is much at least in those singular productions—in their clear and manly sense—in their broad native fun—in their rapid, careless, energetic style—and in their bold, honest, liberal, and thoroughly English spirit—to interest several succeeding generations, if not to secure the “rare and regal” palm of immortality. Sidney Smith was a writer of sermons as well as of political squibs. Is not their memory eternized in one of John Foster’s most ponderous pieces of sarcasm? In an evil hour the dexterous and witty critic came forth from behind the fastnesses of the Edinburgh Review, whence, in perfect security he had shot his quick glancing shafts at Methodists and Missions, at Christian Observers and Eclectic Reviews, at Owens and Styles, and (what the more wary Jeffrey, in the day of his power, always avoided) became himself an author, and, _mirabile dictu_, an author of sermons. It was as if he wished to give his opponents their revenge, and no sooner did his head peep forth from beneath the protection of its shell than the elephantine foot of Foster was prepared to crush it in the dust. It was the precise position of Saladin with the Knight of the Leopard, in their memorable contest near the Diamond of the Desert. In the skirmish Smith had it all his own way; but when it came to close quarters, and when the heavy and mailed hand of the sturdy Baptist had confirmed its grasp on his opponent, the disparity was prodigious, and the discomfiture of the light horseman complete. But why recall the memory of an obsolete quarrel and a forgotten field? The sermons—the _causa belli_—clever but dry, destitute of earnestness and unction—are long since dead and buried; and their review remains their only monument.