The Model Humorist

In his day, fiev. Sidney Smith was the idol of London Society, winning and retaining popular f.ivor tor a full half century at least, by his most felicitous wit and humor. His exquisito drollery has not been surpassed by later humorists, nor has any one excelled him in the genial character of his fun and playiulness. He never wounded friends by his shafts, making them his victima, though lie enjoyed a practical joke at all times. Nothing amused him more, in fact, than the utter want of perception in some minds, which he came in contact with, concerning the force or mission of a bit of playfulness or humor. One of his friends, Mrs. Jackson, once called on him, and in the course of the conversation spoke Df the oppressive heat. "Heat, ma'am," said Smith, " it was so oppressive that 1 found there was nothing left for it but to take off my fle&h and sit in ray bones." Take off your flesh and sit in your bones, sir! Oh! Mr. Smith, how could you do that?" exclaimed Mrs. J. with the utmost gravity. "Nothing more easy, ma'am," replied the vritty rector. "Why do you chain upthat fine Newfoundland dog?" inquired a lady of him once. "Because he has a passion for break-fasting on parish boys," answered the humorist. "Parish boys!" reclaimed the lady, "does he really eat parish boys, Mr. Smith?" "Yes, he devours them buttons and all," was the answer. "Her face made me die of laughing," said Smith, in telling the story. While dining out at York he happened to meet a gentleman with such a total absence, not only of humor in himself, but in his perception of it in others, that he at once became an amusing subject of speculation to the humorist. The conversation assumed a liberal turn, and Mr. Smith remarked that though he was not considered "an illiberal man, yet he must confess he had one weakness, one secret wish - he should like to roast a Quaker." "Roast a Quaker!" ejaculatedthe gentleman f uil of horror at the idea. "Yes, sir, returned Smith, with the utmost gravity, "roast a Quaker." "But do you consider, Mr. Smith, the torture ?" " Yes, sir, I have considered everything," answered the humorist. "It may be wrong, as you say; the Quaker would undoubtedly suffer acutely, but every oue has his taste - mine would be to reast a Quaker; one would satisfy me, only one, but it is one of thostc pecularities that I have striven igainst in vain, and Ihope you will pardon my, weakness." This story may have been the inspiration of Charles Lamb's witticism, when asked by a lady how he liked babies ? "B-b-boiled," replied Lamb. " Don't talk to me of not being able to cough a speaker down," said Smith. "Try the whooping-cough." In speaking of a diminutive friend onee he remarked; " He has not body enough to cover his soul with. His intellect is improperly exposed." "I have renawed my acquaintance with young f" wrote Smith to his wife, "There is something ir him, but he doea not know how little." He liked paintings without knowing any thing about Lhem, and heartily hated coxcoinbery in the fine arts. One day, while examining one of Bowood's paimV ings, an observer, turning to him, said: "Immense breadth of light and shade" "Yes," replied Smith, "about an ineü and a half." "He gave me a look that ought to have killed me," said the brilliant preacher in telling of the incident. Commenting on the spring of 1840, he remarked; "This is the only sensible spring I remember. It is a real March of intellect." Of a highly cultivated lady of his acquaintance, he said in his inimitable ways: "Shehas a porcelain understanding." On examining some new flowers in his garden a beautiful girl exclaimed: " Oh! Mr. Smith, this pea will never come to perfection." "Permit me, then," said he, taking her b the hand, and walking toward the plant, 'to Jead perfection to the jea," On another occasion hecharmingly remarked: "Miss reminds me of a youthf u] Minerva, and her friends, as Dr. 's daughter, must be, you know, the Venus de Medici," Smith never liked dogs, as he al ways o-ipcuiou luoiu tu go inaa. a ïauy asfced him once for a motto for her dog Spot. He instantly proposed: "Out, damned Spot," quotiugïrom Lady Mobeth. "Were you remarkable as a boy?" inquired a lady of him. "Yea, madam," he replied, "I was a remarka-' bly fat boy." Whatever you do," said he at an,other time, "preser ve the orthodox look." "Correspondences," he once wrote to a friend, "are like amall clothesbef ore the invention of suspenderá; it is impossible to keep them up." Daniel Webster, he said, "struck him very much like a steam engine in trousers.'1 "No furniture so charming as booka," said he in one of his sparkling moods„ "even if you never opened them or read' a single word," and it was one of his QbservatioDs that a man's character ia more faithfully represented in the arrangements of hia home than in any other point, lt is hardly necessary to add that to Sidney Smith, the resplendent preacher and wit, home waa the; brightest spot in the world. The Márchese Corsi-Salviati has presented to the Royal Garden?, says the Nature, life-size di.=itemper jngs of the gigantic aroid discovered by Beccari in West Sumatra and described by him under the name of Amorphophallus titanum. The dimensions of this plant are probably the most enormous assumed by any herbaceous pJant in one season's growth. ïlie underground tuber is 5 feet in circumference. This produces, except when flowering, a, single leaf whose stem is 10 feet high; abo ve, tMs divide into three branches, eaoh as thick as a man's thigh, and the ultímate segmenta of the much-divided leaf cover an area of 45 feet in cireuwierenee. The inflorescence is on a corresponding scale. At a recent meeting of the Academie des Inscription et Belles Lettres, M. de Rosuey read a paper upon a manuscript which had been sent to him from Japan. He inferred from it two stating conclusions ; first, that üiere existed in Japan in early times a primitive monotheism ; second, that he Japauese pissessed also, before the ïitroduction oi writing from China, it ancient alihabet of Indian origin. The strength of an elephant is reckoned at that of forty-seven men.