but takes and drags
Me in the chaise along the flags,

And leaves me where I am.

My father's walls are made of brick,
But not so tall and not so thick

As these; and, goodness me!
My father's beams are made of wood,
But never, never half so good
As these that now I see.

What a large floor! 'tis like a town!
The carpet, when they lay it down,
Won't hide it, I'll be bound:
And there's a row of lamps; my eye!
How they do blaze! I wonder why
They keep them on the ground.
At first I caught hold of the wing,
And kept away; but Mr Thing-
Umbob, the prompter man,
Gave with his hand my chaise a shove,
And said: 'Go on, my pretty love;

Speak to 'em, little Nan.

'You've only got to curtsey, whisp-
er, hold your chin up, laugh and lisp,
And then you 're sure to take:
I've known the day when brats not quite
Thirteen got fifty pounds a night;
Then why not Nancy Lake?'

But while I'm speaking, where 's papa?
And where's my aunt? and where's mamma ?
Where's Jack? Oh, there they sit !
They smile, they nod; I'll go my ways,
And order round poor Billy's chaise,

To join them in the pit.

A Tale of Drury Lane.-By W. S. [Scott).

As Chaos which, by heavenly doom,
Had slept in everlasting gloom,
Started with terror and surprise,

When light first flashed upon her eyes:
So London's sons in night-cap woke,

In bed-gown woke her dames,

For shouts were heard 'mid fire and smoke, And twice ten hundred voices spoke,

"The playhouse is in flames.'

And lo! where Catherine Street extends,
A fiery tale its lustre lends

To every window-pane :

Blushes each spout in Martlet Court,
And Barbican, moth-eaten fort,
And Covent Garden kennels sport

A bright ensanguined drain ;

Meux's new brewhouse shows the light,
Rowland Hill's chapel, and the height
Where patent shot they sell :
The Tennis Court, so fair and tall,
Partakes the ray, with Surgeons' Hall,
The Ticket Porters' house of call,
Old Bedlam, close by London wall,
Wright's shrimp and oyster shop withal,
And Richardson's hotel.

Nor these alone, but far and wide
Across the Thames's gleaming tide,
To distant fields the blaze was borne ;
And daisy white and hoary thorn
In borrowed lustre seemed to sham
The rose or red sweet Wil-li-am.

To those who on the hills around
Beheld the flames from Drury's mound

As from a lofty altar rise,

It seemed that nations did conspire To offer to the god of fire Some vast stupendous sacrifice! The summoned firemen woke at call, And hied them to their stations all. Starting from short and broken snooze, Each sought his ponderous hobnailed shoes; But first his worsted hosen plied, Plush breeches next, in crimson dyed, His nether bulk embraced; Then jacket thick of red or blue, Whose massy shoulder gave to view The badge of each respective crew,

In tin or copper traced.

The engines thundered through the street,
Fire-hook, pipe, bucket, all complete,
And torches glared, and clattering feet
Along the pavement paced. . . .
E'en Higginbottom now was posed,
For sadder scene was ne'er disclosed;
Without, within, in hideous show,
Devouring flames resistless glow,

And blazing rafters downward go,
And never halloo Heads below!'
Nor notice give at all:
The firemen, terrified, are slow
To bid the pumping torrent flow,
For fear the roof should fall.
Back, Robins, back!

Crump, stand aloof!
Whitford, keep near the walls!
Huggins, regard your own behoof,
For, lo! the blazing rocking roof
Down, down in thunder falls!

An awful pause succeeds the stroke,
And o'er the ruins volumed smoke,
Rolling around its pitchy shroud,
Concealed them from the astonished crowd.
At length the mist awhile was cleared,
When lo! amid the wreck upreared,
Gradual a moving head appeared,
And Eagle firemen knew

'Twas Joseph Muggins, name revered,
The foreman of their crew.
Loud shouted all in signs of woe,
'A Muggins to the rescue, ho!'

And poured the hissing tide:
Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain,
And strove and struggled all in vain,
For, rallying but to fall again,

He tottered, sank, and died!
Did none attempt, before he fell,
To succour one they loved so well?
Yes, Higginbottom did aspire—
His fireman's soul was all on fire-
His brother-chief to save;
But ah his reckless, generous ire

Served but to share his grave!
'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams,
Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke,
Where Muggins broke before.

But sulphury stench and boiling drench,
Destroying sight, o'erwhelmed him quite ;
He sank to rise no more.

Still o'er his head, while Fate he braved,
His whizzing water-pipe he waved;
'Whitford and Mitford, ply your pumps;
You, Clutterbuck, come, stir your stumps;
Why are you in such doleful dumps?

A fireman, and afraid of bumps!

What are they feared on? fools-'od rot 'em !'Were the last words of Higginbottom.

Address to the Mummy in Belzoni's Exhibition.
And thou hast walked about (how strange a story!)
In Thebes's streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,
And time had not begun to overthrow
Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous !

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy;
Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;
Thou 'rt standing on thy legs above-ground, mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon.

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,
But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.