And while we express our admiration of the singular combination of qualities which he possesses for the management of a National Observatory, we cannot but add our sincere hope, both for his own sake and for the public benefit, that his life and vigour may be long preserved.

Postscript. Since this article was written and put in type, we have had the pleasure of seeing a volume of Popular Lectures on Astronomy,' by Mr. Airy, printed from short-hand notes taken at Ipswich, where the lectures were delivered, in 1848, to a numerous audience of a mixed character. They contain a very clear and popular exposition of the more practical parts of astronomy, couched in plain, precise, and highly graphic language. They are published in a neat form with clear illustrative plates, for behoof of the Ipswich Museum. Had they been sooner in our hands, we should not have failed to refer frequently to them in the course of these pages. But we are happy to be able to recommend to our readers a work which contains, in so elementary a shape, so large an amount of valuable and accurate information.

ART. II.-Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy, delivered at the Royal Institution, in the Years 1804, 1805, and 1806. By the late Rev. SYDNEY SMITH, M. A. London, 1849. Pp. 424.

THIS

HIS volume — printed, but, at the time we are writing, not yet published-appeals not to our tribunal; one hundred copies only have been issued to gratify the eye of private friendship. Under such circumstances, we feel little disposition to make it the subject of detailed criticism; nor would our disinclination for the task be removed, even were the merit of the volume much less or its faults much greater than they will either of them be found to be. For the deficiencies in a posthumous work, the publication of which was neither contemplated nor desired by him, the author cannot properly be held responsible. It is its merits alone, which are indeed his own. But in the present case those merits may be more gracefully made the subject of minute criticism anywhere than in this Journal, the pages of which have been so often illuminated by his wit and genius. Of that wit and genius it is not now necessary, here or elsewhere, to enter into a critical estimate. Sydney Smith has had his due place of honour long assigned him. We shall better occupy the little space allotted to us by presenting our readers with a

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few brief specimens of that vigorous intellect a few scintillations of that brilliant wit-which in past times have so often delighted them.

But alas! there are other reasons for inexpressible reluctance to assume the critic's office in the case before us. The duty has been virtually performed by one-and it was the last office of the kind he ever did perform-than whom none could perform it more justly or more kindly ;- by one of whom we do not venture to say more at present. We refer to that illustrious friend of Sydney Smith who, in conjunction with him and other men of genius, projected the present Journal, and who presided for so long a series of years over the tribunal of criticism he had established, with a taste, skill, and energy, on which the public has already long since pronounced its judgment. He has now passed from among us; but his name and memory are embalmed in the veneration and affection of all who knew him.

Lord Jeffrey had received the present volume and was engaged in perusing it, only a few days before his death. The delight it gave him, and the spirit in which he seized the opportunity it afforded him of expressing his sense of the merits he had overlooked at first, are so strikingly characteristic of his candour and generosity of nature, that we must not suppress a brief account of what passed on the occasion.

The notes of these lectures, delivered nearly half a century ago-about the period, in fact, when the two friends first commenced their long literary career,-were never prepared or designed for publication. Their author had even often resolved on their destruction; and on one occasion partly accomplished his purpose. His family naturally begged a reprieve, and wisely as well as naturally; for, as old Fuller says of Herbert's remains, even shavings of gold are carefully to be kept.' At his death, the interest of the family in them was renewed. Anxious to ascertain the propriety or otherwise of giving these lectures to the public, and knowing how well they could rely on Lord Jeffrey's judgment and kindness, Mrs. Smith sent the manuscript to him for his opinion. He,-doubtless feeling much more strongly than the generality of men, how much injustice is often done to genius by publishing what itself would be mortified to think should see the light without the advantage of careful revision, and perceiving also, on a slight and partial inspection, that some parts of the present work would require that revision to do them full justice, advised that the volume should not be published. Out of acquiescence, we may presume, in this sentence, a few copies only were struck off in the first instance for private circulation.

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And now comes the incident which it is such a pleasure to record. On perusing the volume in print, Lord Jeffrey at once discerned, in spite of hiatus, mutilations, and imperfections, so many indications of the vis vivida' of genius-so many traces of originality, splendour, and power-that he lost no time in writing to Mrs. Smith a beautiful letter, retracting his former cautious judgment in the amplest manner. I cannot rest,' said he, 'till I have not merely expressed my thanks to you for the ' gratification I have received, but made some amends for the rash, and I fear somewhat ungracious, judgment I passed upon it, after perusing a few passages of the manuscript some years 'ago. I have not recognised any of these passages in any part of the print I am reading, and think I must have been unfor'tunate in the selection, or chance, by which I was directed to ' them. . . . . . I am now satisfied I was quite wrong. My 'firm impression is, that, with few exceptions, they will do him as much credit as any thing he ever wrote; and produce, on the whole, a stronger impression of the force and vivacity of 'his intellect, as well as a truer and more engaging view of his 'character than what the world has yet seen in his writings. Some of the conclusions may be questionable, but I do think 'them generally just, and never propounded with anything like arrogance, or in any tone of assumption; and the whole subject treated with quite as much, either of subtlety or profundity, as was compatible with a popular exposition of it. I retract, therefore, peremptorily and firmly, the advice I for'merly gave against the publication of these discourses.'

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It was traits like these-of sweetness, frankness, and fearless love of truth; the rare magnanimity which made him ever ready to recant an error, when he had reason to suspect that he had been betrayed into one, -traits beautifully displayed in his introduction to his essays reprinted from this Journal, which not only endeared him to so large a circle of friends, but rendered it impossible for him to have any permanent enemies. Such qualities had, in fact, long before his death, conciliated towards him the esteem and affection of most of those who, in earlier years, thought they had reason to complain of the severity of the criticisms which he had either himself passed, or had suffered others to pass, on their productions. Even literary animosities -the most embittered, perhaps, of any-could not but yield before the genial warmth of his frank and kind-hearted nature. These traits made him more truly great than the opulence of his knowledge- the elegance of his fancy-the acuteness of his logic-or the vigour and the versatility of his genius.

After such a testimony, we trust that the publication of these

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'Elementary Sketches' may be confidently reckoned uponperhaps before the appearance of our present number: in which case it is to be hoped that this beautiful and instructive letter will be prefixed to them.

Paradoxical as the statement may seem, we think there was sufficient reason for Lord Jeffrey to affirm both his earlier and his later judgment; reason, in the first instance, for his caution, -prompted doubtless by a genuine solicitude for his friend's reputation, and reason for his subsequent retractation on seeing the whole in print. He perceived that the volume, after all deductions, was everywhere so pervaded with vigorous thought, and so adorned by felicitous illustration, as to render it not only not unworthy of Sydney Smith's genius, but an acceptable contribution to the literature of mental philosophy: Not to mention the numerous passages which, as often as the lecturer has occasion to apply his philosophy to the business and bosoms of men, do the greatest honour to the elevation of his sentiments and the humanity of his heart.

In truth, we are disposed to concur with Lord Jeffrey, in thinking, that however some hiatus may be lamented,' and certain modifications desiderated, this volume will raise Sydney Smith higher in the esteem of the public, as a thinker, than any of his previous writings. He has been by many principally regarded as a man of exquisite wit indeed, but of little more than wit; of infinite facetiousness, but with moderate powers of argument or speculation, at least in relation to abstract science. We are much mistaken if these pages do not vindicate his claim to rank with philosophers; whether he be not an illustration of his own theory, propounded in one of these lectures, and more than once propounded by other writers in this Journal,—that great wit rarely exists alone; that few men have ever possessed it in extraordinary measure, without being capable by nature of achieving something higher and better than its own triumphs; a theory supported by the fact that in one or other of its diversified modes, it has been an almost inseparable concomitant of the most splendid forms of genius-whether in the departments of philosophy, poetry, or eloquence.

There are few parts of these lectures over which it is possible to glance, especially when we bear in mind the abstruseness of the subject, and the youthfulness of the professor, -difficulties not likely to be lightened by the necessity of descanting on such themes before a popular and miscellaneous audience, without being struck with the indications of power which they everywhere present. Inexhaustible vivacity and variety of illustration one would, of course, expect from such a mind;

but this is far from being all. The sound judgment and discrimination with which he often treats very difficult topics, -the equilibrium of mind which he maintains when discussing those on which his own idiosyncracy might be supposed to have led him astray-of which an instance is seen in his temperate estimate of the value of wit and humour,-the union of independence and modesty with which he canvasses the opinions of those from whom he differs,-the comprehensiveness of many of his speculations, and the ingenuity of others, -the masterly ease and perspicuity with which even abstruse thoughts are expressed, and the frequently original, and sometimes profound remarks on human nature to which he gives utterance-remarks hardly to be expected from any young metaphysician, and least of all from one of so lively and mercurial a temperament,-all render these lectures very profitable as well as very pleasant reading; and show conclusively that the author might, if he had pleased, have acquired no mean reputation as an expositor of the very arduous branch of science to which they relate. Doubtless there is many a 'bone' in these lectures which a keen metaphysician would be disposed to 'pick' with the author; for when was a metaphysical banquet spread without abundance of such meagre fare? Still the general merits of the volume every man of sense will assuredly admit to be very great.

But our readers will feel that our rapidly dwindling space had better be devoted to giving them some light prelibation of the contents of this interesting volume, than to further disquisition on either its merits or defects; and to this accordingly we proceed.

When Sydney Smith undertook to popularise to a London audience the subject of Mental Philosophy, he was just fresh from the schools of Edinburgh, where he had heard Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown prelecting on their favourite science. It is impossible to conceive an assembly less adapted to the reception of such mysteries than a metropolitan audience of that period. It would have been almost as hopeful for a Stoic to lecture on Zeno's system in the Garden of Epicurus.

The title of the lectures will be apt to mislead many readers of the present day. The author uses the words Moral Philosophy' in the sense in which they were currently accepted in the schools in which he had been studying; as including, that is, not only, what they are so often now used to import, Ethics properly so called, but the whole of what is denominated at present Mental Philosophy.'

The Introductory Lecture is certainly not the least interesting