But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.

MILTON.--_Lycidas_.

The name of John William Smith, barrister-at-law, of the Inner Temple,
now appears, possibly for the first time, before nineteen-twentieths of
the readers of _Blackwood's Magazine_. It is that, however, of a
remarkable and eminent man, just cut off in his prime, before he had
completed his thirty-seventh year: having as yet lain little more than a
twelvemonth in his grave, to which he had been borne by a few of his
sorrowful and admiring friends, on the 24th of December, 1845. Another
eminent member of the English bar, Sir William Follett, belonging to the
same Inn of Court, and also cut off in the prime of life, while
glittering in the zenith of his celebrity and success, had been buried
only five months previously. I[1] endeavoured to give the readers of
this Magazine, in January 1846, some account of the character of that
distinguished person; and Mr. Smith, learning that I was engaged upon
the task, with morbid anxiety repeatedly begged me to show him what I
was writing, up to within a few weeks of his own decease: a request with
which, for reasons which will become obvious to the reader of this
sketch, I declined to comply. With Sir William Follett's name all the
world is acquainted: yet I venture to think that the name of John
William Smith has greater claims upon the attention of readers of
biography. His character and career will, it is believed, be found
permanently and intrinsically interesting,--at once affecting,
inspiriting, and admonitory. He fell a martyr to intense study, just as