his place in the House of Lords, and | They are afraid that your object is not not urge for those dignitaries the same so much to do good as to gratify your reasons which were so successful in vanity, by obtaining the character of a securing such ample emoluments for great reformer, and that (now the his own See ? My old friend the Bishops are provided for) you will varBishop of Durham has 8000l. per an-nish over your political mistakes by innum secured to him. I am heartily creased severity against the Church, or glad of it; what possible reason can apparently struggling for their good, there be for giving him more than see with inexpressible delight the Clerother Bishops, and not giving to the gy delivered over to the tender mercies Dean of Durham more than other of the Radicals. These are the terrors Deans? that is, of leaving to him one of the Clergy. I judge you with a half of his present income. It is im- very different judgment. You are a possible this can be a claptrap for religious man, not unfriendly to the Joseph Hume, or a set-off against the Church; and but for that most foolish disasters of Canada; you are too honest and fatal error of the Church Rates and elevated for this. I cannot com- (into which you were led by a man prehend what is meant by such gross who knows no more of England than partiality and injustice. of Mesopotamia), I believe you would have gone on well with the Church to the last. There is a genius in action as well as diction; and because you see political evils clearly, and attack them bravely, and cure them wisely, you are a man of real genius, and are most deservedly looked up to as the leader of the Whig party in this Kingdom. I wish, I must confess, you were rather less afraid of Joseph and Daniel; but God has given you a fine understanding, and a fine character; and I have so much confidence in your spirit and honour, that I am sure you would rather abandon your Bills altogether, than suffer the enemies of the Church to convert them into an engine of spoil, and oppression. I am, &c. Why are the economists so eagerly in the field? The public do not contribute one halfpenny to the support of Deans and Chapters; it is not proposed by any one to confiscate the revenues of the Church; the whole is a question of distribution, in what way the revenues of the Church can be best administered for the public good. But whatever may be the respective shares of Peter or Paul, the public will never be richer or poorer by one shilling. When your Dean and Chapter Bill is printed, I shall take the liberty of addressing you again. The Clergy naturally look with the greatest anxiety to these two Bills; they think that you will avail yourself of this opportunity to punish them for their opposition to your government in the last Elections. SYDNEY SMITH. LETTER ON THE CHARACTER OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. MY DEAR SIR, Till subdued by age and illness, his You ask for some of your late father's conversation was more brilliant and letters: I am sorry to say I have none instructive than that of any human to send you. Upon principle, I keep being I ever had the good fortune to no letters except those on business. I be acquainted with. His memory (vast have not a single letter from him, nor and prodigious as it was) he so manfrom any human being, in my posses-aged as to make it a source of pleasure sion. The impression which the great talents and amiable qualities of your father made upon me, will remain as long as I remain. When I turn from living spectacles of stupidity, ignorance, and malice, and wish to think better of the world—I remember my great and benevolent friend Mackintosh. and instruction, rather than that dreadful engine of colloquial oppression into which it is sometimes erected. He remembered things, words, thoughts, dates, and everything that was wanted. His language was beautiful, and might have gone from the fireside to the press; but though his ideas were always clothed in beautiful language, the clothes were sometimes too big for the body, and common thoughts were dressed in better and larger apparel than they deserved. He certainly had this fault, but it was one not of frequent commission. He had a method of putting things so mildly and interrogatively, that he always procured the readiest reception for his opinions. Addicted to reasoning in the company of able men, he had The first points of character which everybody noticed in him were the total absence of envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. He could not hate - he did not know how to set about it. The gall-bladder was omitted in his composition, and if he could have been persuaded into any scheme of revenging himself upon an enemy, I am sure (unless he had been narrowly watched) it would have ended in proclaiming the good qualities, and promoting the in-two valuable habits which are rarely terests, of his adversary. Truth had so much more power over him than anger, that (whatever might be the provocation) he could not misrepresent nor exaggerate. In questions of passion and party he stated facts as they were, and reasoned fairly upon them, placing his happiness and pride in equitable discrimination. Very fond of talking, he heard patiently; and, not averse to intellectual display, did not forget that others might have the same inclination as himself. met with in great reasoners - he never broke in upon his opponent, and always avoided strong and vehement assertions. His reasoning commonly carried conviction, for he was cautious in his positions, accurate in his deductions, aimed only at truth. The ingenious side was commonly taken by some one else; the interests of truth were protected by Mackintosh. His good nature and candour betrayed him into a morbid habit of eulogising everybody—a habit which I have often heard Sir James Mack to be the Professor of an University. Happy, and for ages celebrated, would have been the University, which had so possessed him; but in this view he was unjust to himself. Still, however, his style of speaking in parliament was certainly more academic than forensic; it was not sufficiently short and quick for a busy and impatient assembly. He often spoke over the heads of his hearers destroyed the value of commendations, This was the fault or the misfortune that might have been to the young (if of your excellent father; he never more sparingly distributed) a reward knew the use of red tape, and was of virtue and a motive to exertion. utterly unfit for the common business Occasionally he took fits of an opposite of life. That a guinea represented a nature; and I have seen him abating quantity of shillings, and that it would and dissolving pompous gentlemen with barter for a quantity of cloth, he was the most successful ridicule. He cer- well aware; but the accurate number tainly had a good deal of humour; of the baser coin, or the just measureand I remember, amongst many other ment of the manufactured article, to examples of it, that he kept us for two which he was entitled for his gold, he or three hours in a roar of laughter at could never learn, and it was imposa dinner-party at his own house, play- sible to teach him. Hence his life was ing upon the simplicity of a Scotch often an example of the ancient and cousin, who had mistaken me for my melancholy struggle of genius with the gallant synonym, the hero of Acre. I difficulties of existence. never saw a more perfect comedy, nor heard ridicule so long and so well sus-intosh say of himself that he was born tained. Sir James had not only humour, but he had wit also; at least, new and sudden relations of ideas flashed across his mind in reasoning. and produced the same effect as wit, and would have been called wit, if a sense of their utility and importance had not often overpowered the admiration of novelty, and entitled them to the higher name of wisdom. Then the great thoughts and fine sayings of the great men of all ages were intimately present to his recollection, and came out dazzling and delighting in his conversation. Justness of thinking was a strong feature of his understanding; he had a head in which nonsense and error could hardly vegetate: it was a soil utterly unfit for them. If his display in conversation had been only in maintaining splendid paradoxes, he would soon have wearied those he lived with; but no man could live long and intimately with your father without finding that he was gaining upon doubt, correcting error, enlarging the boundaries, and strengthening the foundations of truth. It was worth while to listen to a master, whom not himself but nature had appointed to the office, and who taught what it was not easy to forget, by methods which it was not easy to resist. was too much in advance of feeling for their sympathies, and of reasoning for their comprehension. He began too much at the beginning, and went too much to the right and left of the question, making rather a lecture or dissertation than a speech. His voice was bad and nasal; and though nobody was in reality more sincere, he seemed not only not to feel, but hardly to think what he was saying. Your father had very little science, and no great knowledge of physics. His notions of his early pursuitthe study of medicine- - were imperfect and antiquated, and he was but an indifferent classical scholar, for the Greek language has never crossed the Tweed in any great force. In history, the whole stream of time was open before him; he had looked into every moral and metaphysical question from Curran, the Master of the Rolls, Plato to Paley, and had waded through said to Mr. Grattan, "You would be morasses of international law, where the greatest man of your age, Grattan, the step of no living man could follow if you would buy a few yards of red him. Political economy is of modern tape, and tie up your bills and papers." | invention. I am old enough to re collect when every judge of the bench | as fall to the lot of the feeble and deli(Lord Eldon and Serjeant Runnington cate in a crowd. excepted), in their charges to the A high merit in Sir James Mackgrand juries, attributed the then high prices of corn to the scandalous combination of farmers. Sir James knew what is commonly agreed upon by political economists, without taking much pleasure in the science, and with a disposition to blame the very speculative and metaphysical disquisitions into which it has wandered, but with a full conviction also (which many able men of his standing are without) of the immense importance of the science to the welfare of society. I think (though perhaps some of his friends may not agree with me in this opinion) that he was an acute judge of character, and of the good as well as evil in character. He was, in truth, with the appearance of distraction and of one occupied with other things, a very minute observer of human nature; and I have seen him analyse, to the very springs of the heart, men who had not the most distant suspicion of the sharpness of his vision, nor a belief that he could read anything but books. intosh was his real and unaffected But though easily warmed by great schemes of benevolence and human improvement, his manner was cold to individuals. There was an apparent want of heartiness and cordiality. It seemed as if he had more affection for the species than for the ingredients of which it was composed. He was in reality very hospitable, and so fond of company, that he was hardly happy out of it; but he did not receive his friends with that honest joy, which warms more than dinner or wine. Sufficient justice has not been done to his political integrity. He was not rich, was from the northern part of the island, possessed great facility of temper, and had therefore every excuse for political lubricity, which that vice (more common in those days than I hope it will ever be again) could pos- This is the good and evil of your sibly require. Invited by every party father which comes uppermost. If he upon his arrival from India, he re- had been arrogant and grasping; if he mained steadfast to his old friends the had been faithless and false; if he had Whigs, whose admission to office, or been always eager to strangle infant enjoyment of political power, would at genius in its cradle; always ready to that period have been considered as the betray and to blacken those with whom most visionary of all human specula- he sat at meat; he would have passed tions; yet, during his lifetime, every- many men, who, in the course of his body seemed more ready to have for-long life, have passed him ; — but, given the tergiversation of which he without selling his soul for pottage, was not guilty, than to admire the if he only had had a little more actual firmness he had displayed. prudence for the promotion of his With all this he never made the slight- interests, and more of angry passions est efforts to advance his interests with for the punishment of those detractors, his political friends, never mentioned who envied his fame and presumed his sacrifices nor his services, expressed upon his sweetness; if he had been no resentment at neglect, and was more aware of his powers, and of that therefore pushed into such situations space which nature intended him to occupy; he would have acted a great | tion of his talents, his wisdom, his part in life, and remained a character knowledge, and his benevolence. in history. As it is, he has left, in many of the best men in England, and of the Continent, the deepest admira I remain, my dear Sir, BALLOT. "Shook the arsenal, and fulmin❜d over Greece." I Ir is possible, and perhaps not very customers. There is a great deal of difficult, to invent a machine, by the tyranny and injustice in all this. aid of which electors may vote for a should no more think of asking what candidate, or for two or three candi- the political opinions of a shopkeeper dates, out of a greater number, without were, than of asking whether he was its being discovered for whom they tall or short, or large or small: for a vote; it is less easy than the rabid and difference of 23 per cent. I would desert foaming Radical supposes; but I have the most aristocratic butcher that ever no doubt it may be accomplished. In existed, and deal with one who Mr. Grote's dagger ballot box, which has been carried around the country| by eminent patriots, you stab the card of your favourite candidate with a On the contrary, I would not adhere dagger. I have seen another, called to the man who put me in uneasy the mouse-trap ballot box, in which habiliments, however great his venerayou poke your finger into the trap of tion for trial by jury, or however ardent the member you prefer, and are caught his attachment to the liberty of the and detained till the trap-clerk below subject. A tenant I never had; but (who knows by means of a wire when I firmly believe that if he had gone you are caught) marks your vote, pulls through certain pecuniary formalities the liberator, and releases you. Which twice a year, I should have thought may be the most eligible of these two it a gross act of tyranny to have inmethods I do not pretend to determine, terfered either with his political or his nor do I think my excellent friend Mr. religious opinions. Babbage has as yet made up his mind on the subject; but, by some means or another, I have no doubt the thing may be done. I distinctly admit that every man has a right to do what he pleases with his own. I cannot, by law, prevent any one from discharging his tenants, Landed proprietors imagine they and changing his tradesmen, for polihave a right to the votes of their tical reasons; but I may judge whether tenants; and instances, in every elec- that man exercises his right to the tion, are numerous where tenants have public detriment, or for the public been dismissed for voting contrary to advantage. A man has a right to the wishes of their landlords. In the refuse dealing with any tradesman who same manner strong combinations are is not five feet eleven inches high; made against tradesmen who have but if he act upon this rule, he is either chosen to think, and act for themselves a madman or a fool. He has a right in political matters, rather than yield to lay waste his own estate, and to their opinions to the solicitations of their make it utterly barren; but I have VOL. II. X |