In the equilibrium of character, the excess of it will often correspond with the defect of that which is less brilliant, but of greater value. Alas! how often do those who possess the glowing graces which delight society, sink surely down, as these decay, beneath the level of contempt; and from our reading and from experience, too, we have been compelled to associate them too frequently with a gay profligacy and unprincipled living. Darkness and melancholy brood over the banqueting rooms, where only wits and worldlings met together, and took "no note of time." The feast is over, the lights are gone, its memories fled, the song, the sally, and the loud applause come back no more. The flashes which illumined it were but the phosphoric brilliance which hovers over decay. Sydney Smith has often been compared to Swift, but his daughter takes an honest pride in pointing out one difference in her father's writings, that "there is not a single line in them that might not be placed before the purity of youth, or that is unfit for the eye of a woman; that he has exercised his powers to the utmost, without ever sullying his pages with impurities, or degrading his talents and profession by irreligion." And it is true that he has exercised his faculty most nobly. It was directed against abuses which had steadily refused to correct themselves, and which other methods had failed to reach. His conversational powers were exceedingly brilliant, yet in personal intercourse he seldom inflicted by any witticism a sting. His very frivolity was hardly frivolous. Even when his unequaled spirits broke out into the most fantastic fancies, ludicrous images, and strange similitudes, considering the point at issue, and the direction in which they told, they had their value. How different, yet how alike, were Sydney Smith and Doctor Johnson! They were both great talkers, but the latter was overbearing and dogmatic, and gave offense. Each had the same summary method of execution and despatch, the same integrity of heart and purpose. One was a benevolent and uncompromising Whig, the other a kind-hearted and savage Tory. One had a perpetual sycophant at his elbow, but the other would not tolerate one in the whole realm. Sydney, true to his liberal instincts, saw something to admire in his neighbors across the channel, but the Doctor, full blooded Briton that he was, despised the frog eaters. Græculus esuriens ibit in cælum. Sydney had Sydney had a little prejudice against Scott, Johnson a good many against Scotland. "Scotland!" said he, in one of his furious onslaughts, "Scotland is a miser able country;" and, forgetting the good breakfasts which he ate there, he began to rail against its oatmeal and scrub oaks, until the old gentleman whom he addressed boiled over with indignation. "How dare you call it a miserable country? God made Scotland." "God made h-, Sir." How rude, if not profane, was this for the good Doctor! How brutal! See how differently Sydney touches off the little peculiarities of the Scotch, by a picturesque and witty description. He knew them. He had not made a hasty tour to write in sesquipedalian phrases about Iona and Mona, about the gaunt and solemn promontories of the Orkneys and the Hebrides. He had seen the Scotch, and respected their feelings. He kindly used a weapon which would hurt them least, because they are invulnerable to a joke. "With a little oatmeal for food, and with a little sulphur for friction, holding his Bible in the one hand, and his Calvinistic Creed in the other, Sawney scampers away over the flinty hills to sing his own Psalm out of tune amid the imposing melancholy of the tallest thistles." That must be a poor country indeed, and those inhabitants thinskinned, whose wrath would be excited by a jocosity like the above. Risum teneatis amici! No one who loved the bagpipes would surely be offended at this delicate allusion to the Caledonian violin. But it is for the sterling qualities of his heart, even more than for the endowments of his intellect, that Sydney Smith will live in the memory of men. He professed to have, and he had, a passionate love of justice and humanity and common sense. Speaking of justice, he beautifully says: "Truth is its handmaid, freedom is its child, peace its companion, safety walks in its steps, victory follows in its train; it is the brightest emanation from the Gospel, it is the greatest attribute of God. It is that centre round which human motives and passions turn; and justice, sitting on high, sees genius and power and wealth and birth revolving round her throne, and teaches their paths, and marks out their orbits, and warns with a loud voice, and rules with a strong hand, and carries order and discipline into a world which but for her would be a wild waste of passions." His life was one of remarkable consistence throughout. His was an incorrupta fides-an unimpeachable fidelity. Nor to any can the words of the Classic poet more deservedly apply: Justum et tenacem propositi virum If, as a high dignitary of the Church, and one who confessedly aspired to the most solemn and responsible position in it, it may be alleged that he ought somewhat to have restrained his exuberance, to have dammed up his nature, and to have prevented his flowering shrubs from climbing over the wall, he set a proud example in some of the highest moral qualities which can adorn a Christian or a man. He gave all which he had to the cause of that humanity which he loved, without the hope or prospect of reward. Living in the very atmosphere where the greatest subservience is paid to rank, and in an age which was peculiarly corrupt, he contracted no depravity from miasma, and continued sound to the core. With the shining talents which were his, he might have crooked his supple joints, and reached at once the pinnacle of fame. He walked erect and manly in the humble vale. Poor, and without the prestige of rank, he raised his head above the Lords temporal and spiritual, and thundered truth into their ears. He never veered from duty for the sake of favor, nor sacrificed one principle for selfish aggrandizement, nor yielded conviction to prejudice, nor slaved himself in the trammels of party. He made no use of flattery, nor yielded to its seductions. He had better arrows in his quiver. He tore the mask from the face of hypocrisy, and was above disguise and petty meanness. He fought with the minority when he had everything to lose, and sometimes opposed the Whigs in power when he had everything to gain. There is something sublime in the moral courage which drove him into the very teeth of Government, and caused him to stand almost alone against the guards of the palace, bearing down with a strong sense against the deep foundations of error, and flashing against the castellated battlements of existing power. But he placed at the same time his back against the pressure of popular frenzy, and chimed in with no watchword of the mob. And it is like turning from a battle field to gaze upon some quiet and softly tinted picture, when we follow this great man into the blandishments of social circles, and the delights of his little family, giving "the oil of joy for mourning, and the garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness;" to see him rise up with alacrity of a morning, and sit down at his own table, "feeling," as he would say, "refreshed like a giant to run his course or when, upon a summer's day, he would fling himself into his great chair and cry out, "I feel like a bridegroom in the honeymoon; thank God for Combe Florey; Diana, glorify the room, throw open the windows, let in the blessed light;" or when upon a Christmas festival he returned from the sublime duties of the morning, he took his seat among the festive group, diffusing all around him that happiness, in a grateful sense of which "he thanked God that He had made him merry. It was a better gift than much wheat and bean land with a doleful heart." Did space permit we should be glad to trace the course of his writings, in which he battled so manfully for justice to men, and for justice and toleration towards women. It has been remarked that "there is no youth in his writings;" it might have been said with equal propriety, that they show no age, no decrepitude. In conclusion, we cannot refrain from quoting a passage by Mrs. Austin: "High as Sydney Smith's reputation stood during his life, it has unquestionably risen since his death. If not more wide-spread, it is more just, and more worthy of his great moral and intellectual qualities. Still more perfect justice will doubtless be rendered to him by posterity. Admiration of his wit will become subordinate, as it ought to be, to respect for the purposes to which it was applied, and for the good sense by which it was guided." ART. III.-DR. HENRY'S TRANSLATION OF COUSIN'S PSYCHOLOGY. Elements of Psychology: included in a Critical Examination of Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, and in Additional Pieces. By VICTOR COUSIN. Translated from the French, with an Introduction and Notes, by CALEB S. HENRY, D. D. Fourth improved Edition, revised according to the Author's last corrections. New York: Ivison & Phinney, 321 Broadway, (Successors of Mark H. Newman & Co.) Chicago: S. C. Griggs & Co., 111 Lake Street. Buffalo: Phinney & Co. 1856. Large 12mo. pp. 568. WE suppose there is no doubt, at the present day, in the mind of any person who is at all competent to form any opinion upon the subject, that COUSIN is to be the great name in the history of Philosophy for the first half of the present century. What the second half may bring forth, no one can, as yet, say. Nor would we cast so much of a slur upon those energetic thinkers and aspiring geniuses whom we have amongst us, as would be implied in the intimation of a belief that we have not now amongst us, and even amongst the names which are not altogether unknown to fame, some one who may rise to be even a more conspicuous light than the great French Philosopher himself. We are placed in a peculiar position, and are surrounded by circumstances which stimulate the mind to its most intense activity. And if we are not to produce a mind who shall recast the whole cycle of metaphysical science anew, we certainly have a people who look into the great problems of philosophy, as no other people ever did, and whose minds must be supplied with the best literature and guided by the best thinking that we can command, or an abyss of infidelity, moral corruption and anarchy, such as the world never yet saw, is before us as our inevitable doom. Whatever we may think of Cousin's Method, or of his System, or as a result of his Method-whether we adopt his theory or reject it-whether we admire his style or consider his books to be (as some among us profess to regard them) among the most dangerous and powerful means of corruption,-it has come to be a fact about which, as a fact, we need waste no time or energy in disputations; that the writings of Cousin have a power to charm and to work their way into a wide circulation, |