s arms, putting them in fresh lights, declaring they were exquisite
specimens of art, and if not by the very best masters, merited to be so.
He invited his friends, and displayed his pictures; discovered fresh
beauties for each new comer; and for three or four days, under the magic
influence of his wit and imagination, these gloomy old pictures were a
perpetual source of amusement and fun.'

At last, finding that he was considered no authority for the fine arts,
off went the pictures to another auction, but all re-christened by
himself, with unheard-of names. 'One, I remember,' says Lady Holland,
'was a beautiful landscape, by Nicholas de Falda, a pupil of Valdezzio,
the only painting by that eminent artist. The pictures sold, I believe,
for rather less than he gave for them under their original names, which
were probably as real as their assumed ones.'

Sydney Smith had long been styled by his friends the 'Bishop of
Mickleham,' in allusion to his visits to, and influence in, the house of
his friend, Richard Sharp, who had a cottage at that place. A piece of
real preferment was now his. This was the living of Foston-le-Clay, in
Yorkshire, given him by Lord Erskine, then Chancellor. Lady Holland
never rested till she had prevailed on Erskine to give Sydney Smith a
living. Smith, as Rogers relates, went to thank his lordship. 'Oh,' said
Erskine, 'don't thank me, Mr. Smith; I gave you the living because Lady
Holland insisted on my doing so; and if she had desired me to give it to
the devil, _he_ must have had it.'

Notwithstanding the prediction of the saints, Sydney Smith proved an
excellent parish priest. Even his most admiring friends did not expect
this result. The general impression was, that he was infinitely better
fitted for the bar than for the church. 'Ah! Mr. Smith,' Lord Stowell
used to say to him, 'you would be in a far better situation, and a far
richer man, had you belonged to us.'

One _jeu d'esprit_ more, and Smith hastened to take possession of his
living, and to enter upon duties of which no one better knew the mighty
importance than he did.

Among the Mackintosh set was Richard Sharp, to whom we have already
referred, termed, from his great knowledge and ready memory,
'Conversation Sharp.' Many people may think that this did not imply an
agreeable man, and they were, perhaps, right. Sharp was a plain,
ungainly man. One evening, a literary lady, now living, being at Sir
James Mackintosh's, in compan