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

ever seen.

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 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

literature to point out Dr. Johnson to his son James, who, though he could not have been more than eight years old at the time, retained a vivid recollection of the circumstance — Virgilium tantum vidi.

To the best of our information, James's coup d'essai in literature was a hoax in the shape of a series of letters to the editor of the "Gentleman's Magazine," detailing some extraordinary antiquarian discoveries and facts in natural history, which the worthy Sylvanus Urban inserted without the least suspicion; and we understand that the members of the Antiquarian and Zoological Societies are still occasionally in the habit of appealing to them in corroboration of their theories. In 1803, he became a constant contributor to the "Pic-Nic" and " Cabinet" weekly journals, in conjunction with Mr. Cumberland, Sir James Bland Burgess, Mr. Horatio Smith, and others. The founder of these publications was Colonel Greville, a man of family, fashion, and cultivated taste, on whom Lord Byron has conferred a not very enviable immortality

"Or hail at once the patron and the pile
Of vice and folly, Greville and Argyle."

One of James Smith's favourite anecdotes related to him. The Colonel requested his young ally to call at his lodgings, and in the course of their first interview related the particulars of the most curious circumstance in his life. He was taken prisoner during the American war, along with three other officers of the same rank: one evening they were summoned into the presence of Washington, who announced to them that the conduct of their government, in condemning one of his officers to death as a rebel, compelled him to make reprisals, and that much to his regret he was under the necessity of requiring them to cast lots without delay to decide which of them

should be hanged. They were then bowed out, and returned to their quarters. Four slips of paper were put into a hat, and the shortest was drawn by Captain Asgill, who exclaimed, "I knew how it would be; I never won so much as a hit at backgammon in my life." As Greville told the story, he was selected to sit up with Captain Asgill, under the pretext of companionship, but in reality to prevent him from escaping, and leaving the honour amongst the remaining three. "And what," inquired Smith, "did you say to comfort him ?" 66 Why I remember saying to him when they left us, 'Hang it, old fellow, never mind;'" but it may be doubted (added Smith) whether he drew much comfort from the exhortation. Lady Asgill persuaded the French minister to interpose, and the captain was permitted to escape.

Both James and Horatio were also contributors to the "Monthly Mirror," then the property of Mr. Thomas Hill, a gentleman who had the good fortune to live familiarly with three or four generations of authors; the same, in short, with whom the subject of this memoir thus playfully remonstrated: "Hill, you take an unfair advantage of an accident; the register of your birth was burnt in the great fire of London, and you now give yourself out for younger than you are." Their "Imitations of Horace" (afterwards reprinted in a separate volume) originally appeared in Hill's miscellany.

The fame of the brothers was confined to a limited circle until the publication of "The Rejected Addresses," which rose at once into almost unprecedented celebrity, and still keeps its place amongst the best of the jeux d'esprit which have outlived the occasions which gave rise to them,-as the "Rolliad," "Anticipation," the choice papers of the "Antijacobin," and the "New Whig Guide."

It is a well-known fact in literary history that many