t is, that you should dream of quitting the
bar."--"Why not, if I find that it will not afford me a living? Let me
tell you, that I am very partial to the study of Divinity, and have read
a good deal of it, much more than you would suppose. I think I should
like composing sermons, though it is very possible that they might not
be popular; and I suppose you will not deny that Divinity is a nobler
study than law?" He said much more in the same strain, which led me to
believe that the subject had for some time occupied his thoughts, and
that he had begun seriously to contemplate quitting the bar--at all
events, if another year should leave him as little likely to succeed in
obtaining practice, as that which was on the eve of closing. Many of
even his intimate friends were unaware of his partiality for Divinity,
and the extent to which he had studied it; for he was very reserved on
such matters.

I once told him that I had read the whole, of "Pearson on the Creed;" at
which, in his usual cold dry way, he replied, "So have I, and very
carefully. I liked it much. And I'll tell you another book that I have
read still more carefully, both in Latin and English--Mosheim's
'Ecclesiastical History.'" I have heard him say the same of Hooker's
"Ecclesiastical Polity." We have often discussed the merits of Jeremy
Taylor, Barrow, and South; the last of whom was a favourite of his. He
had a surprising knowledge of the Old and New Testaments. One of his
oldest and ablest friends, and whom he appointed one of his executors,
recently alluded, in conversation with me, to this circumstance, adding,
"Smith _read_ the Bible as few but he could read it; and _remembered_
it, as very few but he could remember it." I have occasionally myself
had evidence of his exact knowledge of very recondite portions of the
Old Testament; but, as already intimated, he was always cautious and
sparing in scriptural allusions or quotations. Since writing the
foregoing sentences, a learned friend has informed me, that Mr. Smith,
about two years before his death, had entered into a prolonged and
ardent discussion with him on the subject of the _Apostolical
Succession_, insisting that no one who did not assent to that doctrine,
was in reality, or could be conscientiously, a minister of the Church of
England. Again and again, during a considerable interval of time,
whenever they met, Mr. Smith pertinaciously renewed the discussion,--his
friend for some time doubting w