unostentatiously dutiful in conduct as if they were leaden Puritans or
narrow devotees.

[Illustration: RICHARD H. BARHAM]

By far the best remembered of this class, for themselves or their work,
are Sydney Smith and Richard Harris Barham; but their relative repute is
one of the oddest paradoxes in literary history. Roughly speaking, the
one is remembered and unread, the other read and unremembered. Sydney
Smith's name is almost as familiar to the masses as Scott's, and few
could tell a line that he wrote; Barham's writing is almost as familiar
as Scott's, and few would recognize his name. Yet he is in the foremost
rank of humorists; his place is wholly unique, and is likely to remain
so. It will be an age before a similar combination of tastes and
abilities is found once more. Macaulay said truly of Sir Walter Scott
that he "combined the minute learning of an antiquary with the fire of a
great poet." Barham combined a like learning in different fields, and
joined to a different outlook and temper of mind, with the quick
perceptions of a great wit, the brimming zest and high spirits of a
great joker, the genial nature and lightness of a born man of the world,
and the gifts of a wonderful improvisatore in verse. Withal, he had just
enough of serious purpose to give much of his work a certain measure of
cohesive unity, and thus impress it on the mind as no collection of
random skits could do. That purpose is the feathering which steadies the
arrows and sends them home.

It is pleasant to know that one who has given so good a time to others
had a very good time himself; that we are not, as so often happens,
relishing a farce that stood for tragedy with the maker, and
substituting our laughter for his tears. Barham had the cruel sorrows of