CHAPTER XII.

THE TRAVELLER.

(From the Memoir.)

In the summer of 1842 a great grief befell him. His dear mother died at the age of seventy-five, having survived her husband nineteen years. I have spoken of the peculiar tenderness between the mother and son. Some friends who remember her well have described her to me in her later years, placid and smiling in her arm-chair, knitting away, with William seated on a footstool beside her, kissing her hand, interrupting her work by his playful and tender raillery, she pretending to chide, she, so proud, so fond! Into his intellectual nature, his thoughtlife, the dear mother did not and could not enter, but she had a boundless love for him; his comforts, his tastes, were paramount with her he was her first object always; and his sister, Mrs. Walker, the "dear Esther" of the early Glasgow letter, writes to me: "I shall never forget the desolation of heart William expressed when the grave closed over our mother." Later, his wife and he held it as a treasure in common that both were the youngest and peculiarly loved children of their mothers, and never felt their hearts more closely knit together than when speaking of them. I believe that he spent the winter of that first orphan year with a married sister. Afterwards. the dreary London lodging life to which Mr. Lewes refers must have set in.

The autumn of 1843 was spent by my husband in Paris, where the lectures at the Sorbonne were his especial interest. I have before me a note to his sister, Mrs.

deigall, characteristically describing his position in a sench boarding-house: "Stuttering out my broken sentices of French, thinking it a great good fortune if the mplest thing I utter is understood, and a great honour if ne dullest person in the company will condescend to talk with me."

I know that for a time William Smith went the Western Circuit, but to him it proved " so expensive and profitless he had to relinquish it." Probably he had already done so at this time, for in the summer of 1845 he made a tour in Switzerland. How intensely he enjoyed it appears in a paper, "The Mountain and the Cloud," written on his return, and published in "Blackwood's Magazine."

The winter following was spent in Brussels at the house of his eldest brother Frederick (who had for some years lived in Belgium), where William had the cheerful companionship of young nieces. It was there that he wrote "Sir William Crichton," 1 which appeared, with a reprint of "Athelwold" and of his two early poems, in a small, a very small, unpretending volume, published by Pickering towards the end of 1846. This small volume was never

1 Sir William Crichton ranks with Athelwold in power and beauty. Serjeant Talfourd, indeed, gives it the preference, though such a judgment seems questionable in consideration of the unrelieved gloom which darkens the later drama. Its most impressive and terrible figure is a monk who, while blameless in conduct, is haunted by a profound scepticism, which makes him seem to himself and to others the guiltiest of men, and who voices the most melancholy sense of the nothingness to which life is reduced when faith is destroyed. The other elements of the story are scarcely less tragic, including a conflict between public and private duty, in which either choice gives but a maimed virtue; while Fate at last whelms all in irremediable disaster. The contrast is wonderful between that side of the author's personality which his wife depicts in these pages -equable, sweet-tempered, joy-giving and that aspect of gloomiest contemplation which this drama displays, a gloom which seems the heavier and more unescapable because expressed with such composure.

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widely circulated, but it met with cordial recognition frouy. a few. Walter Savage Landor was one of those who esty, mated it highly. It is to Mr. Weigall that I owe thi knowledge. He writes thus: "About eighteen years ago I saw a great deal of Landor. On one occasion I mentioned William's works. He said immediately: 'I know Mr. Smith, and everything he has published. I have a great respect for him, sir. There are things in his works quite equal to anything that Shakespeare ever wrote.' I said I was much gratified to hear him say so, and wished the world thought so too. He replied, 'The world does not think so now, because it is chiefly composed of fools; but I know it, and I believe some day the world will agree with me.'

It was in the spring of 1846 that my husband visited Italy. He travelled, as usual, alone, and with eager, unresting haste. I have heard him say that he spoke to no one; that the excitement the marvels of ancient art occasioned was inexpressible; that he went on from place to place regardless of fatigue.

On his homeward way he became ill, and had to make a halt at his eldest brother's house in Brussels. By him William was, as I have often heard the latter recall, most tenderly nursed. In many particulars there was a family likeness between the two men. Both had the faculty of inspiring intense affection in those who knew them best, both the same refined courtesy in domestic life. Their cast of mind was indeed dissimilar, but the elder brother fully appreciated the nature of the younger. I shall never forget his looking at William with moistened eyes, on the

1 I think it must have been before this that the bust given as frontispiece was taken. The sculptor, Mr. Weigall, writes of it as follows: "I saw then in William the profound philosopher, the penetrating, calm, judicious critic, and the tender, passionate poet; and I believe, to those who have eyes to see such things, all these phases of his character may be found in the bust."— L. C. S.

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occasion of a flying visit of ours many years later, and
saying: "He was always quite different from the rest of
the world." His daughters, too, most lovingly remember
the student uncle, so interested in their pursuits, so en-
couraging, so playful.
playful. In him the solitary nature was
strangely combined, or I might rather say alternated, with
the eminently social. When he did come out of his own
element of abstract thought, it was to enter with genuine
interest into the very slightest concerns of others; to set
talk flowing with greater spontaneity; to bring out the
best of every mind. He came into a room where he felt
himself welcome like an influx of fresh air and light.
Whoever he addressed was conscious of a certain exhilara-
tion and increased freedom, for he, more than any person
I have known, "gave one leave to be one's self."

But it may be asked, Why are not more of his own
letters quoted to illustrate his character better than the
words of another can? I do not know that there are any
of his early letters extant. At no time of his life does he
appear to have kept up a large or varied correspondence,
and he had an especial dislike to letters of his being pre-
served or referred to. In more than one case I know he
entreated that they should be destroyed, and (however
reluctantly) his wish was complied with. I think it pro-
ceeded from the same quite abnormal sensitiveness that
made him shrink not only from any allusion to his own
books, but from the very sight of them. Never was I
able to keep a volume of his writings on table or shelf for
three days together! Silently they would be abstracted
or pushed into some dark recess. But as to his letters,
though naturally I am averse to extract from my own
stores, and I have no letters on general subjects to draw
from, I know from testimony as well as experience that
they were quite special in their simplicity and natural
grace. No one familiar with him could possibly have at-
tributed his shortest note to any other person.
It was

sure to bear some indefinable stamp of his individuality. Here is a passage of his regarding the letters of Southey, most applicable to his own :

The letters, as we advance through these volumes, become more and more characterized by that consummate ease and unstudied elegance which are the result only of long practice in composition; for the perfect freedom and grace of the epistolary style may be described as the spontaneous expression of one previously habituated to a choice selection of terms. It requires this combination of present haste and past study. The pen should run without a pause, without an after-thought, and the page be left without a correction; but it must be the pen of one who in times past has paused very long and corrected very often.

The influence of William Smith's foreign tours is traceable in his contributions to "Blackwood's Magazine" during the years 1846 and 1847. "Mildred," a tale published in the latter year, the scene of which is laid in Italy, contains some descriptions of the treasures of the Vatican, which will, I think, be read with interest.

"The

They paused before the Menander sitting in his chair. attitude," said she, "is so noble that the chair becomes a throne. But still how plainly it is intellectual power that sits enthroned there! The posture is imperial; and yet how evident that it is the empire of thought only that he governs in! And this little statue of Esculapius," she added, "kept me a long while before it. The healing sage-how faithfully is he represented! What a sad benevolence acquainted with pain-compelled to inflict even, in order to restore!"

They passed through the Hall of the Muses.

"How serene are all the Muses!" said Winston. "This is as it should be. Even Tragedy, the most moved of all, how evidently her emotion is one of thought, not of passion! Though she holds the dagger in her down-dropt hand, how plainly we see that she has not used it! She has picked it up from the floor after the fatal deed was perpetrated, and is musing on the ter