thing, and every thing is naught,"

was very posing. Mr. Smith would sometimes repeat after dinner, with his
brother Horace, an imaginary dialogue, stuffed full of incongruities,
that made us roll with laughter. His ordinary verse and prose were too
full of the ridicule of city pretensions. To be superior to any thing,
it should not always be running in one's head.

His brother Horace was delicious. Lord Byron used to say, that this
epithet should be applied only to eatables; and that he wondered a
friend of his (I forget who) that was critical in matters of eating,
should use it in any other sense. I know not what the present usage may
be in the circles, but classical authority is against his lordship, from
Cicero downward; and I am content with the modern warrant of another
noble wit, the famous Lord Peterborough, who, in his fine, open way,
said of Fenelon, that he was such a "delicious creature, he was forced
to get away from him, else he would have made him pious!" I grant there
is something in the word delicious which may be said to comprise a
reference to every species of pleasant taste. It is at once a
quintessence and a compound; and a friend, to deserve the epithet,
ought, perhaps, to be capable of delighting us as much over our wine, as
on graver occasions. Fenelon himself could do this, with all his piety;
or rather he could do it because his piety was of the true sort, and
relished of every thing that was sweet and affectionate. A finer nature
than Horace Smith's, except in the single instance of Shelley, I never
met with in man; nor even in that instance, all circumstances
considered, have I a right to say that those who knew him as intimately
as I did the other, would not have had the same reasons to love him.
Shelley himself had the highest regard for Horace Smith, as may be seen
by the following verses, the initials in which the reader has here the
pleasure of filling up:

"Wit and sense,
Virtue and human knowledge, all that might
Make this dull world a business of delight,
Are all combined in H. S."

Horace Smith differed with Shelley on some points; but on others, which
all the world agree to praise highly, and to practice very little, he
agreed so entirely, and showed unequivocally that he did agree, that,
with the exception of one person (Vincent Novello), too diffident to
gain such an honor from his friends, they were the only two men I had
then met with