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.

Even when, within his own stronghold, our author intermeddled with
theological topics, it was seldom with felicity or credit to himself. His
onset on missions was a sad mistake; and in attacking the Methodists, and
poor, pompous John Styles, he becomes as filthy and foul-mouthed as Swift
himself. His wit forsakes him, and a rabid invective ill supplies its
place; instead of laughing, he raves and foams at the mouth. Indeed,
although an eloquent and popular preacher, and in many respects an
ornament to his cloth, there was one radical evil about Smith; _he had
mistaken his profession_. He was intended for a barrister, or a literary
man, or a member of parliament, or some occupation into which he could
have flung his whole soul and strength. As it was, but half his heart was
in a profession which, of all others, would require the whole. He became
consequently a rather awkward medley of buffoon, politician, preacher,
literateur, divine, and diner-out. Let us grant, however, that the ordeal
was severe, and that, if a very few have weathered it better, many more
have ignominiously broken down. No one coincides more fully than we do
with Coleridge in thinking that every literary man should have a
profession; but in the name of common sense let it be one fitted for him,
and for which he is fitted--one suited to his tastes as well as to his
talents--to his habits as well as to his powers--to his heart as well as to
his head.

As a conversationist, Sidney Smith stood high among the highest--a Saul
among a tribe of Titans. His jokes were not rare and refined, like those
of Rogers and Jekyll; they wanted the slyness of Theodore Hook's
inimitable equivoque; they were not poured forth with the prodigal
profusion of Hood's breathless and bickering puns; they were rich, fat,
unctuous, always bordering on farce, but always avoiding it by a
hair's-breadth. No finer cream, certe