confirm his opinion by the opinions of others; and often to form them from the same source.

His success in the House of Commons was decided and immediate, and went on increasing to the last day of his life. Though put into Parliament by some of the Great Borough Lords, every one saw that he represented his own real opinions: without hereditary wealth, and known as a writer in the Edinburgh Review, his independence was never questioned: his integrity, sincerity, and moderation, were acknowledged by all sides, and respected even by those impudent assassins who live only to discourage honesty and traduce virtue. The House of Commons, as a near relation of mine once observed, has more good taste than any man in it. Horner, from his manners, his ability, and his integrity, became a general favourite with the House; they suspended for him their habitual dislike of lawyers, of political adventurers, and of young men of conseederable taalents from the North.

Your brother was wholly without pretensions or affectation. I have lived a long time in Scotland, and have seen very few affected Scotchmen; of those few he certainly was not one. In the ordinary course of life, he never bestowed a thought upon the effect he was producing; he trusted to his own good nature, and good intentions, and left the rest to chance.

Having known him well before he had acquired a great London reputation, I never observed that his fame produced the slightest alteration in his deportment: he was as affable to me, and to all his old friends, as when we were debating metaphysics in a garret in Edinburgh. I don't think it was in the power of ermine or mace, or seals, or lawn, or lace, or of any of those emblems and ornaments with which power loves to decorate itself, to have destroyed the simplicity of his character. I believe it would have defied all the corrupting appellations of human vanity: Serene, Honourable, Right Honourable, Sacred, Reverend, Right Reverend, Lord High, Earl, Marquis, Lord Mayor, Your Grace, Your Honour, and every other vocable which folly has invented and

idolatry cherished, would all have been lavished on him in vain.

The character of his understanding was the exercise of vigorous reasoning, in pursuit of important and difficult truth. He had no wit; nor did he condescend to that inferior variety of this electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of Wut, is so infinitely distressing to persons of good taste: he had no very ardent and poetical imagination, but he had that innate force, which,

Quemvis perferre laborem

Suasit, et induxit noctes vigilare serenas

Quærentem dictis quibus, et quo carmine demum
Clara suæ possit præpandere lumina menti.

Your late excellent father, though a very well informed person, was not what would be called a literary man, and you will readily concede to me that none of his family would pretend to rival your brother in point of talents. I never saw more constant and high principled attention to parents than in his instance; more habitual and respectful deference to their opinions and wishes. I never saw brothers and sisters, over whom he might have assumed a family sovereignty, treated with more cheerful, and endearing equality. I mention these things, because men who do good things are so much more valuable than those who say wise ones; because the order of human excellence is so often inverted, and great talents considered as an excuse for the absence of obscure virtues.

Francis Horner was always very guarded in his political opinions; guarded I mean against the excesses into which so many young men of talents were betrayed by their admiration of the French Revolution. He was an English Whig, and no more than an English Whig. He mourned sincerely over the crimes, and madness of France, and never for a single moment surrendered his understanding to the novelty and nonsense which infested the world at that strange æra of human affairs.

I remember the death of many eminent Englishmen, but I can safely say, I never remember an impression

so general as that excited by the death of Francis Horner. The public looked upon him as a powerful and safe man, who was labouring not for himself or his party, but for them. They were convinced of his talents, they confided in his moderation, and they were sure of his motives; he had improved so quickly, and so much, that his early death was looked on as the destruction of a great statesman, who had done but a small part of the good which might be expected from him, who would infallibly have risen to the highest offices, and as infallibly have filled them to the public good. Then as he had never lost a friend, and made so few enemies, there was no friction, no drawback; public feeling had its free course; the image of a good and great man was broadly before the world, unsullied by any breath of hatred; there was nothing but pure sorrow! Youth destroyed before its time, great talents and wisdom hurried to the grave, a kind and good man, who might have lived for the glory of England, torn from us in the flower of his life!-but all this is gone and past, and, as Galileo said of his lost sight, "It has pleased God it should be so, and it must please me also."

Ever truly yours,

August 26. 1842.

SYDNEY SMITH.

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