zines; and in 1855 he and Mr. Edmund Yates, the popular feuilletoniste, amused the world with "Mirth and Metre,” a collection of comic ballads and verses, the ingenuity and fun of which have been equalled by no similar publication since the appearance of "The Ingoldsby Legends."

ALBERT SMITH.

THIS gentleman, who has for more than fifteen years been one of the especial favourites of the public as a wit, an author, and a lecturer, was born May 24, 1816, at Chertsey, where his father was a medical practitioner. After receiving the education of boyhood at the Merchant Taylors' School, he became a medical student at the Middlesex Hospital. In 1838 he became a member of the College of Surgeons, and after a brief sojourn at Paris, for the purpose of completing his professional education, assisted his father as "a general practitioner" at Chertsey. He soon, however, gave up all thoughts of settling in the country, and fixing himself in London began to form a connection with newspapers and magazines. At one time, while waiting till his pen should enable him altogether to lay aside the profession of surgery, he practised with some success as a dentist; indeed, the first of his puns that we ever heard was one he somewhat indiscreetly fired off while removing some "tartar" from a lady's teeth.

Besides dramas, farces, sketches, and brochures without number, Albert Smith has published "The Wassail Bowl, a collection of tales and sketches," "The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury," "The Scattergood Family," "Christopher Tadpole," "The Marchioness of Brinvilliers," The Pottleton Legacy," "A Month at Constantinople," and "The Story of Mont Blanc." In some of these works there is much of the style of Dickens, and doubtless the earlier writings of

Boz contributed in no small degree to the literary formation of Mr. Albert Smith, but no one competent to form an opinion will deny that the author of "The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury" is as original as he is amusing.

On the 26th of May, 1850, Mr. Smith opened his popular entertainment "The Overland Mail," and on the 15th of March, 1852, he commenced in the Egyptian Hall his famous ascents of Mont Blanc. The success of this latter entertainment is one of the astounding facts of the day. In the May of 1855 Mr. Albert Smith, gave it for the thousandth time, and we verily believe that, were he to go on repeating it with the same spirit till he reached a hundred years of age, he would be favoured with the same overflowing houses. "Mont Blanc," unlike the leading theatres, is not supported only by the fixed inhabitants of our great capital and those wealthy individuals who reside in town during "the season," but it is the place of amusement which the country people, who visit London every one or two years for a week or fortnight of pleasuring, have taken under their especial patronage. They are honestly proud of it. If they hear it attacked, they defend it as they would the Queen's reputation; and they would be affected with sincere sorrow if they were informed that they would never again laugh their way up the rugged sides of the monarch of mountains. It is this that Mr. Smith's clients are not merely the well-to-do multitudes of all London, but of the entire country, which emboldens us to say, he need not fear his ascents" will ever cease to be popular.

It is common to hear Mr. Albert Smith's position as a lecturer spoken of in literary circles with disrespect and even with bitterness, as if he forgot his own dignity, and insulted the profession of literature in performing at the Egyptian Hall. To these sentiments we by no means give in our adhesion; at the same time we of course do not for a minute doubt that those who profess them most loudly would

unhesitatingly refuse a fortune offered to them on the same terms as those which are the conditions of Mr. Albert Smith's tenure of popularity and pecuniary

success.

JAMES AUGUSTUS ST. JOHN.

THIS excellent writer and persevering scholar has rendered good service to literature, not only in his works, but also in begetting three sons as elegant and accomplished authors as himself. Mr. James Augustus St. John's best known works of fiction are "Tales of the Ramadhan," "Margaret Ravenscroft," and "Sir Cosmo Digby." The author of these works was born in Camarthenshire; and in 1819, while still a boy, married, and daringly flung himself on authorship for support. This courageous, in the opinion of some, perhaps, reckless step, has been followed by a life of stern literary exertion, diversified by bursts of foreign travel and adventure, the fruits of which will assist to render the present generation bright in the eyes of posterity.

Mr. St. John has six sons, of whom three are authors of considerable name and great promise. Mr. Bayle St. John has produced, besides numerous powerful sketches of foreign life and manners, "The Louvre," "Purple Tints of Paris," and "Maretima, a Story of Adventure." Mr. Percy St. John is the author of "The King's Musketeer, an Historical Romance," "Paul Peabody," and numerous other works of fiction; and Mr. Horace St. John is honourably known by his "Indian Archipelago," and "History of the British Conquests in India."

AGNES STRICKLAND.

MISS AGNES STRICKLAND and her four sisters are instances of the lavish contributions "Silly Suffolk" has made to the intellectual wealth of the nation. Daughters of the late Thomas Strickland, Esq., of Reydon Hall, Suffolk, a gentleman of a small landed estate, these five sisters have added not a little to the lustre of their old and honourable name. The value of the historical labours of Miss Agnes and Miss Elizabeth Strickland is now universally acknowledged; they have been accepted as authorities of reference; able historians take their statements with perfect belief in their accuracy, and sometimes forget to acknowledge the source of their information; and they have directed the attention of persevering students to mines of historic learning which had long been neglected, even by antiquarians.

Besides the high reputation Miss Agnes Strickland has achieved by her "Lives of the Queens," she is favourably known to novel readers by her historical romance, "The Pilgrim of Walsingham." But the consumers of light literature have more reason to be grateful to Catherine, Susannah, and Jane, than to the two other sisters (Elizabeth and Agnes) who have devoted their time and genius to the less attractive fields of historical research. Miss Jane Margaret Strickland has produced numerous stories, of which "Adonijah, a tale of the Jewish dispersion," is, perhaps, the best known. Catherine, the wife of Lieutenant Trail, formerly of the 21st Royal North British Fusiliers, has sent from Canada-whither she went with her husband immediately after her marriage-to London publishers, "The Backwoods of America, by the Wife of an Emigrant," and the "Canadian Crusoes." And Susannah-the wife of John Dunbar Moodie, Esq., also formerly an officer of the 21st Royal North British Fusiliers-who, like her sister,

emigrated to Canada soon after her marriage, has for several years maintained a brisk intercourse with the mother country by a succession of novels and sketches, of which we may mention "Flora Lyndsay," "Life in the Clearings," “Mark Hurdlestone," "Matrimonial Speculations," "The Moncktons," &c., &c.

GEORGE W. THORNBURY.

AMONGST the crowds of young men of ready wit and extensive reading, who form the rising generation of authors, Mr. Thornbury stands forth prominently and honourably. A patient and laborious student, he has acquired a store of knowledge rarely possessed by one who from early youth has fought the battle of life with the pen. Besides contributing articles without number to the leading magazines and the columns of the Athenæum, he has given to the world a succession of distinct works, in which he appears to equal advantage, whether regarded as an antiquarian, a poet, an historian, or a biographer. In 1851 appeared "Lays and Legends, or Ballads of the New World," and since then he has produced "Monarchs of the Main, or Adventures of the Buccaneers," "Shakspeare's England," "Art and Nature," "Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads," and several minor works.

As a novelist, Mr. Thornbury is not much known to the public, though they are few who have not been delighted with the remarkable tales he has anonymously sprinkled over the pages of serials. But a novel, it is rumoured in literary circles, will shortly appear from his pen in the orthodox three volumes, entitled "Every Man his own Trumpeter."

The work, however, which is looked for with general eagerness and especial longing from this author, is the