ch.il] SYDNEY SMITH. 37 



remember nothing distinctly about onr interview, except 

 that Humboldt was very cheerful and talked much. 



X.* reminds me of Buckle, whom I once met at Hens- 

 leigh Wedgwood's. I Avas very glad to learn from [Buckle] 

 his system of collecting facts. He told me that he bought 

 all the books which he read, and made a full index to each, 

 of the facts which he thought might prove serviceable to 

 him, and that he could always remember in what book he 

 had read anything, for his memory was wonderful. I asked 

 him how at first he could judge what facts would be service- 

 able, and he answered that he did not know, but that a 

 sort of instinct guided him. From this habit of making 

 indices, he was enabled to give the astonishing number of 

 references on all sorts of subjects which may be found in 

 his History of Civilisation. This book I thought most in- 

 teresting, and read it twice, but I doubt whether his gen- 

 eralisations are worth anything. Buckle was a great talker ; 

 and I listened to him, saying hardly a word, nor indeed 

 could I have done so, for he left no gaps. When Mrs. 

 Farrer began to sing, I jumped up and said that I must 

 listen to her. After I had moved away, he turned round to 



_ _ _ 



a friend, and said (as was overheard by my brother), " Well, 

 Mr. Darwin's books are much better than his conversa- 

 tion." 



Of other great literary men, I once met Sydney Smith 

 at Dean Milman's house. There was something inexpli- 

 cably amusing in every word which he uttered. Perhaps 

 this was partly due to the expectation of being amused. 

 He was talking about Lady Cork, who was then extremely 

 old. This was the lady who, as he said, was once so much 

 affected by one of his charity sermons, that she borroived a 

 guinea from a friend to put in the plate. He now said, 

 "It is generally believed that my dear old friend Lady 

 Cork has been overlooked " ; and he said this in such a 

 manner that no one could for a moment doubt that he 

 meant that his dear old friend had been overlooked by the 

 devil. How he managed to express this I know not. 



I likewise once met Macaulay at Lord Stanhope's (the 

 historian's) house, and as there was only one other man at 

 dinner, I had a grand opportunity of hearing him converse, 

 and he was very agreeable. He did not talk at all too 

 much, nor indeed could such a man talk too much, as long 



* A passage referring to X. is here omitted. F. D. 



