quietly unfolded another letter of Sydney Smith's, and silently held
it before my eyes, and the very first words in it were a most
ludicrous allusion to Rogers's cadaverous appearance. As I raised my
eyes from this most absurd description of him, and saw him still
absorbed in his evil delight, the whole struck me as so like a scene
in a farce that I could not refrain from bursting out laughing.

In talking of Sydney Smith Mr. Rogers gave us many amusing details
of various visits he paid him at his place in Somersetshire, Combe
Flory, where, on one occasion, Jeffrey was also one of the party. It
was to do honor to these illustrious guests that Sydney Smith had a
pair of horns fastened on his donkey, who was turned into the
paddock so adorned, in order, as he said, to give the place a more
noble and park-like appearance; and it was on this same donkey that
Jeffrey mounted when Sydney Smith exclaimed with such glee--

"As short, but not as stout, as Bacchus,
As witty as Horatius Flacchus,
As great a radical as Gracchus,
There he goes riding on my _jackuss_."

Rogers told us too, with great satisfaction, an anecdote of Sydney
Smith's son, known in London society by the amiable nickname of the
Assassin.... This gentleman, being rather addicted to horse-racing
and the undesirable society of riders, trainers, jockeys, and
semi-turf black-legs, meeting a friend of his father's on his
arrival at Combe Flory, the visitor said, "So you have got Rogers
here, I find." "Oh, yes," replied Sydney Smith's dissimilar son,
with a rueful countenance, "but it isn't _the_ Rogers, you know."
_The_ Rogers, according to him, being a famous horse-trainer and
rider of that name.

I have called him his father's dissimilar son, but feel inclined to
withdraw that epithet, when I recollect his endeavor to find an
appropriate subject of conversation for the Archbishop of York, by
whom, on one occasion, he found himself seated at dinner: "Pray, my
lord, how long do you think it took Nebuchadnezzar to get into
condition again after his turn out at grass?"

The third time I went to Burnham Beeches, it was to meet a very
clever Piedmontese gentleman, with whom Mr. Grote had become
intimate, Mr. Senior, known and valued for his ability as a
political economist, his clear and acute inte