It was the praise of Dryden that he was the best reasoner in verse who ever wrote; let it be the encomium of our departed Sidney that, he was one of the best reasoners in wit of whom our country can boast. His intellect—strong, sharp, clear, and decided—wrought and moved in a rich medium of humor. Each thought, as it came forth from his brain, issued as “in dance,” and amid a flood of inextinguishable laughter. The march of his mind through his subject resembled the procession of Bacchus from the conquest of India—joyous, splendid, straggling—to the sound of flutes and hautboys—rather a victory than a march—rather a revel than a contest. His logic seemed always hurrying into the arms of his wit. Some men argue in mathematical formulæ; others, like Burke, in the figures and flights of poetry; others in the fire and fury of passion; Sidney Smith in exuberant and riotous fun. And yet the matter of his reasoning was solid, and its inner spirit earnest and true. But though his steel was strong and sharp, his hand steady, and his aim clear, the management of the motions of his weapon was always fantastic. He piled, indeed, like a Titan, his Pelion on Ossa, but at the oddest of angles; he lifted and carried his load bravely, and like a man, but laughed as he did so; and so carried it that beholders forgot the strength of the arm in the strangeness of the attitude. He thus sometimes disarmed anger; for his adversaries could scarcely believe that they had received a deadly wound while their foe was roaring in their face. He thus did far greater execution; for the flourishes of his weapon might distract his opponents, but never himself, from the direct and terrible line of the blow. His laughter sometimes stunned, like the cachination of the Cyclops, shaking the sides of his cave. In this mood—and it was his common one—what scorn was he wont to pour upon the opponents of Catholic emancipation—upon the enemies of all change in legislation—upon any individual or party who sought to obstruct measures which, in his judgment, were likely to benefit the country. Under such, he could at any moment spring a mine of laughter; and what neither the fierce invective of Brougham, nor the light and subtle raillery of Jeffrey could do, his contemptuous explosion effected, and, himself crying with mirth, saw them hoisted toward heaven in ten thousand comical splinters. Comparing him with other humorists of a similar class, we might say, that while Swift’s ridicule resembles something between a sneer and a spasm (half a sneer of mirth, half a spasm of misery)—while Cobbett’s is a grin—Fonblanque’s a light but deep and most significant smile—Jeffrey’s a sneer, just perceptible on his fastidious lip—Wilson’s a strong, healthy, hearty laugh—Carlyle’s a wild unearthly sound, like the neighing of a homeless steed—Sidney Smith’s is a genuine guffaw, given forth with his whole heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. Apart from his matchless