y Smith have been, of
course, often repeated, but the fanciful fun and inexhaustible
humorous drollery of his conversation among his intimates can never
be adequately rendered or reproduced. He bubbled over with mirth, of
which his own enjoyment formed an irresistible element, he shook,
and his eyes glistened at his own ludicrous ideas, as they dawned
upon his brain; and it would be impossible to convey the faintest
idea of the genial humor of his habitual talk by merely repeating
separate witticisms and repartees.

On that same evening, at my father's house, the comparative
cheapness of living abroad and in England having been discussed,
Sydney Smith declared that, for his part, he had never found foreign
quarters so much more reasonable than home ones, or foreign hotels
less exorbitant in their charges. "I know I never could live under
fifty pounds a week," said he. "Oh, but how did you live?" was the
next question. "Why, as a canon should live," proudly retorted he;
"and they charged me as enemy's ordnance."

A question having arisen one evening at Miss Berry's as to the
welcome Lady Sale would receive in London society after her
husband's heroic conduct, and her heroic participation in it, during
the Afghan war, Miss Berry, who, for some reason or other, did not
admire Lady Sale as much as everybody else did, said she should not
ask her to come to her house. "Oh, yes! pooh! pooh! you will,"
exclaimed Sydney Smith; "you'll have her, he'll have her, they'll
have her, we'll have her. She'll be Sale by auction!" Later on that
same evening, it being asked what Lord Dalhousie would get for his
successful exploit in carrying of the gates of some Indian town,
"Why," cried Lady Morley, "he will be created Duke Samson
Afghanistes." It was pleasant living among people who talked such
nonsense as that.

A party having been made to go and see the Boa Constrictor soon
after its first arrival at the Zooelogical Gardens, Sydney Smith, who
was to have been there, failed to come; and, questioned at dinner
why he had not done so, said, "Because I was detained by the Bore
Contradictor--Hallam"--whose propensity to controvert people's
propositions was a subject of irritation to some of his friends,
less retentive of memory and accurate in statement than himself.

Sydney Smith, not unnatu