common with other members of the University, I have owed to the hospitality of the agreeable and excellent lady, your exemplary Mother; and the amusement that I have derived from observing the spirit and intelligence with which you have often defended, from my Whig attacks, the good old Tory principles, in Church and State, which you have inherited from your ancestors. You have other merits, Miss Cotton, I am well aware; many, and far greater;-but of these, they who know you, need not, and you yourself would not, choose to be reminded. Believe me, Very sincerely and respectfully, Your obliged Friend and Servant, WILLIAM SMYTH. St. Peter's College, October, 1840. MEMOIR, &c. THE life of a Man of Letters can seldom be interesting, but to men like himself. There is nothing in it to agitate or surprise— "No moving accidents by flood or fire;" a manuscript or a rare edition are the sights he sees the university and the metropolis of his own, or a neighbouring country, the sum of his travels. My particular life can in no respect be distinguished from the rest-most of it has been passed at Cambridge; I look back upon it, and it seems, like a pleasant dream that can be recalled by no particular incidents—a constant train of quiet duties, that were not disagreeable (much otherwise) and in their turn a succession of pleasures, that I considered as innocent, and that I hope were so. Such is the general picture that B is presented to me, when I endeavour to review this particular portion of my existence. In the sunny parts of the landscape are seen, female forms, graces and muses, as there are sages and students to be observed, reclined or reasoning in the shade. But the principal figure, no doubt, is one* that bore a lyre in her hand, and whose presence and whose song gave always enchantment to the scene, and who taught, not only me, but all the tenants of these academic bowers, the value of elegant accomplishments and the delights of polished society; a science not to be found, perhaps in our books, but not on that account to be thought unworthy of our study, or to be discountenanced by the votaries of wisdom. But there is little in this description of time past, to which the attention of others can be now directed, though I gaze upon it myself with a sigh, and, grateful to the Giver of all good, sincerely wish that I could live it over again. It has happened, however, that before this period of my life commenced, one interval of it was passed in a sort of connection with one of the most extraordinary men of the age; and though I saw not much of him, I saw something; and a few of those incidents that occurred, I may as well endeavour to recollect. I have many nephews and nieces, some of them may be of a literary turn, and may read * Mrs. W. Frere, of Downing. |