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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 Syl vanus 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?" "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

of the most popular productions failed at first to attract the confidence or excite the cupidity of "the trade." "Pelham" was on the point of being returned upon the writer's hands, when Mr. Colburn chanced to glance over a few pages of the manuscript, and with instinctive sagacity divined the value of the prize. "The Rejected Addresses" (as the preface to the nineteenth edition informs us) had been rejected over and over again in the literal acceptation of the term, when Mr. Miller offered to undertake the risk of publication, and share the profits, if any-laying (as James Smith used to say) a peculiar stress upon the if. At the appearance of the third or fourth edition, they sold their share to the same publisher for one thousand pounds, the "Imitations of Horace" being thrown into the bargain: for these, though clever, can hardly be said to have enjoyed an independent reputation or done more than follow in the wake.

Lord Byron, in allusion to the rapid success of "Childe Harold," says, "I awoke and found myself famous;" (which, by the way, a witty runaway wife parodied by saying, "I awoke and found myself infamous.") The authors of "The Rejected Addresses ” might have said the same. Within a week, reviews and newspapers of all shades and complexions were praising their production, or speculating on their identity; and the moment they threw off the mask, their acquaintance was eagerly courted by the notabilities of the day. Amongst others, the Dowager Countess of Cork the first English woman of rank who threw open her house to literature, or made intellectual distinction a recognised passport to society -was anxious to have them at her soirées, and commissioned one of the established lions to bring them. Whether the commission was awkwardly executed, or their pride took alarm too readily, or the occasion for a joke was too tempting to be lost, it is currently

reported that an answer to the following purport was returned:

'My dear — Pray make our best excuses to your noble and hospitable friend, and say we regret extremely that it will not be in our power to accept the flattering invitation so obligingly communicated through you, for my brother is engaged to grin through a horse-collar at a country fair, and I myself to dance a hornpipe at Sadler's Wells upon that night. "Very truly yours,

"J. SMITH."

Many of the very writers who were parodied hastened to bear testimony to the accuracy of the imitations, and joined heartily in the laugh.

Lord Byron wrote from Italy to Mr. Murray,"Tell him we forgive him, were he twenty times our satirist."

แ

'I certainly must have written this myself," said Sir Walter Scott, pointing to the description of the fire, "although I forget upon what occasion."

Crabbe, on being introduced to James Smith at Mr. Spencer's villa at Richmond, seized both his hands, and exclaimed with a loud laugh, "Ah! my old enemy, how do you do?"

The introduction to Mr. Spencer himself is thus described in the preface already mentioned:

“Lydia White, a literary lady, who was prone to feed the lions of the day, invited one of us to dinner; but, recollecting afterwards that William Spencer formed one of the party, wrote to the latter to put him off; telling him that a man was to be at her table whom he would not like to meet.' Pray who is this whom I should not like to meet,' inquired the poet. O!' answered the lady, 'one of those men who have made that shameful attack upon you!' The very man upon earth I should like to know!' rejoined the lively and careless bard. The two individuals accordingly met, and have continued fast friends ever since."

* Mr. H. Smith tells us that the letter was never sent.