your accident." R. "It is an agreeable recollection, did he come to refresh it?" E. "Oh, sir, he calls very often to inquire for you." R. "Does he? then, if he calls again, don't let him in, and don't tell me of it." The gallant officer was (at worst) the innocent cause of the mishap; for as his brougham was passing at an ordinary pace, Rogers, who was about to cross, suddenly checked himself, lost his balance, and fell with his hip against the kerb-stone.

He used to say that he had never enjoyed two consecutive days' good health till he was past fifty; and he rather coveted than avoided allusions to his age. On one occasion, in his eighty-eighth year, he was accidentally left alone in the dark with a lady, who pretended to think her reputation in danger. "Ah, my dear, if sweet seventy-eight would come again! mais ces beaux jours sont passés."

He told gracefully, with his usual deliberate simplicity and studied artlessness, a little incident of the same period. "They were playing at forfeits. Miss S. had to pay a kiss. 'Oh, it was to my uncle; so I paid it gladly.' 'Suppose it had been to me?' 'I should have paid it cheerfully. Was not that a bitterand-sweet adverb ?"

When some one was speaking of a fine old man before Swift, he exclaimed, in a spirit of melancholy foreboding, "There's no such thing as a fine old man; if either his head or his heart had been worth anything, they would have worn him out long ago. Till near ninety, Rogers was a striking exception to this rule. He then gradually dropped into that state, mental and bodily, which raises a reasonable doubt whether prolonged life be a blessing or a

curse

"Omni

Membrorum damno major dementia, quæ nec
Nomina servorum, nec vultus agnoscit amicum,
Cum queis præteritâ cœnavit nocte, nec illos
Quos genuit, quos eduxit.”

Although his impressions of long past events were as fresh as ever, he forgot the names of his relations and oldest friends whilst they were sitting with him, and told the same stories to the same people two or three times over in the same interview. But there were frequent glimpses of intellect in all its original brightness, of tenderness, of refinement, and of grace. "Once driving out with him," says a female correspondent, "I asked him after a lady whom he could not recollect. He pulled the check-string, and appealed to his servant. 'Do I know Lady M

-?'

The reply was, 'Yes, sir.' This was a painful moment to us both. Taking my hand, he said, 'Never mind, my dear, I am not yet reduced to stop the carriage and ask if I know you.'

To another female friend, who was driving out with him shortly after, he said, "Whenever you are angry with one you love, think that that dear one might die that moment. once."

Your anger will vanish at

During the last four or five years he was constantly expatiating on the advantages of marriage. "It was a proud, a blessed privilege," he would repeat, “to be the means, under Providence, of clothing an immortal soul in clay." He introduced and pursued this theme without respect to persons, and not unfrequently recommended matrimony to married people who would have lent a readier ear to a proposal of separation or divorce. In explanation of the rumours circulated from time to time in his younger days respecting his own attempts to confirm precept by example, he said, "that whenever his name had been coupled with that of a single lady, he had thought it his duty to give out that he had been refused." On his regretting that he had not married, because then he should have had a nice woman to care for him, it was suggested,-"How do you know she would not

have cared for somebody else?"—an awkward doubt at all times.

His own version of his nearest approximation to the nuptial tie was, that, when a young man, he admired and sedulously sought the society of the most beautiful girl he then, and still, thought he had ever seen. At the end of the London season, at a ball, she said: "I go to-morrow to Worthing. Are you coming there?" He did not go. Some months afterwards, being at Ranelagh, he saw the attention. of every one drawn towards a large party, in the centre of which was a lady on the arm of her husband. Stepping forward to see this wonderful beauty, he found it was his love. She merely said: "You never came to Worthing."

He latterly took great delight in hearing the Bible read, especially passages of the sublimest poetry, and those of exquisite moral beauty. This kind office was frequently performed for him by a lady as much distinguished by her private virtues as formerly by qualities which enchanted the public. In the course of religious conversation arising out of her readings, she suggested to him the subject of the Sacrament. After due consideration, he expressed himself desirous of receiving it from his old friend, the Dean of St. Paul's. The Dean, after some conference with him, consented to his request, and accordingly administered the sacramental rite to Rogers, his sister (then, like her brother, in a state of great bodily infirmity), the lady above alluded to, her daughter, and one other person for whom he expressed very sincere affection.

In the case of most men over whom the grave had closed so recently, we should have refrained from such minuteness of personal detail, however curious or illustrative. But the veil had been removed from the private life of Rogers long before we approached the sanctuary; and we are not responsible for the

profanation, if it be one. His habits, his mode of life, his predilections, his aversions, his caustic sayings, his benevolent actions, have been treated like common property as far back as the living generation can remember. They have been discussed in all circles, and have occasionally appeared (with varying degrees of accuracy) in print. Now that monarchs have left off changing their shirts at crowded levées, we should be puzzled to name any contemporary celebrity who, whether he liked it or not, had been so much or so constantly before the public as Rogers. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him. He spoke without reserve to the first comer, and the chance visitor was admitted to his intimacy as unwarily as the tried friend. This argued a rare degree of conscious rectitude and honourable self-reliance; and in estimating his character, in balancing the final account of his merits and demerits, too much stress cannot be laid on the searching nature of the ordeal he has undergone. Choose out the wisest, brightest, noblest of mankind, and how many of them could bear to be thus pursued into the little corners of their lives?" all their faults observed, set in a notebook, learned and conned by rote?" Most assuredly, if the general scope and tendency of their conduct be no worse, they may, one and all,- to borrow the impressive language of Erskine,-" walk through the shadow of death, with all their faults about them, with as much cheerfulness as in the common path of life." But if great virtues may not atone for small frailties, or kind deeds for unkind words, "they must call upon the mountains to cover them, for which of them can present, for Omniscient examination, a pure, unspotted, and faultless course?"

131

JAMES SMITH.

(FROM THE LAW Magazine, FEBRUARY, 1840.)

THE members who do most honour to the legal profession are not those who make its distinctions and emoluments their sole object, for they often cut a sorry figure beyond its sphere, but those who combine with the diligent and conscientious discharge of its duties a fair proportion of the acquirements or qualities which are appreciated in society. Amongst the most remarkable of such men was the late James Smith, and we feel it a duty to record the few particulars we have been able to collect concerning him. He was the son of an eminent solicitor, and born in London, February 16th, 1775. In January, 1785, he was placed at school with the Rev. Mr. Burford, at Chigwell, in Essex, which he left in June, 1789, for the New College at Hackney, where he remained one year. His education was completed under Mr. Wanostrocht, at Alfred House, Camberwell. He was

articled to his father in 1792, and in due time taken into partnership. He was also appointed jointsolicitor to the Ordnance Board, and succeeded to the sole appointment on his father's death in 1832.

We rather think, from his description, that his father was a practitioner of the old school, not very tolerant of digressions from the beaten track, and likely enough to regard either or both of his distinguished

sons as

"Some youth his parents' wishes doomed to cross,
Who pens a stanza when he should engross."

But the old gentleman had sufficient respect for