"The commission would advise, therefore, that in selecting a location no regard be paid to inducements that may be held out by towns, by the offer of lands or of subscriptions, to aid in the purchase, and that no gifts be accepted that will imply any obligation of the State to continue the Institution in a place when it may seem expedient to remove it, and no lesser present interest be allowed in any way to compromise the greater and future interests of the State and the lunatics for whom the whole Institution is to be created. Like discreet individuals, the State should go into the market, make its selection with the sole view of effecting the final purpose, purchase its lands and pay the usual price, and then be independent of all further obligations."p. 188.

The State has now another opportunity of establishing a hospital for the insane creditable to its intelligence and wealth, and if its authorities are governed by any regard to public sentiment, such must needs be their action. In the magnitude of its enterprises for advancing its material interests, Massachusetts stands without a rival. The higher distinction of outstripping its sister States in the unexceptionable excellence of its institutions for the relief of suffering, it has yet to achieve. The young community in the South or West about to enter upon a career of benevolence sends its building committees to examine our establishments for the insane; but they find nothing so thoroughly embodying the results of modern improvement as to be worthy of being copied. Are we willing to hold this subordinate position when it may be so cheaply exchanged for unquestionable pre-eminence? In the prosecution of the new undertaking, this first step, to which we have called the attention of our readers, was rightly directed and admirably accomplished. In the second, the appointment of a committee for selecting a site and erecting a building, there has not been, we fear, the same exclusive regard to the great object in view. The public had a right to expect that such a committee would embrace among its members the author of this Report, who, by the able performance of the duty assigned him, had strong claims for further employment in a service for which his studies, habits, and tastes have so well prepared him. We shall rejoice, however, if the event falsifies our apprehensions, and enables us, at last,

to point to a hospital for the insane, second to no other in the country in all those qualities that indicate the highest degree of efficiency for the performance of its destined work.

ART. IV. A Memoir of REV. SYDNEY SMITH, by his Daughter, LADY HOLLAND, with a Selection from his Letters, by MRS. AUSTIN. In two volumes. New York: Harper and Brothers. 1855.

THE memoir and correspondence of a man who, for twenty years, was prominent in London society, and pointed out to strangers as eminently noteworthy, must give a reliable insight not only into his personal gifts and character, but into the tendencies and the traits of the circle in which he held so conspicuous a place. In both regards, these volumes justify the anticipation they excite. Here we see portrayed, without exaggeration, the best side of the Churchman,-one of the highest places open to clerical ambition in England,― its lustre enhanced by intelligence, its exclusiveness redeemed by geniality, and its validity vindicated by uprightness and public spirit. We recognize the influence and the happiness that may be attained by a kindly, conscientious, fearless, candid dignitary of the Establishment, whose nature is leavened by a rich and persuasive humor, whereby his office, conversation, letters, and presence are lifted from technicality and routine into vital. relations with his fellow-beings and the time. Pleasant and suggestive is the record, full of amenity, and bright with cheerful traits. It is refreshing to meet with so much life, so much liberality, so much humane sentiment, where the conventional and the obsolete so often overlay and formalize mind and manner. Yet there is a distinct limit to this satisfaction. The vantage-ground which ecclesiastical prestige gave to Sydney Smith, his talents and agreeability confirmed; but his sympathies, with all their free play, had a conservative rebound. Those who would derive a complete idea of the modern English development from these memorials, err.

He

moved in a circle of the most active, but not of the highest intellectual range. We should never discover from this chronicle that Coleridge also talked, Carlyle reasoned, Lamb jested, Hazlitt criticised, and Shelley and Keats sang, in those days. Within the sensible zone of English life, as that term is usually understood, Sydney lived. He often ignored what was boldly original and radically independent. His scope was ever within the Whig ranks in politics and the Established Church pale in religion. What could be beheld and experienced therein we see, and all that excites admiration without is unrevealed. The iron horizon of caste is the framework of this attractive picture. The charm it offers is the manliness which a true soul, thus environed, exhibits. To us Transatlantic lovers of his rare humor, it is the man rather than the priest, the companion rather than the prodigy, that wins attention.

We have seen, again and again, genius utterly perverted by self-love, usefulness marred by fanaticism, wit poisoned by malevolence, health shattered, existence abridged, vanity pampered, confidence destroyed, by the erratic, unprincipled, weak use of intellectual gifts. This tragic result is the staple of literary biography, so that prudent souls have blessed the fate which consigned them to harmless mediocrity. The rare and sweet exceptions to so general a rule are therefore full of satisfaction and redolent of hope. In the case of Sydney Smith we witness the delightful spectacle of a mind that bravely regulates the life which it cheers and adorns. Humor was the efflorescence of his intellect, the play that gave him strength for labor, the cordial held by a kindly hand to every brother's lips, the sunshine of home, the flavor of human intercourse, the music to which he marched in duty's rugged path. By virtue of this magic quality, he redeemed the daily meal from heaviness, the needful journey from fatigue, narrow circumstances from depression, and prosperity from materialism. He illustrated simultaneously the power of content and the beauty of holiness. Did Portland stone, instead of marble, frame his hearth? Innocent mirth and a clear blaze made those around it oblivious of the defect. Must a paper border take the place of a cornice? Laughing echoes hung the room with more

than arabesque ornament. Were the walls destitute of precious limning? He knew how to glorify them with sunshine. Did he lack costly furniture? Children and roses atoned for the want. Was he compelled to entertain his guest with rustic fare? He found compensation in the materials thus furnished for a comic sketch. Did the canine race interfere with his comfort? He banished them by a mock report of law-damages. Was his steed ugly, slow, and prone to throw his rider? He named him "Calamity" or " Peter the Cruel," and drew a farce from their joint mishaps. Was his coach lumbering and ancient? Its repairs were for ever suggestive of quaint fancies. Was a herd of deer beyond his means? He fastened antlers on donkeys, and drew tears of laughter from aristocratic eyes. Did the evergreens look dim at Christmas? He tied oranges on their boughs and dreamed of tropical landscapes. Was a lady too fine? He discovered a "porcelain understanding." Was a friend too voluble? He enjoyed his "flashes of silence." Were oil and spermaceti beyond his means? He illuminated the house with mutton lamps of his own invention. A fat woman, a hot day, a radical, a heavy sermonizer, a dandy, a stupid Yorkshire peasant, - people and things that in others would only excite annoyance, he turned instinctively to the account of wit. His household at Foston is a picture worthy of Dickens. Bunch, Annie Kay, Molly Miles, - heraldry, old pictures, and china,-in his atmosphere became original characters and bits of Flemish still-life, which might set up a novelist. He turned a bay-window into a hive of bright thoughts, and a random walk into a chapter of philosophy. To domestic animals, humble parishioners, rustic employés, to the oppressed, the erring, the sick, the market-woman, and the poacher, he extended as ready and intelligent a sympathy as to the nobleman and the scholar. He was more thankful for animal spirits and good companionship than for reputation and preferment. He reverenced material laws not less than the triumphs of intellect; esteemed poor Richard's maxims as well as Macaulay's rhetoric; thought self-reproach the greatest evil, and occupation the chief moral necessity of existence. He believed in talking nonsense, while he exercised the most vigorous powers of reasoning. He gave no quarter

to cant, and, at the same time, bought a parrot to keep his servants in good humor. If warned by "excellent and feeble people" against an individual, he sought his acquaintance. His casual bon-mots wreathed the town with smiles, and his faithful circumspection irritated the officials at St. Paul's. He wielded a battle-axe in the phalanx of reform, and scattered flowers around his family altar. He wakened the sinner's heart to penitence, and irradiated prandial monotony; educated children, and shared the counsels of statesmen; turned from literary correspondence to dry an infant's tears, and cheered a pauper's death-bed with as true a heart as he graced a peer's drawing-room. It is the human, catholic range and variety of such a nature and such a life, that raises Sydney Smith from the renown of a clever author and a brilliant wit to the nobler fame of a Christian man.

In this biography we have another signal instance of the effect of blood in determining character. The Gallic element permeated Sydney's Anglo-Saxon nature; and in him it was the vivacity of Languedoc that quickened the solemn banquets of the Thames. By instinct no less than from principle, he encouraged cheerfulness. He thoroughly appreciated the relation of mind and body, and sought, by exercise, gay talk, and beneficent intercourse, while he avoided self-reproach and systematized business, to lessen the cares and to multiply the pleasures of daily life. The minor felicities were in his view as much a part of human nature, as the power of reasoning and the capacity of usefulness. In his endeavor to make the most of life as a means of enjoyment, he was thoroughly French; in loyalty to its stern requirements and high objects, he was no less completely English. In practical wisdom he resembled Dr. Franklin, in the genuine benignity of his spirit, Bishop Berkeley, and in the power of colloquial adaptation, Burke. He sublimated Poor Richard's prudence by tact and wit; and called himself an "amalgam" from the facility with which his genial tone fused the discordant or reserved social elements around him. "Some sulk," he observes, "in a stage; I always talk." He was no abstract scholar or isolated sage, but read and wrote in the midst of his family, undisturbed by children, servants, or visitors. His idea of life and duty was