ame unconquerable
cheerfulness and intellectual vivacity.

Most of Sydney Smith's 'Edinburgh' articles are of a very slight
texture, though the reader is rewarded by an occasional turn of
characteristic quaintness. The criticism is of the most simple-minded
kind; but here and there crops up a comment which is irresistibly comic.
Here, for example, is a quaint passage from a review of Waterton's
'Wanderings:'--

How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature! To
what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of
Cayenne, with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a
puppy-dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? To be sure, the
toucan might retort, To what purpose were gentlemen in Bond
Street created? To what purpose were certain members of
Parliament created, pestering the House of Commons with
their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the
country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not
enter into the metaphysics of the toucan.

Smith's humour is most aptly used to give point to the vigorous logic of
a thoroughly healthy nature, contemptuous of all nonsense, full of
shrewd common-sense, and righteously indignant in the presence of all
injustice and outworn abuse. It would be difficult to find anywhere a
more brilliant assault upon the prejudices which defend established
grievances than the inimitable 'Noodle's Oration,' into which Smith has
compressed the pith of Bentham's 'Book of Fallacies.' There is a certain
resemblance between the logic of Smith and Macaulay, both of whom, it
must be admitted, are rather given to proving commonplaces and inclined
to remain on the surface of things. Smith, like Macaulay, fully
understands the advantage of putting the concrete for the abstract, and
hammering obvious truths into men's heads by dint of homely
explanation. Smith's memory does not supply so vast a store of parallels
as that upon which Macaulay could draw so freely; but his humorous
illustrations are more amusing and effective. There could not be a
happier way of putting the argument for what may be called the lottery
system of endowments than the picture of the respectable baker driving
past Northumberland House to St. Paul's Churchyard, and speculating on
the chance of elevating his 'little muffin-faced son' to a place among
the Percies or the highest seat in the Cathedral. Macaulay would have
enforced his reasoning by a catalogue of