Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1859-03-01
TnB Atlantio Monthly for March is before US.

wlShy-wdSny. luis neiplhS 10 eSiaOlstI u hi5
er standard of magazine literature than we have
heretofore had The best writes mot Of the Syl-
vanus Cobb or Ned Buntline Observation-Disclosures
schooll contribute toits columns. Their papers,
too, appear without name; so that each article
must rely altogether on its merits. The Attdn-
tic is now complete success as it deserves to
be. We cannot but wish there were more like 1t.
In this No. we observe an interesting paper
on Charles Lamb and Sydney Smith, wherein
the writer shows that although ranking among
England's greatest humorists, they both were
most serious men-men who, though the most
witty and jovial, had great gricfs of their own,
that oversbadowed their whole lives How Of
ten is such the case 1t is said that every house
hold has its skeleton, hid away it may be, in the
darkest closet, but no less grinnimg skeleton;
and we verify believe that the man does not live
who has not his griefs of which he only knows
In the first part of this century, there were in
Great Britain three groups of men who were
destined to make mark in the world. The
first were the founders of the Edinburg Review
of whom Sydney Smith was one. His asso-
ciates we're Francis Jeffrey, Francis Homer, and
Henry Brougham, (now the only survivor)-ol
young Wings, whose united ages at the time the
first No. was issued, amounted TO one hundred
s,s-----.. years. Jeffrey was the critic. He
had not poetical, nor poiIrIrut .,--..,hi
cal turn of mind; it was simply auylitical.-
Homer was not a.brilIiant, but serious and ear
nest man. He never swerved from great pur-
poses; but his term of life was too short to ac-
complish many of them He died in Italy before
he was forty years ofage OF Henry Brougham
we need not speak everybody knows who and
what he is.
The second group was formed fifteen years
later. They were the supporters of Blackwood
and the antagonists of the Edinburg Reviewers.
Chief among them were Prof John Wilson, 9TH
erwiseI "Christophcr North" He was. so demo-
cratic that when Mt Oxford, he BACKED his own
boots on principle. He had great fondness for,
field sports, and was u devoted dicple of Isaac
Walton. he spent considerable time roaming
about the country, wild with band of gypsics.
Even in his literary days he did not forget the
lakes and mountains of Scotland.
OF the third group, which was larger than
the others, Charles Lamb was the central figure.
Among his associates was Hood the quaint pun.
ster, Southey, Colridge, Wordsworth, and Leigh
Hunt. They at late period, supported the
"London Magazine" The great sorrow of
Charles Lamb is known. There was a tinge of
madness in the family blood. His sister Mary's
whole life was an intermittent madness. He
himself was at one time shut up in madhouse
xix weeks. He loved his sister FAITHFULLY, and
to her be devoted his whole life. She had sin
gular premonitions of fit of unreason, and he
took her tenderly to the appointed place until
her reason returned. She was his constant
companion, and if not seen in his company,
a., ell
him. She was poetess, in her own simple way.
She helped him to write, and he always declared
that hers was the better done. Though out
wardly at times the most joyous, his whole life
was saddened by this great af1iction. But he
was all the nobler for it for the great duty
which he never could forget, sanctiied all that
he ever did or said.
Lamb was long clerk in the India House
against all the instncs OF his nature, toiling to
secure support for his sister. The time he
spent over its huge folios was q time during
which he hardly lived; or if he did, it was kind
of life within himself which bore no relation to
the'mercantie life around him. He thus cxults
at his release: 81 came home FOREVER on Tues.
DAY. The incomprchensibleness of my situa-
ton oyerwhelms me. 1t is like passing fom
life into eternity. Every year to be as long as
tiree-1to have three times as much times in it,
time that is my own"
Tho thorn that pierced the side ofSydney
Smith was, the great mistake of hislif When
dame nature made him she fashioned him for .
lawyer he knew this and preferred the legal
profession. He studied himself, his tastes, his
talents, his incIinatiOns, and decided that his
choice was the law. And why did he not enter
the.pursuit9 "His father had incurred so much
expense in educating his eldest son Tor the legal
profession and fitting out two Others for India
that he. could not well furnish the means for
Sydney's education, and so recommended him Z
togo,into the church" Sydney did so, and thus
saefi6eed his inclination, and to some extent
himself, or what he might have become, to graf.
ify his father. Self sacrifice is noble but often
sorrowful thing, and SO he found it He went
into the church and in doing so he placed him
selffor life in sphere that was not his own
His wit, his versatility of talent, his conscious
ambition, his OVERLOOKING nature, ;old him that
the pulpit was not the place to develop his man.