ideas. I should like to see the subject in the hands of H. B. I would entitle the print-The Bishops' Saturday Night; or, Lord John Russell at the pay-table.'

"The Bishops should be standing before the pay-table, and receiving their weekly allowance; Lord John and Spring Rice counting, ringing, and biting the sovereigns, and the Bishop of Exeter insisting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given him one which was not weight. Viscount Melbourne, in high chuckle, should be standing, with his hat on, and his back to the fire, delighted with the contest; and the Deans and Canons should be in the background, waiting till their turn came, and the Bishops were paid; and among them a Canon, of large composition, urging them on not to give way too much to the Bench. Perhaps I should add the President of the Board of Trade, recommending the truck principle to the Bishops, and offering to pay them in hassocks, cassocks, aprons, shovel-hats, sermon-cases, and such like ecclesiastical geer."

We cannot omit his portraits of Viscount Melbourne and Lord John Russell. Let us take the head of the late Whig government first:-"But if the truth must be told, our Viscount is somewhat of an impostor. Everything about him seems to betoken careless desolation; any one would suppose from his manner that he was playing at chuck-farthing with human happiness; that he was always on the heel of pastime; that he would giggle away the Great Charter, and decide by the method of tee-totum whether my Lords the Bishops should or should not retain their seats in the House of Lords. All this is the mere vanity of surprising, and making us believe that he can play with kingdoms as other men can with ninepins. Instead of this lofty nebulo, this miracle of moral and intellectual felicities, he is nothing more than a sensible honest man, who means to do his duty to the Sovereign and to the country: instead of being the ignorant man he pretends to be, before he meets the deputation of Tallow-Chandlers in the morning, he sits up half the night talking with Thomas Young about melting and skimming, and then, though he has acquired knowledge enough to work off a whole vat of prime Leicester tallow, he pretends next morning not to know the difference between a dip and a mould. In the same way, when he has been employed in reading Acts of Parliament, he would persuade you that he has been reading Cleghorn on the Beatitudes, or Pickler on the Nine Difficult Points. Neither can I allow to this Minister (however he may be irritated by the denial) the extreme merit of indifference to the consequences of his measures. I believe him to be conscientiously alive to the good or evil that he is doing, and that his caution has more than once arrested the gigantic projects of the Lycurgus of the Lower House. I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings, and to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared; but I accuse our Minister of honesty and diligence; I deny that he is careless or rash: he is nothing more than a man of good understanding, and good principle, disguised in the eternal and somewhat wearisome affectation of a political Roué."

"Lord John Russell gives himself great credit for not having confiscated Church property, but merely remodelled and redivided it. I accuse that excellent man not of plunder, but I accuse him of

taking the Church of England, rolling it about as a cook does a piece of dough with a rolling-pin, cutting a hundred different shapes with all the plastic fertility of a confectioner, and without the most distant suspicion that he can ever be wrong, or ever be mistaken; with a certainty that he can anticipate the consequences of every possible change in human affairs. There is not a more honest nor a better man in England than Lord John Russell; but his worst failure is, that he is utterly ignorant of all moral fear: there is nothing he would not undertake. I believe he would perform the operation for the stone-build St. Peter's-or assume (with or without ten minutes' notice) the command of the Channel Fleet; and no one would discover by his manner that the patient had died -the Church tumbled down-and the Channel Fleet been knocked to atoms."

Sydney Smith's last writings were, a Pamphlet against the Ballot, a Letter on Imprisonment in Railway Carriages, and a Letter on Pennsylvanian Bonds. They exhibit all the power, sarcasm, wit, and logic which distinguish his earliest productions. Like Cobbett, he preserved his freshness and originality to the last. "Railroad travelling," he observes, "is a delightful improvement of human life. Man is become a bird; he can fly longer and quicker than a Solan goose. The mamma rushes sixty miles in two hours to the aching finger of her conjugating and declining grammar boy. The early Scotchman scratches himself in the morning mists of the north, and has his porridge in Piccadilly before the setting sun. The Puseyite priest, after a rush of one hundred miles, appears with his little volume of nonsense at the breakfast of his bookseller. Everything is near, everything is immediate-time, distance, and delay are abolished. But, though charming and fascinating as all this is, we must not shut our eyes to the price we shall pay for it. There will be, every three or four years, some dreadful massacre-whole trains will be hurled down a precipice, and two hundred or three hundred persons will be killed on the spot. There will be, every now and then, a great combustion of human bodies, as there has been at Paris." The following note from the canon of St. Paul's has found its way into the French papers. It was addressed to M. Eugene Robin but a few months before his death. "I am seventy-four years old, and being canon of St. Paul's, in London, and a rector of a parish in the country, my time is divided equally between town and country. I am living amidst the best society in the metropolis, am at ease in my circumstances, in tolerable health, a mild Whig, a tolerating Churchman, and much given to talking, laughing, and noise. I dine with the rich in London and physic the poor in the country, passing from the sauces of Dives to the sores of Lazarus. I am upon the whole an happy man, have found the world an entertaining world, and am heartily thankful to Providence for the part allotted to me in it."

We now draw near to the end: and, as it has been pointedly observed, the name of SYDNEY SMITH for the first time becomes associated with gloom! He died full of years and honours, and has left a name behind him which will long be remembered by the admirers of genius and the friends of liberty. Peace to the manly soul that sleepeth! We conclude with the valedictory apostrophe with which he closes Peter Plymley's letters

Longum Vale!

THE WET BLANKET.

BY PAUL PRENDERGAST.

WITH AN ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN LEECH.

The sun,

IN the delightful month of June it happens, not unfrequently, that all Nature, in the words of several poets, is gay. Occasionally, however, she indulges in extraordinary ebullitions,-downright paroxysms of mirth. Earth and sky are lighted up with unusual splendour, as if by way of illumination for some fairy merry-making. coming out in his glory, warms the very hearts of cabbages,-to say nothing of cabbage-roses and other flowers, whether of the field or garden, and presiding, like a celestial toast-master, over the festive scene, calls continually on thrush and blackbird, finch and linnet, to oblige creation with a song. In fact, Nature, at such times, not only smiles, but laughs as it were from ear to ear, shakes her sides with laughter. Her face is like the face of beauty, with a broad grin upon it. On one particular morning in this lovely month, Nature, being in this state of champagne, did especially enliven Hampton Court and its vicinity. How splendidly gilt were the horse-chesnuts; nay, the thorns in Bushy Park: sadly yet sweetly suggestive of that gingerbread which we rejoiced in, in life's young morning!

Now, this was just the day for a holiday; wisely, therefore, had Mr. and Mrs. Beatty, Mr. Mitchell, and Miss Miles, exchanged the busy hum of Bloomsbury for another sort of hum,-to wit, that of the summer bees, which, mingling with the notes of the feathered songsters and the lively prattle of gaily-attired visitors, made tuneful the parterres of Hampton Court aforesaid.

And the sprightly Londoners had taken Mr. Damper with them, for Mr. Damper had said that he should like to go. Mr. Damper was a friend of the party,-of all the parties, with respect to two of whom he was about to act in a situation of responsibility on an approaching interesting occasion ;-for Mr. Mitchell was going to lead Miss Miles to a place called the Altar of Hymen. He had settled his affections on her, and therewith intended to settle a little property, and Mr. Damper was to be one of the trustees.

Miss Miles was the cousin and guest of the Beattys, and she had been sojourning within their gates for a fortnight all but three days. When those three days were past, she was to be Miles no more. Yes, she was to be married! Need we descant upon the station and peculiarities of the Beattys and the betrothed? No: we are not writing a novel. Suffice it to say, that the former was respectable, and that the latter were pleasant. But we will be a little more explicit with regard to Mr. Damper.

In the first place, Damper was a very good fellow; that is, he was a good fellow in respect of principle and morals. Fellows are sometimes called good in the sense of jolly, convivial. Jolly dog is a convertible term with good fellow. Now, it could not have been predicated of Mr. Damper that he was a jolly dog. He was singularly deficient in those animal spirits which give a dog or a fellow a character for jollity. His heart never "leapt up," with Wordsworth's, at a rainbow in the sky; nor with that of humbler bards or writers, at a foaming tankard. Thus, though a very nice young man (he and his companions on this occasion were all youthful) for a small tea-party,

he was not quite the sort of person for a large dinner ditto. He was never known to romp, indulge in antics, or in any other way, in the fulness of his heart, to make a bit of a fool of himself. Yet he sometimes evinced a sort of liveliness, to the extent even of an occasional pun-but it was the glitter of an icicle. His temperament was singularly frigid, and he, figuratively speaking, cooled the atmosphere around him like a frog. Luke Damper was of the middling height, grey-eyed, spare, dark, and sallow, looking as if he were in the habit of taking medicine. The exhilarating influences of a summer's day at Hampton Court or anywhere else, it may be conceived, would not very powerfully stimulate Mr. Damper.

The wedded pair, and the engaged ones, with their friend, were standing on the brink of the basin with the fountain in its centre which adorns the gardens in front of the Palace. Now their eyes wandered over the glowing sky above, and the radiant prospect around them; anon, they were turned, not less delightedly, on each other's; and then glanced deeply into the crystal pool beneath their feet, where the fat gold-fish,-aquatic aldermen,-rolled, porpoise-like, in lazy gambols. Except, however, the eyes of Mr. Damper, who, with an umbrella under his arm, stood looking straight before him at nothing in particular.

Mr. Beatty remarked that it was the finest day he had ever seen, in which observation the ladies and Mr. Mitchell coincided. Mr. Damper, on being appealed to for his sentiments on the subject, said, with a sort of faint air of satisfaction, that he thought they would have some rain by and by.

Rain, Damper!" said Mr. Mitchell; "Rain! thinking of? Why?"

What are you

"Hum!" replied Damper, in a species of brown study; "I don't know-I think we shall."

Mr. Damper's voice was ever soft,—at least, weak,-gentle, and low; which, however " an excellent thing in woman,' has an effect in a young man anything but inspiriting and lively. He presently added, that he had a twinge of rheumatism in his shoulder, which he shrugged, slightly shivering as he made the complaint.

"Well, now," said Mr. Beatty,

66 we 'll regularly go in to enjoy ourselves. What shall we do first in the way of sight-seeing-Wolsey's

Hall and the Pictures?"

His wife and Miss Miles told him to decide.

"Then," he said, "let us begin with the Hall." "I don't think we can," said Damper.

"No?-Why?"

"Why I think-" said Mr. Damper, musing, "that this is one of the days when people are not admitted."

"Well, but," interposed Miss Miles, "we can but try."

"I don't think," observed Damper, "you will find it of much use." "Oh! never mind," said Mrs. Beatty; "let us go and see. The Hall is beautiful, dear, is it not?"

"Very fine," answered her husband, "extremely interesting." "One of the most interesting old places," observed Mr. Mitchell, "in the kingdom. It takes you quite back to the times of bluff King Hal."

"How be, dear?"

very delightful!" exclaimed the ladies in unison: "won't it

They addressed each other; but Mr. Damper, though not the dear alluded to, said, almost vivaciously, that he thought they would find themselves disappointed.

On they walked, now briskly and now slowly, their own pace being determined by Damper's, who, having only his umbrella under bis arm, and evidently thinking of something else than what he was about, kept going either too fast or too slow for the others. At length he was left some twenty yards behind; when, on looking back, they observed him examining a sun-dial.

Mrs. Beatty took the opportunity to remark that he seemed very dull.

"He's a worthy fellow," said her husband; "but, I must say, a slight bore."

"Not a slight bore," observed Mr. Mitchell. "We would hardly have chosen him for a companion, but we couldn't help ourselves. Come on; if he loses us it will be his own fault."

Not greatly displeased by the prospect of this contingency they proceeded.

"Don't look back, Jenny," said Mr. Beatty to his wife. But it was too late; Mr. Damper was striding after them, and they waited till he

came up.

"Come, Damper, Damper," remonstrated Mr. Mitchell, "we mustn't keep the ladies waiting."

"I was thinking," observed Damper, not heeding the reproof; "I was thinking just now, whilst I was looking at a dial, of 'As You

Like It.""

"But the ladies," said the married man, "don't like it. Do you, Jane and Louisa, now?"

They smiled, and told him he shouldn't say that.

A few minutes' walk brought the party to their destination.

"Here we are," said Mr. Mitchell. "This is the house that Jack built, no, I mean the hall that Wolsey built,-what do you think of it?"

"De-lightful! Ex-quis-ite! Be-eautiful! Well, I never!" ejaculated Miss Miles and Mrs. Beatty alternately." The tapestry, the carved rafters, the stained glass, and the coats of arms and devices, blue and gold and vermilion, decorating the roof, came in severally for their admiration; the arms, and painted windows especially, being declared to be beyond everything superb, magnificent, and sweetly pretty.

Mr. Beatty observed that the interior had lately been renovated, as he thought with much taste.

Mr. Damper didn't think that, quite. He could point out several mistakes, and would have done so if his companions would have listened to him. But Messrs. Mitchell and Beatty proceeded to supply the place of a guide-book to their fair charges by brief historical quotations, relative to the founder of the edifice and his times, from Pinnock, and Goldsmith, and Shakspeare. Useful knowledge, imparted by affection, delights while it edifies the female mind; and the two ladies looked and listened with expressions of rapture.

"Shakspeare is very incorrect, however, in matters of history," asserted Mr. Damper.

After due homage paid to the genius of the great Cardinal, they went on to view the state-rooms and the pictures, whose beauties were duly relished by the rest of the party, and their blemishes as duly

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