thirty-nine, of course.' He agreed with Sir
James Mackintosh that he had found the world more good and more foolish
than he had thought when young. He took a cheerful view of all things;
he thanked God for small as well as great things, even for tea. 'I am
glad,' he used to say, 'I was not born before tea.' His domestic
affections were strong, and were heartily reciprocated.

General society he divided into classes: 'The noodles--very numerous and
well known. The affliction woman--a valuable member of society,
generally an ancient spinster in small circumstances, who packs up her
bag and sets off in cases of illness or death, "to comfort, flatter,
fetch, and carry." The up-takers--people who see, from their fingers'
ends and go through a room touching everything. The clearers--who begin
at a dish and go on tasting and eating till it is finished. The
sheep-walkers--who go on for ever on the beaten track. The
lemon-squeezers of society--who act on you as a wet blanket; see a cloud
in sunshine; the nails of the coffin in the ribbons of a bride;
extinguish all hope; people, whose very look sets your teeth on an edge.
The let-well-aloners, cousin-german to the noodles--yet a variety, and
who are afraid to act, and think it safer to stand still. Then the
washerwomen--very numerous! who always say, "Well, if ever I put on my
best bonnet, 'tis sure to rain," &c.

'Besides this there is a very large class of people always treading on
your gouty foot, or talking in your deaf ear, or asking you to give them
something with your lame hand,' &c.

During the autumn of the year 1844, Sydney Smith felt the death-stroke
approaching. 'I am so weak, both in body and mind,' he said, 'that I
believe if the knife were put into my hand, I should not have strength
enough to stick it into a Dissenter.' In October he became seriously
ill. 'Ah! Charles,' he said to General Fox (when he was being kept very
low), 'I wish they would allow me even the wing of a roasted butterfly,'
He dreaded sorrowful faces around him; but confided to his old servant,
Annie Kay--and to her alone--his sense of his danger.

Almost the last person Sydney Smith saw was his beloved brother Bobus,
who followed him to the grave a fortnight after he had been laid in the
tomb.

He lingered till the 22nd of February, 1845. His son closed his eyes.
His last act was, bestowing on a poverty-stricken clergyman a living.

He was buried at Kensal Green, where his eldest son, D