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ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS 
 EDITED BT JOHN MORLET 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
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 LiSRARYof CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Hdceivod 
 
 JAN 24 1905 
 
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 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1905. 
 
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 J. S. Cashing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 
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PREFACE 
 
 In writing this Study of Sydney Smith, I have been 
 working in a harvest-field where a succession of dili- 
 gent gleaners had preceded me. 
 
 As soon as Sydney Smith died, his widow began 
 to accumulate material for her husband's biography. 
 She did not live to see the work accomplished, but 
 she enjoined in her will that some record of his life 
 should be written. The duty was undertaken by his 
 daughter, Saba Lady Holland, who in 1855 published 
 A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. To this 
 memoir was subjoined a volume of extracts from his 
 letters, compiled by his friend and admirer, Mrs. 
 Austin. 
 
 For nearly thirty years Lady Holland's Memoir 
 and Mrs. Austin's Selection of Letters together con- 
 stituted the sole Biography of Sydney Smith, and 
 they still remain of prime authority; but they are 
 lamentably inaccurate in dates. 
 
 Lord Houghton's slight but vivid monograph was 
 published in 1873. In 1884 Mr. Stuart Eeid pro- 
 duced A Sketch of the Life and Times of Sydney Smith, 
 in which he supplemented the earlier narrative with 
 some traditions derived from friends then living, and 
 "painted the figure of Sydney Smith against the 
 background of his times." In 1898 the late Sir Leslie 
 Stephen contributed an article on Sydney Smith to 
 
 V 
 
vi SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 the Dictionary of National Biography ; but added little 
 to what was already known. 
 
 On these various writings I have perforce relied, for 
 their respective authors seemed to have exhausted all 
 available resources. Lord Carlisle has some of Sydney 
 Smith's letters at Castle Howard, and Lord Ilchester 
 has some at Holland House ; but both assure me 
 that everything worth publishing has already been 
 published. 
 
 I have, however, been more fortunate in my appli- 
 cation to my cousin, Mr. Rollo Russell, and to four of 
 Sydney Smith's descendants — Mr. Sydney Holland, 
 Mr. Holland-Hibbert of Munden, Miss Caroline Hol- 
 land, and Mrs. Cropper of Ellergreen. To all these 
 my thanks are due for interesting information, and 
 access to valuable records. In common with all who 
 use the Reading-Room of the British Museum, I am 
 greatly indebted to the skill and courtesy of Mr. G. F. 
 Barwick. 
 
 So much for the biographical part of my work. In 
 the critical part I have relied less on authority, and 
 more on my own devotion to Sydney Smith's writings. 
 That devotion dates from my schooldays at Harrow, 
 and is due to the kindness of my father. He had 
 known "dear old Sydney" well, and gave me the 
 Collected Works, exhorting me to study them as 
 models of forcible and pointed English. From that 
 day to this, I have had no more favourite reading. 
 
 G. W. E. R. 
 
 November 12, 1904. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Education — Salisbury Plain — Edinburgh. . . 1 
 
 CHAPTER n 
 
 "The Edinburgh Review" — London — " Moral Phi- 
 losophy " 24 
 
 CHAPTER in 
 "Peter Plymley" 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 FosTON — "Persecuting Bishops" — Bench and Bar . 77 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " Catholic Emancipation" — Bristol — Combe Flore y 
 
 — Reform — Pro3iotion 106 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 St. Paul's — The Parallelogram — "Archdeacon 
 
 Singleton" — Collected Works .... 147 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Characteristics — Humour — Politics — Culture — 
 
 Theories of Life — Religion 193 
 
 Appendices 227 
 
 Index 235 
 
 vii 
 
SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EDUCATION — SALISBURY PLAIN — EDINBURGH 
 
 A WORTHY tradesman, who had accumulated a large 
 fortune, married a lady of gentle birth and manners. 
 In later years one of his daughters said to a friend of 
 the family, ^'I dare say you notice a great difference 
 between papa's behaviour and mamma's. It is easily 
 accounted for. Papa, immensely to his credit, raised 
 himself to his present position from the shop; but 
 mamma was extremely well born. She was a Miss 
 Smith — one of the old Smiths, of Essex^ 
 
 It might appear that Sydney Smith was a growth 
 of the same majestic but mysterious tree, for he was 
 born at Woodford; but further research traces his 
 ancestry to Devonshire. " We are all one family," he 
 used to say, " all the Smiths who dwell on the face of 
 the earth. You may try to disguise it in any way you 
 like — Smyth, or Smythe, or Smijth ^ — but you always 
 get back to Smith after all — the most numerous and 
 most respectable family in England." When a com- 
 piler of pedigrees asked permission to insert Sydney's 
 
 1 For this remarkable variant, see Burke's Peerage, Boivyer- 
 Smijth, Bart. 
 
 B 1 
 
2 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 arms in a County History, he replied, "I regret, sir, 
 not to be able to contribute to so valuable a work ; 
 but the Smiths never had any arms. They invariably 
 sealed their letters with their thumbs." In later life 
 he adopted the excellent and characteristic motto — 
 Fabermeoefortunce; and, to some impertinent questions 
 about his grandfather, he replied with becoming gravity 
 — " He disappeared about the time of the assizes, and 
 we asked no questions." 
 
 As a matter of fact, this maligned progenitor came 
 to London from Devonshire, established a business in 
 Eastcheap, and left it to his two sons, Robert and 
 James. Eobert Smith ^ made over his share to his 
 brother, and went forth to see the world. This 
 object he pursued, amid great vicissitudes of fortune 
 and environment, till in old age he settled down at 
 Bishop's Lydeard, in Somerset. He married Maria 
 Olier, a pretty girl of French descent, and by her 
 had five children : Robert Percy — better known as 
 "Bobus" — born in 1770; Sydney in 1771; Cecil in 
 1772; Courtenay in 1773; and Maria in 1774. 
 
 Sydney Smith was born on the 3rd of June; and 
 was baptized on the 1st of July in the parish church 
 of Woodford. His infancy was passed at South 
 Stoneham, near Southampton. At the age of six he 
 was sent to a private school at Southampton, and 
 on the 19th of July 1782 was elected a Scholar of 
 Winchester College. He stayed at Winchester for six 
 years, and worked his way to the top place in the 
 school, being "Prefect of Hall" when he left in 1788. 
 Beyond these facts, Winchester seems to retain no 
 
 1 (173^1827.) 
 
I.] EDUCATION 3 
 
 impressions of her brilliant son, in this respect con- 
 trasting strangely with other Public Schools. West- 
 minster knows all about Cowper — and a sorry tale it is. 
 Canning left an ineffaceable mark on Eton. Harrow 
 abounds in traditions, oral and written, of Sheridan 
 and Byron, Peel and Palmerston. But Winchester is 
 silent about Sydney Smith. 
 
 Sydney, however, was not silent about Winchester. 
 In one of the liveliest passages of his controversial 
 writings, he said : — 
 
 "I was at school and college with the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury : ^ fifty-three years ago he knocked me down 
 with the chess-board for checkmating him — and now he is 
 attempting to take away my patronage. I believe these are 
 the only two acts of violence he ever committed in his 
 life." 
 
 Now Howley was a prefect when Sydney was a junior, 
 and this game of chess must have been (as a living 
 Wykehamist has pointed out to me) " a command per- 
 formance. '^ The big boy liked chess, so the little 
 boy had to play it : the big boy disliked being check- 
 mated, so the little boy was knocked down. This 
 and similar experiences probably coloured Sydney's 
 mind when he wrote in 1810: — 
 
 " At a Public School (for such is the system established by 
 immemorial custom) every boy is alternately tyrant and slave. 
 The power which the elder part of these communities exercises 
 over the younger is exceedingly great ; very difficult to be 
 controlled ; and accompanied, not unfrequently, with cruelty 
 and caprice. It is the common law of these places, that the 
 younger should be implicitly obedient to the elder boys ; and 
 
 1 William Howley (1766-1848). 
 
4 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 this obedience resembles more the submission of a slave to 
 his master, or of a sailor to his captain, than the common 
 and natural deference which would always be shown by one 
 boy to another a few years older than himself. Now, this 
 system we cannot help considering as an evil, because it 
 inflicts upon boys, for two or three years of their lives, many 
 painful hardships, and much unpleasant servitude. These 
 sufferings might perhaps be of some use in military schools; 
 but to give to a boy the habit of enduring privations to 
 "which he will never again be called upon to submit — to inure 
 him to pains which he will never again feel — and to subject 
 him to the privation of comforts, with which he will always 
 in future abound — is surely not a very useful and valuable 
 severity in education. It is not the life in miniature which 
 he is to lead hereafter, nor does it bear any relation to it ; 
 he will never again be subjected to so m^uch insolence and 
 caprice ; nor ever, in all human probability, called upon to 
 make so many sacrifices. The servile obedience which it 
 teaches might be useful to a menial domestic ; or the habit 
 of enterprise which it encourages prove of importance to a 
 military partisan ; but we cannot see what bearing it has upon 
 the calm, regular, civil life, which the sons of gentlemen, 
 destined to opulent idleness, or to any of the more learned 
 professions, are destined to lead. Such a system makes many 
 boys very miserable ; and produces those bad effects upon the 
 temper and disposition which boyish suffering always does 
 produce. But what good it does, we are much at a loss to 
 conceive. Reasonable obedience is extremely useful in forming 
 the disposition. Submission to tyranny lays the foundation of 
 hatred, suspicion, cunning, and a variety of odious passions. . . . 
 " The wretchedness of school tyranny is trifling enough to a 
 man who only contemplates it, in ease of body and tranquillity 
 of mind, through the medium of twenty intervening years ; 
 but it is quite as real, and quite as acute, while it lasts, as 
 any of the sufferings of mature life : and the utility of these 
 sufferings, or the price paid in compensation for them, should 
 be clearly made out to a conscientious parent before he con- 
 sents to expose his children to them." 
 
I.] EDUCATION 5 
 
 Lady Holland tells us that in old age her father 
 " used to shudder at the recollections of Winchester," 
 and represented the system prevailing there in his 
 youth as composed of ^' abuse, neglect, and vice." 
 And, speaking of the experience of lower boys at 
 Public Schools in general, he described it as "an 
 intense system of tyranny, of which the English are 
 very fond, and think it fits a boy for the world ; but 
 the world, bad as it is, has nothing half so bado" 
 
 "A man gets well pummelled at a Public School; is 
 subject to every misery and every indignity which seventeen 
 years of age can inflict upon nine and ten ; has his eye nearly 
 knocked out, and his clothes stolen and cut to pieces ; and 
 twenty years afterwards, when he is a chrysalis, and has 
 forgotten the miseries of his grub state, is determined to act 
 a manly part in life, and says, ' I passed through all that 
 myself, and I am determined my son shall pass through it as 
 I have done ' ; and away goes his bleating progeny to the 
 tyranny and servitude of the Long Chamber or the Large 
 Dormitory. It would surely be much more rational to say, 
 * Because I have passed through it, I am determined my son 
 shall not pass through it. Because I was kicked for nothing, 
 and cuffed for nothing, and fagged for everything, I will 
 spare all these miseries to my child.' " 
 
 And, while he thus condemned the discipline under 
 which he had been reared, he had no better opinion 
 of the instruction. Not that he was an opponent 
 of classical education: on the contrary, he had a 
 genuine and reasoned admiration for " the two ancient 
 languages." He held that, compared to them, " merely 
 as vehicles of thought and passion, all modern lan- 
 guages are dull, ill-contrived, and barbarous." He 
 thought that even the most accomplished of modern 
 writers might still be glad to " borrow descriptive power 
 
6 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 from Tacitus ; dignified perspicuity from Livy ; sim- 
 plicity from Caesar ; and from Homer some portion of 
 that light and heat which, dispersed into ten thousand 
 channels, has filled the world with bright images and 
 illustrious thoughts. Let the cultivator of modern 
 literature addict himself to the purest models of taste 
 which France, Italy, and England could supply — he 
 might still learn from Virgil to be majestic, and from 
 Tibullus to be tender ; he might not yet look upon the 
 face of nature as Theocritus saw it ; nor might he reach 
 those springs of pathos with which Euripides softened 
 the hearts of his audience." 
 
 This sound appreciation of what was best in classical 
 literature was accompanied in Sydney Smith by the 
 most outspoken contempt for the way in which Greek 
 and Latin are taught in Public Schools. He thought 
 that schoolmasters encouraged their pupils to "love 
 the instrument better than the end — not the luxury 
 which the difficulty encloses, but the difficulty — not 
 the filbert, but the shell — not what may be read in 
 Greek, but Greek itself." 
 
 " We think that, in order to secure an attention to Homer 
 and Virgil, we must catch up every man, whether he is to be 
 a clergyman or a duke, begin with him at six years of age, 
 and never quit him till he is twenty ; making him conjugate 
 and decline for life and death ; and so teaching him to 
 estimate his progress in real wisdom as he can scan the 
 verses of the Greek Tragedians." 
 
 He desired that boys should obtain a quick and easy 
 mastery over the authors whom they had to read, and 
 on this account he urged that they should be taught by 
 the use of literal and interlinear translations ; but " a 
 literal translation, or any translation, of a school-book 
 
I.] EDUCATION 7 
 
 is a contraband article in English schools, which a 
 schoolmaster would instantly seize, as a custom-house 
 officer would seize a barrel of gin." 
 
 Grammar, gerund-grinding, the tyranny of the 
 Lexicon and the Dictionary, had got the schoolboys of 
 England in their grasp, and the boy " was suffocated 
 with the nonsense of grammarians, overwhelmed with 
 every species of difficulty disproportionate to his 
 age, and driven by despair to pegtop or marbles " ; 
 while the British Parent stood and spoke thus with 
 himself: — 
 
 " Have I read through LiUy ? Have I learnt by heart that 
 most atrocious monument of absurdity, the Westminster 
 Grammar ? Have I been whipt for the substantives ? whipt 
 for the verbs? and whipt for and with the interjections? 
 Have I picked the sense slowly, and word by word, out of 
 Hederich ? and shall my son be exempt from all this misery ? 
 . . . Ay, ay, it 's all mighty well ; but I went through this 
 myself, and I am determined my children shall do the same." 
 
 Another grotesque abuse with regard to which 
 Sydney Smith was a reformer fifty years before his 
 time was compulsory versification. — 
 
 " There are few boys who remain to the age of eighteen or 
 nineteen at a Public School without making above ten 
 thousand Latin verses — a greater number than is contained 
 in the vEneid ; and, after he has made this quantity of verses 
 in a dead language, unless the poet should happen to be a 
 very weak man indeed, he never makes another as long as 
 he lives." ^ 
 
 " The English clergy, in whose hands education entirely 
 
 1 In 1819 Sydney Smith violated his own canon, thus : "But, 
 after all, I believe we shall all go — 
 
 ad veteris Xicolai tristia regna, 
 Pitt ubi combustum Dundasque videhimus omnes." 
 
8 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 rests, bring up the first young men of the country as if they 
 were all to keep grammar-schools in little country-towns; 
 and a nobleman, upon whose knowledge and liberality the 
 honour and welfare of his country may depend, is diligently 
 worried, for half his life, with the small pedantry of longs 
 and shorts." 
 
 The same process is applied at the other end of the 
 social scale. The baker's son, young Crumpet, is sent 
 to a grammar-school, "takes to his books, spends the 
 best years of his life, as all eminent Englishmen do, in 
 making Latin verses, learns that the Crum in Crumpet 
 is long and the jpet short, goes to the University, gets a 
 prize for an essay on the Dispersion of the Jews, takes 
 Orders, becomes a Bishop's chaplain, has a young 
 nobleman for his pupil, publishes a useless classic and a 
 Serious Call to the Unconverted, and then goes through 
 the Elysian transitions of Prebendary, Dean, Prelate, 
 and the long train of purple, profit, and power." 
 
 In this vivacious passage, Sydney Smith caricatures 
 his own career ; which, though it neither began in a 
 baker's shop nor ended in an episcopal palace, followed 
 pretty closely the line of development here indicated. 
 At Winchester he "took to his books" with such 
 goodwill that, in spite of all hindrances, he became an 
 excellent scholar, and laid the strong foundations for a 
 wide and generous culture. His family indeed propa- 
 gated some pleasing traditions about his schooldays — 
 one of a benevolent stranger who found him reading 
 Virgil when other boys were playing cricket, patted his 
 head, and foretold his future greatness ; another of a 
 round-robin from his schoolfellows, declining to compete 
 against him for prizes, "because he always gained 
 them." But this is not history. 
 
I.] EDUCATION 9 
 
 Eroin Wincliester Sydney Smith passed in natural 
 course to the other of " the two colleges of St. Mary 
 AVinton " ; and, in the interval between Winchester 
 and Oxford, his father sent him for six months to 
 Normandy, with a view to improving his French. 
 Eevolution was in the air, and it was thought a 
 salutary precaution that he should join one of the 
 Jacobin clubs in the town where he boarded, and he 
 was duly entered as '•' Le Citoyen Smit, Membre Affilie 
 au Club des Jacobins de jMont Villiers." 
 
 But he was soon recalled to more tranquil scenes. 
 He was elected Scholar of New College, Oxford, 
 on the 5th of January 1789, and at the end of 
 his second year he exchanged his Scholarship for a 
 Fellowship. From that time on he never cost his 
 father a farthing, and he paid a considerable debt for 
 his younger brother Courtenay, though, as he justly 
 remarks, " a hundred pounds a year was very difficult 
 to spread over the wants of a College life." Ten years 
 later he wrote — "I got in debt by buying books. I 
 never borrowed a farthing of anybody, and never re- 
 ceived much ; and have lived in poverty and economy 
 all my life." 
 
 His career at Oxford is buried in even deeper 
 obscurity than his schooltime at Winchester. This is 
 no doubt to be explained, on the intellectual side, by 
 the fact that members of New College were at that 
 time exempt from public examination; and, on the 
 social side, by the straitened circumstances which 
 prevented him from showing hospitality, and the pride 
 which made him unwilling to accept what he could 
 not return. We are left to gather his feelings about 
 Oxford and the system pursued there, from casual 
 
10 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 references in his critical writings ; and these are un- 
 complimentary enough. When he wishes to stigmatize 
 a proposition as enormously and preposterously absurd, 
 he says that there is " no authority on earth (always 
 excepting the Dean of Christ Church), which could 
 make it credible to me.'' When stirred to the liveliest 
 indignation by the iniquities which a Tory Govern- 
 ment is practising in Ireland, he exclaims — "A Senior 
 Proctor of the University of Oxford, the Head of a 
 House, or the examining chaplain to a Bishop, may 
 believe these things can last; but every man of the 
 world, whose understanding has been exercised in the 
 business of life, must see (and see with a breaking 
 heart) that they will soon come to a fearful termina- 
 tion." He praised a comparison of the Universities to 
 "enormous hulks confined with mooring-chains, every- 
 thing flowing and progressing around them," while 
 they themselves stood still. 
 
 When pleading for a wider and more reasonable 
 course of studies at Oxford, he says : — 
 
 " A gemiine Oxford tutor would shudder to hear his young 
 men disi3uting upon moral and political truth, forming and 
 putting down theories, and indulging in all the boldness of 
 youthful discussion. He would augur nothing from it but 
 impiety to God and treason to Kings." 
 
 Protesting against the undue predominance of 
 classical studies in the Universities, as at the Public 
 Schools, he says : — 
 
 " Classical literature is the great object at Oxford. Many 
 minds so employed have produced many works, and much 
 fame in that department : but if all liberal arts and sciences 
 useful to human life had been taught there ; if some had 
 
I.] EDUCATION 11 
 
 dedicated themselves to chemistry, some to mathematics, some 
 to experimental philosophy; and if every attainment had 
 been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty and utility ; 
 the system of such an University would have been much more 
 valuable, but the splendour of its name something less." 
 
 The hopelessness of any attempt to reform the 
 curriculum of Oxford by opening the door to Political 
 Economy is stated v^^ith cbaracteristic vigour. — 
 
 " When an University has been doing useless things for a 
 long time, it appears at first degrading to them to be useful. 
 A set of lectures upon Political Economy would be discouraged 
 in Oxford, possibly despised, probably not permitted. To 
 discuss the Enclosure of Commons, and to dwell upon imports 
 and exports — to come so near to common life, would seem to 
 be undignified and contemptible. In the same manner, the 
 Parr or the Bentley of his day would be scandalized to be put 
 on a level with the discoverer of a neutral salt; and yet what 
 other measure is there of dignity in intellectual labour, but 
 usefulness and difficulty ? And what ought the term Univer- 
 sity to mean, but a place where every science is taught which 
 is liberal, and at the same time useful to mankind ? Nothing 
 would so much tend to bring classical literature within 
 proper bounds as a steady and invariable appeal to these tests 
 in our appreciation of all human knowledge. The puffed-up 
 pedant would collapse into his proper size, and the maker of 
 verses and the rememberer of words would soon assume that 
 station which is the lot of those who go up unbidden to the 
 upper places of the feast." 
 
 In 1810 he wrote, with reference to the newly- 
 invented Examination for Honours at Oxford : — 
 
 " If Oxford is become at last sensible of the miserable state 
 to which it w^as reduced, as everybody else was out of Oxford, 
 and if it is making serious efforts to recover from the degra- 
 dation into which it was plunged a few years past, the good 
 wishes of every respectable man must go with it." 
 
12 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " On the new plan of Oxford education we shall offer no 
 remarks. It has many defects ; but it is very honourable to 
 the University to have made such an experiment. The 
 improvement upon the old plan is certainly very great ; and 
 we most sincerely and honestly wish to it every species of 
 success." 
 
 His opinions on the subject of the Universities did 
 not mellow with age. As late as 1831 he wrote of a 
 friend who had just sent his son to Cambridge : — 
 
 " He has put him there to spend his money, to lose what 
 good qualities he has, and to gain nothing useful in return. 
 If men had made no more progress in the common arts of 
 life than they have in education, we should at this moment 
 be dividing our food with our fingers, and drinking out of the 
 palms of our hands." 
 
 It was just as bad when a lady sent her son to his 
 own University. — 
 
 " I feel for her about her son at Oxford, knowing, as I do, 
 that the only consequences of a University education are the 
 growth of vice and the waste of money." 
 
 In 1792 Sydney Smith took his degree/ and now 
 the question of a profession had to be faced and 
 decided. It was necessary that he should begin to 
 make money at once, for the pecuniary resources of 
 the family, narrow at the best, were now severely 
 taxed by his mother's failing health and by the cost of 
 starting his brothers in the world. At Oxford, he had 
 dabbled in medicine and anatomy, and had attended 
 the lectures of Dr., afterwards Sir Christopher, Pegge,^ 
 who recommended him to become a doctor. His father 
 
 1 He became M.A. in 1796. 
 
 2 (1765-1822.) Lees' Reader in Anatomy 1790, Regius Professor 
 of Medicine 1801. 
 
I.J SALISBURY PLAIN 13 
 
 wished to send liirn as a super-cargo to China ! His 
 own strong preference was for the Bar, but his father, 
 who had already brought up one son to that profession 
 and found it more expensive than profitable, looked 
 very unfavourably on the design ; and under paternal 
 pressure the wittiest Englishman of his generation 
 determined to seek Holy Orders, or, to use his own 
 old-fashioned phrase, to "enter the Church." He 
 assumed the sacred character without enthusiasm, and 
 looked back on its adoption with regret. " The law," 
 he said in after life, " is decidedly the best profession 
 for a young man if he has anything in him. In the 
 Church a man is thrown into life with his hands tied, 
 and bid to swim ; he does well if he keeps his head 
 above water." 
 
 Under these rather dismal auspices, Sydney Smith 
 was ordained Deacon in 1794. He might, one would 
 suppose, have been ordained on his Eellowship, and 
 have continued to reside in College with a view to 
 obtaining a Lectureship or some other office of profit. 
 Perhaps he found the mental atmosphere of Oxford 
 insalubrious. Perhaps he was unpopular in College. 
 Perhaps his political opinions were already too liberal 
 for the place. Certain it is that his visit to France, 
 in the earlier stages of the Eevolution, had led him to 
 extol the French for teaching mankind "the use of their 
 power, their reason, and their rights." Whatever was 
 the cause, he turned his back on Oxford, and, as soon 
 as he was ordained, became Curate of JSTetheravon, a 
 village near Amesbury.^ As he himself said, " the 
 
 1 It is curious that the date and place of Sydney Smith's 
 ordination as Deacon cannot be traced. He would naturally 
 have been ordained at Salisbury by John Douglas, Bishop of 
 
14 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 name of Curate had lost its legal meaning, and, instead 
 of denoting the incumbent of a living, came to signify 
 the deputy of an absentee." He had sole charge of the 
 parish of Netheravon, and was also expected to perform 
 one service every Sunday at the adjoining village of 
 Fittleton. "Nothing," wrote the new-fledged curate, 
 " can equal the profound, the immeasurable, the awful 
 dulness of this place, in the which I lie, dead and buried, 
 in hope of a joyful resurrection in 1796." Indeed, it 
 is not easy to conceive a more dismal situation for a 
 young, ardent, and active man, fresh from Oxford, full of 
 intellectual ambition, and not very keenly alive to the 
 spiritual opportunities of his calling. The village, a kind 
 of oasis in the desert of Salisbury Plain, was not 
 touched by any of the coaching-roads. The only method 
 of communication with the outside world was by the 
 market-cart which brought the necessaries of life 
 from Salisbury once a week. The vicar was non- 
 resident ; and the squire, Mr. Hicks-Beach, was only 
 an occasional visitor, for his principal residence was 
 fifty miles off, at William strip, near Fairford. (He 
 had acquired Netheravon by his marriage with Miss 
 Beach.) The church was empty, and the curate in 
 charge likened his preaching to the voice of one 
 crying in the wilderness. The condition of the village 
 
 Sarum ; but there is a gap in that prelate's Register of Ordina- 
 tions between 1791 and 1796. He may have been ordained on 
 Letters Dimissory in some other diocese. He was raised to the 
 Priesthood in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, on the 22nd of 
 May 1796 by Edward Smallwell, Bishop of Oxford ; being 
 described as Fellow of New College, and B.A. 
 
 For the foregoing facts I am indebted to the courtesy of 
 Mr, A. R. Maiden, Registrar of the Diocese of Salisbury, and 
 Mr. J. A. Davenport, Registrar of the Diocese of Oxford. 
 
I.] SALISBURY PLAIN 15 
 
 may best be judged from a report made to Mr. Hicks- 
 Beach by his steward in 1793. Nearly every one was 
 dependent on parochial relief. Not a man earned ten 
 shillings a week. A man with a wife and four children 
 worked for six shillings a week. A girl earned, by 
 spinning, four shillings a month. Idleness, disease, 
 and immorality were rife ; and, as an incentive to 
 profitable industry, a young farmer beat a sickly 
 labourer within an inch of his life. 
 
 Mrs. Hicks-Beach referred this uncomfortable report 
 on the condition of her property to the newly-installed 
 curate, requesting his opinion on the cases specified. 
 The curate replied with characteristic vigour. One 
 family owed its wretched condition to mismanagement 
 and extravagance; another to "ignorance bordering 
 on brutality " ; another to " Irish extraction, numbers, 
 disease, and habits of idleness." One family was 
 composed of " weak, witless people, totally wretched, 
 without sense to extricate them from their wretched- 
 ness " ; a second was " perfectly wretched and helpless " ; 
 and a third was " aliment for Newgate, food for the 
 halter — a ragged, wretched, savage, stubborn race." ^ 
 
 The squire and Mrs. Hicks-Beach, who seem to have 
 been thoroughly high-principled and intelligent people, 
 were much concerned to find the curate corroborating 
 and even expanding the evil reports of the steward. 
 They immediately began considering remedies, and 
 decided that their first reform should be to establish 
 a Sunday-school. The institution so named bore little 
 resemblance to the Sunday-schools of the present day, 
 but followed a plan which Eobert Kaikes ^ and Mrs. 
 
 1 Quoted by Mr. Stuart Reid. 
 
 2 (1735-1811.) 
 
16 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Hannah More^ had originated, and which Bishop 
 Shute Barrington^ (who was translated to Durham 
 in 1791) had strongly urged on the Diocese of 
 Sarum.^ Boys and girls were taught together. The 
 master and mistress were paid the modest salary of 
 two shillings a Sunday. The children were taught 
 spelling and reading, and, as soon as they had mastered 
 those arts, were made to read the Bible, the Prayer 
 Book, and Mrs. More's tracts. The children attended 
 church, sitting together in a big pew, and, in hot 
 weather, had their lessons in the church, before and 
 after the service. As soon as the Sunday-school had 
 proved itself popular and successful, an Industrial 
 School was arranged for three nights in the week, so 
 that the girls of the village might be taught domestic 
 arts. Both institutions prospered, and ninety years later 
 Mr. Stuart Eeid, visiting the cottages of Netheravon 
 in order to collect material for his book, caught the 
 lingering tradition that Sydney Smith " was fond of 
 children and young people, and took pains to teach 
 them." 
 
 This tradition bears out what Sydney Smith said in 
 his Farewell Sermon to the people of Netheravon. 
 Preaching from Proverbs iv. 13, " Take fast hold of 
 instruction," he said : — 
 
 1 (1745-1833.) 2 (1734-1826.) 
 
 8 " At the commencement of the nineteenth century, the 
 Sunday-school had hecome a part of the regular organization 
 of almost every well-worked parish. It was then a far more 
 serious affair than it is now, for, where there was no week-day 
 school, it supplied secular as well as religious instruction to 
 the children. In fact, the Sunday-school took up a consider- 
 able part of the day."— J. H. Overton, The English Church in 
 the Nineteenth Century. 
 
I.] EDINBURGH 17 
 
 " The Sunday-school which, with some trouble and expense, 
 has been brought to the state in which you see it, will afford 
 to the poorest people an opportunity of giving to their children 
 some share of education, and 1 will not suppose that anybody 
 can be so indolent, and so unprincipled, as not to exact from 
 their children a regular attendance upon it. I sincerely exhort 
 you, and beg of you now, for the last time, that after this 
 institution has been got into some kind of order, you will not 
 suffer it to fall to ruin by your own negligence. I have lived 
 among your children, and have taught them myself, and have 
 seen them improve, and I know it will make them better and 
 happier men." 
 
 And now a change was at hand. The curate of 
 Netheravon had never intended to stay there longer 
 than he was obliged, and the " happy resurrection " for 
 which he had hoped came in an unexpected fashion. 
 Here is his own account of his translation, written 
 in 1839 : — 
 
 " The squire of the parish took a fancy to me, and requested 
 me to go with his son to reside at the University of Weimar ; 
 before we could get there, Germany became the seat of war, 
 and in stress of politics we put into Edinburgh, where I 
 remained five years. The principles of the French Revolution 
 were then fully afloat, and it is impossible to conceive a more 
 violent and agitated state of society." 
 
 Sydney Smith and his pupil, Michael Beach,^ arrived 
 at Edinburgh in June 1798. They lodged successively 
 at 38 South Hanover Street, 19 Ann Street, and 
 46 George Street. The University of Edinburgh was 
 then in its days of glory. Dugald Stewart was Pro- 
 fessor of Moral Philosophy ; John Playf air, of Mathe- 
 matics; John Hill, of Humanity. The teaching was 
 at once interesting and systematic, the intellectual 
 
 1 Grandfather of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, M.P. 
 c 
 
18 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 atmosphere liberal and enterprising. English parents 
 who cared seriously for mental and moral freedom, 
 such as the Duke of Somerset, the Duke of Bedford, 
 and Lord Lansdowne, sent their sons to Edinburgh 
 instead of Oxford or Cambridge. The University was 
 in close relations with the Bar, then adorned by the 
 great names of Erancis Jeffrey, Erancis Horner, Henry 
 Brougham, and Walter Scott. While Michael Beach 
 was duly attending the professorial lectures, his tutor 
 was not idle. Erom Dugald Stewart, and Thomas 
 Brown, he acquired the elements of Moral Philosophy. 
 He gratified a lifelong fancy by attending the Clinical 
 Lectures given by Dr. Gregory^ in the hospitals of 
 Edinburgh, and studied Chemistry under Dr. Black.^ 
 He amused himself with chemical experiments. — 
 
 " I mix'd 4 of Holland gin with 8 of olive oil, and stirr'd 
 them well together. I then added 4 of nitric acid. A violent 
 ebullition ensued. Nitrous oether, as I suppos'd, M^as gener- 
 ated, and in about four hours the oil became perfectly con- 
 crete, white and hard as tallow." 
 
 To these scientific pastimes were soon added some 
 more professional activities. The Episcopalians of 
 Edinburgh at this time worshipped in Charlotte Chapel, 
 Eose Street, which was sold in 1818 to the Baj)tists. 
 The incumbent was the Eev. Archibald Alison,^ who 
 wrote a treatise on "Taste" and ministered in one 
 of the ugliest buildings in the world. The arrival in 
 Edinburgh of a clever young man in English Orders 
 was an opportunity not to be neglected, and Sydney 
 
 1 James Gregory (1753-1821), Professor of Medicine. 
 
 2 Joseph Black (1728-1799), Professor of Chemistry. 
 8 (1757-1839.) 
 
I.] EDINBURGH 19 
 
 Smith was often invited to preach in Charlotte Chapel. 
 Writing to Mr. Hicks-Beach, he says : — 
 
 " I have the pleasure of seeing my audience nod approba- 
 tion while they sleep." 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " The people of Edinburgh gape at my sermons. In the 
 middle of an exquisite address to Virtue, beginning ' 
 Virtue ! ' I saw a rascal gaping as if his jaws were torn 
 asunder." 
 
 But this, though perhaps it may have perplexed the 
 worthy squire to whom it was addressed, is mere self- 
 banter. Sydney's preaching attracted some of the 
 keenest minds in Edinburgh. It was fresh, practical, 
 pungent ; and, though rich in a vigorous and resound- 
 ing eloquence, was poles asunder from the rhetoric of 
 which " Virtue ! " is a typical instance. 
 
 So popular were these sermons at Charlotte Chapel 
 that in 1800 the preacher ventured to publish a small 
 volume of them, which was soon followed by a second 
 and enlarged edition. This book of sermons is dedi- 
 cated to Lord Webb Seymour^ — "because I know 
 no man who, in spite of the disadvantages of high 
 birth, lives to more, honourable and commendable 
 purposes than yourself.'^ 
 
 The preface to the book is a vigorous plea for greater 
 animation in preaching, a wider variety of topics, and 
 a more direct bearing on practical life, than were then 
 usual in the pulpits of the Church of England. 
 
 " Is it wonder," he asks, " that every semi-delirious sectary, 
 who pours forth his animated nonsense with the genuine look 
 
 1 (1777-1819.) Son of the 10th Duke of Somerset. 
 
20 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 and voice of passion, should gesticulate away the congregation 
 of the most profound and learned divine of the Established 
 Church, and in two Sundays preach him bare to the very 
 sexton? Why are we natural everywhere but in the pulpit? 
 No man expresses warm and animated feelings anywhere else, 
 with his mouth alone, but with his whole body ; he articulates 
 with every limb, and talks from head to foot with a thousand 
 voices. Why this holoplexia on sacred occasions alone ? Why 
 call in the aid of paralysis to piety? Is it a rule of oratory to 
 balance the style against the subject, and to handle the most 
 sublime truths in the dullest language and the driest manner? 
 Is sin to be taken from men, as Eve was from Adam, by 
 casting them into a deep slumber ? Or from what possible 
 perversion of common sense are we to look like field-preachers 
 in Zembla, holy lumps of ice, numbed into quiescence and 
 stagnation and mumbling?" 
 
 The subjects with which these sermons deal are 
 practical in the highest degree, such as "The Love 
 of Country," " The Poor Magdalen," " The Causes of 
 Eepublican Opinions," " The Effect of Christianity on 
 Manners," and "The Treatment of Servants." One 
 or two short samples of his thought and style will 
 not be out of place. 
 
 This is from his sermon on the Magdalen : — 
 
 " The best mediation with God Almighty the Father, and 
 His Son of Mercy and Love, is the prayer of a human being 
 whom you have saved from perdition." 
 
 This is from the sermon on " Christianity and 
 Manners " : — 
 
 " If ye would that men should love you, love ye also them, 
 not with gentleness of face alone, or the shallow mockery of 
 smiles, but in singleness of heart, in forbearance, judging 
 mercifully, entering into the mind of thy brother, to spare him 
 pain, to prevent his wrath, to be unto him an eternal fountain 
 
I.] EDINBURGH 21 
 
 of peace. These are the fruits of the Spirit, and this the 
 soul that emanates from our sacred religion. If ye bear these 
 fruits now in the time of this life, if ye write these laws on 
 the tablets of your hearts so as ye not only say but do them, 
 then indeed are ye the true servants of Jesus and the children 
 of His redemption. For you He came down from Heaven ; 
 for you He was scorned and hated upon earth; for you 
 mangled on the Cross ; and at the last day, wdien the trumpet 
 shall sound, and the earth melt, and the heavens groan and 
 die, ye shall spring up from the dust of the grave, the ever- 
 living spirits of God." 
 
 All tlie sermons breathe the same fiery indignation 
 against cruelty and tyranny, the same quick sympathy 
 with poverty, suffering, and debasement; and, here 
 and there, especially in the occasional references to 
 France and Switzerland, they show pretty clearly the 
 preacher's political bias. In his own phrase, he " loved 
 truth better than he loved Dundas,^ at that time the 
 tyrant of Scotland " ; and it would have been a miracle 
 if his outspokenness had passed without remonstrance 
 from the authoritative and privileged classes. But the 
 spirited preface to the second edition shows that he 
 had. already learned to hold his own, unshaken and 
 unterrified, in what he believed to be a righteous 
 cause : — 
 
 " As long as God gives me life and strength I will never 
 cease to attack, in the way of my profession and to the best 
 of my abilities, any system of principles injurious to the 
 public happiness, whether they be sanctioned by the voice of 
 the many, or whether they be not ; and may the same God 
 take that unworthy life away, w^henever I shrink from the 
 contempt and misrepresentation to which my duty shall call 
 me to submit." 
 
 1 Henry Dundas (1742-1811), Lord Advocate, created Viscount 
 Melville in 1802. 
 
22 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 The year 1800 was marked, for Sydney Smith, by 
 an event even more momentous than the publication 
 of his first book. It was the year of his marriage. 
 His sister Maria had a friend and schoolfellow called 
 Catharine Amelia Pybus. He had known her as a 
 child ; and while still quite young had become engaged 
 to marry her, whenever circumstances should make 
 it possible. The young lady's father was John Pybus, 
 who had gone to India in the service of the Company, 
 attained official distinction and made money. Eeturn- 
 ing to England, he settled at Cheam in Surrey, where 
 he died in 1789. In 1800 his daughter Catharine was 
 twenty-two years old. Her brother, a Tory Member 
 of Parliament and a placeman under Pitt, strongly 
 objected to an alliance with a penniless and unknown 
 clergyman of Liberal principles ; but Miss Pybus hap- 
 pily knew her own mind, and she was married to 
 Sydney Smith in the parish church of Cheam on the 
 2nd of July 1800. The bride had a small fortune of 
 her own, and this was just as well, for her husband's 
 total wealth consisted of " six small silver teaspoons," 
 which he flung into her lap, saying, " There, Kate, you 
 lucky girl, I give you all my fortune ! " 
 
 In the autumn of 1800, Mr. and Mrs. Sydney 
 Smith, established themselves at No. 46 George Street, 
 Edinburgh. Mrs. Smith sold her pearl necklace for 
 £500, and bought plate and linen with the proceeds. 
 Michael Beach had now quitted Edinburgh for Oxford, 
 but his younger brother William took his place in the 
 Smiths' house, and was joined by the eldest son of 
 Mr. Gordon of Ellon. Lady Holland states that with 
 each of these young gentlemen her father received 
 £400 a year J and Mr. Hicks-Beach, grateful for his 
 
I.] EDINBURGH 23 
 
 good influence on Michael, made a considerable addi- 
 tion to the covenanted payment. 
 
 In 1802 the Smiths' eldest child was born and was 
 christened Saba. The name was taken out of the 
 Psalms for the Fourteenth Day of the Month, and was 
 bestowed on her in obedience to her father's con- 
 viction that, where parents were constrained to give 
 their child so indistinctive a surname as Smith, they 
 ought to counterbalance it with a Christian name 
 more original and vivacious. Saba Smith became 
 the wife of the eminent physician. Sir Henry Holland, 
 and died in 1866. The other children were — a boy, 
 who was born and died in 1803; Douglas, born in 
 1805, died in 1829 ; Emily, wife of Nathaniel Hibbert, 
 born in 1807, died in 1874 ; Wyndham, born in 1813, 
 died in 1871. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TEE EDINBURGH REVIEW LONDON *^ MORAL 
 
 PHILOSOPHY " — PREFERMENT 
 
 We now approach what was perliaps the most impor- 
 tant event in Sydney Smith's life, and this was the 
 foundation of the Edinburgh Review. Writing in 
 1839, and looking back upon the struggles of his early 
 manhood, he thus described the circumstances in which 
 the Eeview originated : — 
 
 " Among the first persons with whom I became acquainted 
 [ill Edinburgh] were Lord Jeffrey, Lord Murray (late Lord 
 Advocate for Scotland), and Lord Brougham; all of them 
 maintaining opinions upon political subjects a little too 
 liberal for the dynasty of Dundas, then exercising supreme 
 power over the northern division of the Island. 
 
 *' One day we happened to meet in the eighth or ninth 
 story or flat in Buccleugh Place, the elevated residence of the 
 then Mr. Jeffrey. I proposed that we should set up a Re- 
 view ; this was acceded to with acclamation. I was appointed 
 Editor, and remained long enough in Edinburgh to edit the 
 first number of the Edinburgh Review. The motto I pro- 
 posed for the Review was — 
 
 ' Tenui musam meditamur avena.'' 
 ' We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal.' 
 
 But this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we 
 took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom 
 none of us had, I am sure, ever read a single line ; and so 
 began what has since turned out to be a very important 
 
 24 
 
CHAP. II.] THE EDINBURGH BEVIEW 25 
 
 and able journal. When I left Edinburgh, it fell into the 
 stronger hands of Lord Jeffrey and Lord Brougham, and 
 reached the highest point of popularity and success. 
 
 " To appreciate the value of the Edinburgh Review, the 
 state of England at the period when that journal began should 
 be had in remembrance. The Catholics were not emancipated. 
 The Corporation and Test Acts were unrepealed. The Game- 
 Laws were horribly oppressive ; steel-traps and spring-guns 
 were set all over the country ; prisoners tried for their lives 
 could have no counsel. Lord Eldon and the Court of 
 Chancery pressed heavily on mankind. Libel was punished 
 by the most cruel and vindictive imprisonments. The 
 principles of Political Economy were little understood. The 
 laws of debt and conspiracy were upon the w^orst footing. 
 The enormous wickedness of the slave-trade was tolerated. 
 A thousand evils were in existence, which the talents of 
 good and able men have since lessened or removed ; and these 
 efforts have been not a little assisted by the honest boldness 
 of the Edinburgh Review" 
 
 Lord Brougham has left on record a similar account. 
 
 " I at once entered warmly into Smith's scheme. Jeffrey, 
 by nature always rather timid, w^as full of doubts and fears. 
 It required all Smith's overpowering vivacity to argue and 
 laugh Jeffrey out of his difficulties. There would, he said, 
 be no lack of contributors. There was himself, ready to 
 write any number of articles, or to edit the whole ; there was 
 Je^rey, facile princeps in all kinds of literature; there was 
 myself, full of mathematics and everything relating to the 
 Colonies ; there was Horner for Political Economy, and 
 Murray for General Subjects. Besides, might we not, from 
 our great and never-to-be-doubted success, fairly hope to re- 
 ceive help from such leviathans as Playfair, Dugald Stewart, 
 Thomas Brown, Thomson, and others ? " 
 
 These bright forecasts put heart of grace into the 
 timid Jeffrey. Sydney Smith's jovial optimism pre- 
 vailed. The financial part of the business was 
 
26 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 arranged with Constable in Edinburgh, and Longman 
 in London : and the first number (clad in that famous 
 livery of Blue and Buff ^ which the Whigs had copied 
 from Charles Fox's coat and waistcoat) appeared in the 
 autumn of 1802. The cover was thus inscribed — 
 
 THE EDINBURGH REVIEW 
 
 OR 
 
 CRITICAL JOURNAL 
 
 FOR 
 
 Oct. 1802 — Jan. 1803 
 To he continued quarterly 
 
 Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur 
 
 PuBLius Syrus. 
 
 To this first number Sydney Smith contributed five 
 articles. Four of these are reviews of sermons, and 
 the fifth is a slashing attack on John Bowles,^ who 
 had published an alarmist pamphlet on the designs 
 of France. Jeffrey thought this attack too severe, 
 but the author could not agree. He thought Bowles 
 " a very stupid and a very contemptible fellow." 
 
 " He has been hangman for these ten years to all the poor 
 authors in England, is generally considered to be hired by 
 
 1 '* Yet mark one caution, ere thy next Review 
 
 Spread its light wings of Saffron and of Blue, 
 Beware lest blundering Brougham spoil the sale, 
 Turn Beef to Bannocks, Cauliflowers to Kail." 
 
 Byron, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. 
 
 2 Barrister, and writer of political pamphlets between 1791 
 and 1807. 
 
II.] THE EDINBUBGH BE VIEW 27 
 
 government, and has talked about social order till he has 
 talked himself into £600 or £700 per annum. That thei-e 
 can be a fairer object for critical severity I cannot conceive." 
 
 To the first four numbers Sydney Smith contributed 
 in all eighteen articles ; and he continued to con- 
 tribute, at irregular intervals, till 1827. The substance 
 and style of his articles will be considered later on. 
 As to his motives in writing, he stated them to 
 Jeffrey as being, "First, the love of you; second, 
 the habit of reviewing ; third, the love of money ; to 
 which I may add a fourth, the love of punishing 
 fraud and folly." 
 
 Ticknor^ has put it on record that, late in life, 
 Sydney Smith thus described his pecuniary relations 
 with the Review : — " When I wrote an article, I used 
 to send it to Jeffrey, and waited till it came out ; im- 
 mediately after which I enclosed to him a bill in these 
 words, or words like them : ' Francis Jeffrey, Esq., 
 to Rev. Sydney Smith : To a very wise and witty 
 article on such a subject, so many sheets, at forty-five 
 guineas a sheet ' ; and the money always came." 
 
 Sydney Smith "remained long enough in Edin- 
 burgh to edit the first number" of the new review, 
 but he now determined to leave Edinburgh and settle 
 in London, and Jeffrey became editor. Regarding 
 Holy Orders frankly as a profession, Sydney naturally 
 desired professional advancement, and this of course 
 could not be attained in presbyterian Scotland. "I 
 could not hold myself justified to my wife and family 
 if I were to sacrifice any longer to the love of present 
 
 1 George Ticknor (1791-1871) , American traveller and man of 
 letters. 
 
28 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 ease, those exertions which every man is bound to 
 make for the improvement of his situation." 
 
 He left Edinburgh with very mixed feelings, for 
 he hated the place and loved its inhabitants. He 
 called it "that energetic and unfragrant city." He 
 dwelt in memory on its "odious smells, barbarous 
 sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts, and most 
 enlightened and cultivated understandings." 
 
 " No nation," he said, " has so large a stock of benevolence 
 of heart, as the Scotch. Their temper stands anything but an 
 attack on their climate. They would have yon even believe 
 they can ripen fruit ; and, to be candid, I must own in 
 remarkably warm summers I have tasted peaches that made 
 most excellent pickles; and it is uj)on record that at the 
 Siege of Perth, on one occasion the ammunition failing, their 
 nectarines made admirable cannon-balls. Even the enlight- 
 ened mind of Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion that 
 myrtles flourish at Craig Crook.^ In vain I have represented 
 to him that they are of the genus Carduus, and pointed out 
 their prickly peculiarities. . . . Jeffrey sticks to his myrtle 
 illusions, and treats my attacks with as much contempt as if 
 I had been a wild visionary, who had never breathed his 
 caller air, nor lived and suffered under the rigour of his 
 climate, nor spent five years in discussing metaphysics and 
 medicine in that garret of the earth — that knuckle-end of 
 England — that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulphur." 
 
 As soon as he reached England, he wrote to his 
 friend Jeffrey : — 
 
 " I left Edinburgh with great heaviness of heart : I knew 
 what I was leaving, and was ignorant to what I was going. 
 My good fortune will be very great, if I should ever again 
 fall into the society of so many liberal, correct, and instructed 
 men, and live with them on such terms of friendship as I 
 have done with you, and yon know whom, at Edinburgh." 
 
 1 Jeffrey's house near Edinburgh 
 
II.] LONDON 29 
 
 On arriving in London, in the autumn of 1803, 
 the Sydney Smiths lodged for a while at 77 Upper 
 Guilford Street, and soon afterwards established them- 
 selves at 8 Doughty Street. Sydney's dearest friend, 
 Francis Horner,^ had preceded him to London, and was 
 already beginning to make his mark at the Bar, with- 
 out, apparently, abandoning his philosophical pursuits. 
 " He lives very high up in Garden Court, and thinks 
 a good deal about Mankind." But he could spare a 
 thought for individuals as well as for the race, and 
 did a great deal towards securing his friend an in- 
 troduction into congenial society. Doughty Street 
 was a legal quarter, and among those with whom the 
 Smiths soon made friends were Sir Samuel Komilly, 
 James Scarlett (afterwards Lord Abinger), and Sir 
 James Mackintosh. To these were added as time 
 went on, Henry Grattan, Alexander Marcet, John 
 William Ward (afterwards Lord Dudley), Samuel 
 Rogers, Henry Luttrell, "Conversation" Sharp, and 
 Lord Holland. 
 
 Sydney Smith's eldest brother Eobert (" Bobus " ^) 
 had married Caroline Vernon, Lord Holland's aunt. 
 Sydney's politics were the politics of Holland House. 
 Lord Holland was always recruiting for the Liberal 
 army, and an Edinburgh Reviewer was a recruit worth 
 
 1 (1778-1817.) Barrister and M.P. On his death, Sydney Smith 
 wrote — "I say nothing of the great and miserable loss we have 
 all sustained. He will always live in our recollection; and it 
 will be useful to us all, in the great occasions of life, to reflect 
 how Horner would act and think in them, if God had prolonged 
 his life." 
 
 2 Sydney Smith used to say, "Bobus and I have inverted 
 the laws of nature. He rose by his gravity; I sank by my 
 levity." 
 
30 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 capturing. So the hospitable doors were soon thrown 
 open to the young clergyman from Doughty Street, 
 who suddenly found himself a member of the most 
 brilliant circle ever gathered under an English roof. 
 In old age he used to declare, to the amusement of his 
 friends, that as a young man he had been shy, but 
 had wrestled with the temptation and overcome it. As 
 regards the master ^ of Holland House, it was not easy 
 to be shy in the presence of " that frank politeness 
 which at once relieved all the embarrassment of the 
 youngest and most timid writer or artist, who found 
 himself for the first time among Ambassadors and 
 Earls." ^ And even the imperious mistress^ of the 
 house found her match in Sydney Smith, who only 
 made fun of her foibles, and repaid her insolence with 
 raillery. Referring to this period, when he had long 
 outlived it, he said : — 
 
 " I well remember, when Mrs. Sydney and I were young, 
 in London, with no other equipage than my umbrella, 
 when we went out to dinner in a hackney coach (a vehicle, by 
 the bye, now become almost matter of history), when the 
 rattling step was let down, and the proud, powdered red- 
 plushes grinned, and her gown was fringed with straw, how 
 the iron entered into my soul." 
 
 One of the most useful friends whom the Smiths 
 discovered in London was Mr. Thomas Bernard,'' after- 
 wards a baronet of good estate in Buckinghamshire, 
 
 1 Henry Richard (1773-1840), 3rd Lord Holland. 
 
 2 Macaulay, " Lord Holland." 
 
 3 The Lady Holland who figures so frequently in Sydney Smith's 
 correspondence was Elizabeth Vassall (1770-1845), wife of the 3rd 
 Lord Holland. Sydney Smith's daughter, Saba, did not become 
 Lady Holland till 1853, when her husband, Dr. Holland, was made 
 a baronet. " 4(1750-1818.) 
 
II.] LONDON 31 
 
 and a zealous worker in all kinds of social and 
 educational reform. Mr. Bernard was Treasurer of 
 the Koyal Institution in Albemarle Street, which 
 had been founded in 1799 ; and, with the laudable 
 desire of putting a few pounds into a friend's pocket, 
 he suggested that Sydney Smith should be invited to 
 lecture before the Institution. The invitation was 
 cordially given and gratefully accepted. The lecturer 
 chose "Moral Philosophy^' for his subject, and the 
 Introductory Lecture, in which he defined his terms, 
 was delivered on the 10th of November 1804. The 
 second and third lectures dealt with the History of 
 Moral Philosophy; the fourth, with the Powers of 
 External PercejDtion; the fifth, with Conception; the 
 sixth, with Memory ; the seventh, with Imagination ; 
 the eighth, with Eeason and Judgment ; and the ninth, 
 with the Conduct of the Understanding. 
 
 These lectures were treated by the author as form- 
 ing one course, their general subject being "The 
 Understanding." In February 1805 he wrote to his 
 friend Jeffrey : — "I got through my first course I think 
 creditably ; whether any better than creditably others 
 know better than myself. I have still ten to read." 
 This second course followed immediately on the first, 
 and, under the general head of "Taste," discussed 
 topics so various as " Wit and Humour," " The Beauti- 
 ful," " The Sublime," " The Faculties of Animals as 
 compared with those of Man," and " The Faculties of 
 Beasts." By this time the lectures had become 
 fashionable. One eye-witness writes: — 
 
 " All Albemarle Street, and a part of Grafton Street, was 
 rendered impassable by the concourse of carriages assembled 
 there during the time of their delivery. There was not 
 
32 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 sufficient room for the persons assembling ; the lobbies were 
 filled, and the doors into them from the lecture-room were 
 left open." 
 
 Horner reckoned ^^ from six to eight hundred hearers 
 and not a seat to be procured, even if you go there an 
 hour before the time.'' Sir Robert Peel, who had just 
 left Harrow, was one of the audience, and remembered 
 the lectures forty years after their delivery. As late 
 as 1843, Dr. WhewelP inquired if they were still 
 accessible. Sydney Smith, according to Lord Houghton, 
 described his performances as "the most successful 
 swindle of the season"; and, writing to Jeffrey in 
 April 1805, he says: — 
 
 "My lectures are just now at such an absurd pitch of 
 celebrity, that I must lose a good deal of reputation before 
 the public settles into a just equilibrium respecting them. 
 I am most heartily ashamed of my own fame, because I am 
 conscious I do not deserve it, and that the moment men of 
 sense are provoked by the clamour to look into my claims, 
 it will be at an end." 
 
 Notwithstanding this premonition, the lecturer ad- 
 ventured on a third coarse, which was delivered at the 
 same place in the spring of 1806. ^^ Galleries were 
 erected, which had never before been required, and 
 the success was complete." The general subject of this 
 third course was " The Active Powers of the Mind," 
 and it dealt with " The Evil Affections," " The Benevo- 
 lent Affections," "The Passions," "The Desires," 
 " Surprise, Novelty, and Variety," and " Habit." 
 
 As soon as the lectures were delivered, the lecturer 
 threw the manuscripts into the fire; and it is satis- 
 
 1 William Whewell (1794-1866), Master of Trinity College, Cam- 
 bridge, author of Elements of Morality, 1845. 
 
II.] MORAL PHILOSOPHY 33 
 
 factory to find that he did not take his performance 
 very seriously, or set a very high value on his philo- 
 sophical attainments. In 1843 he wrote, in reply to 
 Dr. Whe well's inquiry : — 
 
 " My lectures are gone to the dogs, and are utterly for- 
 gotten. I knew nothing of IMoral Philosophy, but I was 
 thoroughly aware that I wanted £200 to furnish my house. 
 The success, however, was prodigious; all Albemarle 
 Street blocked up with carriages, and such an uproar as 
 I never remember to have seen excited by any other literary 
 imposture. Every week I had a new theory about Concep- 
 tion and Perception, and supported it by a natural manner, 
 a torrent of words, and an impudence scarcely credible in this 
 prudent age. Still, in justice to myself, I must say there were 
 some good things iu them. But good and bad are all gone." 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, they were not "all 
 gone." Mrs. Smith had rescued the manuscripts, a 
 good deal damaged, from the flames, and after her 
 husband's death she published the three courses in one 
 volume under the title. Elementary Sketches of Moral 
 Philosophy. 
 
 Was it worth while to publish them ? The answer 
 must depend on the object of publication. If the book 
 was meant to be considered as a serious contribu- 
 tion to mental science, the manuscripts might as well 
 have remained where their author threw them. If, 
 on the other hand, it was intended only to show the 
 versatility, adroitness, and plausibility of a young 
 man in need of money, nothing could have better 
 illustrated those aspects of Sydney Smith's char- 
 acter and career. He is thirty-three years old, married, 
 with an increasing family, and no means of subsistence 
 beyond periodical journalism and odd jobs of clerical 
 
34 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 duty. "Two or three random sermons," he says, "I 
 have discharged, and thought I perceived that the 
 greater part of the congregation thought me mad. 
 The clerk was as pale as death in helping me off with 
 my gown, for fear I should bite him." He wants 
 money to furnish his house. A benevolent friend 
 obtains him the opportunity of lecturing. It is not 
 uncharitable to suppose that he chooses a subject 
 in which accurate knowledge and close argument will 
 be less requisite than fluency, fancy, bold statement, 
 and extraordinarily felicitous illustration. The five 
 years spent in Edinburgh can now be turned to pro- 
 fitable account. Dugald Stewart's lectures can be 
 exhumed, decorated, and reproduced. The whole book 
 reeks of Scotland. The lecturer sets out by declaring 
 that Moral Philosophy is taught in the Scotch 
 Universities alone. England knows nothing about it. 
 At Edinburgh Moral Philosophy means Mental Philo- 
 sophy, and is concerned w4th "the faculties of the 
 mind and the effects which our reasoning powers 
 and our passions produce upon the actions of our 
 lives." It has nothing to do with ethics or duty. 
 And the definition used in Edinburgh is also used 
 in Albemarle Street. Dugald Stewart and Thomas 
 Brown ^ and Adam Smith, Hume and Keid and 
 
 1 Sydney Smith wrote his friend Sir George Philips in 1836 — 
 "Thomas Brown was an intimate friend of mine, and used to 
 dine with me regularly every Sunday in Edinburgh. He was 
 a Lake poet, a profound metaphysician, and one of the most 
 virtuous men that ever lived. As a metaphysician, Dugald 
 Stewart was a humbug to him. Brown had real talents for 
 the thing. You must recognize, in reading Brown, many of 
 those arguments with which I have so often reduced you to 
 silence in metaphysical discussions. Your discovery of Brown 
 
II.] MORAL PHILOSOPHY 35 
 
 Oswald and Beattie and Ferguson, are names which 
 meet us on every page. The lecturer has learnt 
 from Scotsmen, and reproduces what the Scotsmen 
 taught him. Mind and Matter are two great realities. 
 When people are informed that all thought is ex- 
 plained by vibrations and " vibratiuncles " of the 
 brain, and that what they consider their arms and 
 legs are not arms and legs but ideas, then, says the 
 lecturer, they will pardonably identify Philosophy 
 wdth Lunacy. " Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world 
 in one octavo volume ; and nothing remained after his 
 time but Mind ; which experienced a similar fate at 
 the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737. . . . But is there any 
 one out of Bedlam who doubts of the existence of 
 matter ? who doubts of his own personal identity? or 
 of his consciousness ? or of the general credibility of 
 memory ? " 
 
 From this rough-and-ready delimitation of the area 
 within which Moral Philosophy must work, if it is to 
 escape the reproach of insanity, the lecturer goes on, 
 as becomes a divine, to champion his study against 
 the reproach of tending to Atheism. He groups all 
 our senses, faculties, and impulses together, and says : 
 ^^All these things Moral Philosophy observes, and, 
 observing, adores the Being from whence they pro- 
 ceed." 
 
 Having thus defined his subject, the lecturer goes 
 on, in his second and third lectures, to trace the 
 history of Moral Philosophy, from Pythagoras to 
 Mrs. Trimmer. Plato is praised for beauty of style, 
 
 is amusing. Go on! You will detect Dryden if you persevere; 
 bring to light John Milton, and drag William Shakspeare from 
 his ill-deserved obscurity! " 
 
36 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 and blamed for mistiness of doctrine. Aristotle is 
 contrasted, greatly to his disadvantage, with Bacon. 
 " Volumes of Aristotelian philosophy have been written 
 which, if piled one upon another, would have equalled 
 the Tower of Babel in Height, and far exceeded it in 
 Confusion." But to Bacon " we are indebted for an 
 almost daily extension of our knowledge of the laws 
 of nature in the outward world; and the same 
 modest and cautious spirit of enquiry, extended to 
 Moral Philosophy, will probably give us clear, intelli- 
 gible ideas of our spiritual nature." 
 
 The remaining lectures of this course are those 
 which suffered most severely from the flames, and are 
 indeed in so fragmentary a condition as to render any 
 close criticism of them impossible. But enough has been 
 quoted to show that Sydney Smith, so far as he was 
 in any sense concerned with philosophy, was a sworn 
 foe to mysticism and ideality, and a worshipper of 
 Baconian common-sense even in the sphere of mind 
 and soul. 
 
 He was never tired of poking fun at his philoso- 
 phical friends in Edinburgh. When sending some 
 Scotch grouse to Lady Holland, he said — "I take the 
 liberty to send you two brace of grouse — curious, be- 
 cause killed by a Scotch metaphysician : in other and 
 better language, they are mere ideas, shot by other 
 ideas, out of a pure intellectual notion called a gun." 
 In another letter to the same correspondent he says — 
 " I hope you are reading Mr. Stewart's book, and are 
 far gone in the Philosophy of Mind — a science, as he 
 repeatedly tells us, still in its infancy. I propose, 
 myself, to wait till it comes to years of discretion." 
 
 To his friend Jeffrey he wrote in 1804 : — 
 
II.] MORAL PHILOSOPHY 37 
 
 "I exhort you to restrain the violent tendency of your 
 nature for analysis, and to cultivate synthetical propensities. 
 What is virtue ? What 's the use of truth ? What 's the use 
 
 of honour? What's a guinea but a d d yellow circle? 
 
 The whole effort of youi' mind is to destroy. Because others 
 build slightly and eagerly, you employ yourself in kicking 
 down their houses, and contract a sort of aversion for the 
 more honourable, useful, and difficult task of building well 
 yourself." 
 
 He reports a saying of liis little boy's, " which in 
 Scotland would be heard as of high metaphysical 
 promise. Emily was asking wh}" one flower was blue, 
 and another pink, and another yellow. ^Why, in 
 short,' said Douglas, 'it is their nature ; and, when we 
 say that, what do we mean ? It is onlj^ another word 
 for mystery ; it only means that we know nothing at all 
 about the matter.' This observation from a child eight 
 years old is not common." 
 
 The second and third courses of lectures would 
 force us (even if we had not the lecturer's confession 
 to guide us) irresistibly to the conclusion that he had 
 said all he knew about Moral Philosophy, and rather 
 more, in the first course. It is only by the exercise of 
 a genial violence that his dissertations on Wit and 
 Humour, Irish Bulls, Taste, Animals, and Habit, can 
 be forced to take shelter under the dignified title of 
 ^Moral Philosophy. But, philosophical defects apart, 
 they are excellent lectures. They abound in miscel- 
 laneous knowledge and out-of-the-way reading, and 
 they bristle with illustrations which have passed into 
 the common anecdotage of mankind. 
 
 " In the late rebellion in Ireland, the rebels, who had con- 
 ceived a high degTeeof indignation against some great banker, 
 passed a resolution that they would burn his notes, which 
 
38 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 accordingly they did, with great assiduity; forgetting that, 
 in burning his notes, tliey were destroying his debts, and that 
 for every note which went into the flames, a correspondent 
 value went into the banker's pocket." 
 
 In every war of the last century this story has been 
 revived. It would be curious to see if it can be 
 traced back further than Sydney Smith. 
 
 From the lecture on Habit, I cull this pleasing 
 anecdote : — 
 
 " The famous Isaac Barrow, the mathematician and divine, 
 had an habitual dislike of dogs, and it proceeded from the 
 following cause : — He was a very early riser ; and one morn- 
 ing, as he was walking in the garden of a friend's house, with 
 whom he was staying, a fierce mastiff, that used to be chained 
 all day, and let loose all night, for the security of the house, 
 set upon him with the greatest fury. The doctor caught 
 him by the throat, threw him, and lay upon him ; and, whilst 
 he kept him down, considered what he should do in that 
 exigence. The account the doctor gave of it to his friends 
 was, that he had once a mind to have killed the dog ; but he 
 altered his resolution upon recollecting that it would be 
 unjust, since the dog only did his duty, and he himself was 
 to blame for rambling out so early. At length he called out 
 so loud, that he was heard by some in the house, who came 
 out, and speedily separated the mastiff and the mathematician. 
 However, it is added, that the adventure gave the doctor a 
 strong habitual aversion for dogs ; and I dare say, if the truth 
 were known, fixed in the dog's mind a still stronger aversion 
 to doctors." 
 
 This last sentence is in exactly the same vein of 
 humour as the comment, in the review of Waterton's 
 Travels,^ on the snake that bit itself. " Mr. Waterton, 
 though much given to sentiment, made a Labairi snake 
 bite itself, but no bad consequences ensued — nor would 
 
 1 See p. 185. 
 
II.] MORAL PHILOSOPHY 39 
 
 any bad consequences ensue, if a court-martial was to 
 order a sinful soldier to give himself a thousand lashes. 
 It is barely possible that the snake had some faint 
 idea whom and what he was biting." 
 
 The house which was furnished with the products 
 of this Moral Philosophy was No. 18 Orchard Street, 
 Portman Square, and here the Smiths lived till they 
 left London for a rural parish. Meanwhile, the 
 excellent Bernard had secured some clerical employ- 
 ment for his friend. Through his influence the 
 Eev. Sydney Smith was elected "alternate Evening 
 Preacher at the Foundling Hospital," on the 27th of 
 March 1805. He tried to open a Proprietary Chapel 
 on his own account, but was foiled by the obstinacy 
 of the Eector in whose parish it was situate.^ He 
 was appointed Morning Preacher at Berkeley Chapel, 
 Mayfair, and combined his duties there with similar 
 duties at Fitzroy Chapel, now St. Saviour's Church, 
 Fitzroy Square. ^ These various appointments, coupled 
 with his lectures at the Eoyal Institution, brought 
 him increasingly into public notice. His preaching 
 
 1 See his Essay on "Toleration" : — "A chapel belonging to 
 the Swedenborgians, or Methodists of the New Jerusalem, was 
 offered, two or three years since, in London, to a clergyman of 
 the Establishment. The proprietor was tired of his irrational ten- 
 ants, and wished for better doctrine. The rector, with every 
 possible compliment to the fitness of the person in question, 
 positively refused the application ; and the church remains in 
 the hands of Methodists." 
 
 2 Sir David Wilkie (1785-18il) wrote in 1808: — "To church, 
 where I heard Sydney Smith preach a sermon, which, for its elo- 
 quence and power of reasoning, exceeded anything I had ever 
 heard. The subject was the Conversion of St. Paul, of which he 
 proved the authenticity, in opposition to all the objections and 
 doubts of infidelity." 
 
40 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 was admired by some important people. His contribu- 
 tions to the Edinburgh, so entirely unlike anything 
 else in periodical literature, were eagerly anticipated 
 and keenly canvassed. It was reported that King 
 George iii. had read them, and had said, " He is a 
 very clever fellow, but he will never be a bishop.'^ 
 His social gifts won him friends wherever he went ; 
 and Lord and Lady Holland, though themselves not 
 addicted to the public observances of religion, were 
 anxious to promote his professional advancement ; but 
 this was not easy. " From the beginning of the 
 century," he wrote, " to the death of Lord Liverpool, 
 was an awful period for those who had the mis- 
 fortune to entertain Liberal opinions, and were too 
 honest to sell them for the ermine of the judge or 
 the lawn of the prelate — a long and hopeless career 
 in your profession, the chuckling grin of noodles, 
 the sarcastic leer of the genuine political rogue — 
 prebendaries, deans, and bishops made over your 
 head — reverend renegadoes advanced to the highest 
 dignities of the Church, for helping to rivet the 
 fetters of Catholic and Protestant dissenters, and no 
 more chance of a Whig administration than of a thaw 
 in Zembla." 
 
 But this gloomy period of oppression and exclusion 
 was broken by a transient gleam. Pitt died on the 
 23rd of January 1806, and Lord Grenville^ succeeded 
 him, at the head of the ministry of " All the Talents.'' 
 In this place, perhaps, may be not unsuitably inserted 
 the ejDitaph which Sydney Smith suggested for Pitt's 
 statue in Hanover Square. 
 
 1 William Wyndham Grenville (1759-1834) , created Lord Gren- 
 ville in 1790. 
 
II.] PREFERMENT 41 
 
 To the Right Honourable William Pitt 
 Whose errors in foreign policy 
 And lavish expenditure of our Resources at home 
 Have laid the foundation of National Bankruptcy 
 And scattered the seeds of Revolution, 
 This Monument was erected 
 By many weak men, who mistook his eloquence for wisdom 
 And his insolence for magnanimity. 
 By many unworthy men whom he had ennobled. 
 And by many base men, whom he had enriched at the Public 
 Expense. 
 But for Englishmen 
 This Statue raised from such motives 
 Has not been erected in vain. 
 They learn from it those dreadful abuses 
 Which exist under the mockery 
 Of a free Representation, 
 And feel the deep necessity 
 Of a great and eflScient Reform. 
 
 In Lord Grenville's ministry Lord Erskine became 
 Lord Chancellor, and Lord Holland Lord Privy Seal. 
 In the autumn of 1806 the living of Foston-le-Clay, 
 eight miles from York, fell vacant. It was in the 
 Chancellor's gift ; the Lord Privy Seal said a word 
 to his colleague; the Chancellor cordially accepted 
 " the nominee of Lord and Lady Holland " ; and that 
 nominee was Sydney Smith. Foston was worth £500 
 a year, and Dr. Markham, Archbishop of York, 
 allowed the new Eector to be non-resident, accepting 
 his duties at the Foundling Hospital as a sufficient 
 justification for absence from his parish. Early in 
 1807 he preached at the Temple Church, and 
 published by request, a sermon on Toleration, which 
 drew this testimony from a scandalized peer ^ : — 
 
 1 Morton Eden (1751-1830), created Lord Henley in 1799. 
 
42 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 " Sydney Smith preached yesterday a sermon on the 
 Catholic question. ... It would have made an admirable 
 party speech in Parliament, but as a sermon, the author 
 deserved the Star Chamber, if it still existed." 
 
 During the summer of 1807, the Smiths lived in a 
 hired house at Sonning on the Thames; and one of 
 their neighbours was the great civilian Sir William 
 Scott,^ afterwards Lord Stowell (who deserves to be 
 honoured for having coined the phrase — "The elegant 
 simplicity of the Three per cents"). The old judge 
 took a fancy to the young clergyman, and pointed out, 
 in a friendly spirit, how much he had lost by his 
 devotion to Whiggism. In later life, Sydney Smith 
 wrote to Lord John EusselP — '^ I remember with 
 pleasure, thirty years ago, old Lord Stowell saying 
 to me, ' Mr. Smith, you would have been a much 
 richer man if you had joined us.'" 
 
 But the Tory table-talk of Earley^ was powerless 
 to seduce this staunch partisan from his political 
 allegiance ; and, just at this period, he was meditating 
 the most skilful and the most resounding blow which 
 he ever struck for freedom and justice. 
 
 It was a critical time. The besotted resistance of 
 the King to the slightest concession in favour of his 
 Eoman Catholic subjects had driven the ministry of 
 " All the Talents " out of office in the spring. The 
 High Tories succeeded them, and the General Election 
 which ensued on the change of government gave a 
 strong majority for " No Popery " and reaction. Mean- 
 
 1 (1745-1836), created Lord Stowell in 1821. 
 
 2 (1792-1878). 
 
 3 A house which Lord Stowell acquired by his marriage with an 
 heiress, Anna Maria Bagnall. 
 
II.] PREFERMENT 43 
 
 while the greatest genius that the world has ever seen 
 was wading through slaughter to a universal throne, 
 and no effective resistance had as yet been offered to 
 a progress which menaced the freedom of Europe and 
 the existence of its states. At such a juncture it 
 seemed to Sydney Smith that England could not 
 spare a single soldier or sailor, nor afford to alienate 
 the loyalty of a single citizen. "Buonaparte," he 
 wrote, " is as rapid and as terrible as the lightning 
 of God ; would he were as transient." It was nothing 
 short of national suicide to reject men desirous of 
 serving in the army and navy on account of their 
 beliefs, to madden English Romanists by defraud- 
 ing them of their civil rights, and to outrage the 
 whole people of Ireland by affixing a legal stigma to 
 their religion. 
 
 His musings on this pregnant theme took shape in — 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 ON 
 
 THE SUBJECT 
 
 OF 
 
 THE CATHOLICS 
 
 TO 
 
 MY BROTHER ABRAHAM 
 
 WHO 
 
 LIVES IN THE COUNTRY 
 By peter PLYMLEY. 
 
 This Letter was published in the summer of 1807, and 
 " its effect was like a spark on a heap of gunpowder." 
 It was followed by nine more, bearing the same title, 
 four of which appeared in the same year and five in 
 
44 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. ii. 
 
 the next. A little later Sydney Smith wrote to Lord 
 Grey — "I wish I could write as well as Plymley : 
 but, if I could, where is such a case to be found? 
 When had any lawyer such a brief?" 
 
 In 1808 Peter Plymley^ s Letters were collected and 
 published in a pamphlet, and the pamphlet ran through 
 sixteen editions. " The government of that day," wrote 
 Sydney Smith in 1839, " took great pains to find out 
 the author ; all that they could find out was that they 
 were brought to Mr. Budd, the publisher, by the Earl 
 of Lauderdale.^ Somehow or another it came to be 
 conjectured that I was the author.^ . . . They had an 
 immense circulation at the time, and I think above 
 twenty thousand copies were sold." Some little space 
 must be bestowed upon these masterpieces of humour 
 and wisdom. 
 
 1 James, 8th Earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839). 
 
 2 Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, attributes the 
 authorship of Peter Plymley to "Smug Sydney." See also his 
 allusion to " Peter Pith " in Don Juan, canto xvi. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 PETER PLYMLEY 
 
 Peter Plymley^s Letters are supposed to be written 
 by a Londoner, who is in favour of removing the 
 secular disabilities of Roman Catholics, to his brother 
 Abraham, the parson of a rural parish. They proceed 
 throughout on the assumption that the parson is a 
 kind-hearted, honest, and conscientious man; but 
 rather stupid, grossly ignorant of public affairs, and 
 frightened to death by a bogy of his own imagining. 
 That bogy is the idea of a Popish conspiracy against 
 the crown, church, and commonwealth. Abraham 
 communicates his alarms to his brother Peter in 
 London, and Peter's Letters are replies to these out- 
 pourings. 
 
 Letter I. begins by assuring Abraham that there is 
 no truth in the rumour that the Pope has landed on 
 English soil, and has been housed by the Spencers or 
 the Hollands or the Grenvilles. " The best-informed 
 clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis are 
 convinced that the rumour is without foundation." 
 Having set this fear at rest, Peter deals with Abra- 
 ham's argument. — 
 
 " Yon say that the Roman Catholics interpret the Scriptm-es 
 in an unorthodox manner. Very likely. ... But I want 
 soldiers and sailors for the state ; I want to make a greater 
 
 45 
 
46 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 use than I now can do of a poor country full of men ; I want 
 to render the military service popular among the Irish ; to 
 check the power of France ; to make every possible exertion 
 for the safety of Europe, which in twenty years' time will be 
 nothing but a mass of French slaves : and then you, and ten 
 thousand other such boobies as you, call out — ' For God's 
 sake, do not think of raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland ! 
 They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a different manner 
 from what we do. . . .' What ! when Turk, Jew, Heretic, 
 Infidel, Catholic, Protestant, are all combined against this 
 country; when men of every religious persuasion, and no 
 religious persuasion, when the population of half the globe, is 
 up in arms against us; are we to stand examining our generals 
 and armies as a bishop examines candidates for holy orders ? 
 and to suffer no one to bleed for England who does not agree 
 with you about the Second of Timothy ? " 
 
 And then Peter disclaims the reproach of unfriend- 
 liness to the Established Church. — 
 
 " I love the Church as well as you do ; but you totally 
 mistake the nature of an Establishment, when you contend 
 that it ought to be connected with the military and civil 
 careers of every individual in the state. It is quite right 
 that there should be one clergyman in every parish interpret- 
 ing the Scriptures after a particular manner, ruled by a 
 regular hierarchy, and paid with a rich proportion of haycocks 
 and wheat sheaves. When I have laid this foundation for a 
 national religion in the state — when I have placed ten thousand 
 well-educated men in different parts of the kingdom to preach 
 it up, and compelled every one to pay them, whether they 
 hear them or not — I have taken such measures as I know 
 must always procure an immense majority in favour of the 
 Established Church ; but I can go no farther. I cannot set 
 up a civil inquisition, and say to one — ' You shall not be a 
 butcher, because you are not orthodox' ; and prohibit another 
 from brewing, and a third from administering the law, and a 
 fourth from defending the country. If common justice did 
 not prohibit me from such a conduct, common sense would." 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 47 
 
 Persecution, Peter goes on to say, makes martyrs. 
 Fanatics delight in the feeling that they are persecuted 
 for righteousness' sake ; and, the more they are harried, 
 the more tenaciously they cling to their misbeliefs. 
 
 "This is just the effect your disqualifying laws have 
 produced. They have fed Dr. Rees and Dr. Kippis ; ^ crowded 
 the congregation of the Old Jewry ^ to suffocation ; and enabled 
 every sublapsarian, and supralapsarian, and seniipelagian, 
 clergyman to build himself a neat brick chapel, and live with 
 some distant resemblance to the state of a gentleman." 
 
 But, says Abraham, the King is bound by his Coro- 
 nation Oath to resist the emancipation of the Roman 
 Catholics. Peter replies — 
 
 " Suppose Bonaparte were to retrieve the only very great 
 blunder he has made, and were to succeed, after repeated 
 trials, in making an impression upon Ireland, do you think 
 we should hear anything of the impediment of a Coronation 
 Oath ? or would the spirit of this country tolerate for an hour 
 such ministers and such unheard-of nonsense, if the most 
 distant prospect existed of conciliating the Catholics by every 
 species even of the most abject concession ? And yet, if your 
 argument is good for anything, the Coronation Oath ought to 
 reject, at such a moment, every tendency to conciliation, and 
 to bind Ireland for ever to the Crown of France." 
 
 After a cursory reference to Abraham's fears about 
 Popish fires and faggots, and a reminder that " there 
 were as many persons put to death for religious opin- 
 ions under the mild Elizabeth as under the bloody 
 Mary,'' Peter concludes with these vigorous sentences — 
 
 " You tell me I am a party man. I hope I shall always be 
 
 1 Abraham Rees, D.D. (1743-1825), and Andrew Kippis, D.D. 
 (1723-1795), were Presbyterian ministers of great repute. 
 
 2 The meeting-house in Old Jewry was built in 1701 and destroyed 
 in 1808. It " covered 2600 square feet, and was lit with six bow 
 windows." Dr. Rees was its last minister. 
 
48 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 so, when I see my country in the hands of a pert London 
 joker 1 and a second-rate lawyer.^ Of the first, no other 
 good is known than that he makes pretty Latin verses ; the 
 second seems to me to have the head of a comitry parson and 
 the tongue of an Old Bailey barrister. If I could see good 
 measures pursued, I care not who is in power ; but I have a 
 passionate love for common justice and for common sense, and 
 I abhor and despise every man who builds up his political 
 fortune upon their ruin." 
 
 Abraham's next objection to emancipation appears 
 to have been that a Roman Catholic will not respect 
 an oath. " Why not ? " asks Peter in Letter II. 
 " What upon earth has kept him out of Parliament, or 
 excluded him from all the offices whence he is excluded, 
 but his respect for oaths ? There is no law which pro- 
 hibits a Catholic to sit in Parliament. There could 
 be no such law ; because it is impossible to find out 
 what passes in the interior of any man's mind. . . . 
 The Catholic is excluded from Parliament because he 
 will not swear that he disbelieves the leading doctrines 
 of his religion. The Catholic asks you to abolish 
 some oaths which oppress him; your answer is, that 
 he does not respect oaths. Then why subject him to 
 the test of oaths ? The oaths keep him out of Parlia- 
 ment ; why, then he respects them. Turn which way 
 you will, either your laws are nugatory, or the Catholic 
 is bound by religious obligations as you are." 
 
 From Eoman Catholics in general, Peter now turns 
 to the Eoman Catholics of Ireland. — 
 
 " The moment the very name of Ireland is mentioned, the 
 English seem to bid adieu to common feeling, common 
 prudence, and common sense, and to act with the barbarity of 
 
 1 George Canning (1770-1827). 
 
 2 Spencer Perceval (17G2-1812), 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 49 
 
 tyrants and the fatuity of idiots. Whatever your opinion may 
 be of the follies of the Roman Catholic religion, remember 
 they are the follies of four millions of human beings, increas- 
 ing rapidly in numbers, wealth and intelligence, who, if firmly 
 united with this country, would set at defiance the power of 
 France, and, if once wrested from their alliance with England, 
 would in three years render its existence as an independent 
 nation absolutely impossible. You speak of danger to the 
 Establishment ; I request to know when the Establishment 
 was ever so much in danger as when Hoche was in Bantry 
 Bay, and w^hether all the books of Bossuet, or the arts of the 
 Jesuits, were half so terrible? . . . Whatever you think of 
 the Catholics, there they are — you cannot get rid of them. 
 Your alternative is to give them a lawful place for stating 
 their grievances, or an unlawful one. If you do not admit 
 them to the House of Commons, they will hold their Parlia- 
 ment in Potatoe Place, Dublin, and be ten times as violent 
 and inflammatory as they would be in Westminster. Nothing 
 would give me such an idea of security as to see twenty or 
 thirty Catholic gentlemen in Parliament, looked upon by all 
 the Catholics as the fair and proper organ of their party. I 
 should have thought it the height of good fortune that such 
 a wish existed on their part, and the very essence of madness 
 and ignorance to reject it." 
 
 A noble lord — his name unluckily has perished — 
 had attempted to salve his own conscience and that of 
 his colleagues in hostility to the Eoman claims, by 
 affirming that exclusion from civil office was not per- 
 secution ; and Peter handles him with delighted 
 vigour, in a passage which, more than eighty years 
 later, was quoted with enthusiasm by Mr. Gladstone.^ — 
 
 " A distinction, I perceive, is taken by one of the most 
 feeble noblemen in Great Britain, between persecution and 
 the deprivation of political power ; whereas there is no more 
 
 1 When it was proposed to exclude King's College from the re- 
 constituted University of London. 
 
 K 
 
50 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 distinction between these two things than there is between 
 him who makes the distinction and a booby. If I strip off 
 the relic-covered jacket of a Catholic and give him twenty 
 stripes, I persecute. If I say, ' Everybody in the town where 
 you live shall be a candidate for lucrative and honourable 
 offices but you, who are a Catholic,' I do not persecute! 
 What barbarous nonsense is this ! As if degradation was 
 not as great an evil as bodily pain, or as severe poverty ; as 
 if I could not be as great a tyrant by saying, ' You shall not 
 enjoy,' as by saying, ' You shall suffer.' . . . You may not 
 be aware of it, most reverend Abraham, but you deny their 
 freedom to the Catholics upon the same principle that Sarah 
 your wife refuses to give the receipt for a ham or a goose- 
 berry dumpling. She values her receipts, not because they 
 secure to her a certain flavour, but because they remind her 
 that her neiglibours want it — a feeling laughable in a priestess, 
 shameful in a priest; venial when it withholds the blessings 
 of a ham, tyrannical and execrable when it narrows the boon 
 of religious freedom." 
 
 Letter III. gives utterance to a genuine alarm 
 inspired by Bonaparte's uninterrupted progress. 
 England is confronted by the most formidable ad- 
 versary whom she has ever known, and her defence 
 is entrusted to Canning and Perceval. Canning's 
 armoury contains nothing more serviceable than 
 " schoolboy jokes and doggerel rhymes, an affronting 
 petulance, and the tones and gesticulations of Mr. 
 Pitt." Perceval, instead of looking after the national 
 defences, 
 
 "will bestow the strictest attention on the smaller parts of 
 ecclesiastical government. In the last agonies of England he 
 will bring in a bill to regulate Easter offerings ; and he will 
 adjust the stipends of curates, when the flag of France is 
 unfurled on the hills of Kent.i . . . Whatever can be done 
 
 1 Spencer Perceval brought in several bills to compel non- 
 resident incumbents to pay their curates a living wage. 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 51 
 
 by very mistaken notions of the piety of a Christian, and by 
 very wretched imitations of the eloquence of Mr. Pitt, will 
 be done by these two gentlemen " ; 
 
 but these are no adequate defences against the genius 
 and ambition of Bonaparte. "There is nothing to 
 oppose to the conqueror of the world but a small table- 
 wit, and the sallow Surveyor of the Meltings." ^ 
 
 Abraham, terrified by those prognostics, asks Peter 
 if he thinks it possible for England to survive the 
 recent misfortunes of Europe. Peter replies that if 
 Bonaparte lives, and a great deal is not immediately 
 conceded to the Eoman Catholics, England must per- 
 ish, and perish in disgrace. — 
 
 " It is doubly miserable to become slaves abroad, because 
 we would be tyrants at home ; and to perish because we 
 have raised up worse enemies within, from our own bigotry, 
 than we are exposed to without from the unprincipled ambi- 
 tion of France." 
 
 Then he goes on to a famous apologue. England is 
 a frigate, attacked by a corsair of immense strength 
 and size. The rigging is cut, there is water in the 
 hold, men are dropping off very fast, the peril is 
 extreme. How do you think the captain (whom we 
 will call Perceval) acts? Does he call all hands on 
 deck and talk to them of king, country, glory, sweet- 
 hearts, gin, French prisons, wooden shoes, old England, 
 and hearts of oak — till they give three cheers, rush to 
 their guns, and, after a tremendous conflict, succeed in 
 beating off the enemy ? — 
 
 " Not a syllable of all this : this is not the manner in 
 which the honourable commander goes to work. The first 
 
 1 Spencer Perceval obtained the sinecure office of Surveyor of 
 the Meltings and Clerk of the Irons in 1791. 
 
52 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 thing he does is to secure twenty or thirty of his prime 
 sailors who happen to be Catholics, to clap them in irons, 
 and set over them a guard of as many Protestants. Having 
 taken this admirable method of defending himself against 
 his infidel opponents, he goes upon deck, reminds the sailors, 
 in a very bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; 
 exhorts the Episcopal gunner not to trust to the Presbyterian 
 quartermaster, issues positive orders that the Catholics should 
 be fired at upon the first appearance of discontent ; rushes 
 through blood and brains, examining his men in the Cate- 
 chism and XXXIX. articles, and positively forbids every one 
 to spunge or ram who has not taken the Sacrament accord- 
 ing to the Church of England. . . . Built as she is of heart 
 of oak, and admirably manned, is it possible with such a 
 captain to save this ship from going to the bottom ? " 
 
 Abraham's next argument against a policy of con- 
 cession is that it would only lead to further demands 
 in the future. In reply to this Peter makes vigorous 
 use of Spencer Perceval's official career. Perceval had 
 held a sinecure for several years ; at the time of 
 writing he was Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and he 
 had just attempted, and been defeated in attempting, 
 a most nefarious job, by which the revenues of the 
 Duchy of Lancaster were to have been secured to him 
 for life. 
 
 " Suppose the person to whom he applied for the Meltings 
 had withstood every plea of wife and fourteen children, no 
 business, and good character, and had refused him this paltry 
 little office, because he might hereafter attempt to get hold of 
 the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster for life ; woidd not 
 Mr. Perceval have contended eagerly against the injustice 
 of refusing moderate requests, because immoderate ones 
 may hereafter be made? Would he not have said (and said 
 truly), ' Leave such exorbitant attempts as these to the general 
 indignation of the Commons, who will take care to defeat 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 53 
 
 them when they do occur ; but do not refuse me the Irons and 
 the Meltings now, because I may totally lose sight of all 
 moderation hereafter ' ? " 
 
 Letter IV. begins with a reply to those who con- 
 tended that England ought not to pay for the educa- 
 tion of the Eoman Catholic clergy in Ireland. 
 
 " The whole sura now appropriated by Government to the 
 religious education of four millions of Christians is £13,000 
 — a sum about one hundred times as large being appropriated 
 in the same country to about one-eighth part of this number of 
 Protestants. AVhen it was proposed to raise this grant from 
 £8000 to £13,000, its present amount, this sum was objected 
 to by that most indulgent of Christians, Mr. Spencer Perceval, 
 as enormous; he himself having secured for his own eating 
 and drinking, and the eating and drinking of the Master and 
 Miss Percevals, the reversionary sum of £21,000 a year of the 
 public money,^ and having just failed in a desperate and 
 rapacious attempt to secure to himself for life the revenues of 
 the Duchy of Lancaster; and the best of it is, that this 
 Minister, after abusing his predecessors for their impious 
 bounty to the Catholics, has found himself compelled, from 
 the apprehension of immediate danger, to grant the sum in 
 question." 
 
 Abraham now goes on to plead that our present 
 relations with the Eoman Catholics date from the 
 Revolution of 1688, and that laws passed at that 
 period are unalterable. To this Peter replies : — 
 
 " When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the 
 only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he 
 is an unalterable fool. . . . Besides, it happens that, to the 
 principal incapacities under which the Irish suffer, they were 
 
 1 Spencer Perceval procured the reversion of his brother's office 
 of Registrar to the Court of Admiralty, and burked a parliamentary 
 inquiry into reversions generally. 
 
64 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 subjected after that great and glorious Revolution, to which 
 we are indebted for so many blessings. . . . The Catholics 
 w^ere not excluded from the Irish House of Commons, or 
 military commands, before the 3rd and 4th of William and 
 JMary, and the 1st and 2nd of Queen Anne." 
 
 Then he goes on to cite the example of Scotland. 
 There the English government had, in times pa^t, 
 tried to force the national conscience in matters of 
 faith and worship. The government had failed, as 
 it deserved to fail, for Scotland was resolute and 
 rebellious. Then "the true and only remedy was 
 applied. The Scotch were suffered to worship God 
 after their own tiresome manner, without pain, penalty, 
 and privation." And Scotland had become a contented, 
 loyal, and profitable part of the United Kingdom. 
 Exactly the reverse was happening in Ireland. A 
 vehement hostility to the Union was spreading through 
 all parts of the country and all classes of the people. 
 
 " The Irish see that their national independence is gone, 
 without having recovered any single one of those advantages 
 which they were taught to expect from the sacrifice. All 
 good things were to flow from the Union ; they have none 
 of them gained anything. Every man's pride is wounded 
 by it ; no man's interest is promoted. In the seventh year 
 of that Union, four million Catholics, lured by all kinds of 
 promises to yield up the separate dignity and sovereignty 
 of their country, are forced to squabble with such a man as 
 Mr. Spencer Perceval for five thousand pounds with which 
 to educate their children in their own mode of worship ; he, 
 the same Mr. Spencer, having secured to his own Protestant 
 self a reversionary portion of the public money amounting to 
 four times that sum. . . . Our conduct to Ireland, during 
 the whole of this war, has been that of a man who subscribes 
 to hospitals, weeps at charity-sermons, carries out broth and 
 blankets to beggars, and then comes home and beats his 
 
III. J PETER PLYMLEY 65 
 
 wife and children. We have compassion for the victims of 
 all other oppression and injustice, except our own." 
 
 It is of no use for statesmen to ignore tlie Irish 
 question. It is much too urgent and too dangerous 
 a topic to be long suppressed. — 
 
 " A man may command his family to say nothing more 
 about the stone, and surgical operations; but the ponderous 
 malice still lies upon the nerve, and gets so big that the 
 patient breaks his own law of silence, clamours for the knife, 
 and expires under its late operation. Believe me, you talk 
 folly when you speak of suppressing the Irish question. I 
 wish to God that the case admitted of such a remedy . . . 
 but, if the wants of the Catholics are not heard in the manly 
 tones of Lord Grenville, or the servile drawl of Lord Castle- 
 reagh, they will be heard ere long in the madness of mobs, 
 and the conflicts of armed men." 
 
 In Letter V. Peter turns upon Abraham, who cannot 
 believe that England will ever be ruined and conquered, 
 and says : — 
 
 " Alas! so reasoned, in their time, the Austrian, Russian, 
 and Prussian Plymleys. But the English are brave ? So 
 were all these nations. Y'ou might get together an hundred 
 thousand men individually brave ; but, without generals 
 capable of commanding such a machine, it would be as useless 
 as a first-rate man-of-war manned by Oxford clergymen or 
 Parisian shopkeepers. I do not say this to the disparagement 
 of English officers: they have had no means of acquiring 
 experience. But I do say it to create alarm. We do not 
 appear to me to be half alarmed enough, or to entertain that 
 sense of our danger which leads to the most obvious means 
 of self-defence. As for the spirit of the peasantry, in making 
 a gallant defence behind hedgerows and through plate-racks 
 and hencoops, highly as I think of their bravery, I do not 
 know any nation in Europe so likely to be struck with panic 
 as the English ; and this from their total unacquaintance wdth 
 the science of w^ar. Old wheat and beans blazing for twenty 
 
56 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 miles round — cart-mares shot — sows of Lord Somerville's ^ 
 breed rumiing wild over the country — the minister of the 
 parish wounded sorely in his hinder parts — Mrs. Plymley in 
 fits — all these scenes of war an Austrian or a Russian has 
 seen three or four times over. But it is now three centuries 
 since an English pig has fallen in fair battle upon English 
 ground, or a farm-house been rifled. . . . But whatever was 
 our conduct — if every ploughman was as great a hero as he 
 who was called from his oxen to save Rome from her enemies 
 — I should still say that, at such a crisis, you want the affec- 
 tions of all your subjects in both islands. There is no spirit 
 which you must alienate, no heart you must avert. Every 
 man must feel he has a country, and that there is an urgent 
 and pressing cause why he should ex]30se himself to death." 
 
 Although Peter is so seriously concerned about the 
 military disasters which will fall on England unless 
 she behaves more wisely to her Koman Catholic popu- 
 lation, he is not the least afraid of any dangers 
 arising from the Roman Catholic religion. England 
 has done with it, once for all. — 
 
 " Tell me that the world will return again under the 
 influence of the smallpox ; that Lord Castlereagh will here- 
 after oppose the power of the court ; that Lord Howick and 
 Mr. Grattan will each of them do a mean and dishonourable 
 action ; that anybody who has heard Lord Redesdale speak 
 will knowingly and willingly hear him again ; that Lord 
 Eldon has assented to the fact of two and two making four, 
 without shedding tears, or expressing the smallest doubt or 
 scruple ; tell me any other thing absurd or incredible, but, for 
 the love of common sense, let me hear no more of the danger 
 to be apprehended from the general diffusion of Popery. It 
 is too absurd to be reasoned upon ; every man feels it is non- 
 sense when he hears it stated, and so does every man while 
 he is stating it." 
 
 1 John South ey, 15th Lord Somerville, President of the Board of 
 Agriculture. 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 57 
 
 No, the only real danger whicli Peter sees — and 
 this he sees with startling clearness — is that Ireland 
 will be absorbed by France, and will welcome her 
 deliverance from England ; that the civil existence of 
 England will be most seriously imperilled ; and that 
 the Irish themselves will, in the long-run, suffer 
 grievously by the change. — 
 
 "Who can doubt but that Ireland will experience ulti- 
 mately from France a treatment to which the conduct they 
 have experienced from England is the love of a parent or a 
 brother? Who can doubt that, five years after he has got 
 hold of the country, Ireland will be tossed by Bonaparte as 
 a present to some one of his rufl&an generals, who will knock 
 the head of Mr. Keogh against the head of Cardinal Troy, 
 shoot twenty of the most noisy blockheads of the Roman 
 persuasion, wash his pug-dogs in holy water, and confiscate 
 the salt butter of the Milesian RepubUc to the last tub ? But 
 what matters this? or who is wise enough in Ireland to heed 
 it ? or when had common sense much influence with my poor 
 dear Irish? Mr. Perceval does not know the Irish; but I 
 know them, and I know that, at every rash and mad hazard, 
 they will break the Union, revenge their wounded pride and 
 their insulted religion, and fling themselves into the open 
 arms of France, sure of dying in the embrace. ... In the six 
 hundredth year of our Empire over Ireland, have we any 
 memorial of ancient kindness to refer to ? any people, any zeal, 
 any country, on which we can depend ? Have we any hope, 
 but in the winds of heaven and the tides of the sea ? any 
 prayer to prefer to the Irish, but that they should forget and 
 forgive their oppressors, who, in the very moment that they 
 are calling upon them for their exertions, solemnly assure 
 them that the oppression shall still remain ? " 
 
 Letter YL begins with one of those vivacious 
 apologues in which Sydney Smith excelled. Abraham 
 Plymley has been talking of the concessions which 
 Koman Catholics have already received, and their 
 
68 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 shameless ingratitude in asking for more. To the cry 
 of ingratitude Peter thus replies. — There is a village, 
 he says, in which, once a year, the inhabitants sit 
 down to a dinner provided at the common expense. 
 A hundred years ago the inhabitants of three of the 
 streets seized the inhabitants of the fourth street, 
 bound them hand and foot, laid them on their backs, 
 and compelled them to look on while the majority 
 were stuffing themselves with beef and beer — and this, 
 although they had contributed an equal quota to the 
 expense. Next year the same assault was perpetrated. 
 It soon grew into a custom ; and, as years went on, the 
 village came to look on the annual act of tyranny as 
 the most sacred of its institutions. Unfortunately, 
 however, for the tyrannical majority, the inhabitants 
 of the persecuted street increased in numbers, deter- 
 mination, and public spirit. They murmured, protested, 
 and resisted, till the oppressors, " more afraid of injus- 
 tice, were now disposed to be just." On the next occasion 
 of the annual dinner, the victims were unbound. The 
 year after, they were allowed to sit upright. Then 
 they got a bit of bread and a glass of water. Finally, 
 after a long series of small concessions, they grew so 
 bold as to ask that they might sit down at the bottom 
 of the table, and feast with their grander neighbours. 
 Forthwith, a general cry of shame and scandal. — 
 
 "Ten years ago, were you not laid upon your backs? 
 Don't you remember what a great thing you thought it to get 
 a piece of bread ? How thankful you were for cheese-parings ? 
 Have you forgotten that memorable sera, when the loi'd of the 
 manor interfered to obtain for you a slice of the public 
 pudding? And now, with an audacity only equalled by your 
 ingratitude, you have the impudence to ask for knives and 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 59 
 
 forks, and to request, in terms too plain to be mistaken, that 
 you may sit down to table with the rest, and be indulged 
 even with beef and beer. There are not more than half a 
 dozen dishes which we have reserved for ourselves ; the rest 
 has been thrown open to you in the utmost profusion ; you 
 have potatoes, and carrots, suet dumplings, sops in the pan, 
 and delicious toast-and-water, in incredible quantities. Beef, 
 mutton, lamb, pork, and veal are ours ; and, if you were not 
 the most restless and dissatisfied of human beings, you would 
 never think of aspiring to enjoy them." 
 
 Is not this, says Peter, the very nonsense and the 
 very insult which you daily practise on the Roman 
 Catholics ? I, though I am an inhabitant of the village 
 and live in one of the three favoured streets, have 
 retained some sense of justice, and I most earnestly 
 counsel these half -fed claimants to persevere in their 
 just demands, till they are admitted to their just 
 share of a dinner for which they pay as much as the 
 others. 
 
 " And, if they see a little attenuated lawyer ^ squabbling 
 at the head of their opponents, let them desire him to empty 
 his pockets, and to pull out all the pieces of duck, fowl, and 
 pudding which he has filched from the public feasts, to carry 
 home to his wife and children." 
 
 Before ending his letter, Peter has a fling at the 
 Home Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury, " the lesser of the 
 two Jenkinsons." ^ Lord Hawkesbury has said that 
 "nothing is to be granted to the Catholics from fear." 
 Why not, asks Peter, if the thing demanded is just ? 
 
 " The only true way to make the mass of mankind see the 
 beauty of justice is by showing them in pretty plain terms the 
 
 1 Spencer Perceval. 
 
 2 Robert Bankes Jenkinson (1770-1820), 2nd Earl of Liverpool, 
 was Lord Hawkesbury from 1796 to 1808. 
 
60 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 consequences of injustice. If any body of French troops land 
 in Ireland, the whole population of that country will rise 
 against you to a man, and you could not possibly survive such 
 an event three years. Such, from the bottom of my heart, do 
 I believe to be the present state of that country ; and so little 
 does it appear to me to be impolitic and unstatesmanlike to 
 concede anything to such a danger, that if the Catholics, in 
 addition to their present just demands, were to petition for 
 the perpetual removal of the said Lord Hawkesbury from his 
 Majesty's councils, I think the prayer of the petition should 
 be instantly complied with. Canning's crocodile tears should 
 not move me ; the hoops of the Maids of Honour should not 
 hide him. I would tear him from the banisters of the Back 
 Stairs, and plunge him in the fishy fumes of the dirtiest of 
 all his Cinque Ports." ^ 
 
 Letter VII. begins with a rebuke to brother Abraham 
 for placing all his hopes for the salvation of England 
 in the " discretion " and " sound sense " of Mr. Secre- 
 tary Canning. — 
 
 " To call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of 
 the affairs of a great nation, seems to me as absurd as if a 
 butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he is an 
 extraordinary writer of small poetry, and a diner-out of the 
 highest lustre, I do most readily admit. . . . The Foreign 
 Secretary is a gentleman — a respectable as well as a highly 
 agreeable man in private life ; but you may as well feed me 
 with decayed potatoes as console me for the miseries of Ire- 
 land by the resources of his ' sense ' and his ' discretion.' It 
 is only the public situation which this gentleman holds that 
 entitles me or induces me to say so much about him. He is 
 a fly in amber : nobody cares about the fly ; the only question 
 is. How the devil did it get there ? Nor do I attack him from 
 the love of glory, but from the love of utility, as a burgo- 
 master hunts a rat in a Dutch dyke, for fear it should flood 
 a province." 
 
 1 Lord Hawkesbury was appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque 
 Ports at a salary of £3000 a year. 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 61 
 
 Under the rule of Canning and his colleagueSj 
 Ireland has become utterly disloyal. — 
 
 " The great mass of the Catholic population, upon the 
 slightest appearance of a French force in that country, would 
 rise upon you to a man. There is no loyalty among the 
 Catholics: they detest you as their worst oppressors, and 
 they will continue to detest you till you remove the cause of 
 their hatred. It is in your power in six months' time to 
 produce a total revolution of opinions among these people. . . . 
 At present see what a dreadf id state Ireland is in ! The 
 common toast among the low Irish is, ' The Feast of the 
 Pass-over.' Some allusion to Bonaparte, in a play lately 
 acted at Dublin, produced thunders of applause from the pit 
 and the gaUeries ; and a politician should not be inattentive 
 to the public feelings expressed in theatres. Mr. Perceval 
 thinks he has disarmed the Irish. He has no more disarmed 
 the Irish than he has resigned a shilling of his own public 
 emoluments. An Irish peasant fills the barrel of his gun full 
 of tow dipped in oil, butters the lock, buries it in a bog, and 
 allows the Orange bloodhound to ransack his cottage at 
 pleasure. Be just and kind to the Irish, and you will indeed 
 disarm them ; rescue them from the degraded servitude in 
 which they are held by an handful of their own countrymen ; 
 and you will add four millions of brave and affectionate men 
 to your strength." 
 
 But instead of these wise remedies, Mr. Secretary 
 Canning only offers the Irish people his incessant, 
 unseasonable, and sometimes indecent jokes. — 
 
 " He jokes upon neutral flags and frauds, jokes upon Irish 
 rebels, jokes upon northern and western and southern foes, 
 and gives himself no trouble upon any subject. . . . And this 
 is the Secretary whose genius, in the estimation of brother 
 Abraham, is to extinguish the genius of Bonaparte. Pompey 
 was killed by a slave, Goliath smitten by a stripling ; Pyrrhus 
 died by the hand of a woman. Tremble, thou great Gaul, 
 from whose head an armed Minerva leaps forth in the hour of 
 
62 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 danger; tremble, thou scourge of God, for a pleasant man is 
 come out against thee, and thou shalt be laid low by a joker 
 of jokes." 
 
 Abraham comforts himself with his reflection that 
 Bonaparte has no ships or sailors. But, says Peter, 
 there are quite enough, remains of the navies of France, 
 Spain, Holland, and Denmark, for such a short excur- 
 sion as would be needed for the capture of Ireland. 
 And Bonaparte can increase his forces every day. 
 With all Europe at bis feet, he can get timber and 
 stores and men to any conceivable amount. ^' He is at 
 present the despotic monarch of above twenty thousand 
 miles of sea-coast, and yet you suppose he cannot 
 procure sailors for the invasion of Ireland." Ireland is 
 still the burden of the song. Conciliate Ireland and all 
 will be well. Tyrannize over her and we are undone. 
 
 " If Ireland was friendly, we might equally set at defiance 
 the talents of Bonaparte and the blunders of his rival Mr. 
 Canning : we could then support the ruinous and silly bustle 
 of our useless expeditions, and the almost incredible ignorance 
 of our commercial Orders in Council.^ Let the present ad- 
 ministration give up but this one point, and there is nothing 
 
 1 "The allusion is to the Orders in Council under which Mr. 
 Perceval endeavoured to retaliate on Napoleon's Baltic decree 
 by regulating British trade with the Continent. Under these 
 orders the exportation of all goods to France was prohibited 
 which were not carried from this country and had not paid an 
 export-duty here. But there were certain articles which the 
 Minister decided that the Continent should have on no terms, 
 and amongst others quinine, or Jesuit's Bark, as it was called. 
 Sydney Smith, writing as Peter Plymley, said, 'You cannot 
 seriously suppose the people to be so degraded as to look for 
 their safety from a man who proposes to subdue Europe by 
 keeping it without Jesuit's Bark. '" — Sib Spencer Walpole, 
 Life of Lord John Russell. 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 63 
 
 ■which I would not consent to grant them. Perceval should 
 have full liberty to insult the tomb of Mr. Fox, and to torment 
 every eminent Dissenter in Great Britain. Lord Camden 
 should have large boxes of plums ; Mr. Rose receive permission 
 to prefix to his name the appellation of Virtuous ; and to the 
 Viscount Castlereagh a round sum of ready money shall be 
 well and truly paid into his hand.^ Lastly, what remains to 
 Mr. George Canning, but that he ride up and down Pall Mall 
 glorious upon a white horse, and that they cry out before 
 him, ' Thus shall it be done to the statesman who hath written 
 The Needy Knife-Grinder^" 
 
 Letter YIII. begins with the statistics of Ireland, 
 its area, population, trade, manufactures, exports, and 
 imports. " Ireland has the greatest possible facilities 
 for carrying on commerce with the whole of Europe. 
 It contains, within a circuit of 750 miles, ^Q secure 
 harbours, and presents a western frontier against 
 Great Britain, reaching from the Firth of Clyde north 
 to the Bristol Channel south, and varying in distance 
 from 20 to 100 miles; so that the subjugation of 
 Ireland would compel us to guard with ships and 
 soldiers a new line of coast, certainly amounting, with 
 all its sinuosities, to more than 700 miles — an addition 
 of polemics, in our present state of hostility with all 
 the world, which must Mghly gratify the vigorists and 
 give them an ample opportunity of displaying that 
 foolish energy upon which their claims to distinction 
 are founded. Such is the country which the Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer would drive into the arms of 
 France." 
 
 Eeligious freedom, continues Peter, is the strongest 
 
 1 In 1839 Sydney Smith pronounced this "a very unjust im- 
 putation on Lord Castlereagh." Robert Stewart (1769-1823), 
 Viscount Castlereagh, became Marquis of Londonderry in 1821. 
 
64 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 safeguard of states. France has it, and is victorious over 
 Europe ; England lacks it, and is in imminent peril. 
 " How sincerely and fervently have I often wished that 
 the Emperor of the French had thought as Mr. Spencer 
 Perceval does upon the subject of government ; that 
 he had entertained doubts and scruples upon the pro- 
 priety of admitting the Protestants to an equality of 
 rights with the Catholics, and that he had left in the 
 middle of his empire these vigorous seeds of hatred 
 and disaffection. But the world was never yet 
 conquered by a blockhead. One of the very first 
 measures we saw him recurring to was the complete 
 establishment of religious liberty. If his subjects 
 fought and paid as he pleased, he allowed them to 
 believe as they pleased. The moment I saw this, my 
 best hopes were lost. I perceived in a moment the 
 kind of man we had to do with. I was well aware of 
 the miserable ignorance and folly of the country upon 
 the subject of Toleration ; and every year has been 
 adding to the success of that game which it was clear 
 he had the will and the ability to play against us." 
 
 Abraham has suggested that the Emperor is not a 
 religious man, and that his tolerance is the fruit of 
 indifference. But, says Peter, ^^if Bonaparte is liberal 
 in subjects of religion because he has no religion, is 
 this a reason why we should be illiberal because we 
 are Christians ? If he owes this excellent quality to 
 a vice, is that any reason why we may not owe it 
 to a virtue ? Toleration is a great good, and a good 
 to be imitated, let it come from whom it will." 
 
 And now Peter turns upon Lord Sidmouth,^ who has 
 
 1 Henry Addington (1757-1844), created Viscount Sidmouth 
 in 1805. 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY - 65 
 
 been prophesying woe and destruction from the emanci- 
 pation of the Roman Catholics. Such prophecies, he 
 says, will, in the process of time, become matter of 
 pleasantry even to " the sedulous housewife and the 
 Eural Dean.'' There is always a copious supply of 
 Lord Sidmouths in the world, and they have always 
 uttered the most dismal predictions about every im- 
 provement in the lot of mankind. — 
 
 " Turnpike roads, navigable canals, inoculation, hops, 
 tobacco, the Reformation, the Revolution — there are always a 
 set of worthy and moderately-gifted men who bawl out death 
 and ruin upon every valuable change which the varying 
 aspect of human affairs absolutely and imperiously requires." 
 
 The only contention of poor Abraham which Peter 
 will in the slightest degree accept, is that the emancipa- 
 tion of the Roman Catholics will alienate the Orange- 
 men. But, even if this be the result of a just act, it 
 is far less formidable than the result of continued 
 injustice. Brother Abraham, '• skilled in the arithmetic 
 of Tithe," must perceive that it is better to have four 
 friends and one enemy, than four enemies and one 
 friend; and, the more violent the hatred of the 
 Orangemen, the more certain the reconciliation of the 
 Catholics. Even supposing, for the sake of argument, 
 that the Orangemen carry their disaffection to the 
 point of resistance, and brave the discipline of the 
 law, the prospect has no terrors for Peter Plymley. — 
 
 " My love of poetical justice does carry me as far as that — 
 one summer's whipping, only one ; the thumb-screw for a 
 short season; a little light, easy torturing between Lady 
 Day and ]\Iichaelmas ; a short specimen of Mr. Perceval's 
 rigour. I have malice enough to ask this slight atonement 
 for the groans and shrieks of the poor Catholics, unheard by 
 
66 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 any human tribunal, but registered by the Angel of God 
 against their Protestant and enlightened oppressors." 
 
 Letter IX. opens with an enumeration of offices not 
 tenable by adherents of the Eoman faith. 
 
 " No Catholic can be chief Governor or Governor of this 
 Kingdom, Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord High 
 Treasurer, Chief of any of the Courts of Justice, Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, Puisne Judge, Judge in the Admiralty, 
 Master of the Rolls, Secretary of State, Keeper of the Privy 
 Seal, Vice-Treasurer or his Deputy, Teller or Cashier of 
 Exchequer, Auditor or General, Governor or Custos Rotulorum 
 of Counties, Chief Governor's Secretary, Privy Councillor, 
 King's Counsel, Serjeant, Attorney, Solicitor-General, Master 
 in Chancery, Provost or Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, 
 Postmaster-General, Master and Lieutenant-Gen eral of 
 Ordnance, Commander-in-Chief, General on the Staff, Sheriff, 
 Sub-Sheriff, Mayor, Bailiff, Recorder, Burgess, or any other 
 officer in a City, or a Corporation. No Catholic can be 
 guardian to a Protestant, and no priest guardian at all : no 
 Catholic can be a gamekeeper, or have for sale, or otherwise, 
 any arms or warlike stores ; no Catholic can present to a 
 living, unless he choose to turn Jew in order to obtain that 
 privilege ; and the pecuniary qualification of Catholic jurors 
 is made higher than that of Protestants." 
 
 Out of that splendid list of unattainable posts, Peter 
 Plymley chooses, to illustrate his theme, the offices of 
 Sheriff and Deputy-Sheriff in Ireland. No one, he 
 says, who is unacquainted with that country, can 
 conceive the obstacles to justice which exclusion from 
 these offices entails. The lives, liberties, and properties 
 of the Roman Catholic population are at the mercy of 
 the Juries, and the Juries are nominated exclusively 
 by Protestants — and this in a country where religious 
 animosities are peculiarly inflamed. — 
 
 "A poor Catholic in Ireland may be tried by twelve 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY " 67 
 
 Percevals, and destroyed, according to the manner of that 
 gentleman, in the name of the law, and with all the insulting 
 forms of justice. I will not go the length of saying that 
 deliberate and wilful injustice is done. I have no doubt 
 that the Orange Deputy-Sheriff thinks it would be a most 
 unpardonable breach of his duty if he did not summon a 
 Protestant panel. I can easily believe that the Protestant 
 panel may conduct themselves very conscientiously in hang- 
 ing the gentlemen of the Crucifix; but I blame the law 
 which does not guard the Catholic against the probable 
 tenour of those feelings which must unconsciously influence 
 the judgments of mankind. I detest that state of society 
 which extends unequal degrees of protection to different 
 creeds and persuasions; and I cannot describe to you the 
 contempt I feel for a man who, calling himself a statesman, 
 defends a system which fills the heart of every Irishman with 
 treason." 
 
 If then the Courts of Assize are, by the very nature 
 of the case, instruments of injustice, it is the Grand 
 Juries which are the great scene of Jobbery. They 
 have the power of levying a county rate for roads, 
 bridges, and other public accommodations. Milesian 
 gentlemen, attendant on the Grand Inquest of Justice, 
 arrange these little matters for their mutual con- 
 venience. — 
 
 "You suffer the road to be brought through my park, 
 and I will have the bridge constructed in a situation where 
 it will make a beautiful object to your house. You do my 
 job, and I will do yours." 
 
 And so, as far as the Protestant gentry are con- 
 cerned, all is well. But there is a religion even in 
 jobs; "and it will be highly gratifying to Mr. 
 Perceval to learn that no man in Ireland who believes 
 in Seven Sacraments can carry a public road, or 
 bridge, one yard out of its way, and that nobody can 
 
68 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 cheat the public who does not expound the Scriptures 
 in the purest and most orthodox manner. ... I ask 
 if the human mind can experience a more dreadful 
 sensation than to see its own jobs refused, and the 
 jobs of another religion perpetually succeeding ? " 
 
 And then again there is the grievance which consists 
 in exclusion from the higher posts of the Professions. — 
 
 " Look at human nature. Your boy Joel is to be brought 
 up to the Bar: has Mrs. Plymley the slightest doubt of 
 his being Chancellor? Do not his two shrivelled aunts live 
 in the certainty of seeing him in that situation, and of cutting- 
 out with their own hands his equity habiliments ? And I 
 could name a certain Minister of the Gospel who does not, 
 in the bottom of his heart, much differ from these opinions. 
 Do you think that the fathers and mothers of the holy 
 Catholic church are not as absurd as Protestant papas and 
 mammas? The probability I admit to be, in each case, that 
 the sweet little blockhead will in fact never get a brief. But 
 I venture to say that there is not a parent from the Giant's 
 Causeway to Bantry Bay, who does not conceive that his 
 child is the unfortunate victim of the exclusion, and that 
 nothing short of positive law could prevent his own dear, 
 pre-eminent Paddy from rising to the highest honours of the 
 State. So with the army, and Parliament. In fact, few are 
 excluded ; but, in imagination, all. Y'ou keep twenty or 
 thirty Catholics out, and lose the affections of four millions." 
 
 And then Peter turns to the war-cry of No Popery, 
 which had been so vigorously and successfully raised 
 at the General Election of 1807, and derides the loyal 
 indignation then directed against the Ministers who 
 had the heart to worry George iii. with plans of 
 redress for Koman Catholics. — 
 
 " The general cry in the country was, that they 
 would not see their beloved monarch used ill in his 
 old age, and that they would stand by him to the 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 69 
 
 last drop of their blood.'' This ebullition of ill-judging 
 loyalty reminds Peter of an accident which once befell 
 the Eussian Ambassador in London. His Excellency 
 fell down in a fit when paying a morning call. A 
 doctor was summoned, who declared that the patient 
 must be instantly bled ; and he prepared to perform 
 the operation. "But the barbarous servants of the 
 Embassy, when they saw the gleaming lancet, drew 
 their swords, threw themselves into an attitude of 
 defiance, and swore they would kill the man who 
 dared to hurt their beloved master." 
 
 Peter's own remedy for Irish disaffection was, first, 
 to remove all civil penalties for religious faith, and 
 then to subsidize the Eoman Catholic bishops and 
 clergy in Ireland, and pay for the maintenance of their 
 schools and churches. He calculated that this would 
 cost £250,000 a year. The clergy should all receive 
 their salaries through the Bank of Ireland; the 
 salaries were to be proportioned to the size of the 
 congregations ; and all patronage should be lodged in 
 the hands of the Crown. — 
 
 " Now I appeal to any human being, what the disaffection 
 of a clergy would amount to, gaping after this graduated 
 bounty of the Crown ; and whether Ignatius Loyola himself, 
 if he were a living blockhead instead of a dead saint, could 
 withstand the temptation of bouncing from £100 a year in 
 Sligo, to £300 in Tipperary. This is the miserable sum of 
 money for which the merchants, and landowners, and nobil- 
 ity of England, are exposing themselves to the tremendous 
 peril of losing Ireland." 
 
 If all these schemes of conciliation were rejected as 
 dangerous and impracticable, there remained of course 
 the time-honoured remedy of Coercion. This had 
 
70 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 been demanded by Spencer Perceval, when attacking 
 the conciliatory administration of " All the Talents," 
 and it provoked Peter Plymley to a characteristic 
 outburst : — 
 
 " I cannot describe the horror and disgust which I felt at 
 hearing Mr. Perceval call for measures of vigour in Ireland. 
 If I lived at Hampstead ^ upon stewed meats and claret ; if I 
 walked to church every Sunday morning before eleven young 
 gentlemen of my own begetting, with their faces washed, and 
 their hair pleasingly combed ; if the Almighty had blessed 
 me with every earthly comfort — how awfully would I pause 
 before I sent forth the flame and the sword over the cabins 
 of the poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of Ire- 
 land ! How easy it is to shed human blood ! How easy it is 
 to persuade ourselves that it is our duty to do so, and that the 
 decision has cost us a severe struggle ! How much in all ages 
 have wounds and shrieks and tears been the cheap and vul- 
 gar resources of the rulers of mankind ! How difficult it is 
 to govern in kindness, and to found an empire upon the 
 everlasting basis of justice and affection ! " 
 
 Letter X. begins with some observations on the 
 Law of Tithe in Ireland. " I submit to your common 
 sense, if it is possible to explain to an Irish peasant 
 upon what principle of justice he is to pay every tenth 
 potato in his little garden to a clergyman in whose 
 religion nobody believes for twenty miles round him, 
 and who has nothing to preach to but bare w^alls." 
 Let the landowner pay the tithe, and charge the 
 labourer a higher rent. This, Peter seems to think, 
 will meet all the difficulties of the case, and yet not 
 impoverish the Established clergy. And he is more 
 than ever persuaded that the best way to check the 
 
 1 Spencer Perceval had recently taken a villa on Hampstead 
 Heath, for the benefit of his wife's health. 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 71 
 
 predominance of the Eoman Church in Ireland is to 
 deliver the Romanists from every species of religious 
 disability. On this theme Peter harps in a vein 
 which, if he were a clergyman writing over his own 
 name, would be justly described as cynical. — 
 
 " If a rich young Catholic were in Parliament, he would 
 belong to White's and to Brookes's ; would keep race-horses ; 
 would walk up and down Pall Mall; be exonerated of his 
 ready money and his constitution ; become as totally devoid 
 of morality, honesty, knowledge, and civility, as Protestant 
 loungers in Pall Mall; and return home with a supreme 
 contempt for Father O'Leary and Father O'Callaghan. . . . 
 The true receipt for preserving the Roman Catholic religion 
 is Mr. Perceval's receipt for destroying it: it is to deprive 
 every rich Catholic of all the objects of secular ambition, to 
 separate him from the Protestants, and to shut him up in his 
 castle with priests and relics." 
 
 However sound this estimate of theological results 
 may be, Abraham thinks that a period of universal war 
 is not the proper time for innovations in the Constitu- 
 tion. This, replies Peter, " is as much as to say that 
 the worst time for making friends is the period when 
 you have made many enemies ; that it is the greatest 
 of all errors to stop when you are breathless, and to 
 lie down when you are fatigued." 
 
 Abraham, and those who think with him, hold that 
 concession to Roman Catholics ought to be refused, 
 if for no other reason, because King George iii. dis- 
 likes it. This is an argument which Peter cannot 
 away with. He respects the King as a good man, and 
 holds that loyalty is one of the great instruments of 
 English happiness. — 
 
 " But the love of the King may easily become more strong 
 than the love of the Kingdom, and we may lose sight of the 
 
72 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 public welfare in our exaggerated admiration of him who is 
 appointed to reign only for its promotion and support. . . . 
 God save the King, you say, warms your heart like the sound 
 of a trumpet. 1 cannot make use of so violent a metaphor ; 
 but I am delighted to hear it, when it is a cry of genuine 
 affection : I am delighted to hear it when they hail not only 
 the individual man, but the outward and living sign of all 
 English blessings. These are noble feelings, and the heart of 
 every good man must go with them ; but God save the King, 
 in these times, too often means — God save my pension and 
 my place, God give my sisters an allowance out of the Privy 
 Purse — make me Clerk of the Irons, let me survey the 
 Meltings, let me live upon the fruits of other men's industry, 
 and fatten upon the plunder of the public." 
 
 This brings us again to the "sepulchral Spencer 
 Perceval," as he is called in another place, with his 
 enormous emoluments from the public purse, his 
 dream of pacifying Ireland by converting its in- 
 habitants to Protestantism, and his fantastic policy of 
 the Orders in Council. — 
 
 " He would bring the French to reason by keeping them 
 without rhubarb, and exhibit to mankind the awful spectacle 
 of a nation deprived of neutral salts. This is not the dream 
 of a wild apothecary indulging in his own opium ; this is not 
 the distempered fancy of a pounder of drugs, delirious from 
 smallness of profits — but it is the sober, deliberate, and 
 systematic scheme of a man to whom the public safety is 
 entrusted, and whose appointment is considered by many as a 
 masterpiece of political sagacity." 
 
 And now, having exhausted the " Catholic Question '^ 
 as it presents itself in England and Ireland, Peter 
 Plymley (who has already called attention to the 
 religious liberty established in France) cites the cases 
 of Switzerland and Hungary as illustrating the civil 
 
Ill] PETER PLYMLEY 73 
 
 strength of nations free from tlie legalized animosities 
 of religion. Did Frederick the Great ever refuse the 
 services of a Catholic soldier? There is a Catholic 
 Secretary of State at St. Petersburgh. There was a 
 Greek Patriarch associated with a Vicar-Apostolic in 
 the government of Venice. A Catholic Emperor has 
 entrusted the command of his guard to a Protestant 
 Prince. But what signifies all this to Spencer Per- 
 ceval? He looks at human nature from the top of 
 Hampstead Hill, and has not a thought beyond the 
 sphere of his own vision. And so we reach the con- 
 clusion of the whole matter. — 
 
 " I now take a final leave of this subject of Ireland. The 
 only difficulty in discussing it is a want of resistance — a want 
 of something difficult to unravel and something dark to 
 illumine. To agitate such a question is to beat the air with 
 a club, and cut down gnats with a scimitar: it is a pros- 
 titution of industry, and a waste of strength. If a man 
 says, 'I have a good place, and I do not choose to lose it,* 
 this mode of arguing upon the Catholic Question I can well 
 understand. But that any human being with an understand- 
 ing two degrees elevated above that of an Anabaptist preacher 
 should conscientiously contend for the expediency and pro- 
 priety of leaving the Irish Catholics in their present state, 
 and of subjecting us to such tremendous peril in the present 
 condition of the world, it is utterly out of my power to con- 
 ceive. Such a measure as the Catholic Question is entirely 
 beyond the common game of politics. It is a measure in 
 which all parties ought to acquiesce, in order to preserve the 
 place where and the stake for which they play. If Ireland is 
 gone, where are jobs? where are reversions? where is my 
 brother. Lord Arden ? i where are ' my dear and near re- 
 lations ' ? The game is up, and the Speaker of the House of 
 
 1 Spencer Perceval's elder brother, Charles George Perceval 
 (17o6-18i0), was created Lord Ardeu in 1802. 
 
74 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Commons will be sent as a present to the menagerie at Paris. 
 We talk of waiting, as if centuries of joy and prosperity 
 were before ns. In the next ten years our fate must be 
 decided ; we shall know, long before that period, whether 
 we can bear up against the miseries by which we are 
 threatened, or not : and yet, in the very midst of our crisis, 
 we are enjoined to abstain from the most certain means of 
 increasing our strength, and advised to wait for the remedy 
 till the disease is removed by death or health. And now, 
 instead of the plain and manly policy of increasing unanimity 
 at home, by equalizing rights and privileges, what is the 
 ignorant, arrogant, and wicked system which has been pur- 
 sued? Such a career of madness and of folly was, I believe, 
 never run in so short a period. The vigour of the ministry is 
 like the vigour of a grave-digger — the tomb becomes more 
 ready and more wide for every effort which they make. . . . 
 Every Englishman felt proud of the integrity of his country ; 
 the character of the country is lost for ever. It is of the 
 utmost consequence to a commercial people at war with 
 the greatest part of Europe, that there should be a free 
 entry of neutrals into the enemy's ports ; the neutrals who 
 carried our manufactures we have not only excluded, but 
 we have compelled them to declare war against us. It was 
 our interest to make a good peace, or convince our own 
 people that it could not be obtained; we have not made 
 a peace, and we have convinced the people of nothing but 
 of the arrogance of the Foreign Secretary : and all this has 
 taken place in the short space of a year, because a King's 
 Bench barrister and a writer of epigrams, turned into Ministers 
 of State, were determined to show country gentlemen that the 
 late administration had no vigour. In the mean time 
 commerce stands still, manufactures perish, Ireland is more 
 and more irritated, India is threatened, fresh taxes are 
 accumulated upon the wretched people, the war is carried on 
 without it being possible to conceive any one single object 
 which a rational being can propose to himself by its continua- 
 tion ; and in the midst of this unparalleled insanity we are 
 told that the Continent is to be reconquered by the want of 
 
III.] PETER PLYMLEY 76 
 
 rhubarb and plums. A better spirit than exists in the 
 English people never existed in any people in the world ; 
 it has been misdirected, and squandered upon party purposes 
 in the most degrading and scandalous manner ; they have 
 been led to believe that they were benefiting the commerce of 
 England by destroying the commerce of America, that they 
 were defending their Sovereign by perpetuating the bigoted 
 oppression of their fellow-subjects; their rulers and their 
 guides have told them that they would equal the vigour of 
 France by equalling her atrocity; and they have gone on 
 wasting that opulence, patience, and courage, which, if 
 husbanded by prudent and moderate counsels, might have 
 proved the salvation of mankind. The same policy of turn- 
 ing the good qualities of Englishmen to their own destruc- 
 tion, which made Mr. Pitt omnipotent, continues his power 
 to those who resemble him only in his vices ; advantage is 
 taken of the loyalty of Englishmen to make them meanly 
 submissive ; their piety is turned into persecution, their cour- 
 age into useless and obstinate contention ; they are plundered 
 because they are ready to pay, and soothed into asinine stupid- 
 ity because they are full of virtuous patience. If England 
 must perish at last, so let it be ; that event is in the hands 
 of God ; we must dry up our tears and submit. But, that 
 England should perish swindling and stealing ; that it should 
 perish waging war against lazar-houses and hospitals ; that 
 it should perish persecuting with monastic bigotry ; that it 
 should calmly give itself up to be ruined by the flashy arro- 
 gance of one man, and the narrow fanaticism of another ; 
 these events are within the power of human beings, and I 
 did not think that the magnanimity of Englishmen would 
 ever stoop to such degradations." 
 
 So ends this vivid argument on behalf of political 
 justice and social equality. Lord Grenville saw the 
 resemblance to Swift, and Lord Holland kindly re- 
 minded the anonymous satirist that " the only author 
 to whom he could be compared in English, lost a bish- 
 opric for his wittiest performance.'' In later years 
 
76 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. hi. 
 
 Lord Murray ^ said, " After Pascal's Xe^^ers, it is the most 
 instructive piece of wisdom in the form of Irony ever 
 written." Macaulay declared that Sydney Smith was 
 " universally admitted to have been a great reasoner, 
 and the greatest master of ridicule that has appeared 
 among us since Swift." Even now, after a century 
 of publishing, Peter Plymley^s Letters retain their pre- 
 eminence. The unexpurgated edition of the Apologia 
 may rank with the Provincial Letters ; ^ but the creator 
 of Peter and Abraham Plymley stands alone. 
 
 1 John Archibald Murray (1779-1859), a Judge of the Court of 
 Sessiou. 
 
 2 In October 1844 Eugene Robin, reviewing Sydney Smith in the 
 Revue des Deux Mondes, wrote as follows : — "Cache' sous le pseu- 
 donyme de Peter Plymley il adresse ces uouvelles provinciales a 
 un reverend pasteur, qui est bien le parfait modele de la sottise 
 protestante, la quintessence des docteurs Bowles et des archidiacres 
 Nares." 
 
CHAPTER lY 
 
 FOSTON " PERSECUTIXG BISHOPS " BENCH AND BAR 
 
 At the close of the eighteenth century and the begin- 
 ning of the nineteenth, the most serious evil which 
 beset the Church of England was the system of 
 Pluralities and ISTon-Eesidence. A prosperous clergy- 
 man might hold half-a-dozen separate preferments, and, 
 as long as he paid curates to perform the irreducible 
 minimum of public duty, he need never show his face 
 inside his deserted parishes. The ecclesiastical litera- 
 ture of the time abounds in quaint illustrations of 
 the equanimity with which this system, and all its 
 attendant evils, was regarded even by respectable and 
 conscientious men. Thomas ]S"ewton, the commentator 
 on Prophecy, was Dean of St. Paul's as well as Bishop 
 of Bristol, and, before he became a bishop, held a 
 living in the City, a Prebend of Westminster, the 
 Precentorship of York, the Lectureship of St. George's, 
 Hanover Square, and "the genteel office of Sub- 
 Almoner." Richard Watson (who is believed never 
 to have set foot in his diocese) was Bishop of Llandaff 
 and Archdeacon of Ely, and drew the tithes of sixteen 
 parishes. William Van Mildert, afterwards Bishop of 
 Durham, was Rector of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, 
 and also held the living of Farningham, near Seven- 
 oaks, "as an agreeable retreat within a convenient 
 
 77 
 
78 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 distance from town." Eichard Valpy was Head 
 Master of Reading School, and Kector of Stradishall 
 in Suffolk. George Butler, afterwards Dean of Peter- 
 borough, was Head Master of Harrow and Eector of 
 Gay ton in Northamptonshire. Nearly every bishop 
 had a living together with his see. The valuable 
 Eectory of Stanhope in Durham was held by four 
 successive bishops. Henry Courtenay, Bishop of 
 Exeter, was Eector of St. George's, Hanover Square. 
 George Pelham, Bisho]^ of Exeter, had a living in 
 Sussex, and Christopher Bethell, Bishop of Exeter, 
 had a living in Yorkshire. 
 
 When Sydney Smith was appointed to the rectory 
 of Foston, there had been no resident Eector since 
 the reign of Charles ii. The churches of non-resident 
 Eectors were commonly served by what were called 
 " galloping parsons,'^ who rattled through the services 
 required by law, riding at full speed from parish to 
 parish, so as to serve perhaps three churches on one 
 Sunday. In many places the Holy Communion was 
 celebrated only three times a year. At Alderley, 
 before Edward Stanley, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, 
 became Eector there, "the clerk used to go to the 
 churchyard stile to see whether there were any more 
 coming to church, for there were seldom enough to 
 make a congregation. The former Eector used to 
 boast that he had never set foot in a sick person's 
 cottage.'' When the shepherds thus deserted and 
 starved their flocks, it was only natural that the 
 sheep betook themselves to every form of schism, irre- 
 ligion, and immorality. To remedy these evils, Spencer 
 Perceval, whose keen interest in the affairs of the 
 Church had a curiously irritating effect on Sydney 
 
IV.] rOSTON 79 
 
 Smith, took in hand to pass the Clergy Eesidence 
 Bill, and the Bill became an Act in 1803. In 1808 
 a new Archbishop^ was enthroned at York. He 
 immediately began to put the Act in force, and 
 summoned Sydney Smith from the joys of London 
 to the austerities of Foston-le-Clay. The choice lay 
 between complying and resigning, for no exchange of 
 livings seemed practicable. On the 8th of October 
 1808, Sydney wrote to Lady Holland — "My lot is 
 now cast, and my heritage fixed — most probabl}^ 
 But you may choose to make me a bishop, and, if you 
 do, I think I shall never do you discredit ; for I be- 
 lieve it is out of the power of lawn and velvet, and 
 the crisp hair of dead men fashioned into a wig,^ to 
 make me a dishonest man." 
 
 Two months later he wrote — "I have bought a 
 book about drilling beans, and a greyhound puppy for 
 the Malton Meeting. It is thought I shall be an emi- 
 nent rural character." The expense of removing his 
 family and furniture from London to Yorkshire was 
 considerable, so he published two volumes of sermons 
 and paid for the journey with the £200 which he 
 received for them. The rectory-house at Foston was 
 ruinous and uninhabitable, and it was necessary to 
 rebuild it. Meanwhile the Eector hired a house some 
 way off, in the village of Heslington, and there he es- 
 tablished himself on the 21st of June 1809, " two hun- 
 dred miles," as he ruefully remarked, " from London." 
 
 1 Edward Vemon, afterwards Harcourt (1757-1847). 
 
 2 Charles James Blomfield (1786-1857), Bishop of London, was 
 the first bishop to discard the episcopal wig; and John Bird 
 Sumner (1780-1862), Archbishop of Canterbury, the last to 
 wear it. 
 
80 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Three days later he wrote to Lady Holland that he 
 had laid down two rules for his own guidance in the 
 country : — 
 
 " 1. Not to smite the partridge ; for, if I fed the poor, and 
 comforted the sick, and instructed the ignorant, yet I should 
 be nothing worth, if I smote the partridge. If anything ever 
 endangers the Church, it will be the strong propensity to 
 shooting for which the clergy are remarkable. Ten thousand 
 good shots dispersed over the country do more harm to the 
 cause of religion than the arguments of Voltaire and Rou sseau.i 
 
 " 2. I mean to come to town once a year, though of that, 
 I suppose, I shall soon be weary, finding my mind growing 
 weaker and weaker, and my acquaintances gradually falling 
 off. I shall by this time have taken myself again to shy 
 tricks, pull about my watch-chain, and become (as I was 
 before) your abomination. . . . Mrs. Sydney is all rural 
 bustle, impatient for the parturition of hens and pigs ; I 
 wait patiently, knowing all will come in due season." 
 
 To Jeffrey he wrote on the 3rd of September : — 
 
 " Instead of being unamused by trifles, I am, as I well 
 knew I should be, amused by them a great deal too much. 
 I feel an ungovernable interest about my horses, my pigs, and 
 my plants. I am forced, and always was forced, to task my- 
 self up into an interest for any higher objects." 
 
 Six days later he wrote to Lady Holland : — 
 
 " I hear you laugh at me for being happy in the country, 
 and upon this I have a few words to say. In the first place, 
 whether one lives or dies I hold, and have always held, to be 
 of infinitely less moment than is generally supposed. But, if 
 life is to be, then it is common sense to amuse yourself with 
 the best you can find where you happen to be placed. I am 
 not leading precisely the life I should choose, but that which 
 
 1 In later life he said : — "If you shoot, the squire and the 
 poacher both consider you as their natural enemies, and I thought 
 it more clerical to be at peace with both." 
 
IV.] rOSTON ' 81 
 
 (all things considered, as well as I could consider them) 
 appeared to me to be the most eligible. I am resolved, 
 therefore, to like it, and to reconcile myself to it ; which is 
 more manly than to feign myself above it, and to send up 
 complaints by the post, of being thrown away, and being 
 desolate, and such-like trash. I am prepared, therefore, either 
 way. If the chances of life ever enable me to emerge, I will 
 show you that I have not been wholly occupied by small and 
 sordid pursuits. If (as the greater probability) I am come 
 to the end of my career, I give myself quietly up to horticul- 
 ture, etc. In short, if it be my lot to crawl, I will crawl con- 
 tentedly ; if to fly, I will fly with alacrity ; but, as long as I 
 can possibly avoid it, I will never be unhappy. If, with a 
 pleasant wife, three children, and many friends who wish me 
 well, I cannot be happy, I am a very silly, foolish fellow, and 
 what becomes of me is of very little consequence." 
 
 If ample occupation be, as some strenuous moralists 
 assertj the true secret of happiness, Sydney Smith had 
 plenty to make him happy during the early years of 
 his life in Yorkshire. Here is his own account of his 
 translation : — 
 
 " A diner-out, a wit, and a popular preacher, I was sud- 
 denly caught up by the Archbishop of York, and transported 
 to my living in Yorkshire, where there had not been a resi- 
 dent clergyman for a hundred and fifty years. Fresh from 
 London, and not knowing a turnip from a carrot, I was com- 
 pelled to farm three hundred acres, and without capital to 
 build a Parsonage House." 
 
 He was his own architect, his own builder, and his 
 own clerk of the works. The cost of building a house, 
 with borrow^ed money, made him a very poor man for 
 several years. 
 
 " I turned schoolmaster, to educate my son, as I could not 
 ajfford to send him to school. Mrs. Sydney turned school- 
 mistress, to educate my girls, as I could not afford a gov- 
 
82 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 erness. I turned farmer, as I could not let my land. . . . 
 Added to all these domestic cares, I was village parson, vil- 
 lage doctor, village comforter, village magistrate, and Edin- 
 burgh Reviewer; so you see I had not much time on my 
 hands to regret London." 
 
 Every one has heard of " Bunch/' the " little garden- 
 girl, shaped like a milestone/' who " became the best 
 butler in the county " ; of the gaunt riding-horse 
 "Calamity/' which, "flung me over his head into a 
 neighbouring parish, as if I had been a shuttlecock, 
 and I felt grateful that it was not into a neighbouring 
 planet " ; and of the ancient carriage called " the Im- 
 mortal," which was so well known on the road that 
 "the village-boys cheered it and the village-dogs 
 barked at it" — and surely remembrance should be 
 made, amid this goodly caravan, of the four draught- 
 oxen, Tug and Lug, Haul and Crawl, even though 
 " Tug and Lug took to fainting, and required buckets 
 of salvolatile, and Haul and Crawl to lie down in the 
 mud." 
 
 When Sydney Smith says that he was "village 
 doctor," he reminds us of his lifelong fancy for dab- 
 bling in medicine. When his daughter, not six 
 months old, was attacked by croup, he gave her in 
 twenty-four hours " 32 grains of calomel, besides bleed- 
 ing, blistering, and emetics." When he was called 
 to baptize a sick baby, he seized the opportunity of 
 giving it a dose of castor oil. One day he writes — 
 
 " I am performing miracles in my parish with garhc for 
 whooping-co ugh. " 
 
 Another : — 
 
 " We conquered the whooping-cough here with a penny- 
 worth of salt of tartar, after having filled them with the 
 
IV.] FOSTON 83 
 
 expensive poisons of Halford.^ What an odd thing that 
 such a specific should not be more known ! " 
 
 " I attended two of my children through a good stout fever 
 of the typhus kind without ever calling in an apothecary, 
 but for one day. I depended upon blessed antimony, and 
 watched anxiously for the time of giving bark." 
 
 "Douglas 2 alarmed us the other night with the Croup. 
 I darted into him all the mineral and vegetable resources 
 of my shop, cravatted his throat with blisters and fringed 
 it with leeches, and set him in five or six hours to playing 
 marbles, breathing gently and inaudibly." 
 
 After an unbealthy winter he writes : — 
 
 " Our evils have been want of water, and scarlet-fever in 
 our village ; where, in three quarters of a year, we have buried 
 fifteen, instead of one per annum. You will naturally sup- 
 pose I have killed all these people by doctoring them ; but 
 scarlet-fever awes me, and is above my aim. I leave it to 
 the professional and graduated homicides." ^ 
 
 In this connexion it is natural to cite the lines on 
 " The Poetical Medicine Chest," " which Mr. Stuart 
 Eeid has printed. They contain some excellent advice 
 about the drugs which a mother should provide for the 
 use of a young family, and end, majestically, thus: — 
 
 " Spare not in Eastern blasts, when babies die, 
 The wholesome rigour of the Spanish Fly. 
 From timely torture seek thy infant's rest, 
 And spread the poison on his labouring breast. 
 And so, fair lady, when in evil hour 
 Less prudent mothers mourn some faded flower, 
 Six Howards valiant, and six Howards fair 
 Shall live, and love thee, and reward thy care." 
 
 1 Sir Henry Halford, Bart., M.D. (1766-1844). 
 
 2 His eldest son. 
 
 3 Compare — *' The Sixth Commandment is suspended, by one 
 medical diploma, from the North of England to the South." — 
 Essay on " Persecuting Bishops." 
 
 4 Addressed to Mrs. Henry Howard. 
 
84 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 But parochial and domestic concerns could not 
 altogether divert Sydney Smith's mind from the 
 strife of politics. He watched the turmoil from afar. 
 On the 1st of January 1813, he wrote to his friend 
 John Allen, who was more sanguine than himself about 
 the prospects of the Whigs : — 
 
 " Everything is fast setting in for arbitrary power. The 
 Court will grow bolder and bolder, a struggle will commence, 
 and, if it ends as I wish, there will be Whigs again. . . . But 
 when these things come to pass, you will no longer be a 
 Warden,! but a brown and impalpable powder in the tombs 
 of Dulwich. In the meantime, enough of liberty will remain 
 to make our old-age tolerably comfortable ; and to your last 
 gasp you will remain in the perennial and pleasing delusion 
 that the Whigs are coming in, and will expire mistaking the 
 officiating clergyman for a King's Messenger." 
 
 While the new Eectory House at Foston was build- 
 ing, the Rector was wholly engrossed in the work. " I 
 live,'' he wrote, "trowel in hand. My whole soul is 
 filled up by lath and plaster. He laid the foundation- 
 stone in June 1813, and took possession of the com- 
 pleted edifice in March 1814. "My house was 
 considered the ugliest in the county, but all admitted 
 that it was one of the most comfortable." ^ It remains 
 to the present day pretty much as Sydney Smith 
 left it. A room on the ground-floor, next to the 
 drawing-room, served the threefold purposes of study, 
 dispensary, and justice-room. As a rule, he wrote 
 his sermons and his articles for the Edinburgh in 
 the drawing-room, not heeding the conversation of 
 family and visitors ; but in the " study " he dosed 
 
 1 John Allen (1771-1843) was Warden of Dulwich College. 
 
 2 Macaulay called it " the very neatest, most commodious, and 
 most appropriate rectory that I ever saw." 
 
IV.] rOSTON 85 
 
 his parishioners; and here, having been made a 
 Justice of the Peace, he administered mercy to 
 poachers. He hated the Game-Laws as they stood, 
 and it stirred his honest wrath to reflect that "for 
 every ten pheasants which fluttered in the wood, one 
 English peasant was rotting in gaol." So strong was 
 his belief in the contaminating effects of a prisoner's 
 life that he never, if he could help it, would commit 
 a boy or girl to gaol. He sought permission to accom- 
 pany Mrs. Fry on one of her visits to Newgate, and 
 spoke of her ministry there as "the most solemn, the 
 most Christian, the most affecting, which any human 
 eye ever witnessed." ^ A pleasing trait of his in- 
 cumbency at Foston was the creation of allotment- 
 gardens for the poor. He divided several acres of the 
 glebe into sixteenths, and let them, at a low rent, to 
 the villagers. Each allotment was just big enough to 
 supply a cottage with potatoes, and to support a pig. 
 Cheap food for the poor was another of his excellent 
 hobbies. His Common-Place Book contains receipts 
 for nourishing soups made of rice and peas and 
 flavoured with ox-cheek. He notes that more than 
 thirty people were comfortably fed with these con- 
 coctions at a penny a head. After a bad harvest he 
 and his family lived, like the labourers round them, on 
 unleavened cakes made from the damaged flour of the 
 sprouted wheat. His daughter writes — " The luxury 
 of returning to bread again can hardly be imagined by 
 those who have never been deprived of it." 
 
 1 In 1818 he writes to Lady Mary Bennet : — "I am glad you 
 liked what I said of Mrs. Fry. She is very unpopular with the 
 clergy: examples of living, active virtue disturb our repose, and 
 give birth to distressing comparisons: we long to burn her alive." 
 
86 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 But, in spite of occasional difficulties of this descrip- 
 tion, which were always faced and overcome with in- 
 vincible good-humour, Sydney Smith's fifteen years 
 at Foston were happily and profitably spent. He was 
 in the fulness of his physical and intellectual vigour. 
 He said of himself, " I am a rough writer of Sermons," 
 but his energy in delivering them awoke the admira- 
 tion of his sturdy flock. — 
 
 " When I began to thump the cushion of my pulpit, on first 
 coming to Foston, as is my wont when I preach, the accumu- 
 lated dust of a hundred and fifty years made such a cloud, 
 that for some minutes I lost sight of my congregation." ^ 
 
 His Bible-class for boys was affectionately remembered 
 sixty years afterwards.^ By his constant contributions 
 to the Edinburgh, he was both helping forward the great 
 causes in which he most earnestly believed, and estab- 
 lishing his own fame. Good health, cheerfulness, and 
 contentment reigned in the Rectory, which might well 
 have been called "A Temple of Industrious Peace." ^ 
 
 In spite of some small irregularities and oddities in 
 the furniture of the house and the arrangements of the 
 establishment — all of which the Rector habitually and 
 humorously exaggerated — the Rectory was an ex- 
 tremely comfortable home. It was so constructed as 
 to be full of air, light, and warmth. The Rector said 
 of it : — 
 
 "We are about equal to a second-rate inn, as Mrs. Sydney 
 says; but I think myself we are equal to any inn on the 
 North Road, except Ferrybridge." 
 
 1 Macaulay describes Foston Church as " a miserable little hovel 
 with a wooden belfry." 
 
 2 As testified by Mr. Stuart Reid. 
 
 8 Carlyle's description of Dr. Arnold's house at Rugby. 
 
IV.] FOSTON 87 
 
 The larder of this " second-rate inn " was pleasantly 
 supplied by the kindness of faithful friends. 
 
 "I am very much obliged to you for sending me the 
 pheasants. One of my numerous infirmities is a love of eat- 
 ing pheasants." — " Many thanks for two fine Gallicia hams ; 
 but, as for boiling them in wine, I am not as yet high enough 
 in the Church for that ; so they must do the best they can in 
 water." — " Lord Tankerville has sent me a whole buck ; this 
 necessarily takes up a good deal of my time. Venison is an 
 interesting subject, which is deemed among the clergy a 
 professional one." — " Your grouse are not come by this day's 
 mail, but I suppose they will come to-morrow. Even the 
 rumour of grouse is agreeable." — " Lord Lauderdale has sent 
 me two hundred and thirty pounds of salt fish." — " You have 
 no idea what a number of handsome things were said of you 
 when your six partridges were consumed to-day. Wit, lit- 
 erature, and polished manners were ascribed to you — some 
 good quality for each bird." — " What is real piety? What 
 is true attachment to the Church? How are these fine feel- 
 ings best evinced? The answer is plain — by sending straw- 
 berries to a clergyman. Many thanks." 
 
 To the hostelry, thus well victualled, and called by 
 its owner "The Eector's Head," many interesting 
 visitors found their way. Lord and Lady Holland, 
 Miss Fox, Miss Vernon, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir 
 Humphry Davy, Samuel Rogers, Dr. and Mrs. Marcet, 
 and Francis Jeffrey were among the earliest guests. 
 <^Mrs. Sydney was dreadfully alarmed about her 
 side-dishes the first time Luttrell ^ paid us a visit, and 
 grew pale as the covers were lifted; but they stood 
 the test. Luttrell tasted and praised." 
 
 The neighbours of whom the Smiths saw most 
 were Lord and Lady Carlisle,^ who drove over from 
 
 1 Henry Luttrell (1765-1835), wit and epicure. 
 
 2 Frederick, 5th Earl of Carlisle (1748-1825) married Lady 
 Margaret Caroline Leveson-Gower. 
 
88 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Castle Howard ^ in a coach-and-fonr with outriders, and 
 were upset in a ploughed field ; their son and daughter- 
 in-law, Lord and Lady Georgiana Morpeth, wdio with 
 their children made "no mean part of the population 
 of Yorkshire '' ; and the Archbishop of York, who 
 became one of the Smiths' kindest and most faithful 
 friends. Every year Sydney paid a visit to London, 
 receiving the warmest of welcomes from all his old 
 associates. In 1821 he revisited his friends at Edin- 
 burgh, and going or coming he visited Lord Grey 
 at Howick, Lord Tankerville at Chillingham, Lord 
 Lauderdale at Dunbar, and Mr. Lambton, afterwards 
 Lord Durham, at Lambton. At Chillingham he duly 
 admired the beef supplied by the famous herd of wild 
 cattle, but he admired still more the magnificent 
 novelty of gas at Lambton. — 
 
 " What use of wealth so luxurious and delightful as to light 
 your house with gas? What folly to have a diamond neck- 
 lace or a Correggio, and not to light your house with gas ! 
 The splendour and glory of Lambton Hall make all other 
 houses mean. How pitiful to submit to a farthing-candle 
 existence, when science puts such intense gratification within 
 your reach ! Dear lady, spend all your fortune in a gas- 
 apparatus. Better to eat dry bread by the splendour of gas, 
 than to dine on wild beef with wax candles 1 " 
 
 Another friend whom the Smiths visited regularly 
 was Mr., afterwards Sir George, Philips, an opulent 
 cotton-spinner of Manchester. Once, when staying 
 with Philips, Sydney undertook to preach a Charity 
 Sermon in Prestwich Church, and with reference to 
 this he wrote in the previous week : " I desire to make 
 
 1 In old age Sydney Smith wrote — "Castle Howard befriended 
 me when I wanted friends : I shall never forget it till I forget 
 all." 
 
IV.] rOSTON 89 
 
 three or four hundred weavers cry, whicli it is ini- 
 possible to do since the late rise in cottons/' 
 Writing from Philips's house in 1820 he says : — 
 
 " Phihps doubles his capital twice a week. We talk much 
 of cotton, more of the fine arts, as he has lately returned from 
 Italy, and purchased some pictures which were sent out from 
 Piccadilly on purpose to intercept him." 
 
 His daughter tells us that, during these years of 
 small income and large expenses, her father never 
 bought any books. He had brought a small but service- 
 able library with him from London, and his friends 
 made additions to it from time to time. He wrote to 
 a friend in 1810 : — 
 
 "I have read, since I saw you, Burke's works, some books 
 of Homer, Suetonius, a great deal of agricultural reading, God- 
 win's Enquirer, and a great deal of Adam Smith. As I have 
 scarcely looked at a book for five years, I am rather hungry." 
 
 Here are some of the plans which, year by year, he 
 laid down for the regulation of his studies : — 
 
 " Translate every day ten lines of the De Officiis, and 
 re-translate into Latin. Five chapters of Greek Testament. 
 Theological studies. Plato's Apology for Socrates; Horace's 
 Epochs, Epistles, Satires, and Ars Poetica." 
 
 " Write sermons and reviews, Monday, Wednesday, and 
 Friday. Pead, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Write ten 
 lines of Latin on writing days. Read five chapters of Greek 
 Testament on reading days. For morning reading, either 
 Polybius, or Diodorus Siculus, or some tracts of Xenophon 
 or Plato ; and for Latin, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius. 
 
 " Monday : write, morning ; read Tasso, evening. Tuesday : 
 Latin or Greek, morning; evening, theology. Wednesday, 
 same as Monday. Friday, ditto. Thursday and Saturday, 
 same as Tuesday. Read every day a chapter in Greek 
 Testament, and translate ten lines of Latin. Good books to 
 
90 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 read : — Terrasson's History of Roman Jurisprudence ; Bishop 
 of Chester's Records of the Creation." 
 
 His daughter says that he read with great rapidity. 
 "He galloped through the pages so rapidly that we 
 often laughed at him when he shut up a thick quarto 
 as his morning's work. ^ Cross-examine me, then/ he 
 said; and we generally found that he knew all that 
 was worth knowing in it." Here, obviously, is the 
 stuff out of which reviewers are made, and this was 
 the very zenith of Sydney Smith's power and useful- 
 ness in the Edinburgh Review. 
 
 He wrote as quickly as he read. When once he 
 had amassed the necessary facts, he sate down amid all 
 the distracting sights and sounds of a drawing-room 
 crowded with femininity, and wrote at full speed, 
 without deliberations, embellishments, or erasures; 
 only betraying by the movements of his expressive 
 face his amusement and interest " as fresh images came 
 clustering round his pen." As soon as the essay was 
 finished, he would throw it on the table, saying to his 
 wife, "There, Kate, just look it over — dot the I's and 
 cross the ^'s '^ ; and went out for his walk. It should 
 be added that his writing was singularly difficult to 
 read, that he was very infirm about spelling proper 
 names, and that he was exceptionally careless in 
 correcting his proofs. 
 
 Of those essays which he subsequently reprinted, as 
 judging them most worthy of preservation, I see that 
 by 1821 he had written fifty. Among these were such 
 masterpieces of humour and argument as " Edge worth 
 on Bulls," " Methodism," " Indian Missions," " Hannah 
 More," "Public Schools," "America," "Game-Laws" 
 and "Botany Bay." On the 19th of May 1820, he 
 
IV.] "PERSECUTING BISHOPS" 91 
 
 wrote, "I found in London both my articles very 
 popular — upon the Poor-Laws and America. The pas- 
 sage on Taxation had great success.'^ ^ Some of these 
 papers will be considered separately, when we come to 
 discuss his style and his opinions ; but space must 
 here be found for an unrivalled specimen of his contro- 
 versial method, which belongs to the year 1822. It is 
 called "Persecuting Bishops." "Is Bishops in that 
 title a nominative or an accusative ? '' grimly inquired a 
 living prelate, when the present writer was extolling the 
 essay so named. It is a nominative ; and perhaps the 
 exacter title would have been " A Persecuting Bishop." 
 Herbert Marsh ^ was Second Wrangler in 1779, 
 Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, Margaret 
 Professor of Divinity, Bishop of Llandaff from 1816 
 to 1819, and of Peterborough from 1819 till his death. 
 He was a "High Churchman of the old school" — 
 perhaps the most unpleasant type of theologian in 
 Christendom. We know, from the Life of Father 
 " Ignatius " Spencer,^ that Bishop Marsh played whist 
 with his candidates for Orders on the eve of the ordi- 
 nation, and all that we read about him beautifully 
 illustrates that tone of "quiet worldliness" which 
 Dean Church described as the characteristic of the 
 English clergy in the earlier part of the nineteenth 
 century. But what he lacked in personal devotion he 
 made up (as some have done since his day) by furious 
 hostility to spiritual and religious enthusiasm in 
 others. He opposed the civil claims alike of Roman 
 Catholics and of Dissenters. He attacked the Bible 
 Society. He denounced Charles Simeon. He insulted 
 
 1 See Appendix B. 2 (1757-1839). 
 
 8 The Hon. and Rev. George Spencer (1799-1864). 
 
92 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Isaac Milner ; and lie determined to purge his diocese 
 of Evangelicalism (which, oddly enough, he seems to 
 have identified with Calvinism). His manly resolve 
 to stifle religious earnestness culminated in the year 
 1820, when he drew up a set of eighty-seven questions, 
 which he proposed to every candidate for Orders, and 
 to every clergyman who sought his license to officiate. 
 Failure to answer these questions to the Bishop's sat- 
 isfaction was to be punished by exclusion from the 
 diocese of Peterborough. Happily, the Evangelical 
 clergy of that period was very little disposed to sit 
 down under Episcopal tyranny. The Bishop's set 
 of questions was met by a hailstorm of pamphlets. 
 Petitions for redress were poured into the House of 
 Lords. The Bishop was forced into the open, and 
 constrained to make the best defence he could in a 
 published speech. In November 1822, Sydney Smith, 
 in the Edinburgh Review, came to the assistance of his 
 brother-clergy against the high-handed tyranny of the 
 Persecuting Bishop. 
 
 The reviewer begins by giving the Bishop credit for 
 good intentions ; but maintains that his conduct has 
 been — 
 
 *' singularly injudicious, extremely harsh, and in its effects 
 (though not in its intentions) very oppressive and vexatious 
 to the clergy. . . . We cannot believe that we are doing 
 wrong in ranging ourselves on the weaker side, in the cause 
 of propriety and justice. The Mitre protects its wearer from 
 indignity; but it does not secure impunity." 
 
 After this preface Sydney Smith goes on to develop 
 his argument against the Bishop, and he starts with 
 the highly reasonable proposition that a man is pre- 
 sumably wrong when all his friends, whose habits and 
 
IV.] "PERSECUTING BISHOPS" 93 
 
 interests would naturally lead them to side with him, 
 think him wrong. — 
 
 "If a man were to indulge in taking medicine till the 
 apothecary, the druggist, and the physician all called upon 
 him to abandon his philocathartic propensities — if he were to 
 gratify his convivial habits till the landlord demurred and the 
 waiter shook his head — we should naturally imagine that 
 advice so disinterested was not given before it was wanted." 
 
 The Bishop of Peterborough has all his brother- 
 bishops against him, though they certainly love power 
 as well as he. Not one will defend him in debate ; 
 not one will allege that he has acted or would act as 
 Peterborough has acted. 
 
 Then, again, the bishop who refuses to license a 
 curate unless he satisfactorily answers Eighty-Seven 
 Questions, thereby puts himself in opposition to the 
 bishop who ordained the curate. One standard of 
 orthodoxy is established in one diocese; another in 
 another. The theological system of the Church 
 becomes local and arbitrary instead of national and 
 fixed. — 
 
 " If a man is a captain in the army in one part of England, 
 he is a captain in all. The general who commands north 
 of the Tweed does not say, ' You shall never appear in my 
 district, or exercise the functions of an officer, if you do not 
 answer eighty-seven questions on the art of war, according to 
 my notions.' The same officer who commands a ship of the 
 line in the Mediterranean is considered as equal to the same 
 office in the North Seas. The Sixth Commandment is sus- 
 pended by one medical diploma from, the North of England to 
 the South. '^ But, by the new system of interrogation, a man 
 maybe admitted into Orders at Barnet, rejected at Stevenage, 
 readmitted at Buckden, kicked out as a Calvinist at Witham 
 
 1 See p. 83. 
 
94 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Common, and hailed as an ardent Arminian on his arrival 
 at York." 
 
 The Bishop's reply to the charges brought against 
 him evinces surprise that any one should have the 
 hardihood to criticize or to resist him; and yet, the 
 reviewer asks, to what purpose has he read his eccle- 
 siastical history, if he expects anything except the 
 most strenuous opposition to his tyranny? — 
 
 " Does he think that every sturdy Supralapsarian bullock 
 whom he tries to sacrifice to the Genius of Orthodoxy will 
 not kick, and push, and toss; that he will not, if he can, 
 shake the axe from his neck, and hurl his mitred butcher into 
 the air? We know these men fully as well as the Bishop; 
 he has not a chance of success against them. They will 
 ravage, roar, and rush till the very chaplains, and the Masters 
 and Misses Peterborough, request his lordship to desist. He 
 is raising a storm in the English Church of which he has not 
 the slightest conception, and which will end, as it ought to 
 end, in his lordship's disgrace and defeat." 
 
 Then the reviewer goes on to urge that discretion 
 and common sense, good nature and good manners, 
 are qualities far more valuable in bishops than any 
 "vigilance of inquisition." Prelates of the type of 
 Bishop Marsh are the most dangerous enemies of the 
 Establishment which they profess to serve. — 
 
 " Six such Bishops, multiplied by eighty-seven, and working 
 with five hundred and twenty-two questions, would fetch 
 everything to the ground in six months. But what if it 
 pleased Divine Providence to afflict every prelate with the 
 spirit of putting eighty-seven questions, and the two Arch- 
 bishops with the spirit of putting twice as many, and the 
 Bishop of Sodor and Man with the spirit of putting forty-three 
 questions ? There would then be a grand total of two thousand 
 three hundred and thirty-five interrogations flying about the 
 
IV.] "PERSECUTING BISHOPS" 95 
 
 English Church, and sorely vexed would be the land with 
 Question and Answer. ... If eighty-seven questions are 
 assumed to be necessary by one bishop, eight hundred may 
 be considered as the minimum of interrogation by another. 
 When once the ancient faith-marks of the Church are lost 
 sight of and despised, any misled theologian may launch out 
 on the boundless sea of polemical vexation." 
 
 The Bishop's main line of defence, when challenged 
 in the House of Lords, was that he had a legal right 
 to do what he had done. This was not disputed. " A 
 man may persevere in doing what he has a right to 
 do till the Chancellor shuts him up in Bedlam, or till 
 the mob pelts him as he passes." But the reviewer 
 reminds him that he has no similar right as against 
 clergymen presented to benefices in his diocese. They 
 are protected by the patron's action of Quare Impedit ; 
 and all considerations of honour, decency, and common 
 sense should restrain the Bishop from " letting himself 
 loose against the working man of God," and enforcing 
 against the curate a system of inquisition which he 
 dare not apply to the incumbent. — 
 
 " Prelates are fond of talking about my see, my clergy, my 
 diocese, as if these things belonged to them as their pigs and 
 dogs belonged to them. They forget that the clergy, the 
 diocese, and the bishops themselves, all exist only for the 
 public good ; that the public are a third and principal party 
 in the whole concern. It is not simply the tormenting bishop 
 against the tormented curate; but the public against the 
 system of tormenting, as tending to bring scandal upon 
 religion and religious men. By the late alteration in the 
 laws,i the Labourers in the vineyard are given up to the 
 power of the Inspector of the vineyard. If he has the mean- 
 ness and malice to do so, an Inspector may worry and plague 
 
 1 The Residence Act, 1817. 
 
96 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 to death any Labourer against whom he may have conceived 
 an antipathy. . . . Men of very small incomes have often 
 very acute feelings, and a curate trod on feels a pang as 
 great as a bishop refuted." 
 
 Another of the Bishop's ways of defending himself 
 was to boast that, in spite of all his interrogations, he 
 has actually excluded only two curates from his dio- 
 cese: and this boast supplies the reviewer with one 
 of his best apologues. " So the Emperor of Hayti 
 boasted that he had only cut off two persons' heads 
 for disagreeable behaviour at his table. In spite of 
 the paucity of the visitors executed, the example oper- 
 ated as a considerable impediment to conversation ; and 
 the intensity of the punishment was found to be a full 
 compensation for its rarity." 
 
 In conclusion, the reviewer says : — " Now we have 
 done with the Bishop. . . . Our only object in med- 
 dling with the question is to restrain the arm of Power 
 within the limits of moderation and. justice — one of 
 the great objects which first led to the establishment 
 of this journal, and which, we hope, will always con- 
 tinue to characterize its efforts." 
 
 To this period also belong two splendid discourses 
 on the principles of Christian Justice, which Sydney 
 Smith, as Chaplain to the High Sheriff, preached in 
 York Minster at the Spring and Summer Assizes of 
 1824. The first is styled "The Judge that smites 
 contrary to the Law." ^ 
 
 At the outset, the preacher thus defines his 
 ground : — 
 
 "I take these words of St. Paul as a condemnation of that 
 1 Acts xxiii. 3. 
 
IV.] BENCH AND BAR 97 
 
 man who smites contrary to the law ; as a praise of that man 
 who judges according to the law ; as a religious theme upon 
 the importance of human Justice to the happiness of man- 
 kind : and, if it be that theme, it is appropriate to this place, 
 and to the solemn public duties of the past and the ensuing 
 week, over which some here present will preside, at which 
 many here present will assist, and which almost all here 
 present will witness." 
 
 A Christian Judge in a free land must sedulously 
 guard himself against the entanglements of Party. 
 He must be careful to maintain his independence by 
 seeking no promotion and asking no favours from 
 those who govern. It may often be his duty to stand 
 between the governors and the governed, and in that 
 case his hopes of advantage may be found on one side, 
 and his sense of duty on another. At such a crisis 
 lie is trebly armed, if he is able from his heart to say 
 — "I have vowed a vow before God. I have put on 
 the robe of justice. Farewell avarice, farewell ambi- 
 tion. Pass me who will, slight me who will, I will 
 live henceforward only for the great duties of life. 
 My business is on earth. My hope and my reward 
 are with God." 
 
 " He who takes the office of a Judge as it now exists in this 
 country, takes in his hands a splendid gem, good and glorious, 
 perfect and pure. Shall he give it up mutilated, shall he mar 
 it, shall he darken it, shall it emit no light, shall it be valued 
 at no price, shall it excite no wonder? Shall he find it a 
 diamond, shall he leave it a stone ? What shall we say to the 
 man who would wilfully destroy with fire the magnificent 
 temple of God, in which I am now preaching ? Far worse is 
 he who ruins the moral edifices of the world, which time and 
 toil, and many prayers to God, and many sufferings of men, 
 have reared ; who puts out the light of the times in which he 
 lives, and leaves us to wander amid the darkness of corruption 
 
 H 
 
98 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 and the desolation of sin. There may be, there probably is, 
 in this church, some young man who may hereafter fill the 
 office of an English Judge, when the greater part of those who 
 hear me are dead, and mingled with the dust of the grave. 
 Let him remember my words, and let them form and fashion 
 his spirit : he cannot tell in what dangerous and awful times 
 he may be placed ; but as a mariner looks to his compass in 
 the calm, and looks to his compass in the storm, and never 
 keeps his eyes off his compass, so in every vicissitude of a 
 judicial life, deciding for the people, deciding against the 
 people, protecting the just rights of kings, or restraining their 
 unlawful ambition, let him ever cling to that pure, exalted, 
 and Christian independence, which towers over the little 
 motives of life ; which no hope of favour can influence, which 
 no effort of power can control. 
 
 " A Christian Judge in a free country should respect, on 
 every occasion, those popular institutions of Justice, which 
 were intended for his control, and for our security. To see 
 humble men collected accidentally from the neighbourhood, 
 treated with tenderness and courtesy by supreme magistrates 
 of deep learning and practised understanding, from whose 
 views they are perhaps at that moment differing, and whose 
 directions they do not choose to follow ; to see at such times 
 every disposition to warmth restrained, and every tendency to 
 contemptuous feeling kept back ; to witness the submission of 
 the great and wise, not when it is extorted by necessity, but 
 when it is practised with willingness and grace, is a spectacle 
 which is very grateful to Englishmen, which no other country 
 sees, which, above all things, shows that a Judge has a pure, 
 gentle, and Christian heart, and that he never wishes to smite 
 contrary to the law. 
 
 " A Christian Judge who means to be just must not fear to 
 smite according to the law ; he must remember that he beareth 
 not the sword in vain. Under his protection we live, under 
 his protection we acquire, under his protection we enjoy. 
 Without him, no man would defend his character, no man 
 would preserve his substance. Proper pride, just gains, 
 valuable exertions, all depend upon his firm wisdom. If he 
 shrink from the severe duties of his office, he saps the f ounda- 
 
IV.] BENCH AND BAR 99 
 
 tion of social life, betrays the highest interests of the world, 
 and sits not to judge according to the law." 
 
 But Justice, if it is to be truly just, must be 
 tempered by mercy, and must have a scrupulous 
 regard to the strength of temptation, the moral 
 weakness of the subject, the degrading power of 
 ignorance and poverty. — 
 
 " All magistrates feel these things in the early exercise 
 of their judicial power ; but the Christian Judge always feels 
 them, is always youthful, always tender, when he is going to 
 shed human blood ; retires from the business of men, com- 
 munes with his own heart, ponders on the work of death, and 
 prays to that Saviour who redeemed him that he may not 
 shed the blood of man in vain." 
 
 A pure, secure, and even-handed administration of 
 Justice is the strongest safeguard of national stability 
 and happiness. — 
 
 " The whole tone and tenor of public morals is affected by 
 the state of supreme Justice ; it extinguishes revenge, it 
 communicates a spirit of purity and uprightness to inferior 
 magistrates ; it makes the great good, by taking away im- 
 punity; it banishes fraud, obliquity, and solicitation, and 
 teaches men that the law is their right. Truth is its handmaid, 
 freedom is its child, peace is its companion ; safety walks in 
 its steps, victory follows in its train : it is the brightest emana- 
 tion of the Gospel, it is the greatest attribute of God : it is 
 that centre round which human motives and passions turn : 
 and Justice, sitting on high, sees Genius and Power, and 
 Wealth and Birth, revolving round her throne ; and teaches 
 their paths and marks out their orbits, and warns with a loud 
 voice, and rules with a strong arm, and carries order and 
 discipline into a world, which but for her would only be a 
 wild waste of passions. Look what we are, and what just laws 
 have done for us : — a land of piety and charity ; — a land of 
 churches, and hospitals, and altars; — a nation of good 
 
 LafC. 
 
100 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Samaritans; — a people of universal compassion. All lands, 
 all seas, have heard we are brave. We have just sheathed 
 that sword which defended the world; we have just laid down 
 that buckler which covered the nations of the earth. God 
 blesses the soil with fertility ; English looms labour for every 
 climate. All the waters of the globe are covered with English 
 ships. "We are softened by fine arts, civilized by humane 
 literature, instructed by deep science ; and every people, as 
 they break their feudal chains, look to the founders and 
 fathers of freedom for examples which may animate, and 
 rules which may guide. If ever a nation was happy, if ever 
 a nation was visibly blessed by God — if ever a nation was 
 honoured abroad, and left at home under a government (which 
 we can now conscientiously call a liberal government) to the 
 full career of talent, industry, and vigour, we are at this 
 moment that people — and this is our happy lot. — First the 
 Gospel has done it, and then Justice has done it ; and he who 
 thinks it his duty to labour that this happy condition of 
 existence may remain, must guard the piety of these times, 
 and he must watch over the spirit of Justice which exists in 
 these times. First, he must take care that the altars of God. 
 are not polluted, that the Christian faith is retained in purity 
 and in perfection : and then turning to human affairs, let him 
 strive for spotless, incorruptible Justice ; — praising, honour- 
 ing, and loving the just Judge, and abhorring, as the worst 
 enemy of mankind, him who is placed there to ' judge after 
 the law, and who smites contrary to the law.' " 
 
 The second of these sermons is called " The Lawyer 
 that tempted Christ." ^ The preacher begins by point- 
 ing out that the Lawyer who, in the hope of entangling 
 the new Teacher, asked what he should do to inherit 
 eternal life, received a very plain answer — " not flowery, 
 not metaphysical, not doctrinal.'^ The answer was, in 
 effect, thus : " If you wish to live eternally, do your 
 duty to God and man." Whereas the earlier sermon 
 
 1 St. Luke X. 25. 
 
IV.] BENCH AND BAR 101 
 
 was addressed to the Bench, this is addressed, very 
 directly indeed, to the Bar. 
 
 " There are probably in this church many persons of the 
 profession of the law, who have often asked before, with 
 better faith than their brother, and who do now ask this 
 great question, ' What wshall I do to inherit eternal life?' I 
 shall, therefore, direct to them some observations on the par- 
 ticular duties they owe to society, because I think it suitable 
 to this particular season, because it is of much more impor- 
 tance to tell men how they are to be Christians in detail, than 
 to exhort them to be Christians generally ; because it is of 
 the highest utility to avail ourselves of these occasions, to 
 show to classes of mankind what those virtues are, which 
 they have more frequent and valuable opportunities of prac- 
 tising, and what those faults and vices are, to which they 
 are more particularly exposed. 
 
 " It falls to the lot of those who are engaged in the active 
 and arduous profession of the law to pass their lives in great 
 cities, amidst severe and incessant occupation, requiring all 
 the faculties, and calling forth, from time to time, many of 
 the strongest passions of our nature. In the midst of all this, 
 rivals are to be watched, superiors are to be cultivated, con- 
 nexions cherished; some portion of life must be given to 
 society, and some little to relaxation and amusement. When, 
 then, is the question to be asked, ' What shall I do to inherit 
 eternal life?' what leisure for the altar, what time for God? 
 I appeal to the experience of men engaged in this profession, 
 whether religious feelings and religious practices are not, 
 without any speculative disbelief, perpetually sacrificed to 
 the business of the world? Are not the habits of devotion 
 gradually displaced by other habits of solicitude, hurry, and 
 care ? Is not the taste for devotion lessened ? Is not the time 
 for devotion abridged? Are you not more and more con- 
 quered against your warnings and against your will ; not, per- 
 haps, without pain and compunction, by the Mammon of life ? 
 And what is the cure for this great evil to which your profes- 
 sion exposes you? The cure is, to keep a sacred place in your 
 heart, where Almighty God is enshrined, and where nothing 
 
102 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 human can enter ; to say to the world, ' Thus far shalt thou 
 go, and no further ' ; to remember you are a lawyer, without 
 forgetting you are a Christian ; to wish for no more wealth 
 than ought to be possessed by an inheritor of the Kingdom of 
 Heaven ; to covet no more honour than is suitable to a child 
 of God ; boldly and bravely to set yourself limits, and to show 
 to others you have limits, and that no professional eagerness, 
 and no professional activity, shall ever induce you to infringe 
 upon the rules and practices of religion : remember the text ; 
 put the great question really, which the tempter of Christ 
 only pretended to put. In the midst of your highest success, 
 in the most perfect gratification of your vanity, in the most 
 ample increase of your wealth, fall down at the feet of Jesus, 
 and say, ' Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? ' " 
 
 The advocate's duty to his client, with its resulting 
 risk to the advocate's own conscience, is thus set 
 forth : — 
 
 " Justice is found, experimentally, to be most effectually 
 promoted by the opposite efforts of practised and ingenious 
 men presenting to the selection of an impartial judge the best 
 arguments for the establishment and explanation of truth. 
 It becomes, then, under such an arrangement, the decided 
 duty of an advocate to use all the arguments in his power to 
 defend the cause he has adopted, and to leave the effects of 
 those arguments to the judgment of others. However useful 
 this practice may be for the promotion of public justice, it is 
 not without danger to the individual whose practice it be- 
 comes. It is apt to produce a profligate indifference to truth in 
 higher occasions of life, where truth cannot for a moment be 
 trifled with, much less callously trampled on, much less sud- 
 denly and totally yielded up to the basest of human motives. 
 It is astonishing what unworthy and inadequate notions men 
 are apt to form of the Christian faith. Christianity does not 
 insist upon duties to an individual, and forget the duties which 
 are owing to the great mass of individuals, which we call our 
 country ; it does not teach you how to benefit your neighbour, 
 and leave you to inflict the most serious injuries upon all 
 
IV.] BENCH AND BAR 103 
 
 whose interest is bound up with you in the same land. I 
 need not say to this congregation that there is a wrong and a 
 right in public affairs, as there is a wrong and a right in 
 private affairs. I need not prove that in any vote, in any line 
 of conduct which affects the public interest, every Christian 
 is bound, most solemnly and most religiously, to follow the 
 dictates of his conscience. Let it be for, let it be against, let 
 it please, let it displease, no matter with whom it sides, or 
 what it thwarts, it is a solemn duty, on such occasions, to act 
 from the pure dictates of conscience, and to be as faithful to 
 the interests of the great mass of your fellow-creatures, as you 
 would be to the interests of any individual of that mass. 
 Why, then, if there be any truth in these observations, can 
 that man be pure and innocent before God, can he be quite 
 harmless and respectable before men, who in mature age, at a 
 moment's notice, sacrifices to wealth and power all the fixed 
 and firm opinions of his life ; who puts his moral principles to 
 sale, and barters his dignity and his soul for the baubles of the 
 world ? If these temptations come across you, then remember 
 the memorable words of the text, ' What shall I do to inherit 
 eternal life ? ' " 
 
 After warning the younger barristers against their 
 characteristic faults of self-sufficiency and affected 
 pessimism, the preacher turns to another aspect of 
 the advocate's duty towards his client. — 
 
 " Upon those who are engaged in studying the laws of their 
 country devolves the honourable and Christian task of defend- 
 ing the accused : a sacred duty never to be yielded up, never 
 to be influenced by any vehemence, nor intensity of public 
 opinion. In these times of profound peace and unexampled 
 prosperity, there is little danger in executing this duty, and 
 little temptation to violate it : but human affairs change like 
 the clouds of heaven ; another year may find us, or may leave 
 us, in all the perils and bitterness of internal dissension ; and 
 upon one of you may devolve the defence of some accused 
 person, the object of men's hopes and fears, the single point 
 on which the eyes of a whole people are bent. These are the 
 
104 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 occasions which try a man's inward heart, and separate the 
 dross of human nature from the gold of human nature. On 
 these occasions, never mind being mixed up for a moment with 
 the criminal, and the crime ; fling yourself back upon great 
 principles, fling yourself back upon God ; yield not one atom 
 to violence ; suffer not the slightest encroachments of injustice; 
 retire not one step before the frowns of power ; tremble not, 
 for a single instant, at the dread of misrepresentation. The 
 great interests of mankind are placed in your hands ; it is not 
 so much the individual you are defending ; it is not so much 
 a matter of consequence whether this, or that, is proved to be 
 a crime ; but on such occasions, you are often called upon to 
 defend the occupation of a defender, to take care that the 
 sacred rights belonging to that character are not destroyed; 
 that that best privilege of your profession, which so much 
 secures our regard, and so much redounds to your credit, is 
 never soothed by flattery, never corrupted by favour, never 
 chilled by fear. You may practise this wickedness secretly, 
 as you may any other wickedness ; you may suppress a topic 
 of defence, or soften an attack upon opponents, or weaken 
 your own argument and sacrifice the man who has put his 
 trust in you, rather than provoke the powerful by the 
 triumphant establishment of unwelcome innocence: but if 
 you do this, you are a guilty man before God. It is better 
 to keep within the pale of honour, it is better to be pure in 
 Christ, and to feel that you are pure in Christ : and if ever 
 the praises of mankind are sweet, if it be ever allowable to a 
 Christian to breathe the incense of popular favour, and to say 
 it is grateful and good, it is when the honest, temperate, 
 unyielding advocate, who has protected innocence from the 
 grasp of power, is followed from the hall of judgment by the 
 prayers and blessings of a grateful people." 
 
 And then comes an admonition about private duty. — 
 
 " Do not lose God in the fervour and business of the world ; 
 remember that the churches of Christ are more solemn, and 
 more sacred, than your tribunals : bend not before the judges 
 of the king, and forget the Judge of Judges ; search not other 
 
IV.] BENCH AND BAR 105 
 
 men's hearts without heeding that your own hearts will be 
 searched ; be innocent in the midst of subtility ; do not carry 
 the lawful arts of your profession beyond your profession ; but 
 when the robe of the advocate is laid aside, so live that no 
 man shall dare to suppose your opinions venal, or that your 
 talents and energy may be bought for a price : do not heap 
 scorn and contempt upon your declining years by precipitate 
 ardour for success in your profession ; but set out with a firm 
 determination to be unknown, rather than ill-known ; and to 
 rise honestly, if you rise at all. Let the world see that you 
 have risen, because the natural probity of your heart leads you 
 to truth ; because the precision and extent of your legal know- 
 ledge enables you to find the right way of doing the right 
 thing; because a thorough knowledge of legal art and legal 
 form is, in your hands, not an instrument of chicanery, but 
 the plainest, easiest and shortest way to the end of strife. . . . 
 I hope you will weigh these observations, and apply them to 
 the business of the ensuing week, and beyond that, in the 
 common occupations of your profession : always bearing in 
 your minds the emphatic words of the text, and often in the 
 hurry of your busy, active lives, honestly, humbly, heartily 
 exclaiming to the Son of God, ' Master, what shall I do to 
 inherit eternal life ? ' " 
 
CHAPTEE V 
 
 " CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION " BRISTOL — COMBE 
 
 FLOREY — REFORM — PROMOTION 
 
 The first quarter of the nineteentli century was now 
 nearing its close, and the most exciting topic in 
 domestic politics was the emancipation of the Eoman 
 Catholics. The movement in favour of emancipation, 
 though checked by the death of Pitt, had never com- 
 pletely collapsed, and now it was quickened by the 
 exertions of the " Catholic Association '^ in Ireland, and 
 stimulated by the eloquence of O'Connell and Shell. 
 Session after Session, emancipating Bills were brought 
 into Parliament, and were supported by Castlereagh 
 and Canning in opposition to their colleagues. The 
 clergy of the Church of England — fashioned, almost 
 to a man, on the model of Abraham Plymley — were 
 dreadfully alarmed. Bishops charged against the pro- 
 posed concession. Clerical meetings all over the 
 country petitioned Parliament to defend them against 
 insidious attacks on our national Protestantism. Before 
 long, the storm rolled up to Yorkshire, and a meet- 
 ing of the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Cleveland 
 was assembled at Thirsk on the 24th of March 1823. 
 To this meeting a Eesolution was submitted, protest- 
 ing against the emancipation of the Roman Catholics. 
 A counter-petition was submitted by Sydney Smith, 
 
 106 
 
CHAP, v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION" 107 
 
 begging for an inquiry into all laws affecting tlie 
 Eoman Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland, and 
 " expressing a hope '^ that only those which were ab- 
 solutely necessary to the safety of Church and State 
 might be suffered to remain. It is difficult to conceive 
 a milder proposition, but it was defeated by twenty- 
 two votes to ten — Archdeacon Wrangham^ and the 
 Kev. William Yernon,^ son of the Archbishop of York, 
 voting in the minority. Sydney Smith's speech in 
 support of his motion recapitulated the main argu- 
 ments which, as Peter Plymley, he had adduced at an 
 earlier stage of the same controversy. He urged that 
 a Koman Catholic's oath was as sacred and as binding 
 as a Protestant's ; that the English Constitution, with 
 great advantage to its subjects, tolerated, and behaved 
 generously to, all forms of religion (except Komanism) ; 
 and that all possible danger to civil order in Ireland 
 was averted by the stringency of the restrictions 
 with which it was proposed to safeguard the gift of 
 Emancipation. — 
 
 " I defy Dr. Duigenan,^ in the full vigour of his incapacity, 
 in the strongest access of that Protestant epilepsy with which 
 he was so often convulsed, to have added a single security 
 to the security of that oath. If Catholics are formidable, 
 are not Protestant members elected by Catholics formidable ? 
 But what will the numbers of the Catholics be ? Five or six 
 in one house, and ten or twelve in the other ; and this I state 
 upon the printed authority of Lord Harrowby, the tried and 
 acknowledged friend of our Church, the amiable and revered 
 
 1 Francis Wrangham (1769-1842), ArcMeacon of Cleveland. 
 
 2 William Vernon-Harcourt (1789-1871), father of Sir William 
 Vernon-Harcourt, M.P. 
 
 3 Patrick Duigenan (1735-1816), LL.D., M.P. for the City of 
 Armagh, and Protestant agitator. 
 
108 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 patron of its poorest members. The Catholics did not rebel 
 during the war carried on for a Catholic king, in the year 
 1715, nor in 1745. The government armed the Catholics in 
 the American war. The last rebellion no one pretends to 
 have been a Catholic rebellion ; the leaders were, with one 
 exception, all Protestants. The king of Prussia, the emperor 
 of Russia, do not complain of their Catholic subjects. The 
 Swiss cantons, Catholic and Protestant, live together in 
 harmony and peace. Childish prophecies of danger are al- 
 ways made, and always falsified. The Church of England 
 (if you will believe some of its members) is the most fainting, 
 sickly, hysterical institution that ever existed in the world. 
 Every thing is to destroy it, every thing to work its dissolu- 
 tion and decay. If money is taken for tithes, the Church of 
 England is to perish. If six old Catholic peers, and twelve 
 commoners, come into Parliament, these holy hypochondriacs 
 tear their hair, and beat their breast, and mourn over the 
 ruin of their Established Church ! The Eanter is cheerful and 
 confident. The Presbyterian stands upon his principles. The 
 Quaker is calm and contented. The strongest, and wisest, and 
 best establishment in the world, suffers in the full vigour of 
 manhood, all the fears and the tremblings of extreme old age. 
 
 " I conclude. Sir, remarks which, upon such a subject, might 
 be carried to almost any extent, with presenting to you a 
 petition to Parliament, and recommending it for the adoption 
 of this meeting. And upon this petition, I beg leave to say 
 a few words : — I am the writer of the petition I lay before 
 you; and I have endeavoured to make it as mild and 
 moderate as I possibly could. If I had consulted my own 
 opinions alone, I should have said, that the disabling laws 
 against the Catholics were a disgrace to the statute-book, 
 and that every principle of justice, prudence, and humanity 
 called for their immediate repeal; but he who wishes to do 
 any thing useful in this world, must consult the opinions of 
 others as well as his own. I knew very well if I had 
 proposed such a petition to my excellent friends, the Arch- 
 deacon and Mr. William Vernon, it w^ould not have suited 
 the mildness and moderation of their character, that they 
 
v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION" 109 
 
 should accede to it ; and I knew very well, that without the 
 authority of their names, I could have done nothing. The 
 present petition, when proposed to them by me, met, as I 
 expected, with their ready and cheerful compliance. But 
 though I propose this petition as preferable to the other, I 
 should infinitely prefer that we do nothing, and disperse 
 without coming to any resolution. 
 
 " I am sick of these little clerico-political meetings. They 
 bring a disgrace upon us and upon our profession, and make 
 us hateful in the eyes of the laity. The best thing we could 
 have done, would have been never to have met at all. The 
 next best thing we can do (now we are met), is to do nothing. 
 The third choice is to take my petition. The fourth, last, 
 and worst, to adopt your own. The wisest thing I have 
 heard here to-day, is the proposition of Mr. Chaloner, that 
 we should burn both petitions, and ride home. Here we are, 
 a set of obscure country clergymen, at the 'Three Tuns,' 
 at Thirsk, like flies on the chariot-wheel; perched upon a 
 question of which we can neither see the diameter, nor control 
 the motion, nor influence the moving force. "What good can 
 such meetings do ? They emanate from local conceit, adver- 
 tize local ignorance ; make men, who are venerable by their 
 profession, ridiculous by their pretensions, and swell that 
 mass of paper-lumber, which, got up with infinite rural 
 bustle, and read without being heard in Parliament, is 
 speedily consigned to merited contempt." ^ 
 
 1 The Yorkshire Gazette for April 12, 1823, contains a long 
 letter from "A North Riding Clergyman," protesting against 
 the language used by Sydney Smith. This clergyman states 
 that the report of the meeting at Thirsk, given by the York 
 Herald of March 29, was "unquestionably by the Minority 
 themselves." It " prof esses to be a sketch of what was said and 
 done at the meeting of the North Riding Clergy. Then the public 
 is favoured with three considerable speeches, filling three close 
 columns of a newspaper, on the one side ; and not with three 
 lines, nay, not with one, of anything said on the other side. 
 . . . Surely the whole of the twenty-two clergymen who dif- 
 fered from the ten were not so astounded by the eloquence and 
 display of their opponents as to remain absolutely speechless." It 
 
110 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 So ended Sydney Smith's first political speech ; and 
 he took two years' holiday from the labours of the 
 platform. On the 11th of April 1825, he returned 
 to the charge. He had now acquired, in addition to 
 Foston, the Kectory of Londesborough, which he held 
 from 1823 to 1829, as " warming-pan " for his young 
 friend and neighbour, William Howard.^ As Eector of 
 Londesborough, he attended a meeting of the Clergy 
 of the Archdeaconry of the East Riding, held at 
 Beverley to protest against the Roman Catholic claims. 
 
 The Torkshire Gazette reported the proceedings, and 
 commented as follows : — 
 
 is further said that " on the present occasion, and after assuring 
 his learned brethren that he was not going to inflict upon them 
 a speech, and some other remarks of similar accuracy, Mr. 
 Smith immediately harangues them in a vehement and long 
 speech ; during which, with firm resolve, it may seem, not to 
 possess either 'overheated mind' or body, he nearly exhausted 
 the ' Three Tuns ' of water." For this quotation, and for the date 
 of the meeting, which had been erroneously stated by previous 
 writers, I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. J. S. R. Phillips, 
 editor of the Yorkshire Post. 
 
 1 (1808-1889) : became 8th Earl of Carlisle in 1864. The Rev. 
 Richard Wilton, Canon of York and Rector of Londesborough, 
 wrote in 1895: — "My former venerable friend, the oldest 
 inhabitant, gave me some graphic descriptions of Sydney Smith's 
 visit to the parish once or twice a year, and the interest which 
 was felt in the village when he drove over from Foston, his other 
 living, to preach an occasional sermon at Londesborough. His 
 reading, and manner in the pulpit, were described to me as 
 having been 'bold and impressive.' As soon as the sermon was 
 over, he would hasten out of the church along with his 
 hearers, and chat with the farmers about their turnips, or cattle, 
 or corn-crops, being anxious to utilize his scant opportunities of 
 conversing with his parishioners. . . . There was until lately 
 living in this parish an old man aged eighty, who was proud of 
 telling how he was invited over to Foston to ' brew for Sydney,' as 
 he affectionately called him." 
 
v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION" 111 
 
 " The meeting was unanimous in its determination to pe- 
 tition Parliament against the claims of the Roman Catholics 
 
 — one individual only excepted, the Rector of Londesborough. 
 This gentleman made his speech on the occasion, enlarging 
 on the inexpediency of refusing the Roman Catholics their 
 claims. . . . The meeting, though by no means unprepared to 
 hear extraordinary things from the Rector of Londesborough, 
 as they had reason to anticipate from the proceedings of a 
 meeting in another Archdeaconry about two years ago, were 
 yet perfectly astonished to hear him assert that the Roman 
 Catholic religion is now changed from what it was formerly, 
 and that the oath of a Papist may, in all cases, be relied 
 upon with the same confidence as that of a Protestant. . . . 
 It is certainly due to the Rector of Londesborough to state 
 in conclusion that he bore his defeat with his usual good 
 humour, and further that, having learned previous to the 
 meeting the intention of his curate to attend, but that he 
 was hesitating out of delicacy to the declared opinions of his 
 rector, the latter gentleman made it a particular request to 
 his curate that he would persevere in his original intention." 
 
 Sydney Smith's peroration, though it failed to per- 
 suade his brother-clergy, is so good that it deserves to 
 be reproduced. — 
 
 "AYhen this bill passes, it will be a signal to all the 
 religious sects of that unhappy country to lay aside their 
 mutual hatred, and to live in peace, as equal men should live 
 under equal law — when this bill passes, the Orange flag 
 will fall — when this bill passes, the Green flag of the rebel 
 will fall — when this bill passes, no other flag will fly in the 
 land of Erin than that which blends the Lion with the Harp 
 
 — that flag which, wherever it does fly, is the sign of freedom 
 and of joy — the only banner in Europe which floats over a 
 limited King and a free people." 
 
 On this occasion the orator fared even less well than 
 before in the matter of votes. His "excellent and 
 respectable curate, Mr. Milestone,"^ voted against 
 
 1 Mr. Stuart Reid gives to this curious name the more impressive 
 form of Mayelstone. 
 
112 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 him ; and he was left in a minority of one. But he 
 had the satisfaction of being able to write to a friend 
 — "A poor clergyman whispered to me that he was 
 quite of my way of thinking, but had nine children. 
 / begged he would remain a Protestant.'^ 
 
 By this time the life of the Parliament, which had 
 been elected on the demise of the Crown in 1820, was 
 running out, and both parties were making vigorous 
 preparations for the General Election. On the 29th 
 January 1826, Sydney Smith wrote to Lady Grey : — 
 
 " Terrible work in Yorkshire with the Pope ! I fight with 
 the beasts at Ephesus every day. . . . This week I publish 
 a pamphlet on the Catholic question, with my name to it. 
 There is such an uproar here that I think it is gallant, and 
 becoming a friend of Lord Grey's, to turn out and take a 
 part in the affray. . . . What a detestable subject ! — stale, 
 threadbare, and exhausted; but ancient errors cannot be 
 met with fresh refutations." 
 
 Not with fresh refutations, perhaps, but with a 
 wonderful prodigality of fresh illustrations and con- 
 ceits. A Letter to the Electors upon the Catholic Ques- 
 tion begins with the thrice-repeated question, " Why is 
 not a Catholic to be believed on his oath ? " 
 
 " What says the law of the land to this extravagant piece 
 of injustice? It is no challenge against a juryman to say 
 he is a Catholic; he sits in judgment upon your life and 
 your property. Did any man ever hear it said that such or 
 such a person was put to death, or that he lost his property, 
 because a Catholic was among the jurymen ? Is the ques- 
 tion ever put ? Does it ever enter into the mind of the 
 attorney or the counsellor to enquire of the faith of the 
 jury? If a man sell a horse, or a house, or a field, does he 
 ask if the purchaser be a Catholic? Appeal to your own 
 experience, and try, by that fairest of all tests, the justice of 
 this enormous charge. 
 
v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION" 113 
 
 " We are in treaty with many of the powers of Europe, 
 because we believe in the good faith of Catholics. Two-thirds 
 of Europe are, in fact, Catholics ; are they all perjured ? Eor 
 the first fourteen centuries all the Christian world were 
 Catholics ; did they live in a constant state of perjury ? I am 
 sure these objections against the Catholics are often made by 
 very serious and honest men, but I much doubt if Voltaire 
 has advanced any thing against the Christian religion so 
 horrible as to say that two-thirds of those who profess it are 
 unfit for all the purposes of civil life ; for who is fit to live in 
 society who does not respect oaths ? 
 
 " I have lived a little in the world, but I never happened 
 to hear a single Catholic even suspected of getting into office 
 by violating his oath ; the oath which they are accused of 
 violating is an insuperable barrier to them all. Is there a 
 more disgraceful spectacle in the world than that of the Duke 
 of Norfolk hovering round the House of Lords in the execution 
 of his office,^ which he cannot enter as a peer of the realm? 
 disgraceful to the bigotry and injustice of his country — to his 
 own sense of duty, honourable in the extreme : he is the 
 leader of a band of ancient and high-principled gentlemen, 
 who submit patiently to obscurity and privation rather than 
 do violence to their conscience. In all the fury of party, I 
 never heard the name of a single Catholic mentioned, who 
 was suspected of having gained, or aimed at, any political 
 advantage, by violating his oath. I have never heard so 
 bitter a slander supported by the slightest proof. Every man 
 in the circle of his acquaintance has met with Catholics, and 
 lived with them probably as companions. If this immoral 
 lubricity were their characteristic, it would surely be per- 
 ceived in common life. Every man's experience would cor- 
 roborate the imputation; but I can honestly say that some 
 of the best and most excellent men I have ever met with have 
 been Catholics; perfectly alive to the evil and inconvenience 
 of their situation, but thinking themselves bound by the law 
 of God and the law of honour, not to avoid persecution by 
 
 1 As Earl Marshal. 
 
114 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 falsehood and apostasy. I remember hearing the Catholics 
 accused from the Hustings of disregarding oaths, and within 
 an hour of that time I saw five Catholic voters rejected, 
 because they would not take the oath of Supremacy ; and 
 these were not men of rank who tendered themselves, but 
 ordinary tradesmen. The accusation was received with loud 
 huzzas, the poor Catholics retired unobserved and in silence. 
 No one praised the conscientious feeling of the constituents; 
 no one rebuked the calumny of the candidate. 
 
 "I beg to remind you, that in talking of the Catholic 
 religion, you must talk of the Catholic religion as it is carried 
 on in Ireland ; you have nothing to do with Spain, or France, 
 or Italy : the religion you are to examine is the Irish Catholic 
 religion. You are not to consider what it was, but what it 
 is; not what individuals profess, but what is generally pro- 
 fessed; not what individuals do, but what is generally 
 practised. I constantly see, in advertisements from county 
 meetings, all these species of monstrous injustice played off 
 against the Catholics. The Inquisition exists in Spain and 
 Portugal, therefore I confound place, and vote against the 
 Catholics of Ireland, where it never did exist, nor was 
 purposed to be instituted. There have been many cruel perse- 
 cutions of Protestants by Catholic governments ; and, there- 
 fore, I will confound time and place, and vote against the 
 Irish, who live centuries after these persecutions, and in a 
 totally different country. Doctor this, or Doctor that, of the 
 Catholic Church has written a very violent and absurd 
 pamphlet; therefore I will confound persons, and vote 
 against the whole Irish Catholic Church, which has neither 
 sanctioned nor expressed any such opinions. I will continue 
 the incapacities of men of this age, because some men, in distant 
 ages, deserved ill of other men in distant ages. They shall 
 expiate the crimes committed, before they were born, in a 
 land they never saw ; by individuals they never heard of. I 
 will charge them with every act of folly which they have 
 never sanctioned and cannot control. I will sacrifice space, 
 time, and identity, to my zeal for the Protestant Church. 
 
v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION" 115 
 
 Now, in the midst of all this violence, consider, for a moment, 
 how you are imposed on by words, and what a serious viola- 
 tion of the rights of your feUow-creatures you are committing. 
 Mr. Murphy lives in Limerick, and Mr. Murphy and his son 
 are subjected to a thousand inconveniences and disadvantages 
 because they are Catholics. Murphy is a wealthy, honour- 
 able, excellent man ; he ought to be in the corporation ; he 
 cannot get in because he is a Catholic. His son ought to be 
 King's Counsel for his talents, and his standing at the Bar ; 
 he is prevented from reaching this dignity, because he is a 
 Catholic. Why, what reasons do you hear for all this? 
 Because Queen Mary, three hundred years before the natal 
 day of Mr. Murphy, murdered Protestants in Smithfield; 
 because Louis xiv. dragooned his Protestant subjects, when 
 the predecessor of Murphy's predecessor was not in being ; 
 because men are confined in prison, in Madrid, twelve 
 degrees more south than Murphy has ever been in his life ; 
 all ages, all climates, are ransacked to perpetuate the slavery 
 of Murphy, the ill-fated victim of political anachronisms. 
 
 " When are mercy and justice, in fact, ever to return upon 
 the earth, if the sins of the elders are to be for ever visited on 
 those who are not even their children ! Should the first act of 
 liberated Greece be to recommence the Trojan war ? Are the 
 French never to forget the Sicilian Vespers ; or the Americans 
 the long war waged against their liberties V Is any rule wise, 
 which may set the Irish to recollect what they have suffered ? 
 
 " It is no part of my province to defend every error of the 
 Catholic Church ; I believe it has many errors, though I am 
 sure these errors are grievously exaggerated and misrepre- 
 sented. . . . But, if you will take a long view instead of a 
 confined view, and look generally to the increase of human 
 happiness, the best check upon the increase of Popery, the best 
 security for the establishment of the Protestant Church is, that 
 the British empire shall be preserved in a state of the greatest 
 strength, union, and opulence. My cry then is, No Popery ; 
 therefore emancipate the Catholics, that they may not join 
 
116 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 with foreign Papists in time of war. Churclifor ever ; therefore 
 emancipate the Catholics, that they may not help to pull it down. 
 King for ever] therefore emancipate the Catholics, that they 
 may become his loyal subjects. Great Britain for ever ; there- 
 fore emancipate the Catholics, that they may not put an end 
 to its perpetuity. Our Government is essentially Protestant ; 
 therefore, by emancipating the Catholics, give up a few cir- 
 cumstances which have nothing to do with the essence. The 
 Catholics are disguised enemies ; therefore, by emancipation, 
 turn them into open friends. They have a double allegiance ; 
 therefore, by emancipation, make their allegiance to their 
 King so grateful, that they will never confound it with the 
 spiritual allegiance to their Pope. It is very difficult for 
 electors, who are much occupied by other matters, to choose the 
 right path amid the rage and fury of faction : but 1 give you 
 one mark, vote for a free altar ; give what the law compels you 
 to give to the Establishment; (thatdone,) no chains, no prisons, 
 no bonfires for a man's faith; and, above all, no modern 
 chains and prisons under the names of disqualifications and 
 incapacities, which are only the cruelty and tyranny of a more 
 civilized age ; civil offices open to all, a Catholic or a Protestant 
 alderman, a Moravian or a Church of England or a Wesleyan 
 justice, no oppression, no tyranny in belief: a free altar, an 
 open road to heaven; no human insolence, no human narrow- 
 ness, hallowed by the name of God. 
 
 " Our Government is called essentially Protestant ; but, if 
 it be essentially Protestant in the distribution of office, it 
 should be essentially Protestant in the imposition of taxes. 
 The Treasury is open to all religions, Parliament only to one. 
 The tax-gatherer is the most indulgent and liberal of human 
 beings; he excludes no creed, imposes no articles; but counts 
 Catholic cash, pockets Protestant paper, and is candidly and 
 impartially oppressive to every description of the Christian 
 world. Can anything be more base than when you want the 
 blood or the money of Catholics, to forget that they are 
 Catholics, and to remember only that they are British 
 subjects ; and, when they ask for the benefits of the British 
 
v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION" 117 
 
 Constitution, to remember only that they are Catholics, and 
 to forget that they are British subjects ? 
 
 "No Popery was the cry of the great English Revolution, 
 because the increase and prevalence of Popery in England 
 would, at that period, have rendered this island tributary to 
 France. The Irish Catholics were, at that period, broken to 
 pieces by the severity and military execution of Cromwell, 
 and by the Penal Laws. They are since become a great and 
 formidable people. The same dread of foreign influence 
 makes it now necessary that they should be restored to 
 political rights. Must the friends of rational liberty join in a 
 clamour against the Catholics now, because, in a very different 
 state of the world, they excited that clamour a hundred years 
 ago? I remember a house near Battersea Bridge which 
 caught fire, and there was a great cry of ' Water, water ! ' 
 Ten years after, the Thames rose, and the people of the house 
 were nearly drowned. Would it not have been rather 
 singular to have said to the inhabitants — ' I heard you calling 
 for water ten years ago ; why don't you call for it now ? ' " 
 
 " Mild and genteel people do not like the idea of persecu- 
 tion, and are advocates for toleration ; but then they think it 
 no act of intolerance to deprive Catholics of political power. 
 The history of all this is, that all men scarcely like to punish 
 others for not being of the same opinion with themselves, and 
 that this sort of privation is the only species of persecution, of 
 which the improved feeling and advanced cultivation of the 
 age will admit. Fire and faggot, chains and stone walls, have 
 been clamoured away ; nothing remains but to mortify a man's 
 pride, and to limit his resources, and to set a mark upon him, 
 by cutting him off from his fair share of political power. By 
 this receipt insolence is gratified, and humanity is not 
 shocked. The gentlest Protestant can see, with dry eyes. 
 Lord Stourton excluded from parliament, though he would 
 abominate the most distant idea of personal cruelty to Mr. 
 Petre. This is only to say that he lives in the nineteenth, 
 instead of the sixteenth century, and that he is as intolerant 
 in religious matters as the state of manners existing in his age 
 
118 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 will permit. Is it not the same spirit which wounds the 
 pride of a fellow-creature on account of his faith, or which 
 casts his body into the flames ? Are they any thing else but 
 degrees and modifications of the same principle ? The minds 
 of these two men no more differ because they differ in their 
 degrees of punishment, than their bodies differ because one 
 wore a doublet in the time of Mary, and the other wears a 
 coat in the reign of George. I do not accuse them of inten- 
 tional cruelty and injustice : I am sure there are very many 
 excellent men who would be shocked if they could conceive 
 themselves to be guilty of any thing like cruelty ; but they 
 innocently give a wrong name to the bad spirit which is 
 within them, and think they are tolerant because they are 
 not as intolerant as they could have been in other times, but 
 cannot be now. The true spirit is to search after God and for 
 another life toith lowliness of heart ; to fling doion no man's 
 altar, to punish no man's prayer ; to heap no penalties and no 
 pains on those solemn supplications which, in divers tongues, and 
 in varied forms, and in temples of a thousand shapes, hut with 
 one deep sense of human dependence, men pour forth to God.'' 
 
 At this point of his Letter, the writer turns aside to 
 combat the contention that, because Koman Catholics 
 have in times past persecuted Protestants, therefore 
 they must now be deprived of their civil rights. If 
 this contention be sound, the Protestant must, by- 
 parity of reasoning, be disfranchised. 
 
 " The first object of men who love party better than truth, 
 is to have it believed that the Catholics alone have been per- 
 secutors. But what can be more flagrantly unjust than to 
 take over notions of history only from the conquering and 
 triumphant party? If you think the Catholics have not 
 their Book of Martyrs as well as the Protestants, take the 
 following enumeration of some of their most learned and care- 
 ful writers. The whole number of Catholics who suffered 
 death in England for the exercise of the Catholic religion since 
 the Reformation stands thus : — 
 
v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION '» 119 
 
 Henry viii., .... 
 
 59 
 
 Elizabeth, . , . . 
 
 204 
 
 James i., .... 
 
 25 
 
 Charles i., > 
 and Commonwealth, ) 
 
 23 
 
 Charles ii., .... 
 
 8 
 
 Total, . 
 
 319 
 
 " Henry viii., with consummate impartiality, burnt three 
 Protestants and hanged four Catholics for different errors in 
 religion on the same day, and at the same place. Elizabeth 
 burnt two Dutch Anabaptists for some theological tenets, 
 July 22, 1575, Fox the martyrologist vainly pleading with the 
 queen in their favour. In 1579, the same Protestant queen 
 cut off the hand of Stubbs, the author of a tract against 
 popish connexion, of Singleton, the printer, and Page, the 
 disperser of the book. Camden saw it done. Warburton 
 properly says it exceeds in cruelty any thing done by 
 Charles i. On the 4th of June, Mr. Elias Thacker and Mr. 
 John Capper, two ministers of the Brownist persuasion, were 
 hanged at St. Ednmnd's-bury, for dispersing books against 
 the Common Prayer. With respect to the great part of 
 the Catholic victims, the law was fully and literally exe- 
 cuted: after being hanged up, they were cut down alive, 
 dismembered, ripped up, and their bowels burnt before 
 their faces ; after which they were beheaded and quartered. 
 The time employed in this butchery was very consider- 
 able, and, in one instance, lasted more than half an hour. 
 
 " The uncandid excuse for all this is, that the greater part 
 of these men were put to death for political, not for religious, 
 crimes. That is, a law is first passed, making it high treason 
 for a priest to exercise his function in England, and so, when 
 he is caught and burnt, this is not religious persecution, but 
 an offence against the State. We are, I hope, all too busy to 
 need any answer to such childish, uncandid reasoning as this." 
 
 And then the Letter goes on to give, with the fullest 
 apparatus of details, dates, and authorities, the miser- 
 able tale of religious persecution practised, during three 
 
120 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 centuries, at home and abroad, by Anglicans on Puri- 
 tans, by Protestants on Komanists, by orthodox Pro- 
 testants on heterodox Protestants ; and then, to clinch 
 his argument and drive it home, he gives the substance 
 of the Penal Code under which Irish Catholics suffered 
 so cruelly and so long. 
 
 " With such facts as these, the cry of persecution will not 
 do ; it is unwise to make it, because it can be so very easily, 
 and so very justly retorted. The business is to forget and 
 forgive, to kiss and be friends, and to say nothing of what 
 has passed ; which is to the credit of neither party. There 
 have been atrocious cruelties, and abominable acts of injus- 
 tice, on both sides. It is not worth while to contend who 
 shed the most blood, or whether death by fire is worse than 
 hanging or starving in prison. As far as England itself is 
 concerned, the balance may be better preserved. Cruelties 
 exercised upon the Irish go for nothing in English reason- 
 ing ; but if it were not uncandid and vexatious to consider 
 Irish persecutions ^ as part of the case, I firmly believe there 
 have been two Catholics put to death for religious causes in 
 Great Britain for one Protestant who has suffered: not that 
 this proves much, because the Catholics have enjoyed the 
 sovereign power for so few years between this period and the 
 Reformation; and certainly it must be allowed that they 
 were not inactive, during that period, in the great work of 
 pious combustion. 
 
 " It is however some extenuation of the Catholic excesses, 
 that their religion was the religion of the whole of Europe 
 when the innovation began. They were the ancient lords 
 
 1 " Thurloe writes to Henry Cromwell to catch up some thousand 
 Irish boys, to send to the colonies. Henry writes back he has 
 done so; and desires to know whether his Highness would 
 choose as many girls to be caught up: and he adds, 'doubtless 
 it is a business in which God will appear.' Suppose bloody 
 Queen Mary had caught up and transported three or four 
 thousand Protestant boys and girls from the three Ridings of 
 Yorkshire! ! ! ! ! ! S. S." 
 
v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION" 121 
 
 and masters of faith, before men introduced the practice of 
 thinking for themselves in these matters. The Protestants 
 have less excuse, who claimed the right of innovation, and 
 then turned round upon other Protestants w^ho acted upon 
 the same principle, or upon Catholics who remained as they 
 were, and visited them with all the cruelties from which they 
 had themselves so recently escaped. 
 
 " Both sides, as they acquired power, abused it ; and both 
 learnt, from their sufferings, the great secret of toleration and 
 forbearance. If you wish to do good in the times in which 
 you live, contribute your efforts to perfect this grand work. 
 I have not the most distant intention to interfere in local 
 politics; but I advise you never to give a vote to any man 
 whose only title for asking it is that he means to continue 
 the punishments, privations, and incapacities of any human 
 beings, merely because they worship God in the way they 
 think best : the man who asks for your vote upon such a plea, 
 is, probably, a very weak man, who believes in his own bad 
 reasoning, or a very artful man, who is laughing at you for 
 your credulity : at all events, he is a man who knowingly or 
 unknowingly exposes his country to the greatest dangers, and 
 hands down to posterity all the foolish opinions and all the 
 bad passions which prevail in those times in which he happens 
 to live. Such a man is so far from being that friend to the 
 Church, which he pretends to be, that he declares its safety 
 cannot be reconciled with the franchises of the people ; for 
 what worse can be said of the Church of England than this, 
 that wherever it is judged necessary to give it a legal estab- 
 lishment, it becomes necessary to deprive the body of the 
 people, if they adhere to their old opinions, of their liberties, 
 and of all their free customs, and to reduce them to a state of 
 civil servitude ? Sydney Sjiith." 
 
 After the discharge of this tremendous missile 
 against the tottering fortress of bigotry, the energetic 
 engineer sought a brief interlude of rest and recrea- 
 tion. His money-matters had of late years improved. 
 An aunt had died and left him a legacy, and the 
 
122 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Kectory of Londesborough was a profitable prefer- 
 ment. The income thus augmented enabled him to 
 realize a long-cherished dream and pay his first visit 
 to Paris, in the spring of 1826. There he met 
 some old friends, made several new acquaintances, 
 ate some excellent but expensive dinners, mastered 
 the Louvre in a quarter of an hour, and saw Talma 
 in tragedy and Mademoiselle Mars in "genteel 
 comedy." At the Opera he noticed that "the house 
 was full of English, who talk loud, and seem to care 
 little for other people. This is their characteristic, 
 and a very brutal and barbarous distinction it is.'' He 
 keenly admired the luxury and beauty and prettiness 
 of Paris, and especially the profusion of glass in French 
 drawing-rooms. "I remember entering a room with 
 glass all round it, and saw myself reflected on every 
 side. I took it for a meeting of the clergy, and was 
 delighted of course.'^ He returned to England in 
 May ; on the 2nd of June Parliament was dissolved. 
 " We have been," he wrote, " in the horror of Elections 
 — each party acting and thinking as if the salvation 
 of several planets depended upon the adoption of Mr. 
 Johnson and the rejection of Mr. Jackson." In July, 
 Thomas Babington Macaulay, a young and unsuccess- 
 ful barrister, found himself on circuit at York. He 
 was told that Mr. Smith had come to see him, and, 
 when the visitor was admitted, he recognized — 
 
 " the Smith of Smiths, Sydney Smith, alias Peter Plymley. 
 I had forgotten his very existence till I discerned the queer 
 contrast between his black coat and his snow-white head, and 
 the equally curious contrast between the clerical amplitude of 
 his person, and the most unclerical wit, whim, and petulance 
 of his eye." 
 
v.] "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION" 123 
 
 Macaulay spent the following Sunday at Foston 
 Kectoiy, and thus records his impressions: — 
 
 "I understand that S. S. is a very respectable apothecary, 
 and most liberal of his skill, his medicine, his soup, and his 
 wine, among the sick. He preached a very queer sermon — 
 the former half too familiar, and the latter half too florid, but 
 not without some ingenuity of thought and expression. . . . 
 
 " His misfortune is to have chosen a profession at once 
 above him and below him. Zeal would have made him a 
 prodigy; formality and bigotry would have made him a 
 bishop ; but he could neither rise to the duties of his order, 
 nor stoop to its degradation." 
 
 In December Sydney wrote to a newly-elected 
 Member of Parliament : — 
 
 " I see you have broken ice in the House of Commons. 
 I shall be curious to hear your account of your feelings, of 
 what colour the human creatures looked who surrounded you, 
 and how the candles and Speaker appeared. . . . For God's 
 sake, open upon the Chancery. On this subject there can be 
 no excess of vituperation and severity. Advocate also free 
 trade in ale and ale-houses. Respect the Church, and believe 
 that the insignificant member of it who now addresses you is 
 most truly yours, Sydney Smith." 
 
 At the same time he wrote as follows to a young 
 friend — Lord John Russell — who had lost his seat 
 and published a book : — 
 
 " Dear John, — I have read your book on the State of 
 Europe since the Peace of Utrecht with much pleasure — 
 sensible, liberal, spirited, philosophical, well-written. Go 
 on writing History. Write a History of Louis xiv., and put 
 the world right about that old Beast. 
 
 " I am sorry you are not in parliament. You ought to be 
 everywhere where honest and bold men can do good. Health 
 and respect. Ever yours, Sydney Smith." 
 
124 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 The year 1827 opened dramatically. On the 18th 
 February Lord Liverpool, who had been Prime Minister 
 since the assassination of Spencer Perceval in 1812, 
 was suddenly stricken by fatal illness. On the 10th 
 of April King George iv. found himself, much against 
 his will, constrained to entrust the formation of a Gov- 
 ernment to George Canning. Canning was avow- 
 edly favourable to the Eoman Catholic claims, and 
 on that account some of the most important of his 
 former colleagues declined to serve under him. The 
 Ministry was reconstructed with an infusion of Whigs ; 
 and the brilliant but unscrupulous Copley became 
 Chancellor with the title of Lord Lyndhurst.-^ 
 
 A Ministry, containing Whigs as well as Tories and 
 committed to the cause of Eoman Catholic emancipa- 
 tion, seemed likely to open the way of preferment to 
 Sydney Smith. Knowing that his income would soon 
 be materially reduced by the cessation of his tenure 
 of Londesborough, he wrote to some of his friends 
 among the new Ministers and boldly stated his claims. 
 One of these Ministers seems to have made a rather 
 chilly response ; and the applicant did not spare him. — 
 
 " I am much obliged by your polite letter. You appeal to 
 my good-nature to prevent me from considering your letter 
 as a decent method of putting me off. Y'our appeal, I assure 
 you, is not made in vain. I do not think you mean to put me 
 off ; because I am the most prominent, and was for a long 
 time the only, clerical advocate of that question, by the proper 
 arrangement of which you believe the happiness and safety of 
 the country would be materially improved. I do not believe 
 you mean to put me off ; because, in giving me some pro- 
 motion, you will teach the clergy, from whose timidity you 
 have everything to apprehend, and whose influence upon the 
 
 1 John Singleton Copley (1772- 18G3). 
 
v.] BRISTOL 125 
 
 people you cannot doubt, that they may, under your Govern- 
 ment, obey the dictates of their consciences without sacrific- 
 ing the emoluments of their profession. I do not think you 
 mean to i^ut me off ; because, in the conscientious adminis- 
 tration of that patronage with which you are entrusted, I 
 think it will occur to you that something is due to a person 
 who, instead of basely chiming in with the bad passions of 
 the multitude, has dedicated some talent and some activity 
 to soften religious hatreds, and to make men less violent and 
 less foolish than he found them." 
 
 In July lie wrote to a friend : — 
 
 " The worst political news is that Canning is not well, 
 and that the Duke of Wellington has dined with the King. 
 Canning dead, Peel is the only man remaining alive in the 
 House of Commons. I mean, the only man in his senses." 
 
 On the 8tli of August Canning died, and was 
 succeeded by Lord Goderich, who in turn made way for 
 the Duke of Wellington in January 1828, Lord Lynd- 
 hurst again becoming Chancellor. 
 
 On the 1st of January 1828, Sydney Smith's second 
 daughter, Emily, was married to Nathaniel Hibbert, 
 afterwards of Munden House, near Watford. Her 
 father wrote : — 
 
 " We were married on New Year's Day, and are gone ! I 
 feel, as if I had lost a limb, and were walking about with one 
 leg — and nobody pities this description of invalids." 
 
 Three weeks later. Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, yield- 
 ing to private friendship what the Whigs had refused 
 to political loyalty, appointed the Eector of Foston to 
 a Prebendal Stall in Bristol Cathedral. This brought 
 him at length official station in the Church, and a 
 permanent instead of a terminable income. He wrote 
 from Bristol on the 17th of February : — 
 
 " An extremely comfortable Prebendal house ; seven-stall 
 
126 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 stables and room for four carriages, so that I can hold all 
 your cortege when you come; looks to the south, and is per- 
 fectly snug and parsonic ; masts of West-Indiamen seen from 
 the windows. ... I have lived in perfect solitude ever since 
 I have been here, but am perfectly happy. The novelty of 
 this place amuses me." 
 
 From the time of Ms appointment to Bristol, Sydney 
 Smith severed his connexion with the Edinburgh Re- 
 vieWj holding that anonymous journalism was incon- 
 sistent with the position of an ecclesiastical dignitary. 
 He had contributed to the Review for a quarter of a 
 century ; and, by a happy accident, his last utterance, 
 in the organ through which he had so long and so 
 strenuously fought for freedom, was yet one more plea 
 for Roman Catholic emancipation. Yet once again he 
 urged, with all his force, the baseness of deserting the 
 good cause, and the danger and cruelty of delaying 
 justice. — 
 
 " There is little new to be said ; but we must not be silent, 
 or, in these days of baseness and tergiversation, we shall be 
 supposed to have deserted our friend the Pope, and they will 
 say of us, Prostant venales apud Lambeth et Whitehall. God 
 forbid it should ever be said of us with justice. It is pleas- 
 ant to loll and roll and to accumulate — to be a purple-and- 
 fine-linen man, and to be called by some of those nicknames 
 which frail and ephemeral beings are so fond of accumulat- 
 ing upon each other; — but the best thing of all is to live 
 like honest men, and to add something to the cause of liber- 
 ality, justice, and truth. 
 
 " We should like to argue this matter with a regular Tory 
 Lord, whose members vote steadily against the Catholic ques- 
 tion. ' I wonder that mere fear does not make you give up 
 the Catholic question ! Do you mean to put this fine place 
 in danger — the venison — the pictures — the pheasants — 
 the cellars — the hot-house and the grapery ? Should you like 
 
v.] BRISTOL 127 
 
 to see six or seven thousand French or Americans landed in 
 Ireland, and aided by a universal insurrection of the Catholics? 
 Is it worth your while to run the risk of their success ? What 
 evil from the possible encroachment of Catholics, by civil 
 exertions, can equal the danger of such a position as this ? 
 How can a man of your carriages, and horses, and hounds, 
 think of putting your high fortune in such a predicament, and 
 crying out, like a schoolboy or a chaplain, ' Oh, we shall beat 
 them ! we shall put the rascals down ! ' No Popery, I admit 
 to your Lordship, is a very convenient cry at an election, and 
 has answered your end ; but do not push the matter too far. 
 To bring on a civil war for No Popery, is a very foolish pro- 
 ceeding in a man who has two courses and a remove ! As you 
 value your side-board of plate, your broad riband, your pier- 
 glasses — if obsequious domestics and large rooms are dear to 
 you — if you love ease and flattery, titles and coats of arms — if 
 the labour of the French cook, the dedication of the expecting 
 poet, can move you — if you hope for a long life of side-dishes 
 — if you are not insensible to the periodical arrival of the 
 turtle-fleets — emancipate the Catholics ! Do it f oryour ease, 
 do it for your indolence, do it for your safety — emancipate 
 and eat, emancipate and drink — emancipate, and preserve 
 the rent-roll and the family estate ! " 
 
 In conclusion he gives a word of warning first to his 
 Eoman Catholic clients, imploring them to be patient 
 as well as firm ; and then to the various sections of 
 the " No Popery " party in England. — 
 
 "7^0 the Base. — Sweet children of turpitude, beware ! the 
 old antipopery people are fast perishing away. Take heed 
 that you are not surprised by an emancipating king, or an 
 emancipating administration. Leave a Locus pcenitentice ! — 
 prepare a place for retreat — get ready your equivocations 
 and denials. The dreadful day may yet come, when liberality 
 may lead to place and power. We understand these matters 
 here. It is safest to be moderately base — to be flexible in 
 shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and 
 just, when any thing is to be gained by virtue." 
 
128 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 The suggested prophecy had not long to wait for its 
 fulfilment. In the summer of 1828, William Vesey 
 Fitzgerald, a great landowner in County Clare, and one 
 of the Members for that county, accepted office in 
 the Government as President of the Board of Trade, 
 thereby vacating his seat. Lord Beaconsfield shall tell 
 the remainder of the story. " An Irish lawyer, a pro- 
 fessional agitator, himself a Roman Catholic and there- 
 fore ineligible, announced himself as a candidate in 
 opposition to the new minister, and on the day of 
 election thirty thousand peasants, setting at defiance 
 all the landowners of the county, returned O'Connell 
 at the head of the poll, and placed among not the least 
 memorable of historical events — the Clare Election." ^ 
 
 This election decided the emancipation of the 
 Roman Catholics, and the cause, for which Sydney 
 Smith had striven so heroically, was won at last. 
 On the 28th of August 1828 he wrote to a Roman 
 Catholic friend: — 
 
 "Brougham thinks the Catholic question as good as 
 carried ; but I never think myself as good as carried, till my 
 horse brings me to my stable-door. . . . What am I to do 
 ■with my time, or you with yours, after the Catholic question 
 is carried ? " 
 
 To the same friend he wrote : — 
 
 "You will be amused by hearing that I am to preach 
 the 5th of November 2 sermon at Bristol, and to dine at 
 the 5th of November dinner with the Mayor and Corporation 
 of Bristol. All sorts of bad theology are preached at the 
 Cathedral on that day, and all sorts of bad toasts drunk at 
 
 1 Endymion, vol. i. chapter vi. 
 
 2 The special services for " Gunpowder Treason " and other State 
 Holy Days were discontinued by Royal Warrant in 1859. 
 
v.] BRISTOL 129 
 
 the Mansion House. I will do neither the one nor the other, 
 nor bow the knee in the house of Kimmon." 
 
 On the 5th of November 1828, he wrote to Lord 
 Holland : — 
 
 "To-day I have preached an honest sermon before the 
 Mayor and Corporation in the Cathedral — the most Protes- 
 tant Corporation in England ! They stared at me with all 
 their eyes. Several of them could not keep the turtle on 
 their stomachs." 
 
 The sermon ^ well deserved the epithet. It glanced, 
 as the occasion demanded, at the civil grievances of 
 the Roman Catholics, and then it went on to lay 
 down some simple but sufficient rules by which men 
 should regulate their judgment on religious forms and 
 bodies with which they do not sympathize. — 
 
 "Our holy religion consists of some doctrines which 
 influence practice, and of others which are purely speculative. 
 If religious errors be of the former description, they may, 
 perhaps, be fair objects of human interference ; but, if the 
 opinion be merely theological and speculative, there the right 
 of human interference seems to end, because the necessity 
 for such interference does not exist. Any error of this 
 nature is between the Creator and the creature, — between 
 the Redeemer and the redeemed. If such opinions are not 
 the best opinions which can be found, God Almighty will 
 punish the error, if mere error seemeth to the Almighty a 
 fit object of punishment. Why may not a man wait if God 
 waits? AVhere are we called upon in Scripture to pursue 
 men for errors purely speculative ? — to assist Heaven in 
 punishing those offences which belong only to Heaven? — in 
 fighting unasked for w^hat w^e deem to be the battles of 
 God, — of that patient and merciful God, who pities the 
 
 1 From Col. iii. 12, 13— "Put on, as the elect of God, kindness, 
 humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one 
 another, and forgiving one another." 
 
 K 
 
130 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 frailties we do not pity — who forgives the errors we do not 
 forgive, — who sends rain upon the just and the unjust, and 
 maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and the good. 
 
 " I shall conclude my sermon (extended, I am afraid, already 
 to an unreasonable length), by reciting to you a very short 
 and beautiful apologue, taken from the Rabbinical writers. 
 It is, I believe, quoted by Bishop Taylor in his Holy Living 
 and Dying. I have not now access to that book, but I quote 
 it to you from memory, and should be made truly happy if 
 you would quote it to others from memory also. 
 
 " <■ As Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent, there 
 came unto him a wayfaring man ; and Abraham gave him 
 water for his feet, and set bread before him. And Abraham 
 said unto him, Let us now worship the Lord our God before 
 we eat of this bread. And the wayfaring man said unto 
 Abraham, I will not worship the Lord thy God, for thy God 
 is not my God ; but I will worship my God, even the God of 
 my fathers. But Abraham was exceeding wroth ; and he rose 
 up to put the wayfaring man forth from the door of his tent. 
 And the voice of the Lord was heard in the tent — Abraham, 
 Abraham ! have I borne with this man for three score and 
 ten years, and can'st thou not bear with him for one 
 hour?"'i 
 
 This sermon was published by request, and the 
 preacher apologized in the preface for "sending to 
 the press such plain rudiments of common charity 
 and common sense." 
 
 The beginning of 1829 was darkened by what 
 Sydney Smith called "the first great misfortune of 
 his life." On the 14th of April, his eldest son Doug- 
 las died, after a long illness, in his twenty-fifth year. 
 His health had always been delicate, but, in spite of 
 
 iThis apologue (which, the preacher thought, "would make a 
 charming and useful placard against the bigoted ") occurs in the 
 Liberty of Prophesying, and has been traced to Gentius, the Latin 
 translator of Saadi. 
 
v.] COMBE FLORE Y 131 
 
 repeated illnesses, lie had become Captain of the 
 King's Scholars at Westminster,^ and a Student of 
 Christ Church. His epitaph says — " His life was 
 blameless. His death was the first sorrow he ever 
 occasioned his parents, but it was deep and lasting." 
 On the 29th of April his father wrote — " Time and 
 the necessary exertions of life will restore me " ; but 
 four months later the note is changed. — 
 
 " I never suspected how children weave themselves about 
 the heart. My son had that quality which is longest remem- 
 bered by those who remain behind — a deep and earnest 
 affection and respect for his parents. God save you from 
 similar distress ! '* 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " I did not know I had cared so much for anybody ; but 
 the habit of providing for human beings, and watching over 
 them for so many years, generates a fund of affection, of the 
 magnitude of which I was not aware." 
 
 Sixteen years later, when he lay dying and half- 
 conscious, the cry " Douglas, Douglas ! " was constantly 
 on his lips. 
 
 The prebendal stall at Bristol carried with it the 
 incumbency of Halberton, near Tiverton ; and Sydney 
 Smith exchanged the living of Foston for that of 
 Combe Florey in Somerset, which could be held 
 conjointly with Halberton. On the 14th of July 1829 
 
 1 " Having become a King's Scholar, the hardships and cru- 
 elties he suffered, as a junior boy, from his fag-master, were such 
 as at one time very nearly forced us to remove him from the 
 school. He was taken home for a short period, to recover from 
 his bruises, and restore his eye. His first act, on becoming Cap- 
 tain himself, was to endeavour to ameliorate the condition of the 
 juniors, and to obtain additional comforts for them from the Head 
 Master." — From Mrs. Sydney Smith's Journal. 
 
132 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 he wrote from the " Sacred Valley of Flowers," as he 
 loved to call it : — 
 
 "I am extremely pleased with Combe Florey, and pro- 
 nounce it to be a very pretty place in a very beautiful 
 country. The house I shall make decently convenient." 
 
 "I need not say how my climate is improved. The 
 neighbourhood much the same as all other neighbourhoods. 
 Red wine and white, soup and fish, commonplace dulness 
 and prejudice, bad wit and good-nature. I am, after my 
 manner, making my place perfect: and have twenty-eight 
 people constantly at work." 
 
 " I am going on fighting with bricklayers and carpenters, 
 and shall ultimately make a very pretty place and a very 
 good house." " I continue to be delighted with the country. 
 My parsonage will be perfection. The harvest is got in 
 without any rain. The Cider is such an enormous crop, that 
 it is sold at ten shillings a hogshead ; so that a human 
 creature may lose his reason for a penny." 
 
 " Luttrell came over for a day, from whence I know not, 
 but I thought not from good pastures ; at least, he had not 
 his usual soup-and-pattie look. There was a forced smile 
 upon his countenance, which seemed to indicate plain roast 
 and boiled; and a sort of apple-pudding depression, as if 
 he had been staying with a clergyman. . . . He was very 
 agreeable, but spoke too lightly, I thought, of veal soup. 1 
 took him aside, and reasoned the matter with him, but in 
 vain; to speak the truth, Luttrell is not steady in his 
 judgments on dishes. Individual failures with him soon 
 degenerate into generic objections, till, by some fortunate 
 accident, he eats himself into better opinions. A person of 
 more calm reflection thinks not only of what he is consuming 
 at that moment, but of the soups of the same kind he has 
 met with in a long course of dining, and which have gradu- 
 ally and justly elevated the species. I am perhaps making 
 too much of this ; but the failures of a man of sense are 
 always painful." 
 
 One of the chief features in the restored Kectory of 
 
v.] co:mbe florey 133 
 
 Combe Florey was a library, twenty-eight feet long 
 and eight high, ending in a bay-window supported by 
 pillars, and looking into a brilliant garden. This room 
 had been made by " throwing a pantry, a passage, and 
 a shoe-hole together.'^ Three sides of it were covered 
 with books. "No furniture so charming as books," 
 said Sydney, " even if you never open them, or read a 
 single word." He passionately loved light and colour, 
 sunshine and flowers ; and all his books were bound 
 in the most vivid blues and reds. " What makes a fire 
 so pleasant is that it is a live thing in a dead room." 
 A visitor thus describes him at his literary work : — 
 
 " At a large table in the bay-window, with his desk before 
 him — on one end of this table a case, something like a small 
 deal music-stand, filled with manuscript books — on the other 
 a large deal tray, filled with a leaden ink-stand, containing ink 
 enough for a county ; a magnifying glass ; a carpenter's rule ; 
 several large steel pens, which it was high treason to touch ; 
 a glass bowl full of shot and water, to clean these precious 
 pens ; and some red tape, which he called ' one of the 
 grammars of life'; a measuring line, and various other 
 articles, more useful than ornamental. At this writing 
 establishment, unique of its kind, he could turn his mind 
 with equal facility, in company or alone, to any subject, 
 whether of business, study, politics, instruction, or amuse- 
 ment, and move the minds of his hearers to laughter or tears 
 at his pleasure." 
 
 The daily life at Combe Florey was eminently 
 patriarchal. He lived surrounded by children, grand- 
 children, and friends ; chatting with the poor, comfort- 
 ing the sick, and petting the babies of the village. 
 Old and young alike he doctored with extraordinary 
 vehemence and persistency. "As I don't shoot or 
 hunt, it is my only rural amusement." He wrote to 
 
134 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 a friend — " The influenza to my great joy has appeared 
 here, and I am in high medical practice." " This is 
 the house to be ill in," he used to say. " I take it 
 as a delicate compliment when my guests have a slight 
 illness here. Come and see my apothecary's shop." 
 The " shop " was a room filled on one side with drugs 
 and on the other with groceries. " Life is a difficult 
 thing in the country, I assure you, and it requires a 
 good deal of forethought to steer the ship, when you 
 live twelve miles from a lemon." 
 
 The church of Combe Florey was described by 
 Francis Jeffrey as "a horrid old barn." There the 
 Kector performed two services a Sunday, celebrated 
 the Holy Communion once a month, and preached his 
 practical sermons, transcribed from his own execrable 
 manuscript by a sedulous clerk. "I like," he said, " to 
 look down upon my congregation — to fire into them. 
 The common people say I am a bould preacher, for I 
 like to have my arms free, and to thump the pulpit." 
 A lady dressed in crimson velvet he welcomed with the 
 words, " Exactly the colour of my preaching cushion ! 
 I really can hardly keep my hands off you." 
 
 An anonymous correspondent kindly furnishes me 
 with this description of the Valley of Flowers as it was 
 in more recent years : — 
 
 " I visited Combe Florey, with camera and vasculum, in 
 1893. It is one of the loveliest spots in that district of lovely 
 villages, lying in the Vale of Taunton on the southern slope 
 of the Quantocks. The parsonage is entirely unchanged: 
 there is Sydney's study, a low-ceilinged room supported 
 partly by pillars, level with the garden and opening into it. 
 There is the old-fashioned fireplace by which he and his wife 
 sate opposite each other in his last illness. ' Mrs. Sydney has 
 eight distinct illnesses, and I have nine. We take something 
 
v.] REFORM 135 
 
 every hour, and pass the mixture from one to the other.' 
 Outside still grow his Conifers, a large Atlantic Cedar and a 
 Deodara; unchanged too are the palings over which Jack and 
 Jill 1 peered with antlered heads. Old villagers still talk of 
 his medical dispensary, and of the care with which he drove 
 round to collect and carry into Taunton their monthly 
 deposits for the Savings Bank.'* 
 
 Meanwhile, great events weve transacting themselves 
 in the political world, and they had an important bear- 
 ing on the tranquil life of Combe Morey. On the 4th 
 of May 1830, Sydney Smith wrote from London to his 
 wife in the country : — 
 
 " The King is going downhill as before, but seems to be a 
 long time in the descent. All kinds of intrigues are going on 
 about change of Ministry, and all kinds of hopes and fears 
 afloat. Nothing is more improbable than that I should be 
 made a Bishop, and, if I ever had the opportunity, I am now, 
 when far removed from it, decidedly of opinion that it would 
 be the greatest act of folly and absurdity to accept it — to live 
 with foolish people, to do foolish and formal things all day, 
 to hold my tongue, or to twist it into conversation unnatural 
 to me." 
 
 King George iv. died on the 26th of June. The 
 accession of William iv., who was supposed to have 
 some tendencies towards Whiggism, greatly stimulated 
 the demand for Parliamentary Reform ; and the revo- 
 lution in France, which dethroned Charles x., gave a 
 strong impetus to the democratic forces in England. 
 Parliament was dissolved on the 24th of July. On 
 the 14th of August Charles Greville wrote, " The elec- 
 tions are still going against the Government, and the 
 signs of the times are all for reform and retrench- 
 ment, and against slavery.'^ In writing to congratu- 
 
 1 Two donkeys, which were disguised as deer for the astonish- 
 ment of visitors. 
 
136 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 late a young Eoman Catholic who had been elected 
 for Carlislcj Sydney Smith said — 
 
 " I rejoice in the temple which has been reared to Tolera- 
 tion ; and I am proud that I worked as a bricklayer's labourer 
 at it — without pay, and with the enmity and abuse of those 
 who were unfavourable to its construction." ^ 
 
 The new Parliament met on the 26th of October. 
 On the 2nd of November, in the debate on the Address, 
 the Duke of Wellington made a vehement declaration 
 against Keform. This was the signal for an immense 
 outcry. There were mobs and riots everywhere. The 
 King's projected visit to the City on Lord Mayor's 
 Day was abandoned. The Tory Government were 
 beaten on a motion relating to the new Civil List. 
 '' Never was any Administration so completely and 
 so suddenly destroyed ; and, I believe, entirely by 
 the Duke's declaration." Lord Grey^ became Prime 
 Minister, as the head of a Whig administration pledged 
 to Eeform. Soon afterwards Sydney Smith wrote to 
 a friend — 
 
 " I think Lord Grey will give me some preferment if he 
 stays in long enough ; but the upper parsons live vindictively, 
 and evince their aversion to a Whig Ministry by an improved 
 health." 
 
 The Reform Bill was brought in on the 1st of March 
 1831. Sydney thought it " a magnificent measure, as 
 wise as it is bold." Meetings of Reformers were held 
 all over the country to support it. Such a meeting 
 was held at Taunton on the 9th of March, and the 
 Rector of Combe Florey attended and spoke. 
 
 " This," he said, " is the greatest measure which has ever 
 
 1 The Roman Catholic Emaucipation Bill had become law ou the 
 13th of April 1829. 
 
 2 Charles, 2ud Earl Grey (17Gi-1845). 
 
v.] REFORM 137 
 
 been before Parliament in my time, and the most pregnant 
 with good or evil to the country; and, though I seldom meddle 
 with political meetings, I could not reconcile it to my con- 
 science to be absent from this. Every year for this half century 
 the question of Reform has been pressing upon us, till it has 
 swelled up at last into this great and awful combination; so 
 that almost every City and every Borough in England are at 
 this moment assembled for the same purpose and are doing 
 the same thing we are doing." 
 
 A great part of the controversy turned on the dis- 
 franchisement of the "Pocket Boroughs," and this was a 
 subject which immediately suggested a happy apologue : 
 
 " These very same politicians are now looking in an agony 
 of terror at the disfranchisement of Corporations containing 
 twenty or thirty persons, sold to their representatives, w'ho 
 are themselves perhaps sold to the Government : and to put 
 an end to these enormous abuses is called Corporation rohhery, 
 and there are some persons wild enough to talk of compensa- 
 tion. This principle of compensation you will consider perhaps, 
 in the following instance, to have been carried as far as sound 
 discretion permits. When I was a young man, the place in 
 England I remember as most notorious for highwaymen and 
 their exploits was Finchley Common, near the metropolis ; 
 but Finchley Common, in the progress of improvement, came 
 to be enclosed, and the highwaymen lost by these means the 
 opportunity of exercising their gallant vocation. I remember 
 a friend of mine proposed to draw up for them a petition to 
 the House of Commons for compensation, which ran in this 
 manner — ' We, your loyal highwaymen of Finchley Common 
 and its neighbourhood, having at great expense laid in a stock 
 of blunderbusses, pistols, and other instruments for plunder- 
 ing the public, and finding ourselves impeded in the exercise 
 of our calling by the said enclosure of the said Common of 
 Finchley, humbly petition your Honourable House will be 
 pleased to assign to us such compensation as your Honourable 
 House in its wisdom and justice may think fit.' — Gentlemen, 
 I must leave the application to you. . . . 
 
138 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 " The greater part of human improvements, I am sorry to 
 say, are made after war, tunmlt, bloodshed, and civil commo- 
 tion : mankind seem to object to every species of gratuitous 
 happiness, and to consider every advantage as too cheap, 
 which is not purchased by some calamity. I shall esteem it 
 as a singular act of God's providence, if this great nation, 
 guided by these warnings of history, not waiting till tumult 
 for Reform, nor trusting Reform to the rude hands of the 
 lowest of the people, shall amend their decayed institutions at 
 a period when they are ruled by a popular monarch, guided 
 by an upright minister, and blessed with profound peace." 
 
 On the 22nd of March the Second Eeading was 
 carried by a majority of one. But directly afterwards 
 the Government was defeated on an amendment in 
 Committee, and promptly appealed to the country. 
 Parliament was dissolved on the 23rd of April. " Bold 
 King ! bold Ministers ! '^ wrote Sydney on the 25th. 
 Popular feeling was now really roused. "The Bill, 
 the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill '^ was the 
 war-cry from Caithness to Cornwall. Lord John 
 Russell, who had brought the Bill into Parliament, 
 was the hero of the hour. He contested Devonshire 
 at the General Election, and Sydney, who had a vote 
 for the county, met him at Exeter. — 
 
 " The people along the road were very much disappointed 
 by his smallness. I told them he was nmch larger before the 
 Bill was thrown out, but was reduced by excessive anxiety 
 about the people. This brought tears into their eyes ! " 
 
 At this juncture Sydney composed (and published in 
 the name of an imaginary Mr. Dyson), a " Speech to 
 the Freeholders on Reform." — 
 
 "Stick to the Bill — it is your Magna Charta, and your 
 Runnymede. King John made a present to the Barons. 
 King William has made a similar present to you. Never 
 
v.] REFORM 139 
 
 mind common qualities, good in common times. If a man 
 does not vote for the Bill, he is miclean — the plague-spot is 
 upon him — push him into the lazaretto of the last century, 
 with WetherelP and Sadler ^ — purify the air before you 
 approach him — bathe your hands in Chloride of Lime, i£ 
 you have been contaminated by his touch. . . . 
 
 " The thing I cannot, and will not bear, is this ; — what 
 right has this Lord, or that Marquis, to buy ten seats in 
 Parliament, in the shape of Boroughs, and then to make laws 
 to govern me? And how are these masses of power re-distri- 
 buted? The eldest son of my Lord is just come from Eton 
 — he knows a good deal about ^Eneas and Dido, Apollo and 
 Daphne — and that is all ; and to this boy his father gives a 
 six-hundredth part of the power of making laws, as he would 
 give him a horse or a double-barrelled gun. Then Vellum, 
 the steward, is put in — an admirable man ; — he has raised tlie 
 estates — watched the progress of the family Road-and-Canal 
 Bills — and Vellum shall help to rule over the people of Eng- 
 land. A neighbouring country gentleman, Mr. Plumpkin, 
 hunts with my Lord — opens him a gate or tw^o, while the 
 hounds are running — dines with my Lord — agrees with my 
 Lord — wishes he could rival the South-Down sheep of my 
 Lord — and upon Plumpkin is conferred a portion of the 
 government. Then there is a distant relation of the same 
 name, in the County JNIilitia, with white teeth, who calls up 
 the carriage at the Opera, and is always wishing O'Connell 
 was hanged, drawn, and quartered — then a barrister, who 
 has written an article in the Quarterly^ and is very likely to 
 speak, and refute M'CuUoch ; and these five people, in whose 
 nomination I have no more agency than I have hi the nomi- 
 nation of the toll-keepers of the Bosphorus, are to make laws 
 for me and my family — to put their hands in my purse, and 
 to sway the future destinies of this country ; and w^hen the 
 neighbours step in, and beg permission to say a few words 
 before these persons are chosen, there is an universal cry of 
 
 iSir Charles Wetherell (1770-1846), Attorney-General, and 
 Recorder of Bristol. 
 
 2 Michael Thomas Sadler (1780-1835), M.P. for Newark. 
 
140 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 ruin, confusion, and destruction — 'We have become a great 
 people under Vellum and Plumpkin — under Vellum and 
 Plumpkin our ships have covered the ocean — under Vellum 
 and Plumpkin our armies have secured the strength of the 
 Hills — to turn out Vellum and Plumpkin is not Reform, 
 but Revolution.' " 
 
 It was said by the opponents of the Bill that th.e 
 existing system worked well. — 
 
 " Work well ! How does it work well, when every human 
 being in-doors and out (with the exception of the Duke of 
 Wellington) says it must be made to work better, or it will 
 soon cease to work at all? It is little short of absolute 
 nonsense to call a government good, which the great mass 
 of Englishmen would, before twenty years were elapsed, if 
 Reform were denied, rise up and destroy. Of what use have 
 all the cruel laws been of Perceval, Eldon, and Castlereagh, 
 to extinguish Reform ? Lord John Russell, and his abettors, 
 would have been committed to gaol twenty years ago for half 
 only of his present Reform ; and now relays of the people 
 would drag them from London to Edinburgh ; at which latter 
 city we are told, by Mr. Dundas, that there is no eagerness 
 for Reform. Five minutes before Moses struck the rock, this 
 gentleman would have said that there was no eagerness for 
 water. 
 
 " There are two methods of making alterations : the one is 
 to despise the applicants, to begin with refusing every conces- 
 sion, then to relax by making concessions which are always 
 too late ; by offering in 1831 what is then too late, but 
 would have been cheerfully accepted in 1830 — gradually to 
 O'Connellize the country, till at last, after this process has 
 gone on for some time, the alarm becomes too great, and 
 every thing is conceded in hurry and confusion. In the mean 
 time fresh conspiracies have been hatched by the long delay, 
 and no gratitude is expressed for what has been extorted by 
 fear. In this way peace was concluded with America, and 
 Emancipation granted to the Catholics ; and in this way the 
 War of Complexions will be finished in the West Indies. The 
 
v.] REFORM 141 
 
 other method is, to see at a distance that the thing must be 
 done, and to do it effectually, and at once ; to take it out of 
 the hands of the common people, and to carry the measure in 
 a manly liberal manner, so as to satisfy the great majority. 
 The merit of this belongs to the administration of Lord Grey. 
 He is the only jMinister I know of, who has begun a great 
 measure in good time, conceded at the beginning of twenty 
 years what would have been extorted at the end of it, and 
 prevented that folly, violence, and ignorance, which emanate 
 from a long denial and extorted concession of justice to great 
 masses of human beings. I believe the question of Reform, 
 or any dangerous agitation of it, is set at rest for thirty or 
 forty years ; and this is an eternity in politics. 
 
 " I am old and tired, — thank me for ending ; but one word 
 more before I sit down. I am old, but I thank God I have 
 lived to see more than my observations on human nature 
 taught me I had any right to expect. I have lived to see an 
 honest King, in whose word his ministers could trust. I have 
 lived to see a King with a good heart, who, surrounded by 
 nobles, thinks of common men ; who loves the great mass of 
 English people, and wishes to be loved by them ; and who, in 
 spite of clamour, interest, prejudice, and fear, has the manli- 
 ness to carry these wise changes into immediate execution. 
 Gentlemen, farewell ! Shout for the King ! " ^ 
 
 Having done his best for the good cause in the 
 country, Sydney Smith returned to London to watch, 
 the results. On the 6tli of June Macaulay met him 
 at dinner, and writes thus next day : — 
 
 " Sydney Smith leaves London on the 20th — the day before 
 Parliament meets for business. I advised him to stay and see 
 something of his friends, who would be coming up to London. 
 ' My flock ! ' said this good shepherd, ' my dear sir, remember 
 my flock ! 
 
 " The hungry sheep look up and are not fed." ' 
 
 1 This is the " Speech respecting the Reform Bill " in Sydney 
 Smith's Collected Works. 
 
142 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 "... He begged me to come and see hira at Combe Florey. 
 * There I am, sir, in a delightful parsonage, about which I 
 care a great deal, and a delightful country, about which I do 
 not care a straw.' " 
 
 When the new House of Commons assembled, it was 
 found to contain a great majority of Reformers. A 
 fresh Bill was introduced, and passed the Second 
 Reading, by a majority of 136, on the 8th of July. 
 While it was ploughing its way through Com- 
 mittee, the Coronation of William iv. took place 
 on the 8th of September. The solemnity was made 
 an occasion for public rejoicings in the country, 
 and loyalty was judiciously reinforced by the sugges- 
 tion that the King was, in this great controversy, on 
 the same side as his people. At a meeting at Taunton, 
 Sydney Smith spoke as follows : — 
 
 " I am particularly happy to assist on this occasion, because 
 I think that the accession of the present King is a marked 
 and important era in English history. Another coronation 
 has taken place since I have been in the world, but I never 
 assisted at its celebration. I saw in it a change of masters, 
 not a change of system. I did not understand the joy which 
 it occasioned. I did not feel it, and I did not counterfeit 
 what I did not feel. 
 
 " I think very differently of the accession of his present 
 Majesty. I believe I see in that accession a great probability 
 of serious improvement, and a great increase of public happi- 
 ness. The evils which have been long complained of by bold 
 and intelligent men are now universally admitted. The 
 public feeling, which has been so often appealed to, is now 
 intensely excited. The remedies which have so often been 
 called for are now, at last, vigorously, wisely, and faithfully 
 applied. I admire, gentlemen, in the present King, his love 
 of peace — I admire in him his disposition to economy, and I 
 admire in him, above all, his faithful and honourable conduct 
 
v.] REFORM 143 
 
 to those who happen to be his ministers. He was, I believe, 
 quite as faithful to the Duke of Wellington as to Lord Grey, 
 and would, I have no doubt, be quite as faithful to the politi- 
 cal enemies of Lord Grey (if he thought fit to employ them) 
 as he is to Lord Grey himself. There is in this reign no 
 secret influence, no double ministry — on whomsoever he 
 confers the office, to him he gives that confidence without 
 which the office cannot be holden with honour, nor executed 
 with effect. He is not only a peaceful King, and an eco- 
 nomical King, but he is an honest King. So far, I believe, 
 every individual of this company will go with me. 
 
 " There is an argument I have often heard, and that is this 
 — Are we to be afraid ? — is this measure to be carried by 
 intimidation ? — is the House of Lords to be overawed ? But 
 this style of argument proceeds from confounding together 
 two sets of feelings which are entirely distinct — personal 
 fear and political fear. If I am afraid of voting against this 
 bill, because a mob may gather about the House of Lords — 
 because stones may be flung at my head — because my house 
 may be attacked by a mob, I am a poltroon, and unfit to 
 meddle with public affairs. But I may rationally be afraid 
 of producing great public agitation ; I may be honourably 
 afraid of flinging people into secret clubs and conspiracies — 
 I may be wisely afraid of making the aristocracy hateful to 
 the great body of the people. This surely has no more to do 
 with fear than a loose identity of name ; it is in fact prudence 
 of the highest order; the deliberate reflexion of a wise man, 
 who does not like what he is going to do, but likes still less 
 the consequences of not doing it, and who of two evils chooses 
 the least. 
 
 "There are some men much afraid of what is to happen ; 
 my lively hope of good is, I confess, mingled with very little 
 apprehension; but of one thing I must be candid enough to 
 say that I am much afraid, and that is of the opinion now 
 increasing, that the people are become indifferent to reform ; 
 and of th at opinion I am afraid, because I believe in an evil hour 
 it may lead some misguided members of the Upper House of 
 
144 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Parliament to vote against the bill. As for the opinion it- 
 self, I hold it in the utmost contempt. The people are waiting 
 in virtuous patience for the completion of the bill, because 
 they know it is in the hands of men who do not mean to de- 
 ceive them. I do not believe they have given up one atom of 
 reform — I do not believe that a great people were ever before 
 so firmly bent upon any one measure. I put it to any man 
 of common sense, whether he believes it possible, after the 
 King and Parliament have acted as they have done, that the 
 people will ever be content with much less than the present 
 bill contains. If a contrary principle be acted upon, and the 
 bill attempted to be got rid of altogether, I confess I tremble 
 for the consequences, which I believe will be of the worst 
 and most painful description; and this I say deliberately, 
 after the most diligent and extensive enquiry. Upon that 
 diligent enquiry I repeat again my firm conviction, that the 
 desire of reform has increased, not diminished; that the 
 present repose is not indifference, but the calmness of vic- 
 tory, and the tranquillity of success. When I see all the 
 wishes and appetites of created beings changed, — when I 
 see an eagle, that, after long confinement, has escaped into 
 the air, come back to his cage and his chain, — when I see 
 the emancipated negro asking again for the hoe which has 
 broken down his strength, and the lash which has tortured 
 his body — I will then, and not till then, believe that the 
 English people will return to their ancient degradation — 
 that they will hold out their repentant hands for those mana- 
 cles which at this moment lie broken into links at their feet." 
 
 This fine speech was delivered at a crucial moment of 
 the speaker's personal fortunes. Whether he would 
 or would not have made a good bishop, and whether 
 the Whigs were or were not justly chargeable with 
 cowardice ^ in not having raised him to the Episcopal 
 
 iLord Houghton wrote in 1873 — "I heard Lord Melbourne 
 say, 'Sydney Smith has done more for the Whigs than all the 
 clergy put together, and our not making him a bishop was mere 
 cowardice.' " 
 
v.] PROMOTION 145 
 
 Bench, are disputable points. It seems certain, from 
 his own declarations, that in later life he would have 
 declined the honour; but there was a time when it 
 might have been offered, and would probably have been 
 accepted. When he feared that England might be 
 dragged into war with France on behalf of Spain, he 
 composed a skit purporting to be a Protest entered on 
 the Journals of the Lords by the Bishop of Worcester, 
 and signed it ^' Sydney Vigorn." ^ The Bishop of 
 Worcester 2 died on the 5th of September 1831, and 
 Lord Grey gave the vacant mitre to a Tory.^ 
 Sydney's emotions are not recorded; but on the 
 10th of September Lord Grey offered him a Residen- 
 tiary Canonry of St. Paul's — "a snug thing, let me 
 tell you, being worth full £2000 a year." It was 
 not an overwhelming reward for such long and such 
 brilliant seryice to the causes which Lord Grey repre- 
 sented, but it was a recognition — and it was enough. 
 He was installed on the 27th of September, and on 
 the day of his installation he wrote to a friend — " It 
 puts me at my ease for life. I asked for nothing — 
 never did anything shabby to procure preferment. 
 These are pleasing recollections." 
 
 1 The archaic signature of the Bishops of Worcester. Mrs. 
 Austin transcribes it "Vigour," and puts the Protest among 
 the letters of 1831. Sir Spencer Walpole points out that it 
 probably belongs to the year 1823, when Lord Ellenborough 
 moved an Address to the Crown in favour of intervention in 
 Spain. 
 
 2 Ffolliot H. W. Cornewall (1754-1831). 
 
 8 Robert James Carr (1774-1841). It was said that this 
 appointment was due to a promise made by George iv., whom 
 Dr. Carr, formerly Vicar of Brighton, had attended in his last 
 illness. 
 
 L 
 
146 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. v. 
 
 Soon afterwards, he was presented on his appoint- 
 ment, and met with a misadventure at the Palace. — 
 
 " I went to Court, and, horrible to relate, with strings to 
 my shoes instead of buckles — not from Jacobinism, but 
 ignorance. I saw two or three Tory lords looking at me with 
 dismay, was informed by the Clerk of the Closet of my sin, 
 and, gathering my sacerdotal petticoats about me (like a lady 
 conscious of thick ankles) I escaped further observation." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SIXGLETOX COLLECTED WOEKS 
 
 Meanwhile the Reform Bill had passed the House of 
 Commons and was sent up to the House of Lords. 
 In the summer, Sydney Smith had written to Lord 
 Grey — " You may be sure that any attempt of the 
 Lords to throw out the Bill will be the signal for 
 the most energetic resistance from one end of the 
 kingdom to another." The Lords faced the risk, and 
 threw out the Bill on the 8th of October 1831. 
 
 Sydney's prophecy was promptly justified, and the 
 most threatening violence and disorder broke out in 
 the great centres of industrial population. Whigs 
 and Radicals alike rallied, as one man, to the cause of 
 Reform. On the 11th of October a public meeting 
 was held at Taunton to protest against the action of 
 the Lords and express unabated confidence in the 
 Government. It was on this occasion that S3'dney 
 Smith made the most famous of his political speeches. 
 He deplored the collision between the two Houses of 
 Parliament, but he was not the least alarmed about 
 the fate of the Bill. The Lords were no match for 
 the forces arrayed against them. — 
 
 "As for the possibility of the House of Lords preventing 
 147 
 
148 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 for long a reform of Parliament, I hold it to be the most 
 absurd notion that ever entered into the human imagination. 
 I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the 
 Lords to stop the progress of Reform reminds me very 
 forcibly of the great storm at Sidmouth, and of the conduct 
 of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the 
 winter of 1821, there set in a great flood upon that town — the 
 tide rose to an incredible height — the waves rushed in upon 
 the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. 
 In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm. Dame Part- 
 ington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her 
 house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing 
 out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic 
 Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit 
 was up ; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. 
 The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent 
 at a slop, or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with 
 a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease — be quiet and steady. 
 You will beat Mrs. Partington." 
 
 Fifty years later, an eye-witness tbns described the 
 scene: — "The introduction of the Partington storm 
 was startling and unexpected. As he recounted in 
 felicitous terms the adventures of the excellent dame, 
 suiting the action to the word with great dramatic 
 skill, he commenced trundling his imaginary mop and 
 sweeping back the intrusive waves of the Atlantic with 
 an air of resolute determination and an appearance 
 of increasing temper. The scene was realistic in the 
 extreme, and was too much for the gravity of the most 
 serious. The house rose, the people cheered, and tears 
 of superabundant laughter trickled down the cheeks 
 of fair women and veteran reformers." ^ 
 
 This was his last public act in connexion with Par- 
 liamentary Eeform ; but the keenness of his interest 
 
 1 R. A. Kinglake, quoted by Mr. Stuart Reid. 
 
VI.] ST. PAUL'S 149 
 
 remained unabated till the day was won. On the 
 12tli of December 1831, the Reform Bill was brought in 
 a third time. It again passed the House of Commons, 
 and was again threatened with destruction in the 
 Lords. Sydney Smith wrote thus to Lord Grey : — 
 
 " I take it for granted you are prepared to make Peers, to 
 force the measure if it fail again, and I would have this in- 
 tention half-officially communicated in all the great towns 
 before the Bill was brought in. If this is not done — I mean, 
 if Peers are not made — there will be a general convulsion, 
 ending in a complete revolution. ... If you wish to be 
 happy three months hence, create Peers. If you wish to 
 avoid an old age of sorrow and reproach, create Peers." 
 
 Acting on this counsel, Lord Grey obtained the 
 King's written consent to the creation of as many peers 
 as were required to carry the Bill. " I am for forty," 
 wrote Sydney, "to make things safe in Committee." 
 But this extreme remedy was not required. When it 
 became known that" the King had given his consent, 
 the opposition collapsed, and the Bill received the 
 Eoyal Assent on the 7th of June 1832. It was, as 
 the Duke of Wellington said, a revolution by due 
 course of law. 
 
 Henceforward Sydney Smith appears rather as a 
 supporter of things as they are, than as a promoter of 
 political or ecclesiastical change. Indeed there are 
 signs which seem to show that his stock of reforming 
 zeal had already run low. " The New Beer Bill ^ has 
 begun its operations. Everybody is drunk. Those 
 who are not singing are sprawling. The Sovereign 
 People are in a beastly state." He was now past 
 
 1 The Beer-house Act, 1830, allowed any one to retail beer, on 
 merely taking out an excise-license. 
 
150 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 sixty, and a spirit of amiable self-indulgence was 
 creeping over him. — 
 
 "I love liberty, but hope it can be so managed that I shall 
 have soft beds, good dinners, fine linen, etc., for the rest of my 
 life. I am too old to fight or to suffer." " I am tired of 
 liberty and revolution ! Where is it to end ? Are all 
 political agglutinations to be un glued ? Are we prepared for 
 a second Heptarchy, and to see the King of Sussex figliting 
 with the Emperor of Essex, or marrying the Dowager Queen 
 of Hampshire ? " 
 
 Just before the first elections under the Eeform Act, 
 he wrote to a Scotch friend : — 
 
 "AVhat oceans of absurdity and nonsense will the new 
 liberties of Scotland disclose ! Yet this is better than the 
 old infamous jobbing, and the foolocracy under which you 
 have so long laboured." 
 
 Sydney Smith's first term of official duty at St. Paul's 
 began on the 1st of February 1832. On the eve of 
 the new year he wrote to his married daughter : — 
 
 " We are debating how to come up to town, and how to 
 make a Stage Coach compatible with Saba's aristocracy and 
 dignity. The Coach sets off from Taunton at four o'clock. 
 It is then dark. I recommend her hurrying in three minutes 
 before the Coach departs with her face covered up. But there 
 is a maiden lady who knows us and who lives opposite the 
 Coach. I have promised to keep her in conversation whilst 
 Saba steps in. Once in, all chance of detection is over. 
 
 " P.S. — We think Miss Y has discovered us, for, upon 
 
 meeting her in Taunton, she spoke of the Excellence of Public 
 Conveyances. I said it was a fine day, and, conscious of guilt, 
 retired." 
 
 The removal to London was safely accomplished, 
 and on the 29th of January he wrote : — 
 
 "I drove all this morning with Lady Holland. I had 
 refused two or three times last week, but, as a good deal is 
 
VI.] ST. PAUL'S 151 
 
 due to old friendship, I wrote word that, if she would accept 
 the company of a handsome young clergyman, I knew of one 
 who was much at her service. She was very ill. I preached to 
 her, not ' of Temperance and Righteousness and Judgement 
 to come,' but said nothing of the two last and confined myself 
 to the first topic. ' Lay aside pepper, and brandy and water, 
 and baume de vie. Prevent the evil instead of curing it. A 
 single mutton chop, a glass of toast and water ' — here she 
 cried and I stopj)ed ; but she began sobbing, and I was 
 weak enough to allow two glasses of sherry — on which she 
 recovered." 
 
 A few days later he wrote to his old friend Lady 
 Morley ^ : — 
 
 '• I have taken possession of my preferment. The house is 
 in Amen Corner, — an awkward name on a card, and an 
 awkward annunciation to the coachman on leaving any 
 fashionable mansion.^ I find too (sweet discovery !) that I 
 give a dinner every Sunday, for three months in the year, to 
 six clergymen and six singing-men, at one o'clock. Do me 
 the favour to drop in as Mrs. ]\Iorley." 
 
 It soon became evident that the Whig Government, 
 flushed with its triumph over Toryism, intended to 
 lay reforming hands upon the Church,^ and the newly- 
 fledged dignitary was alarmed. On the 22nd of 
 December 1832 he wrote — 
 
 "I see Lord Grey, the Chancellor, and the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury have had a meeting, which I suppose has decided 
 the fate of the Church." " Do you want a butler or respect- 
 able-looking groom of the chambers? I shall be happy to 
 
 1 Frances Talbot, wife of John, 1st Earl of Morley. 
 
 2 As a matter of fact he lived at 33 Charles Street, and subse- 
 quently at 56 Green Street. 
 
 3 This intention gave rise to the "Oxford Movement." Keble 
 thought that the time had come when " scoundrels must be called 
 scoundrels." His Sermon on " National Apostasy " was preached 
 on the lith of July 1833. 
 
152 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 serve you in either capacity ; it is time for the clergy to look 
 out. I have also a cassock and stock of sermons to dispose 
 of, dry and fit for use." " I am for no more movements : 
 they are not relished by Canons of St. Paul's. When I say, 
 'no more movements,' however, I except the case of the 
 Universities; which, I think, ought to be immediately invaded 
 with Enquirers and Commissioners. They are a crying evil." 
 " Do not imagine I am going to rat. I am a thoroughly 
 honest, and, I will say, liberal person, but have never given 
 way to that puritanical feeling of the Whigs against dining 
 with Tories. 
 
 ' Tory and Whig in turns shall be my host, 
 I taste no politics in boiPd and roast.' " 
 
 In declining an invitation to dinner he wrote : — 
 
 " On one day of the year, the Canons of St. Paul's divide 
 a little money — an inadequate recompense for all the troubles 
 and anxieties they undergo. This day is, unfortunately for 
 me, that on which you have asked me (the 25th of March), 
 when we all dine together, endeavouring to forget for a few 
 moments, by the aid of meat and wine, the sorrows and 
 persecutions of the Church." 
 
 Of Sydney Smith's official relations with. St. Paul's 
 abundant traces are still to be found. He took a 
 leading part in the business of the Chapter. Dean 
 Milman^ wrote: — "I find traces of him in every 
 particular of Chapter affairs ; and, on every occasion 
 where his hand appears, I find stronger reasons for 
 respecting his sound judgment, knowledge of business, 
 and activity of mind ; above all the perfect fidelity of 
 his stewardship. . . . His management of the affairs 
 of St. Paul's (for at one time he seems to have been 
 the manager) only commenced too late and terminated 
 too soon." 
 
 A Select Committee of the House of Commons was 
 
 1 Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868). 
 
VI.] ST. PAUL'S 153 
 
 appointed in 1841 to inquire into the condition of 
 National Monuments. One fragment of Sydney 
 Smith's evidence is quaint enough to be recalled. — 
 
 "I hope I leave the Committee with this very decided 
 impression, that, in such an immense town as this, free 
 admission into the Cathedral would very soon inflict upon that 
 Cathedral the infamy of being a notorious resort for all bad 
 characters; it would cease to be frequented as a place of 
 worship, and the whole purpose for which it exists destroyed ; 
 and that to this the payment operates as a decided check." 
 
 When examined before the same Committee, the 
 Surveyor to the Cathedral testified that there '• had 
 been no superintendence at all comparable to that of 
 Mr. Sydney Smith " ; that he had warmed the Library 
 and rebound the books ; that he had insured the fabric 
 against fire ; and had " brought the New Kiver into 
 the Cathedral by mains." The Verger testified that 
 the monuments had fallen into a dreadful state of 
 decay and disfigurement, and that there were " twenty 
 thousand names scratched on the font " ; but that now 
 by Mr. Smith's orders everything had been repaired, 
 cleaned, and set in order. 
 
 As regards Sydney Smith's preaching, testimony 
 is equally explicit. He said of himself, in a letter 
 stating his claims to ecclesiastical preferment, " I am 
 distinguished as a preacher," and this seems to have 
 been no more than the truth. George Ticknor, writing 
 in 1835, said that he had heard from Sydney "by 
 far the best sermon that I have heard in England." 
 Charles Greville wrote : — " He is very good ; manner 
 impressive, voice sonorous and agreeable; rather 
 familiar, but not offensively so." Mrs. Austin,^ who 
 
 1 Born Sarah Taylor (1793-1867). 
 
154 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 afterwards edited his Letters, writes : — " The choir ^ 
 was densely filled. . . . The moment he appeared in 
 the pulpit, all the weight of his duty, all the authority 
 of his office, were written on his countenance ; and, 
 without a particle of affectation, his whole demeanour 
 bespoke the gravity of his purpose." 
 
 This exactly corresponds with the impression of a 
 listener to his famous sermon on Toleration, in Bristol 
 Cathedral. "Never did anybody to my mind look 
 more like a High Churchman, as he walked up the 
 aisle to the altar — there was an air of so much proud 
 dignity in his appearance." 
 
 Perhaps this account of Sydney Smith's relations 
 with St. Paul's Cathedral cannot be better concluded 
 than with some extracts from the noble sermon which 
 he preached there on the occasion of Queen Victoria's 
 accession. It is a remarkably fine instance of his 
 rhetorical manner. It reveals an ardent and sagacious 
 patriotism. It breathes a spirit of fatherly interest 
 which excellently becomes a minister of religion, 
 glancing, from the close of a long life spent in public 
 affairs, at the possibilities, at once awful and splendid, 
 which lay before the Girl-Queen. 
 
 The preacher, in his opening paragraphs, briefly 
 announces his theme. His starting-point is the death 
 of the King. — 
 
 " From the throne to the tomb — wealth, splendour, flattery, 
 all gone ! The look of favour — the voice of power, no more ; 
 — the deserted palace — the wretched monarch on his funeral 
 bier — the mourners ready — the dismal march of death pre- 
 pared. Who are we, and what are we ? and for what has God 
 
 1 At that period there were no sermons nnder the Dome. 
 
VI.] ST. PAUL'S 155 
 
 made us? and why are we doomed to this frail and unquiet 
 existence ? Who does not feel all this ? in whose heart does it 
 not provoke appeal to, and dependence on, God ? before whose 
 eyes does it not bring the folly and the nothingness of all 
 things human ? " 
 
 He pauses to pay a tribute to the honesty and 
 patriotism of William iv., and then proceeds : — 
 
 " But the world passes on, and a new order of things arises. 
 Let us take a short view of those duties which devolve upon 
 the young Queen, whom Providence has placed over us : what 
 ideas she ought to form of her duties ; and on what points 
 she should endeavour to place the glories of her reign, 
 
 " First and foremost, I think the new Queen should bend 
 her mind to the very serious consideration of educating her 
 people. Of the importance of this I think no reasonable 
 doubt can exist ; it does not in its effects keep pace with the 
 exaggerated expectations of its injudicious advocates ; but it 
 presents the best chance of national improvement. 
 
 " Reading and writing are mere increase of power. They 
 may be turned, I admit, to a good or a bad purpose ; but for 
 several years of his life the child is in your hands, and you may 
 give to that power what bias you please. Thou shalt not kill 
 
 — Thou shalt not steal — Thou shalt not bear false witness : 
 
 — by how many fables, by how much poetry, by how many 
 beautiful aids of imagination, may not the fine morality of the 
 Sacred Scriptures be engraven on the minds of the young ? I 
 believe the arm of the assassin may be often stayed by the 
 lessons of his early life. When I see the village school, and 
 the tattered scholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching 
 the mechanical art of reading or writing, and thinking that 
 they are teaching that alone, I feel that the aged instructor is 
 protecting life, insuring property, fencing the altar, guarding 
 the throne, giving space and liberty to all the fine powers of 
 man, and lifting him up to his own place in the order of 
 Creation. 
 
 " There are, I am sorry to say, many countries in Europe 
 which have taken the lead of England in the great business 
 
156 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 of education, and it is a thoroughly commendable and legiti- 
 mate object of ambition in a Sovereign to overtake them. 
 The names, too, of malefactors, and the nature of their crimes, 
 are subjected to the Sovereign ; — how is it possible that a 
 Sovereign, with the fine feelings of youth, and with all the 
 gentleness of her sex, should not ask herself, whether the 
 human being whom she dooms to death, or at least does not 
 rescue from death, has been properly warned in early youth of 
 the horrors of that crime, for which his life is forfeited — 'Did 
 he ever receive any education at all? — did a father and a 
 mother watch over him? — was he brought to places of wor- 
 ship? — was the Word of God explained to him? — was the 
 Book of Knowledge opened to him? — Or am I, the fountain 
 of mercy, the nursing-mother of my people, to send a forsaken 
 wretch from the streets to the scaffold, and to punish by 
 unprincipled cruelty the evils of unprincipled neglect ? ' " 
 
 From zeal for education, we go on to love of 
 Peace. — 
 
 " A second great object, which I hope will be impressed 
 upon the mind of this Royal Lady, is a rooted horror of war 
 — an earnest and passionate desire to keep her people in a 
 state of profound peace. The greatest curse which can be 
 entailed upon mankind is a state of war. All the atrocious 
 crimes committed in years of peace — all that is spent in peace 
 by the secret corruptions, or by the thoughtless extravagance, 
 of nations — are mere trifles compared with the gigantic evils 
 which stalk over the world in a state of war. God is forgotten 
 in war — every principle of Christian charity trampled upon — 
 human labour destroyed — human industry extinguished — you 
 see the son, and the husband, and the brother, dying miserably 
 in distant lands — you see the waste of human affections — you 
 see the breaking of human hearts — you hear the shrieks of 
 widows and children after the battle — and you walk over the 
 mangled bodies of the wounded calling for death. I would 
 say to that Royal child. Worship God by loving peace — it is 
 not your humanity to pity a beggar by giving him food or 
 raiment — / can do that ; that is the charity of the humble and 
 
VI.] ST. PAUL'S 157 
 
 the unknown — widen you your heart for the more expanded 
 miseries of mankind — pity the mothers of the peasantry who 
 see their sons torn away from theu' families — pity your poor 
 subjects crowded into hospitals, and calling in their last breath 
 upon their distant country and their young Queen — pity the 
 stupid, frantic folly of human beings who are always ready to 
 tear each other to pieces, and to deluge the earth with each 
 other's blood ; this is your extended humanity — and this the 
 great field of your compassion. Extinguish in your heart the 
 fiendish love of military glory, from which your sex does 
 not necessarily exempt you, and to which the wickedness of 
 flatterers may urge you. Say upon your death-bed, ' I have 
 made few orphans in my reign — I have made few widows — 
 my object has been peace. I have used all the weight of my 
 character, and all the power of my situation, to check the 
 irascible passions of mankind, and to turn them to the arts of 
 honest industry. This has been the Christianity of my throne, 
 and this the Gospel of my sceptre. In this way I have strove 
 to worship my Eedeemer and my Jadge.' " 
 
 True to his lifelong conviction, the preacher urges 
 the sacredness of religious freedom. — 
 
 " I hope the Queen will love the Xational Church, and pro- 
 tect it ; but it must be impressed upon her mind that every 
 sect of Christians have as perfect a right to the free exercise 
 of their worship as the Church itself — that there must be 
 no invasion of the privileges of the other sects, and no con- 
 temptuous disrespect of their feelings — that the Altar is the 
 very ark and citadel of Freedom. 
 
 "Though I deprecate the bad effects of fanaticism, I 
 earnestly pray that our young Sovereign may evince herself 
 to be a person of deep religious feeling : what other cure has 
 she for all the arrogance and vanity which her exalted position 
 must engender ? for all the flattery and falsehood with which 
 she must be surrounded ? for all the soul-corrupting homage 
 with which she is met at every moment of her existence? 
 what other cure than to cast herself down in darkness and 
 
158 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 solitude before God — to say that she is dust and ashes — and 
 to call down the pity of the Almighty upon her difficult 
 and dangerous life. This is the antidote of kings against the 
 slavery and the baseness which surround them ; they should 
 think often of death — and the folly and nothingness of the 
 world, and they should humble their souls before the Master 
 of masters, and the King of kings; praying to Heaven for 
 wisdom and calm reflexion, and for that spirit of Christian 
 gentleness which exalts command into an empire of justice, 
 and turns obedience into a service of love." 
 
 Thus he recapitulates and concludes : — 
 
 " A young Queen, at that period of life which is commonly 
 given up to frivolous amusement, sees at once the great 
 principles by which she should be guided, and steps at once 
 into the great duties of her station. The importance of 
 educating the lower orders of the people is never absent from 
 her mind ; she takes up this principle at the beginning of her 
 life, and in all the change of servants, and in all the struggle 
 of parties, looks to it as a source of permanent improvement. 
 A great object of her affections is the preservation of peace ; 
 she regards a state of war as the greatest of all human evils ; 
 thinks that the lust of conquest is not a glory, but a bad 
 crime ; despises the folly and miscalculations of war, and is 
 willing to sacrifice every thing to peace but the clear honour 
 of her land. 
 
 " The patriot Queen, whom I am painting, reverences the 
 National Church — frequents its worship, and regulates her 
 faith by its precepts ; but she withstands the encroachments, 
 and keeps down the ambition natural to establishments, and, 
 by rendering the privileges of the Church compatible with the 
 civil freedom of all sects, confers strength upon, and adds 
 duration to, that wise and magnificent institution. And then 
 this youthful Monarch, profoundly but wisely religious, dis- 
 daining hypocrisy, and far .above the childish follies of false 
 piety, casts herself upon God, and seeks from the Gospel of 
 His blessed Son a path for her steps, and a comfort for her 
 soul. Here is a picture which warms every English heart, and 
 
VI.] THE PARALLELOGRAM 159 
 
 would bring all this congregation upon their bended knees 
 before Almighty God to pray it may be realized. What limits 
 to the glory and happiness of our native land, if the Creator 
 should in His mercy have placed in the heart of this Royal 
 AVoman the rudiments of wisdom and mercy ; and if, giving 
 them time to expand, and to bless our children's children with 
 her goodness, He should grant to her a long sojourning upon 
 earth, and leave her to reign over us till she is well stricken 
 in years ? What glory ! what happiness ! what joy ! what 
 bounty of God ! I of course can only expect to see the be- 
 ginning of such a splendid period : but, when I do see it, 
 I shall exclaim with the pious Simeon, ' Lord, now lettest 
 Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen 
 Thy salvation.' " 
 
 We turn now from ecclesiastical to social life. 
 Though. Sydney Smith, still retained his beautiful 
 Rectory of Combe Florey, and lived there a good 
 deal in the summer, he spent more and more of his 
 year in London. He held that the parallelogram 
 between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Eegent Street, 
 and Hyde Park, " enclosed more intelligence and 
 ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than 
 the world had ever collected in such a space before." 
 He frankly admitted that the summer and the country 
 had no charms for him. His sentiments on this head 
 found poetical expression in a parody of Pai^adise Lost. 
 He felt 
 
 " As one who, long in rural hamlets pent, 
 (Where squires and parsons deep potations make, 
 With lengthen'd tale of fox, or timid hare, 
 Or antler' d stag, sore vext by hound and horn), 
 Forth issuing on a winter's morn, to reach 
 In chaise or coach the London Babylon 
 Remote, from each thing met conceives delight ; — 
 Or cab, or car, or evening muffin-bell, 
 Or lamps — each city-sight, each city-sound." 
 
160 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 " I do all I can to love the country, and endeavour to 
 believe those poetical lies which I read in Rogers and others, 
 on the subject ; which said deviations from truth were, by 
 Eogers, all written in St. James's Place." " I look forward 
 anxiously to the return of the bad weather, coal fires, and good 
 society in a crowded city." " The country is bad enough 
 in summer, but in winter it is a fit residence only for beings 
 doomed to such misery for misdeeds in another state of exist- 
 ence." " You may depend upon it, all lives lived out of Lon- 
 don are mistakes, more or less grievous — but mistakes." 
 " I shall not be sorry to be in town. I am rather tired of 
 simple pleasures, bad reasoning, and worse cookery." 
 
 His life in London, free from these kindred evils, 
 was full of enjoyment. He dined out as often as 
 he liked, and entertained his friends at breakfast, 
 luncheon, and dinner. He admits that he ^^some- 
 times talked a little," and ^' liked a hearty laugher." 
 
 " I talk only the nonsense of the moment from the good 
 humour of the moment, and nothing remains behind." 
 
 " I like a little noise and nature, and a large party, very 
 merry and happy." 
 
 Here are some of his invitations : — 
 
 " Will you come to a philosophical breakfast on Saturday ? 
 — ten o'clock precisely ? Nothing taken for granted ! Every- 
 thing (except the Thirty-Nine Articles) called in question." 
 
 " I have a breakfast of philosophers to-morrow at ten 
 punctually ; muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and con- 
 tradiction. Will you come?" 
 
 " Pray come and see me. I will give you very good mut- 
 ton chops for luncheon,! seasoned with affectionate regard 
 and respect." 
 
 1 In 1825, after a visit to Lord Essex at Cassiobury, be noted 
 with disapproval — " No hot luncheons." 
 
VI.] THE PAKALLELOGRAM 161 
 
 " I give two dinners next week to the following persons, 
 whom I enumerate, as I know Lady Georgiana loves a little 
 gossip. First dinner — Lady Holland, Eastlake, Lord and 
 Lady Monteagle, Luttrell, Lord Auckland, Lord Campbell, 
 Lady Stratheden, Lady Dunstanville, Baring Wall, and 
 Mr. Hope. Second dinner — Lady Charlemont, Lord Glenelg, 
 Lord and Lady Denman, Lord and Lady Cottenham, Lord and 
 Lady Langdale, Sir Charles Lemon, Mr. Hibbert, Landseer, 
 and Lord Clarendon." 
 
 This period is marked by one domestic incident 
 which caused the Smiths lasting happiness. In the 
 spring of 1834 their elder daughter, Saba, was married 
 to Dr., afterwards Sir Henry, Holland. Sydney thus 
 expressed his joy : — 
 
 " The blessing of God be upon you both, dear children ; 
 and be assured that it makes my old age much happier to 
 have placed my daughter in the hands of so honourable and 
 amiable a sou." 
 
 A few years later he wrote from Combe Florey : — 
 
 " We expect Saba and Dr. Holland the end of this month. 
 I am in great hopes we shall have some ' cases ' : I am keep- 
 ing three or four simmering for him. It is enough to break 
 one's heart to see him in the country." 
 
 In November 1834, the King dismissed the Whig 
 Government, and sent for Sir Eobert Peel. A General 
 Election took place at Christmas. In the spring of 
 1835 PeePs Government was displaced by a vote of 
 the House of Commons, and a W^hig Government 
 was formed again under Lord Melbourne. Henry 
 Labouchere,^ M.P. for Taunton, accepted office, and 
 thereby vacated his seat. On seeking re-election, he 
 was opposed, unsuccessfully, by Benjamin Disraeli. 
 
 1 (1798-1869), created Lord Tauuton in 1859. 
 
162 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 "The Jew spoke for an hour. The boys called out 
 ^ Old Clothes ' as he came into the town, and offered 
 to sell him sealing-wax and slippers." ^ 
 
 As soon as the Election was over, the country relapsed 
 into its normal calm. On the 3rd of June Sydney 
 wrote : — 
 
 "We are going through our usual course of jokes and 
 dinners. One advantage of the country is that a joke once 
 established is good for ever ; it is like the stuff which is 
 denominated everlasting, and used as pantaloons by careful 
 parents for their children." 
 
 In the following autumn the Smiths paid a flying 
 visit to France. The crossing from Dover was terrific ; 
 but Sydney comforted himself with the reflexion that, 
 "as I had so little life to lose, it was of little conse- 
 quence whether I was drowned, or died, like a resident 
 clergyman, from indigestion." 
 
 France gave him the same pleasure as it had always 
 given him. — 
 
 " Paris is very full. I look at it with some attention, as 
 I am not sure I may not end my days in it. I suspect the 
 fifth act of life should be in great cities : it is there, in the 
 long death of old age, that a man most forgets himself and 
 his infirmities." 
 
 " I care very little about dinners, but I shall not easily 
 forget a matelote at the Rochers de Cancale, an almond tart 
 at Montreuil, or Sipoulet a la Tartare at Grignon's. These are 
 impressions which no changes in future life can obliterate." 
 
 Before the year ended, he was established in Lon- 
 don. The remaining ten years of his life saw him, 
 in spite of some bodily infirmities, at the summit of 
 
 1 This is interesting as being, so far as I know, Sydney Smith's 
 only reference to Lord Beaconsfield. 
 
VI.] ARCHDEACON SINGLETON 163 
 
 his social fame. An immense proportion of the anec- 
 dotes relating to his conversation belong to this 
 period. " It was," wrote Mr. Gladstone in 1879, " in 
 the year 1835 that I met Mr. Sydney Smith for the 
 first time at the table of Mr. Hallam. After dinner 
 Mr. Smith was good enough to converse with me, and 
 he spoke, not of any general changes in the prevailing 
 tone of doctrine, but of the improvement which had 
 then begun to be remarkable in the conduct and 
 character of the clergy. He went back upon what 
 they had been, and said, in his vivid and pointed 
 way of illustration, 'Whenever you meet a clergy- 
 man of my age, you may be quite sure he is a bad 
 clergyman.' " ^ 
 
 In 1836 the Ecclesiastical Commission was established 
 by Act of Parliament as a permanent institution for 
 the management of business relating to the Church. 
 Its constitution and recommendations were very dis- 
 tasteful to Sydney Smith; and, as time wxnt on, he 
 found it impossible to restrain himself from public 
 criticism. At the beginning of the Session of 1837, he 
 published his " First Letter to Archdeacon Singleton." ^ 
 The Letter begins with an attack on the constitution of 
 the Commission. It was stuffed with Bishops. Deans 
 and Canons and Kectors and Vicars and Curates had 
 no place upon it. The result was that all interests, 
 not episcopal, had been completely overlooked, and 
 that the reforms, though perhaps theoretically sound, 
 were practically unworkable. Further, the reforms 
 had been far too extensive. The plan of making a 
 
 1 Gladstone's Gleanings, vol. vii. p. 220. 
 
 2 Thomas Singleton (1783-1842), Canon of Worcester and 
 Archdeacon of Northumberland. 
 
164 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Central Fund from the proceeds of confiscated Pre- 
 bends/ and enriching the smaller livings with it, was 
 chimerical. The whole income of the Church, equally 
 divided among all its clergy, would only give each 
 man the v/ages of a nobleman's butler. The true 
 method in all professions was the method of Blanks 
 and Prizes. But for the chance of those Prizes, men 
 of good birth and education would not " go into the 
 Church"; and an uneducated clergy would inevitably 
 become fanatical. — 
 
 " You will have a set of ranting, raving Pastors, who will 
 wage war against all the innocent pleasures of life ; vie with 
 each other in extravagance of zeal ; and plague your heart 
 out with their nonsense and absurdity. Cribbage must be 
 played in caverns, and sixpenny whist take refuge in the 
 howling wilderness. In this way low men, doomed to hope- 
 less poverty and galled by contempt, will endeavour to force 
 themselves into station and significance." 
 
 Then again there was the difficulty of oaths. The 
 property of Cathedrals could only be confiscated at the 
 expense of violated vows. — 
 
 "The Archbishop of Canterbury, at his enthronement, 
 takes a solemn oath that he will maintain the rights and liber- 
 ties of the Church of Canterbury; as Chairman, however, of 
 the New Commission, he seizes the patronage of that Church, 
 takes two thirds of its Revenues, and abolishes two thirds of 
 its Members. That there is an answer to this I am very 
 willing to believe, but I cannot at present find out what it is; 
 and this attack upon the Revenues and Members of Canter- 
 bury is not obedience to an Act of Parliament, but the very 
 Act of Parliament, which takes away, is recommended, drawn 
 up, and signed by the person who has sworn he will never 
 
 1 It is sometimes forgotten that a Prebend is a thing ; a Pre- 
 bendary a person. 
 
VI.] ARCHDEACON SINGLETON 165 
 
 take away; and this little apparent inconsistency is not con- 
 fined to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but is shared equally 
 by all the BishoxD-Commissioners, who have all (unless I am 
 grievously mistaken) taken similar oaths for the preservation 
 of their respective Chapters. It would be more easy to see 
 our way out of this little embarrassment, if some of the em- 
 barrassed had not unfortunately, in the parliamentary debates 
 on the Catholic Question, laid the greatest stress upon the 
 King's oath, applauded the sanctity of the monarch to the 
 skies, rejected all comments, called for the oath in its plain 
 naeaning, and attributed the safety of the English Church 
 to the solemn vow made by the King at the altar to the 
 Archbishops of Canterbury and York. 
 
 " Nothing can be more ill-natured among politicians, than 
 to look back into Hansard's Debates, to see what has been 
 said by particular men upon particular occasions, and to con- 
 trast such speeches with present opinions — and therefore I 
 forbear to introduce some inviting passages upon taking oaths 
 in their plain and obvious sense, both in debates on the Catho- 
 lic Question and upon that fatal and Mezentian oath which 
 binds the Irish to the English church." 
 
 The gist of all these reforms, actual and projected, 
 was that the Bishops were enormously increasing 
 their own power and patronage at the expense of the 
 Deans and Chapters. Sydney Smith, as a member of 
 a Chapter, protested, and then the friends of the 
 Bishops cried out that all such protests were indecent, 
 and even perilous. — 
 
 " We are told that if we agitate these questions among our- 
 selves, we shall have the democratic Philistines come down 
 upon us, and sweep us all away together. Be it so : I am 
 quite ready to be swept away when the time comes. Every- 
 body has his favourite death : some delight in apoplexy, and 
 others prefer marasmus. ... I would infinitely rather be 
 crushed by democrats than, under the plea of the public 
 good, be mildly and blandly absorbed by Bishops." 
 
166 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 With Bishops as a body, and allowing for some 
 notable exceptions, Sydney Smith seems to have had 
 only an imperfect sympathy. He held that they 
 could not be trusted to deal fairly and reasonably 
 with men, subject to their jurisdiction, who dared to 
 maintain independence in thought and action. — 
 
 " A good and honest Bishop (I thank God there are many 
 who deserve that character !) ought to suspect himself, and 
 carefully to watch his own heart. lie is all of a sudden 
 elevated from being a tutor, dining at an early hour with his 
 pupil (and occasionally, it is believed, on cold meat), to be a 
 spiritual Lord ; he is dressed in a magnificent dress, decorated 
 with a title, flattered by Chaplains, and surrounded by little 
 people looking up for the things which he has to give avpay; 
 and this often happens to a man who has had no opportuni- 
 ties of seeing the world, whose parents were in very humble life, 
 and who has given up all his thoughts to the Frogs of Aris- 
 tophanes and the Targum of Onkelos. How is it possible that 
 such a man should not lose his head? that he should not swell? 
 that he should not be guilty of a thousand follies, and worry 
 and tease to death (before he recovers his common sense) a 
 hundred men as good, and as wise, and as able as himself ? " 
 
 On all accounts, therefore, both public and private, 
 it was very good for Bishops to hear the voice of 
 candid criticism, and their opportunities of enjoying 
 that advantage were all too rare. — 
 
 " Bishops live in high places with high people, or with little 
 people who depend upon them. They walk delicately, like 
 Agag. They hear only one sort of conversation, and avoid 
 bold reckless men, as a lady veils herself from rough breezes." 
 
 And for the Whig Government, which was con- 
 senting to all these attacks on the Church and the 
 Chapters, Sydney had his parting word of reminiscent 
 rebuke. — 
 
VI.] ARCHDEACON SINGLETON 167 
 
 " I neither wish to offeud them nor any body else. I consider 
 myself to be as good a AVhig as any amongst them. I was a 
 Whig before many of them were born — and while some of 
 them were Tories and Waverers.i I have always turned out to 
 fight their battles, and when I saw no other Clergyman turn 
 out but myself — and this in times before liberality was well 
 recompensed, and therefore in fashion, and when the smallest 
 appearance of it seemed to condemn a Churchman to the 
 grossest obloquy, and the most hopeless poverty. It may 
 suit the purpose of the Ministers to flatter the Bench ; it does 
 not suit mine. I do not choose in my old age to be tossed as 
 a prey to the Bishops ; I have not deserved this of my Whig 
 friends." 
 
 It is perhaps not surprising that the Whig Ministers 
 should have remained impervious to arguments thus 
 enforced. On the 10th of February, Sydney Smith 
 wrote to Lord John Kussell (whom he addressed as 
 " My dear John " ) : — 
 
 " You say you are not convinced by my pamphlet. I am 
 afraid that I am a very arrogant person ; but I do assure you 
 that, in the fondest moments of self-conceit, the idea of con- 
 vincing a Russell that he was wrong never came across my 
 mind. Euclid would have had a bad chance with you if you 
 had happened to have formed an opinion that the interior 
 angles of a triangle were not equal to two right angles. The 
 more poor Euclid demonstrated, the more you would not have 
 been convinced." 
 
 In 1838 Sydney Smith published a second Letter to 
 the same Archdeacon : — 
 
 " It is a long time since you heard from me, and in the 
 mean time the poor Church of England has been trembling, 
 
 1 Compare his letter to Lady Holland, May 14, 1835 : — " Liberals 
 of the eleventh hour abound! and there are some of the first 
 hour, of whose work in the toil and heat of the day I have no 
 recollection! " 
 
168 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 from the Bishop who sitteth upon the throne, to the Curate 
 who rideth upon the hackney horse. I began writing on the 
 subject in order to avoid bursting from indignation ; and, as it 
 is not my habit to recede, I will go on till the Church of Eng- 
 land is either up or down — semianimous on its back or 
 vigorous on its legs. ... If what I write is liked, so much 
 the better ; but, liked or not liked, sold or not sold, Wilson 
 Crokered or not Wilson Crokered, I will write." ^ 
 
 He now returns to the " Prebends " which the 
 Commissioners propose to confiscate. Some of these, 
 he says, are properties of great value. He instances 
 one which will soon be worth between £40,000 and 
 £60,000 a year. Some of them are held by non- 
 residentiary Prebendaries, who never come near the 
 Cathedral, and who have no duty except to enjoy their 
 incomes. Those prebends Sydney Smith, as a real 
 though temperate reformer, would now surrender, and 
 make from them a fund to enrich poor livings. But 
 for the prebends of the Residentiaries, who perform the 
 daily duties of the Cathedral, he will fight to the death. 
 With splendid courage he asserts that these great 
 estates, held for life by ecclesiastical officers, are as 
 well managed, and as profitably employed, with a view 
 to the general interests of the community, as the lands 
 of any peer or squire. — 
 
 " Take, for instance, the Cathedral of Bristol, the whole es- 
 tates of which are about equal to keeping a pack of fox-hounds. 
 If this had been in the hands of a country gentleman ; instead 
 of Pregentor, Succentor, Dean, and Canons, and Sexton, 
 you would have had huntsman, whippers-in, dog-feeders, and 
 stoppers of earths ; the old squire, full of foolish opinions and 
 fermented liquids, and a young gentleman of gloves, waist- 
 
 1 John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), M.P. and Tory pamphleteer. 
 
VI.] ARCHDEACON SINGLETON 169 
 
 coats, and pantaloons : and how many generations might it 
 be before the fortuitous concourse of noodles would pro- 
 duce such a man as Professor Lee.i one of the Prebendaries 
 of Bristol, and by far the most eminent Oriental scholar in 
 Europe." 
 
 Then he reverts to his familiar argument that the 
 abolition of these ecclesiastical prizes would lower the 
 social character of the clergy as a body. — 
 
 " To get a stall, and to be preceded by men with silver 
 rods, is the bait which the ambitious squire is perpetually 
 holding out to his second son. ... If such sort of prefer- 
 ments are extinguished, a very serious evil (as I have often 
 said before) is done to the Church — the service becomes 
 unpopular, further spoliation is dreaded, the whole system is 
 considered to be altered and degraded, capital is withdrawn 
 from the Church, and no one enters into the profession but 
 the sons of farmers and little tradesmen, who would be foot- 
 men if they were not vicars — or figure on the coach-box if 
 they were not lecturing from the pulpit. 
 
 " K you were to gather a Parliament of Curates on the 
 hottest Sunday in the year, after all the services, sermons, 
 burials, and baptisms of the day, were over, and to offer them 
 such increase of salary as would be produced by the confis- 
 cation of the Cathedral property, I am convinced they would 
 reject the measure, and prefer splendid hope, and the expecta- 
 tion of good fortune in advanced life, to the trifling improve- 
 ment of poverty which such a fund could afford. Charles 
 James, of London, was a Curate ; the Bishop of Winchester 2 
 was a Curate ; almost every rose-and-shovel man has been a 
 Curate in his time. All Curates hope to draw great prizes. 
 
 " One of the most foolish circumstances attending this 
 
 1 Samuel Lee (1783-1852). 
 
 2 Charles Richard Sumner (1790-1874). 
 
170 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 destruction of Cathedral property is tlie great sacrifice of the 
 patronage of tlie Crown : the Crown gives up eight Prebends 
 of Westminster, two at Worcester, £1500 per annum at St. 
 Paul's, two Prebends at Bristol, and a great deal of other 
 preferment all over the kingdom : and this at a moment when 
 such extraordinary power has been suddenly conferred upon 
 the people, and when every atom of power and patronage 
 ought to be husbanded for the Crown. A Prebend of 
 Westminster for my second son would soften the Catos of 
 Cornhill, and lull the Gracchi of the Metropolitan Boroughs, 
 Lives there a man so absurd, as to suppose that Government 
 can be carried on without those gentle allurements? You 
 may as well attempt to poultice off the humps of a camel's 
 back as to cure mankind of these little corruptions. 
 
 " I am terribly alarmed by a committee of Cathedrals now 
 sitting in London, and planning a petition to the Legislature 
 to be heard by counsel. They will take such high ground, 
 and talk a language so utterly at variance with the feelings 
 of the age about Church Property, that I am much afraid 
 they will do more harm than good. In the time of Lord 
 George Gordon's riots, the Guards said they did not care for 
 the mob, if the Gentlemen Volunteers behind would be so 
 good as not to hold their muskets in such a dangerous man- 
 ner. I don't care for popular clamour, and think it might 
 now be defied ; but I confess the Gentlemen Volunteers 
 alarm me. They have unfortunately, too, collected their 
 addresses, and published them in a single volume 1 ! ! " ^ 
 
 And now he returns to one of the prominent topics 
 of his first Letter, and reminds the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury that he has sworn to protect the rights 
 and possessions of the Metropolitical Church of 
 Canterbury. — 
 
 1 On the 13th of January 1838, he wrote to the Bishop of London 
 — " I think the best reason for destroying the Cathedrals is the 
 abominable trash and nonsense they have all published since the 
 beginning of this dispute." 
 
VI.] ARCHDEACON SINGLETON 171 
 
 " A friend of mine has suggested to me that his Grace has 
 perhaps forgotten the oath ; but this cannot be, for the first 
 Protestant in Europe of course makes a memorandum in his 
 pocket-book of all the oaths he takes to do, or to abstain. 
 The oath, however, may be less present to the Archbishop's 
 memory, from the fact of his not having taken the oath in 
 person, but by the medium of a gentleman sent down by the 
 coach to take it for him — a practice which, though I believe it 
 to have been long established in the Church, surprised me, I 
 confess, not a little. A proxy to vote, if you ]3 lease — a prox}^ 
 to consent to arrangements of estates if wanted ; but a proxy 
 sent down in the Canterbury Fly, to take the Creator to 
 witness that the Archbishop, detained in town by business 
 or pleasure, will never violate that foundation of piety over 
 which he presides — all this seems to me an act of the most? 
 extraordinary indolence ever recorded in history. If an 
 Ecclesiastic, not a Bishop, may express any opinion on the 
 reforms of the Church, I recommend that Archbishops and 
 Bishops should take no more oaths by proxy ; but, as they do 
 not wait upon the Sovereign or the Prime Minister, or even 
 any of the Cabinet, by proxy, that they should also perform 
 all religious acts in their own person. ... I have been 
 informed, though I will not answer for the accuracy of the 
 information, that this vicarious oath is likely to ]3roduce a 
 scene which would have puzzled the Ductor Duhitantium. 
 The attorney who took the oath for the Archbishop is, 
 they say, seized with religious horrors at the approaching con- 
 fiscation of Canterbury property, and has in vain tendered 
 back his 6s. 8d. for taking the oath. The Archbishop refuses 
 to accept it ; and feeling himself light and disencumbered, 
 wisely keeps the saddle upon the back of the writhing and 
 agonized scrivener. I have talked it over with several 
 Clergymen, and the general opinion is, that the scrivener 
 will suffer." 
 
 And next he turns his attention to a foolish Bishop 
 who has argued in a pamphlet that, if a fund for the 
 improvement of poor benefices was to be created, it 
 
172 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 must be drawn from the property of tlie Cathedrals, 
 because the Bishops' incomes had already been pruned. 
 
 " This is very good Episcopal reasoning ; but is it true? 
 The Bishops and Commissioners wanted a fund to endow 
 small Livings ; they did not touch a farthing of their own 
 incomes, only distributed them a little more equally; and 
 proceeded lustily at once to confiscate Cathedral Property. 
 But w^hy was it necessary, if the fund for small Livings was 
 such a paramount consideration, that the future Archbishops 
 of Canterbury should be left with two palaces, and £15,000 
 per annum ? Why is every future Bishop of London to have 
 a palace in Fulham, ahouse in St. James's Square, and £10,000 
 a year ? Could not all the Episco23al functions be carried on 
 well and effectually with the half of these incomes ? Is it 
 necessary that the Archbishop of Canterbury should give 
 feasts to Aristocratic London ; and that the domestics of the 
 Prelacy should stand with swords and bag-wigs round pig, 
 and turkey, and venison, to defend, as it were, the Orthodox 
 gastronome from the fierce Unitarian, the fell Baptist, and all 
 the famished children of Dissent? I don't object to all this ; 
 because I am sure that the method of prizes and blanks is the 
 best method of supporting a Church which must be considered 
 as very slenderly endowed, if the whole were equally divided 
 among the parishes ; but if my ojDinion were different — if I 
 thought the important improvement was to equalize prefer- 
 ment in the English Church — that such a measure was not 
 the one thing foolish, but the one thing needful — I should take 
 care, as a mitred Commissioner, to reduce my own species 
 of preferment to the narrowest limits, before I proceeded to 
 confiscate the property of any other grade of the Church. . . . 
 Frequently did Lord John meet the destroying Bishops ; much 
 did he commend their daily heap of ruins; sweetly did they 
 smile on each other, and much charming talk was there of 
 meteorology and catarrh, and the particular Cathedral they 
 were pulling down at each period ; till one fine day the Home 
 Secretary,^ with a voice more bland, and a look more ardently 
 affectionate, than that which the masculine mouse bestows 
 
 1 Lord John Russell. 
 
VI.] ARCHDEACON SINGLETON 173 
 
 on his nibbling female, informed them that the Government 
 meant to take all the Church property into their own hands, 
 to pay the rates out of it and deliver the residue to the right- 
 ful possessors. Such an effect, they say, was never before 
 produced by a coup de theatre. The Commission was sepa- 
 rated in an instant. London clenched his fist. Canterbury 
 was harried out by his chaplains, and put into a warm bed. 
 A solemn vacancy spread itself over the face of Gloucester. 
 Lincoln was taken out in strong hysterics. What a noble 
 scene Serjeant Talfourd ^ would have made of all this ? AVhy 
 are such talents wasted on Ion and The Athenian Captivel" 
 
 And then Sydney Smith went on to a stricture on 
 his friend Lord John Russell, which has been quoted 
 in a thousand forms from that day to this. It is only 
 fair both to the critic and to the criticized that this 
 stricture should be read in connexion with its history. 
 
 When, in November 1834, Lord Althorp's removal 
 to the House of Lords vacated the Leadership of the 
 House of Commons, Lord Melbourne and the rest of 
 the Cabinet decided that Lord John must take it. He 
 doubted his fitness for the post, but said that even if 
 he were called to take command of the Channel Fleet, 
 he supposed he must obey the call and do his best. 
 Sydney Smith heard of this modest and patriotic say- 
 ing, and wove it into his most celebrated passage. — 
 
 " There is not a better man in England than Lord John 
 Russell ; but his worst failure is that he is utterly ignorant 
 of all moral fear ; there is nothing he would not undertake. 
 I believe he would perform the operation for the stone — build 
 St. Peter's — or assume (with or without ten minutes' notice) 
 the command of the Channel Fleet; and no one would dis- 
 cover by his manner that the patient had died — the Church 
 tumbled down — and the Channel Fleet been knocked to 
 atoms. I believe his motives are always pure, and his meas- 
 
 1 Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854), Judge and Dramatist. 
 
174 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 ures often able ; but they are endless, and never done with 
 that pedetentous pace and pedetentous mind in which it 
 behoves the wise and virtuous improver to walk. Pie alarms 
 the wise Liberals ; and it is impossible to sleep soundly while 
 he has the command of the watch." 
 
 Once again, in 1839, Sydney Smith, returned to the 
 same subject through the same medium. He rejoiced 
 in great improvements which had been introduced into 
 the measures of the Commissioners, claimed some 
 credit for these improvements, and pointed out that 
 they materially affected the well-being of the parochial 
 clergy. But, as regards the dealings of the Commis- 
 sion with Chapters and Cathedrals, he remains con- 
 vinced that they were rash, foolish, and dangerous to 
 the Church. ^' Milton asked where the nymphs were 
 when Lycidas perished? I ask where the Bishops are 
 when the remorseless deep is closing over the head of 
 their beloved Establishment." 
 
 One of the Bishops had emerged from silence and 
 security to rebuke the correspondent of Archdeacon 
 Singleton, and now he had his reward. — 
 
 " You must have read an attack upon me by the Bishop of 
 Gloucester,! in the course of which he says that I have not 
 been appointed to my situation as Canon of St. Paul's for my 
 piety and learning, but because I am a scoffer and a jester. 
 Is not this rather strong for a Bishop, and does it not appear 
 to you, Mr. Archdeacon, as rather too close an imitation of 
 that language which is used in the apostolic occupation of 
 trafficking in fish ? Whether I have been appointed for my 
 piety or not, must depend upon what this poor man means 
 by piety. He means by that word, of course, a defence of all 
 the tyrannical and oppressive abuses of the Church which 
 have been swept away within the last fifteen or twenty years 
 
 1 James Henry Monk (1784-185G). 
 
VI.] AECHDEACON SINGLETON 175 
 
 of my life ; the Corporation and Test Acts ; the Penal Laws 
 against the Catholics ; the Compulsory Marriages of Dissent- 
 ers, and all those disabling and disqualifying laws which were 
 the disgrace of our Church, and which he has always looked up 
 to as the consummation of human wisdom. If piety consisted 
 in the defence of these — if it was impious to struggle for their 
 abrogation, I have indeed led an ungodly life. ... To read, 
 however, his Lordshij) a lesson of good manners, I had pre- 
 pared for him a chastisement which would have been echoed 
 from the Segrave who banqueteth in the castle,^ to the idiot 
 who spitteth over the bridge at Gloucester." 
 
 But the Bishop had made a rather misplaced appeal 
 for compassion, on account of his failing eyesight; 
 and Sydney, flinging him contemptuously on one side, 
 passed on to the more formidable Bishop of London. — 
 
 " I was much amused with what old Hermann says of the 
 Bishop of London's jEschijlus. ' We find,' he says, ' a great 
 arbitrariness of 'proceeding^ and much boldness of innovation,- 
 guided by no sure priiiciple ' ; here it is : qualis ab incepto. 
 He begins with ^Eschylus, and ends with the Church of 
 England ; begins with profane, and ends with holy innova- 
 tions — scratching out old readings which every commentator 
 had sanctioned; abolishing ecclesiastical dignities which 
 every reformer had spared; thrusting an anapaest into a 
 verse, which will not bear it ; and intruding a Canon into a 
 Cathedral, which does not want it ; and this is the Prelate by 
 whom the proposed reform of the Church has been principally 
 planned, and to whose practical wisdom the Legislature is 
 called upon to defer. The Bishop of London is a man of very 
 great ability, humane, placable, generous, munificent ; very 
 agreeable, but not to be trusted with great interests where 
 calmness and judgment are required : unfortunately, my old 
 and amiable school-fellow, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has 
 
 1 William FitzHardinge Berkeley (1786-1857) was created Lord 
 Segrave of Berkeley Castle in 1831, and Earl FitzHardinge in 
 1841. 
 
176 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 melted away before him, and sacrificed that wisdom on which 
 we all founded our security. . . . Whatever happens, I am 
 not to blame. I have fought my fight. Farewell." 
 
 A little later he wrote to an old friend : — 
 
 " I don't like writing to the Bishop of London : it is mak- 
 ing a fuss, and looks as if I regretted the part I had taken on 
 Church Reform, which I certainly do not — but I should be 
 much annoyed if the Bishop were to consider me as a per- 
 petual grumbler against him and his measures — I really am 
 not : I like the Bishop and like his conversation — the battle 
 is ended, and I have no other quarrel with him and the Arch- 
 bishop but that they neither of them ever ask me to dinner. 
 You see a good deal of the Bishop, and as you have always 
 exhorted me to be a good boy, take an opportunity to set him 
 right as to my real dispositions towards him, and exhort him, 
 as he has gained the victory, to forgive a few hard knocks." 
 
 In the summer of 1839 Courtenay Smitb died sud- 
 denly, and left no will.^ He had accumulated wealth 
 in India, and a third part of it now passed to his 
 brother Sydney. Referring to these circumstances 
 four years later, Sydney wrote : — 
 
 " This put me at my ease for my few remaining years. 
 After buying into the Consols and the Reduced, I read Seneca 
 On the Contempt of Wealth. What intolerable nonsense ! 
 
 " I have been very poor the greatest part of my life, and 
 have borne it as well, I believe, as most people, but I can safely 
 say that I have been happier every guinea I have gained." 
 
 His novel opulence did not paralyze his pen. In 
 
 i"You see my younger brother, Courtenay, is turned out of 
 office in India, for refusing the surety of the East India 
 Company! Truly the Smiths are a stiff-necked generation, 
 and yet they have all got rich hut I. Courtenay, they say, 
 has £150,000, and he keeps only a cat! In the last letter I had 
 from him, which was in 1802, he confessed that his money was 
 gathering very fast." (S. S. 1827). 
 
VI.] COLLECTED WORKS 177 
 
 1839 lie published a vehement attack upon the 
 Ballot, from which he foresaw no better results 
 than the enfranchisement of every one, including 
 women, universal corruption, systematic lying, and a 
 victory for the " lower order of voters " over their 
 "betters." Of the great advocate of the Ballot, 
 George Grote,^ he says — " Mr. Grote knows the rela- 
 tive values of gold and silver ; but by what moral rate 
 of exchange is he able to tell us the relative values 
 of Liberty and Truth ? " 
 
 The paper on the Ballot was included in a collection 
 of reprints, mainly from the Edinburgh Review, which 
 he published in 1839. The book sold so well that 
 in 1840 he published an enlarged edition. The articles 
 reprinted from the Edinburgh amounted to sixty-five, 
 and a memorandum by his daughter shows that twelve 
 more were omitted from the reproduction, " probably 
 because their subjects are already treated of in the 
 extracted articles, or because they applied only to the 
 period in which they were written." The complete 
 list will be found in Appendix A. 
 
 In the preface to these collected pieces, which are 
 styled The Works of the Rev. Sydney Smith, the author 
 said, after recounting the circumstances under which 
 the Edinburgh Review was founded : — 
 
 " To set on foot such a Journal in such times, to contribute 
 towards it for many years, to bear patiently the reproach and 
 poverfrs^ which it caused, and to look back and see that I have 
 nothing to retract, and no intemperance and violence to 
 reproach myself with, is a career of life which I must think 
 to be extremely fortunate. Strange and ludicrous are the 
 
 1 (1794-1871), Banker, historian, and politician. 
 
 N 
 
178 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 changes in human affairs. The Tories are now on the tread- 
 mill, and the well-paid Whigs are riding in chariots : with 
 many faces, however, looking out of the windows (including 
 that of our Prime Minister ^), which I never remember to 
 have seen in the days of the poverty and depression of 
 Whiggism. Liberality is now a lucrative business. Who- 
 ever has any institution to destroy, may consider himself as 
 a Commissioner, and his fortune as made ; and, to my utter 
 and never-ending astonishment, I, an old Edinburgh Reviewer, 
 find myself fighting, in the year 1839, against the Archbisho]) 
 of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, for the existence 
 of the National Church." 
 
 Some of the reprinted articles would be fairly- 
 ranked in the present day under the derogatory title 
 of " Pot-boilers " ; but others are among the most 
 effective and entertaining pieces which the author 
 ever penned. Some of these must be specified. There 
 is the extraordinarily amusing, but quite unjust, attack 
 on Methodism, under which convenient heading are 
 grouped " the sentiments of Arminian and Calvinistic 
 Methodists, and of the Evangelical clergymen of the 
 Church of England." The fun in this article is chiefly 
 gleaned from the pages of the Evangelical Magazine 
 and the Methodist Magazine. Here we have the 
 affecting story of the young man who swore, and 
 was stung by a bee "on the tip of the unruly 
 member," " one of the meanest of creatures " being 
 thus employed " to reprove the bold transgressor." 
 Not less moving are the reflexions of the religious 
 observer who saw a man driving clumsily in a gig. — 
 " ' What (I said to myself) if a single untoward cir- 
 cumstance should happen! Should the horse take 
 fright, or the wheel on either side get entangled, or 
 
 1 William, Viscount Melbourne (1779-1848). 
 
VI.] COLLECTED WORKS 179 
 
 the gig upset, — in either case what can preserve them ? 
 And should a morning so fair and promising bring 
 on evil before night, — should death on his pale horse 
 appear, — v^hat follows ? ' My mind shuddered at 
 the images I had raised." 
 
 Very curious too is the case of the people who, 
 desiring to go by sea to Margate, found the cabin 
 occupied by a " mixed multitude who spoke almost 
 all languages but that of Canaan " ; and started a 
 weekly hoy on which "no profane conversation was 
 allowed." The advertisements are as quaint as the 
 correspondence. — 
 
 "'Wanted, a man of serious character, who can shave.' 
 < Wanted, a serious young woman, as servant of all work.' 
 ^ Wants a place, a young man who has brewed in a serious 
 family.' " 
 
 On these eccentricities of mistaken devotion, Sydney 
 pounces with delighted malice ; and his jokes, acrid 
 as they are, seem to be the vehicles of a real convic- 
 tion. He honestly believed that " enthusiasm " in 
 religion tended to hysteria and insanity ; that it sapped 
 plain morality ; and turned the simple poor into "active 
 and mysterious fools." Something, he thought, "in 
 the way of ridicule," might be done towards checking 
 Methodism, and to that task he addressed himself 
 with hearty goodwill. 
 
 Equally unfair, and equally insensible to all the 
 appeals of religious feTvour, is the article on Indian 
 Missions, for which, fifty years after. Archbishop 
 Tait found it hard to forgive him.^ Here again the 
 
 i"Have you read Sydney Smith's Life? There is a strange 
 mixture in his character of earnest common-seuse and fun. On 
 
180 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 artificial qiiaintness of religious phrase and thought 
 gave him the necessary material for his fun. As he 
 had found delight in the proper names of Methodist 
 ministers — Shufflebottom and Ringletub ^ — so he de- 
 lighted in lampooning " Ram Boshoo," and " Buxoo a 
 brother," and " the Catechist of Collesigrapatuam." 
 
 The saintly and scholarly Carey ^ ought to have been 
 safe from his attacks, but the Baptist Missionary 
 Society rather invited ridicule. — 
 
 " Brother Carey, while very sea-sick, and leaning over the 
 ship to relieve his stomach from that very oppressive com- 
 plaint, said his mind was even then filled with consolation 
 in contemplating the wonderful goodness of God." 
 
 And Brother Carey's own journal was calculated to 
 raise a smile. — 
 
 the whole, I think he will be thought more highly of in conse- 
 quence of the publication of the Life, though it may be doubted 
 whether his rehgion was not injured by his strong sense of 
 the ludicrous. I cannot forgive him for his anti-missionary arti- 
 cles in the Edinburgh Review." — Life of Archbishop Talt, vol. i. 
 chapter xiii. 
 
 What seems to be his later and juster judgment on missionary 
 work is given, without date, by Lady Holland. " Some one, 
 speaking of Missions, ridiculed them as inefficient. He dis- 
 sented, saying, that though all was not done that was projected, 
 or even boasted of, yet that much good resulted ; and that wherever 
 Christianity was taught, it brought with it the additional good of 
 civilization in its train, and men became better carpenters, better 
 cultivators, better everything." 
 
 1 " It is immaterial whether Mr. Shufflebottom preaches at 
 Bungay, and Mr. Ringletub at Ipswich ; or whether an artful 
 vicissitude is adopted, and the order of insane predication 
 reversed." 
 
 2 William Carey (1761-1834), shoemaker, Orientalist, and 
 missionary. 
 
VI.] COLLECTED WORKS 181 
 
 "1793. June 30. Lord's-day. A pleasant and profitable 
 day: our congregation composed of ten persons." 
 
 " July 7. Another pleasant and profitable Lord's-day : our 
 congregation increased with one. Had much sweet enjoy- 
 ment with God." 
 
 " 1794. Jan. 26. Lord's-day. Found much pleasure in 
 reading Edwards's Sermon on the Justice of God in tie 
 Damnation of Sinners." 
 
 " April 6. Had some sweetness to-day, especially in read- 
 ing Edwards's Sermon." 
 
 " 1796. Feb. 6. I am now in my study ; and oh, it is a 
 sweet place, because of the presence of God with the vilest 
 of men. It is at the top of the house; I have but one 
 window in it." 
 
 In reply to Jeffrey, who as Editor of the Edin- 
 burgh Review rebuked his contributor for ^' levity of 
 quotations/' Sydney Smith, wrote in 1808 : — 
 
 " I do not understand what you mean. I attack these men 
 because they have foolish notions of religion. The more 
 absurd the passage, the more necessary it should be dis- 
 played — the more urgent the reason for making the attack 
 at all." 
 
 This is at any rate an explanation, even if it does 
 not amount to a justification; but what is lamentable 
 is that, as in the case of the Methodists at home, he 
 seems frankly unable to conceive of the passion for 
 spreading the Gospel which drove men from all that 
 is enjoyable in life to slave and die under Indian suns. 
 He seems genuinely to believe that the spread of the 
 Christian religion in India will produce a revolution, 
 and he turns the ludicrous blunders of religious men 
 into arguments for slothfulness in evangelization. — 
 
 "If there were a fair prospect of carrying the Gospel into 
 regions where it was before unknown, — if such a project did 
 not expose the best possessions of the country to extreme 
 
182 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 danger, and if it was in the hands of men who were discreet 
 as well as devout, we should consider it to be a scheme of 
 true piety, benevolence, and wisdom : but the baseness and 
 malignity of fanaticism shall never prevent us from attacking 
 its arrogance, its ignorance, and its activity. For what vice 
 can be more tremendous than that which, while it wears the 
 outward appearance of religion, destroys the happiness of 
 man, and dishonours the name of God?" 
 
 In the second article on Methodism, he returns, as 
 his manner was, to the ground formerly traversed, and 
 claims the praise of all reasonable men for his previous 
 strictures. — 
 
 " In routing out a nest of consecrated cobblers, and in 
 bringing to light such a perilous heap of trash as we were 
 obliged to work through, in our articles upon the Methodists 
 and Missionaries, we are generally conceived to have rendered 
 an useful service to the cause of rational religion." 
 
 But he had been rebuked by the admirers of the 
 Cobblers, and now he turns upon his rebukers with 
 characteristic vigour. Prominent among these was 
 the Eev. John Styles, and Mr. Styles, unhappily 
 for his cause and happily for his opponent, made a 
 grotesque slip which Sydney turned to the best 
 advantage. — 
 
 " In speaking of the cruelties which their religion entails 
 upon the Hindoos, Mr. Styles is peculiarly severe upon us 
 for not being more shocked at their piercing their limbs with 
 times. This is rather an unfair mode of alarming his readers 
 with the idea of some unknown instrument. He represents 
 himself as having paid considerable attention to the manners 
 and customs of the Hindoos ; and, therefore, the peculiar 
 stress he lays upon this instrument is naturally calculated to 
 produce, in the minds of the humane, a great degree of 
 mysterious terror. A drawing of the kune was imperiously 
 called for; and the want of it is a subtle evasion, for which 
 
vi.] COLLECTED WORKS 183 
 
 Mr. Styles is fairly accountable. As he has been silent on 
 this subject, it is for us to explain the plan and nature of 
 this terrible and unknown piece of mechanism. Kiines, then, 
 are neither more nor less than a false print in the Edinburgh 
 Review for knives ; and from this blunder of the printer has 
 Mr. Styles manufactured this Dsedalean instrument of torture, 
 called a kime I We were at first nearly persuaded by his 
 argument against kimes; we grew frightened ; — we stated to 
 ourselves the horror of not sending missionaries to a nation 
 which used kimes ; — we were struck with the nice and ac- 
 curate information of the Tabernacle upon this important 
 subject: — but we looked in the errata, and found Mr. Styles 
 to be always Mr. Styles — always cut off from every hope of 
 mercy, and remaining for ever himself." 
 
 At the end of the article, the writer glories in the 
 fact that the Government of India is beginning to 
 harry the missionaries. — 
 
 " The Board of Control (all Atheists, and disciples of 
 Yoltake, of course) are so entirely of our way of thinking, 
 that the most peremptory orders have been issued to send all 
 the missionaries home upon the slightest appearance of dis- 
 turbance. Those who have sons and brothers in India may 
 now sleep in peace. Upon the transmission of this order, 
 Mr. Styles is said to have destroyed himself with a kime." 
 
 The same vigorous dislike to the Evangelical way 
 of religion animates the article on Hannah More ; 
 and here again the criticized writer gave the critic 
 just the handle which he required. 
 
 " We observe that Mrs. More, in one part of her work, falls 
 into the common error about dress. She first blames ladies 
 for exposing their persons in the present style of dress, and 
 then says, if they knew their own interest — if they were 
 aware how much more alluring they were to men when their 
 charms are less displayed, they would make the desired 
 alteration from motives merely selfish. 
 
 " ' Oh ! if women in general knew what was their real 
 
184 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 interest, if they could guess with what a charm even the 
 appearance of modesty invests its possessor, they would dress 
 decorously from mere self-love, if not from principle. The 
 designing would assume modesty as an artifice ; the coquette 
 would adopt it as an allurement; the pure as her appropriate 
 attraction ; and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of 
 seduction.' 
 
 " If there is any truth in this passage, nudity becomes a 
 virtue ; and no decent woman, for the future, can be seen in 
 garments." 
 
 That is aptly said ; but it is a relief to turn from 
 Sydney Smith the Philistine — the bigoted and rather 
 brutal opponent of enthusiastic religion, to Sydney 
 Smith the Philanthropist — the passionate advocate 
 of humanitarian reform born at least fifty years before 
 his time. Excellent illustrations of this aspect of his 
 character are to be found in " Mad Quakers," with its 
 study of the improved methods of treating lunacy ; 
 " Chimney-Sweepers," " Game-Laws," " Spring-Guns," 
 "Prisons," and "Counsel for Prisoners." Each of 
 these essays shows a deliciously warm sympathy with 
 the sufferings of the downtrodden and the friendless ; 
 and a curiously intimate knowledge of matters which 
 lie quite outside the scope of a clergyman's ordinary 
 duties. As an appreciation of character, friendly but 
 not servile, nothing can be better than his paper on Sir 
 James Mackintosh,^ with the illustration from Curran, 
 and the noble image (which the writer himself admired) 
 of the man-of-war. Writing to Sir James's son, Sydney 
 Smith says : — 
 
 " Curran, the Master of the Rolls, said to Mr. Grattan, 
 ' You w^ould be the greatest man of your age, Grattan, if you 
 
 1 (1765-1832), historian and philosopher. 
 
VI.] COLLECTED WORKS 185 
 
 would buy a few yards of red tape, and tie up your bills and 
 papers.' This was the fault or the misfortune of your excellent 
 father ; he never knew the use of red tape, and was utterly 
 unfit for the common business of life. That a guinea repre- 
 sented a quantity of shillings, and that it would barter for 
 a quantity of cloth, he was well aware ; but the accurate 
 number of the baser coin, or the just measurement of the 
 manufactured article, to which he was entitled for his gold, he 
 could never learn, and it was impossible to teach him. Hence 
 his life was often an example of the ancient and melancholy 
 struggle of genius with the difficulties of existence. 
 
 " A high merit in Sir James Mackintosh was his real and 
 unaffected philanthropy. He did not make the improvement 
 of the great mass of mankind an engine of popularity, and a 
 stepping-stone to power, but he had a genuine love of human 
 happiness. Whatever might assuage the angry passions, and 
 arrange the conflicting interests of nations ; whatever could 
 promote peace, increase knowledge, extend commerce, dimin- 
 ish crime, and encourage industry ; whatever could exalt 
 human character, and could enlarge human understanding, 
 struck at once at the heart of your father, and roused all 
 his faculties. I have seen him in a moment when this spirit 
 came upon him — like a great ship of war — cut his cable, 
 and spread his enormous canvas, and launch into a wide sea 
 of reasoning eloquence." 
 
 For pure fun, one could not quote a better sample 
 than the review of Waterton's ^ Travels in South 
 America. — 
 
 " Snakes are certainly an annoyance ; but the snake, though 
 high-spirited, is not quarrelsome ; he considers his fangs to be 
 given for defence, and not for annoyance, and never inflicts a 
 wound but to defend existence. If you tread upon him, he 
 puts you to death for your clumsiness, merely because he does 
 not understand what your clumsiness means ; and certainly a 
 
 1 Charles Waterton (1782-18G5), naturalist. 
 
186 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 snake, who feels fourteen or fifteen stone stamping upon his 
 tail, has little time for reflexion, and may be allowed to be 
 poisonous and peevish. American tigers generally run away 
 — from which several respectable gentlemen in Parliament 
 inferred, in the American war, that American soldiers would 
 run away also ! 
 
 " The description of the birds is very animated and interest- 
 ing ; but how far does the gentle reader imagine the Campanero 
 may be heard, whose size is that of a jay ? Perhaps 300 
 yards. Poor innocent, ignorant reader ! unconscious of w^hat 
 Nature has done in the forests of Cayenne, and measuring the 
 force of tropical intonation by the sounds of a Scotch duck ! 
 The Campanero may be heard three miles ! — this single little 
 bird being more powerful than the belfry of a cathedral, 
 ringing for a new dean — just appointed on account of shabby 
 politics, small understanding, and good family ! . . . It is 
 impossible to contradict a gentleman who has been in the 
 forests of Cayenne; but we are determined, as soon as a 
 Campanero is brought to England, to make him toll in a 
 public place, and have the distance measured. 
 
 " The Toucan has an enormous bill, makes a noise like a 
 puppy dog, and lays his eggs in hollow trees. How astonish- 
 ing are the freaks and fancies of nature ! To what purpose, 
 we say, is a bird placed in the woods of Cayenne with 
 a bill a yard long, making a noise like a puppy dog, and 
 laying eggs in hollow trees? The Toucans, to be sure, 
 might retort, to what purpose were gentlemen in Bond 
 Street created ? To what purpose were certain foolish 
 prating Members of Parliament created? — pestering the 
 House of Commons with their ignorance and folly, and 
 impeding the business of the country? There is no end of 
 such questions. So we will not enter into the metaphysics 
 of the Toucan. 
 
 " The Sloth, in its wild state, spends its life in trees, and 
 never leaves them but from force or accident. The eagle to 
 the sky, the mole to the ground, the sloth to the tree ; but 
 what is most extraordinary, he lives not upon the branches, 
 but under them. He moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps 
 
VI.] COLLECTED WORKS 187 
 
 suspended, and passes his life in suspense — like a young 
 clergyman distantly related to a bishop. 
 
 "Just before his third journey, Mr. Waterton takes leave of 
 Sir Joseph Banks,i and speaks of him with affectionate regret. 
 ' I saw ' (says Mr. W.), ' with sorrow, that death was going to 
 rob us of him. We talked of stuffing quadrupeds ; I agreed 
 that the lips and nose ought to be cut off, and stuffed with 
 wax.' This is the way great naturalists take an eternal 
 farewell of each other ! 
 
 " Lisects are the curse of tropical climates. The bete rouge 
 lays the foundation of a tremendous ulcer. In a moment you 
 are covered with ticks. Chigoes bury themselves in your 
 flesh, and hatch a large colony of young chigoes in a few hours. 
 They will not live together, but every chigoe sets up a separate 
 ulcer, and has his own private portion of pus. Flies get 
 entry into your mouth, into your eyes, into your nose ; you 
 eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. Lizards, cockroaches, 
 and snakes get into the bed ; ants eat up the books ; scorpions 
 sting you on the foot. Every thing bites, stings, or bruises ; 
 every second of your existence you are wounded by some 
 piece of animal life that nobody has ever seen before, except 
 Swammerdam and Meriam. An insect with eleven legs is 
 swimming in your teacup, a nondescrif)t with- nine wings is 
 struggling in the small beer, or a caterpillar with several 
 dozen eyes in his belly is hastening over the bread and butter ! 
 All nature is alive, and seems to be gathering all her entomo- 
 logical hosts to eat you up, as you are standing, out of your 
 coat, waistcoat, and breeches. Such are the tropics. All this 
 reconciles us to our dews, fogs, vapours, and drizzle — to our 
 apothecaries rushing about with gargles and tinctures — to 
 our old, British, constitutional coughs, sore throats, and 
 swelled faces." 
 
 Space should be found, in even the shortest book on 
 Sydney Smith, for two passages in which, perhaps 
 
 1 (1743-1820). 
 
188 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 more effectively than anywhere else, he clinched an 
 argument with a masterpiece of fun. The first is the 
 warning to the United States against the love of 
 military glory. The second is the wonderful concate- 
 nation of fallacies in " Noodle's Oration." ^ Both these 
 pieces will be found in Appendix B. 
 In 1840 he wrote to a friend : — 
 
 " I printed my reviews to show, if I could, that I had not 
 passed my life merely in making jokes ; but that I had made 
 use of what little powers of pleasantry I might be endowed 
 with, to discountenance bad, and to encourage liberal and 
 wise, principles." 
 
 The natural and becoming indolence of age was now 
 beginning to show itself in Sydney Smith. He had 
 worked harder than most men in his day, and now he 
 wisely cultivated ease. In his comfortable house in 
 Green Street, he received his friends with what he 
 himself so excellently called "that honest joy which 
 warms more than dinner or wine " ; but he went less 
 than of old into general society. Least of all was he 
 inclined to that most melancholy of all exertions which 
 
 1 It is possible that the argument about the Wisdom of our 
 Ancestors in "Noodle's Oration" may have been suggested by 
 the following extract from the Parliamentary Debates for May 
 26, 1797. On Mr. Grey's Motion for a Reform of Parliament, 
 Sir Gregory Page-Turner, M.P., spoke as follows:— "He craved 
 the indulgence of the House for a few observations which he 
 had to make. When he got up in the morning and when he 
 lay down at night, he always felt for the Constitution. On 
 this question he had never had but one opinion. When he 
 came first into Parliament, he remembered that the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer proposed a Reform, but he saw it was wrong, 
 and he opposed it. Would it not be madness to change what 
 had been handed, sound and entire, down from the days of their 
 fathers?" 
 
VI.] COLLECTED WORKS 189 
 
 consists in rushing about to entertainments which do 
 not amuse. In 1840 he wrote, in answering an invita- 
 tion to the Opera : — 
 
 " Thy servant is threescore-and-ten years old ; can he hear 
 the sound of singing men and singing women ? A Canon 
 at the Opera ! Where have you lived ? In what habitations 
 of the heathen ? I thank you, shuddering." 
 
 Although the Canon would not go to the Opera, his 
 general faculty of enjoyment was unimpaired, and, as 
 always, he loved a gibe at the clergy. On the 30th 
 of November 1841, Samuel Wilberforce wrote to a 
 friend about George Augustus Selwyn,^ Missionary 
 Bishop of New Zealand : — 
 
 " Selwyn is just setting out. Sydney Smith says it will 
 make quite a revolution in the dinners of New Zealand. 
 Tete d'Eveque will be the most recherche dish, and the ser- 
 vant w ill add, ' And there is cold clergyman on the side- 
 table.' " 
 
 But this is Sydney's own version of the joke : — 
 
 " The advice I sent to the Bishop of New Zealand, when he 
 had to receive the cannibal chiefs there, was to say to them, 
 ' I deeply regret, su-s, to have nothing on my own table suited 
 to your tastes, but you will find plenty of cold curate and 
 roasted clergyman on the sideboard ' ; and if, in spite of this 
 prudent provision, his visitors should end their repast by eat- 
 ing him likewise, why I could only add, ' I sincerely hoped 
 he would disagree with them.' " 
 
 In spite of increasing years and decreasing health 
 — "I have," he said, " seven distinct diseases, but am 
 otherwise pretty well " — the indefatigable pamphleteer 
 had not yet done wath controversy. In 1842 he 
 published three Letters on the Mismanagement of 
 
 1(1809-1878). 
 
190 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Kailways,^ and in 1843 two on a tendency displayed 
 by the "drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania" to re- 
 pudiate the interest on their State's bonds. On the 
 18th of December 1843 he wrote : — 
 
 "My bomb has fallen very successfully in America, and 
 the list of killed and wounded is extensive. I have several 
 quires of paper sent me every day, calling me monster, thief, 
 atheist, deist, etc." 
 
 " I receive presents of cheese and apples from Americans 
 who are advocates for paying debts, and very abusive letters 
 in print and in manuscript from those who are not." 
 
 All this time, in spite of continual discomfort from 
 gout and asthma, he kept up his merry interest in his 
 friends' concerns, his enjoyment of good company, 
 and his kindness to young people. Here is a charm- 
 ing letter, written in September 1843 to his special 
 favourite. Miss Georgiana Harcourt,^ daughter of the 
 Archbishop of York : — 
 
 "I suppose you will soon be at Bishopthorpe, surrounded 
 by the Sons of the Prophets. What a charming existence, 
 to live in the midst of holy people ; to know that nothing 
 profane can approach you ; to be certain that a Dissenter can 
 no more be found in the Palace than a snake in Ireland, or 
 ripe fruit in Scotland; to have your society strong, and 
 undiluted by the laity ; to bid adieu to human learning, 
 to feast on the Canons, and revel in the xxxix. Articles. 
 Happy Georgiana 1 " 
 
 At the beginning of 1844 he wrote, "I am toler- 
 ably well, but intolerably old." He complained of 
 " nothing but weakness, and loss of nervous energy." 
 " I look as strong as a cart-horse, but cannot get round 
 the garden without resting once or twice." Soon he 
 
 1 In these a special appeal is made to " our youthful Gladstone," 
 then receutly appointed Vice-President of the Board of Trade. 
 
 2 Afterwards Mrs. Malcolm : died in 1886. 
 
VI.] COLLECTED WORKS 191 
 
 was back again at St. Paul's, preacliing a sermon on 
 Peace, and rebuking the ''excessive proneness to 
 War.'' " I shall try the same subject again — a subject 
 utterly untouched by the clergy."^ The summer 
 passed in its usual occupations, and on the 28th of 
 July he preached for the last time in the pulpit 
 of the Cathedral. His subject was the right use of 
 Sunday; and the sermon was a strong prote^st against 
 the increasing secularization of the holy day. The 
 best ways of employing Sunday, he said, were Worship, 
 Self-Examination, and Preparation for Death. The 
 sermon ended with some words which indicate the 
 sense of impending change : — 
 
 " I never take leave of any one, for any length of time, 
 without a deep impression upon my mind of the uncertainty 
 of human life, and the probability that we may meet uo 
 more in this world." 2 
 
 He now left London for Combe Elorey. "I dine 
 with the rich in London, and physic the poor in the 
 country ; passing from the sauces of Dives to the sores 
 of Lazarus." His bodily discomforts increased, but his 
 love of fun never diminished. He wrote as merrily as 
 ever to Miss Harcourt : — 
 
 " Neither of us, dear Georgiana, would consent to survive 
 the ruin of the Chm'ch. You would plunge a poisoned pin 
 
 1 He said afterwards that this Sermon on Peace was really 
 Channing's. 
 
 2 Compare his letter on parting from his friends at Edin- 
 burgh, quoted by Lady Holland: — "All adieus are melancholy; 
 and principally, I believe, because they put us in mind of tha 
 last of all adieus, when the apothecary, and the heir-apparent, 
 and the nurse who weeps for pay, surround the bed; when the 
 curate, engaged to dine three miles off, mumbles hasty prayers; 
 when the dim eye closes for ever in the midst of empty pill-boxes, 
 gallipots, phials, and jugs of barley-water." 
 
192 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. vi. 
 
 into your heart, and I should swallow the leaf of a sermon 
 dipped in hydro-cyanic acid." 
 
 In October, after an alarming attack of breathless- 
 ness and giddiness, he returned to London. In Green 
 Street he was happy in the proximity and skill of his 
 son-in-law. Dr. Holland, and " a suite of rooms perfectly 
 fitted up for illness and death." This phrase occurs 
 in the last of his published letters, dated the 7th of 
 November 1844. It was now pronounced that his 
 disease was water on the chest, caused by an un- 
 suspected affection of the heart. He was entirely 
 confined to his bed, perfectly aware of his condition, 
 and keenly grateful for the kindness and sympathy of 
 friends. His daughter writes : — 
 
 " My father died at peace with himself and with all 
 the world ; anxious, to the last, to promote the comfort 
 and happiness of others. He sent messages of kindness 
 and forgiveness to the few he thought had injured him. 
 Almost his last act was, bestowing a small living of 
 £120 per annum on a poor, worthy, and friendless 
 clergyman, who had lived a long life of struggle with 
 poverty on £40 per annum. Full of happiness and 
 gratitude, the clergyman entreated he might be allowed 
 to see my father ; but the latter so dreaded any agita- 
 tion that he most unwillingly consented, saying, ' Then 
 he must not thank me ; I am too weak to bear it.' He 
 entered, — my father gave him a few words of advice, 
 — the clergyman silently pressed his hand, and blessed 
 his death-bed. Surely such blessings are not given 
 in vain!" 
 
 Sydney Smith died on the 22nd of February 1845, 
 and was buried by the side of his son Douglas in the 
 Cemetery at Kensal Green. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS — HUMOUR — POLITICS — CULTURE — 
 THEORIES OF LIFE RELIGION 
 
 What Sydney Smith, was to the outward eye we 
 know from an admirable portrait by Eddis^ belong- 
 ing to his grand-daughter, Miss Caroline Holland. 
 He had a long and slightly aquiline nose, of the type 
 which gives a peculiar trenchancy to the countenance ; 
 a strongly developed chin, thick white hair,^ and black 
 eyebrows. His complexion was fresh, inclining to be 
 florid. In figure he was, to use his own phrase, " of 
 the family of Falstaff." Ticknor described him as 
 "corpulent but not gross." Macaulay spoke of his 
 " rector-like amplitude and rubicundity." He was of 
 middle height, rather above it than below, and sturdily 
 built. He used to quote a saying from one of his con- 
 temporaries at Oxford — " Sydney, your sense, wit, and 
 clumsiness always give me the idea of an Athenian 
 cartery Except on ceremonious occasions, he was 
 careless about his dress. His daughter says : — " His 
 neckcloth always looked like a pudding tied round 
 his throat, and the arrangement of his garments 
 seemed more the result of accident than design." 
 
 1 Eden Upton Eddis (1812-1901). 
 
 2 Miss Holland writes — " His hair, when I knew him, was beau- 
 tifully fine, silvery, and abundant; rather tailU en 6rosse, like a 
 Frenchman's." 
 
 o 193 
 
194 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 His manner in society was cordial, unrestrained, 
 and even boisterous. " I live," lie said in an admira- 
 ble figure, " with ojoen doors and windows." His poor 
 parishioners regarded him with " Si curious mixture 
 of reverence and grin." ^ His daughter says that, "on 
 entering the pulpit, the calm dignity of his eye, mien, 
 and voice, made one feel that he was indeed, and felt 
 himself to be, ' the pastor standing between our God 
 and His people,' to teach His laws, to declare His 
 judgments, and proclaim His mercies." 
 
 Enough has been quoted from his writings to give 
 the reader a clear notion of his style. In early life 
 it was not scrupulously correct,^ and to the end it was 
 marked here and there by an archaism such as " I 
 have strove," and "they are rode over." It was 
 singularly uninvolved and uncomplicated, and was 
 animated, natural, and vigorous in the highest degree. 
 As years went on, it gained both in ease and in accu- 
 racy, but never lost either its force or its resonance. 
 It ran up and down the whole gamut of the English 
 tongue, from sesquipedalian classicisms (which he gen- 
 erally used to heighten a comic effect) to one-syllabled 
 words of the homeliest Anglo-Saxon. His punctuation 
 was careless, and the impression produced by his writ- 
 ten composition is that of a man who wrote exactly as 
 he spoke, without pause, premeditation, or amendment ; 
 who was possessed by the subject on which he was 
 writing, and never laid down the pen till that subject 
 lived and breathed in the written page.^ Here and 
 
 1 Lord Houghton. 
 
 2 A hostile reviewer of his Sermons quotes from them such 
 phrases as — "Lays hid," "Has sprang," "Has drank," "Rai-ely 
 or ever." 3 See p. 90. 
 
VII.] HUMOUR 195 
 
 there, indeed, it is easy to note an unusual care and 
 elaboration in tlie structure of tlie sentences and the 
 cadence of the sound, and then the style rises to a 
 very high level of rhetorical dignity. 
 
 Enough too has been quoted, both from his writings 
 and from his conversation, to illustrate the quality and 
 quantity of his humour. It bubbled up in him by a 
 spontaneous process, and flowed over into whatever he 
 wrote or said. Macaulay described his "rapid, loud, 
 laughing utterance," and adds — " Sydney talks from 
 the impulse of the moment, and his fun is quite inex- 
 haustible." He was, I think, the greatest humourist 
 whose jokes have come down to us in an authentic and 
 unmutilated form. Almost alone among professional 
 jokers, he made his merriment — rich, natural, fantas- 
 tic, unbridled as it was — subserve the serious purposes 
 of his life and writing. Each joke was a link in an 
 argument ; each sarcasm was a moral lesson. Peter 
 Plymley, and the Letters to Archdeacon Singleton, the 
 essays on America and on Persecuting Bishops, will 
 probably be read as long as the Tale of a Tub or 
 Macaulay's review of "Satan" Montgomery; while 
 of detached and isolated jokes — pure freaks of fun 
 clad in literary garb — an incredible number, current 
 in daily converse, deduce their birth from this incom- 
 parable clergyman.^ "In ability," wrote Macaulay 
 in 1850, " I should say that Jeffrey was higher, but 
 Sydney rarer. I would rather have been Jeffrey ; but 
 there will be several Jeffreys before there is a Sydney." 
 
 It would of course be absurd to pretend that all his 
 
 1 1 have not attempted to make a catalogue of these jokes. 
 Such catalogues will be found in the previous Memoirs of Sydney 
 Smith, and in Sir Wemyss Reid's Life of Lord Houghton. 
 
196 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 jokes were of an equally high order. In his essays 
 and public letters he is always and supremely good ; 
 in his private letters and traditional table-talk he 
 descends to the level of his correspondent or his com- 
 pany. Thus, in spite of his own protests against 
 playing on words, he found his clerk " a man of great 
 amen-ity of disposition." He complimented his friends 
 Mrs. Tighe and Mrs. Cuffe as "the cuff that every one 
 would wear, the tie that no one would loose." His 
 fondness for Lord Grey's family led him to call him- 
 self " Grey-men-ivorous." When the Hollands were 
 staying with him, "his house was as full of hollands 
 as a ginshop." He nicknamed Sir George Philips's 
 home near Manchester Philippi. He ascribed his 
 brother's ugly mansion at Cheam to "Chemosh, the 
 abomination of Moab." In 1831 he wrote to his 
 friend Mrs. Meynell that "the French Government 
 was far from stable — like MeynelPs^ horses at the 
 end of a long day's chase." When a lady asked him 
 for an epitaph on her pet dog Spot, he proposed " Out, 
 damned Spot ! " but, " strange to say, she did not think 
 it sentimental enough." When William Cavendish,^ 
 who had been Second Wrangler, married Lady Blanche 
 Howard, Sydney wrote — "Euclid leads Blanche to 
 the altar — a strange choice for him, as she has not an 
 angle about her." It was with reference to this kind 
 of pleasantry that he said : — 
 
 " A joke goes a great way in the country. I have known 
 one last pretty well for seven years. I remember making a 
 
 1 Hugo Charles Meynell-Ingram (1784-1869) , of Hoar Cross and 
 Temple Newsam. 
 
 2 (1808-1891), became Tth Duke of Devonshire in 1858. 
 
VII.] HUMOUR 197 
 
 joke after a meeting of the clergy, in Yorkshire, where there 
 was a Rev. Mr. Buckle, who never spoke when I gave his 
 health. I said that he was a buckle without a tongue. Most 
 persons within hearing laughed, but my next neighbour sat 
 unmoved and sunk in thought. At last, a quarter of an hour 
 after we had all done, he suddenly nudged me, exclaiming, 
 'I see now what you meant, Mr. Smith; you meant a joke.' 
 'Yes,' I said, 'sir; I believe I did.' Upon which he began 
 laughing so heartily, that I thought he would choke, and 
 was obliged to pat him on the back." 
 
 A graver fault than this boyish love of punning 
 is the undeniable vein of coarseness which here and 
 there disfigures Sydney Smith's controversial method. 
 In 1810 he wrote, very characteristically, about his 
 friend Lord Grey — "His deficiency is a want of 
 executive coarseness." This is a fault with which he 
 could never have charged himself. His own " execu- 
 tive coarseness " is referable in part to the social 
 standard of the day, when ladies as refined as the 
 
 Miss Berrys "d d" the too-hot tea-kettle, and 
 
 Canning referred to a political opponent as "the 
 revered and ruptured Member." In a similar vein 
 Sydney jokes incessantly about skin-disease in Scot- 
 land ; writes of a neighbour w^hose manners he dis- 
 liked that " she was as cold as if she were in the last 
 stage of blue cholera " ; and, after his farmers had been 
 dining with him, says that " they were just as tipsy 
 as farmers ought to be when dining with the parson." 
 
 When he came to dealing publicly with a political 
 opponent, he seems to have thought that, the coarser 
 Avere his illustrations, the more domestic and personal 
 his allusions, the better for the cause which he served. 
 The Letters of Peter Plymley abound in medical and 
 obstetrical imagery. The effect of the Orders in 
 
198 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Council on the health of Europe supplies endless jokes. 
 Peter roars with laughter at the thought of his sister- 
 in-law, Mrs. Abraham Plymley, " led away captive by 
 an amorous Gaul." Nothing can be nastier (or more 
 apt) than his comparison between the use of humour 
 in controversy and that of the small-tooth comb in 
 domestic life ; nothing less delicate than the imaginary 
 " Suckling Act " in which he burlesques Lord Shaftes- 
 bury's Ten Hours Bill. He barbs his attacks on an 
 oppressive Government by jokes about the ugliness of 
 Perceval's face and the poverty of Canning's relations 
 — the pensions conferred on " Sophia " and " Caroline," 
 their " national veal " and " public tea " ; and the 
 " clouds of cousins arriving by the waggon." When a 
 bishop has insulted him, he replies with an insinuation 
 that the bishop obtained his preferment by fraud and 
 misrepresentation,^ and jeers at him for having begun 
 life as a nobleman's Private Tutor, called by the 
 " endearing but unmajestic name of Dick." It is only 
 fair to say that these aberrations from good taste and 
 good feeling became less and less frequent as years 
 went on. That they ever were permitted to deform the 
 splendid advocacy of great causes is due to the fact 
 that, when Sydney Smith began to write, the influ- 
 ence of Smollett and his imitators was still powerful. 
 Burke's obscene diatribes against the French Ee volu- 
 tion were still quoted and admired. Nobody had yet 
 made any emphatic protest against the beastliness of 
 Swift or the brutalities of Junius.^ 
 
 1 This insinuation was quite unfounded. 
 
 2 It is pleasant to cite the testimony of Lord Houghton, who 
 assured Mr. Stuart Reid that he " never knew, except once, Sydney- 
 Smith to make a jest on any religious subject; and then he 
 
VII.] POLITICS 199 
 
 When tliese necessary deductions have been made, 
 we can return to the most admiring eulogy. In 1835 
 Sydney wrote : — 
 
 " Catch me, if you can, in any one illiberal sentiment, or in 
 any opinion which I have need to recant ; and that, after 
 twenty years' scribbling upon all subjects." 
 
 It was no mean boast, and it was absolutely justified 
 by the record. From first to last he was the convinced, 
 eager, and devoted friend of Freedom, and that with- 
 out distinction of place or race or colour. He would 
 make no terms with a man who temporized about the 
 Slave-Trade. — 
 
 " No man should ever hold parley with it, but speak of it 
 with abhorrence, as the greatest of all human abominations." 
 
 The toleration of Slavery was the one and grave 
 exception to his unstinted admiration of the United 
 States, which afforded, in his opinion, "the most 
 magnificent picture of human happiness " which the 
 world had ever seen. And this because in America, 
 more than in any other country, each citizen was free 
 to live his own life, manage his own affairs, and work 
 out his own destiny, under the protection of just and 
 equal laws. As regards political institutions in Eng- 
 land, he seems to have been converted rather gradually 
 to the belief that Reform was necessary. In 1819 he 
 wrote to his friend Jeffrey : — 
 
 " The case that the people have is too strong to be resisted ; 
 an answer may be made to it, which will satisfy enlightened 
 people perhaps, but none that the mass will be satisfied with. 
 
 immediately withdrew his words and seemed ashamed that he had 
 uttered them." 
 
200 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 I am doubtful whether it is not your duty and my duty to 
 become moderate Reformers, to keep off worse." 
 
 In 1820 he wrote : — "I think all wise men should 
 begin to turn their faces Eeform-wards." In 1821 he 
 writes about the state of parties in the House of 
 Commons : — 
 
 " Of all ingenious instruments of despotism, I most com- 
 mend a popular assembly where the majority are paid and 
 hired, and a few bold and able men, by their brave speeches, 
 make the people believe they are free." 
 
 And then again, with regard to religions liberty, 
 what can be finer than his protest against the spirit 
 of persecution? — 
 
 " I admit there is a vast luxury in selecting a particular set 
 of Christians and in worrying them as a boy worries a puppy 
 dog; it is an amusement in which all the young English are 
 brought up from their earliest days. I like the idea of saying 
 to men who use a different hassock from me, that till they 
 change their hassock, they shall never be Colonels, Aldermen, 
 or Parliament-men. While I am gTatifying my personal 
 insolence respecting religious forms, I fondle myself into an 
 idea that I am religious, and that I am doing my duty in the 
 most exemplary (as I certainly am in the most easy) way." 
 
 It may perhaps be dangerous to persecute the Eoman 
 Catholics of Ireland. They are many, they are spirited 
 — they may turn round and hurt us. It might be 
 wiser to try our hands on some small body like the 
 Evangelicals of Clapham or the followers of William 
 Wilberforce (at whom in passing he aims a Shandean 
 sneer). — 
 
 " "We will gratify the love of insolence and power : we will 
 enjoy the old orthodox sport of witnessing the impotent anger 
 of men compelled to submit to civil degradation, or to sacrifice 
 their notions of truth to ours. And all this we may do without 
 
VII.] POLITICS 201 
 
 the slightest risk, because their numbers are (as yet) not very 
 considerable. Cruelty and injustice must, of course, exist : 
 but why connect them with danger ? Why torture a bull-dog, 
 when you can get a frog or a rabbit? I am sure my proposal 
 will meet with the most universal approbation. Do not be 
 apprehensive of any opposition from Ministers. If it is a case 
 of hatred, we are sure that one man ^ will defend it by the 
 Gospel : if it abridges human freedom, we know that another ^ 
 will find precedents for it in the Revolution." 
 
 As years went on, he was sometimes displeased 
 by the doings of his Liberal friends, but he was 
 never " stricken by the palsy of candour " ; he never 
 forsook the good cause for w^hich he had fought so 
 steadily, never made terms with political deserters. 
 After the Conservative triumph of 1841 he wrote : — 
 " The country is in a state of political transition, and 
 the shabby are preparing their consciences and opinions 
 for a tack." 
 
 But, though he was so keen and so consistent a 
 champion of civil and religious freedom, he was a 
 sworn foe to anarchy and licence. Like most people 
 who had seen the later stages of the French Revolu- 
 tion, he had a holy horror of mob-law and mob-justice. 
 " If I am to be a slave," he said, " I would rather be 
 the slave of a king than of a rabble"; but he ve- 
 hemently objected to being the slave of either. He 
 likened Democracy and Despotism to the " two tubes of 
 a double-barrelled pistol," which menaced the life of the 
 State. " The democrats are as much to be kept at bay 
 with the left hand as the Tories are with the right." 
 "A thousand years," he wrote in 1838, "have scarce 
 sufficed to make our blessed England what it is : an 
 hour may lay it in the dust." 
 
 1 Spencer Perceval. 2 Lord Hawkesbury. 
 
202 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 After the riots at Bristol in 1831, consequent on the 
 rejection of the Eeform Bill, he strenuously demanded 
 stern punishment for the rioters. He wrote to the 
 Prime Minister : — 
 
 " Pray do not be good-natured about Bristol. I must have 
 ten people hanged, and twenty transported, and thirty im- 
 prisoned ; it is absohitely necessary to give the multitude 
 a severe blow, for their conduct at Bristol has been most 
 atrocious. You will save lives by it in the end. There is 
 no plea of want, as there was in the agricultural riots." 
 
 You ivill save lives by it in the end. There spoke the 
 truly humanitarian spirit which does not shrink from 
 drawing the sword at the bidding of real necessity, 
 but asks itself once and again whether any proposed 
 effusion of blood is really demanded by the exigencies 
 of the moral law. 
 
 On questions of peace and war, Sydney Smith was 
 always on the right side.^ He saw as clearly as the 
 most clamorous patriot that England was morally 
 bound to defend her existence and her freedom. He 
 exhorted her to rally all her forces and strive with 
 agonies and energies against the anti-human ambition 
 of Napoleon. And, when once the great deliverance 
 was achieved, he turned again to the enjoyment and 
 the glorification of Peace. — 
 
 "Let fools praise conquerors, and say the great Napoleon 
 pulled down this kingdom and destroyed that army : we will 
 thank God for a King ^ who has derived his quiet glory from 
 the peace of his realm." 
 
 "The atrocities, and horrors, and disgusts of war have never 
 been half enough insisted upon by the teachers of the people ; 
 but the worst of evils and the greatest of follies have been 
 
 1 See Appendix E. 2 William iv. 
 
VII.] POLITICS 203 
 
 varnished over with specious names, and the gigantic robbers 
 and murderers of the world have been holden up for imita- 
 tion to the weak eyes of youth." 
 
 No wars, except the very few which we really 
 required for national self-defence, could attract his 
 sympathy. Wars of intervention in the affairs of other 
 nations, even when undertaken for excellent objects, 
 he regarded with profound mistrust. 
 
 When, in 1823, the nascent liberties of Spain were 
 threatened, he wrote : — 
 
 " I am afraid we shall go to war ; I am sorry for it. I see 
 every day in the world a thousand acts of oppression which I 
 should like to resent, but I cannot afford to play the Quixote. 
 Why are the English to be the sole vindicators of the human 
 race ? " 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " For God's sake, do not drag me into another war ! I am 
 worn down, and worn out, with crusading and defending 
 Europe, and protecting mankind ; I must think a little of 
 myself. I am sorry for the Spaniards — I am sorry for the 
 Greeks — I deplore the fate of the Jews ; the people of the 
 Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable 
 tyranny; Bagdad is oppressed — I do not like the present 
 state of the Delta — Thibet is not comfortable. Am I to fight 
 for all these people ? The world is bursting with sin and 
 sorrow. Am I to be champion of the Decalogue, and to be 
 eternally raising fleets and armies to make all men good and 
 happy? We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid 
 the consequence will be, that we shall cut each other's 
 throats." 
 
 In 1830 he wrote to his friend Lady Holland about 
 her son,^ afterwards General Fox : — 
 
 " I am very glad to see Charles in the Guards. He will 
 
 1 Charles Richard Fox (1796-1873). 
 
204 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 now remain at home ; for I trust that there will be no more 
 embarkation of the Guards while I live, and that a captain 
 of the Guards will be as ignorant of the colour of blood as the 
 rector of a parish. We have had important events enough 
 within the last twenty years. May all remaining events be 
 culinary, amorous, literary, or any thing but political! " 
 
 And so again, according to Lord Houghton, he said 
 in later life : — 
 
 " I have spent enough and fought enough for other nations. 
 I must think a little of myself. I want to sit under my own 
 bramble and sloe-tree with my own great-coat and umbrella." 
 
 This is no fatty degeneration of the chivalrous spirit. 
 It is merely the old doctrine of Non-intervention speak- 
 ing in a lighter tone. 
 
 An account of a man's personal characteristics must 
 contain some estimate of his aesthetic sense. This 
 was not very strongly developed in Sydney Smith. 
 He admired the beauties of a smiling landscape, such, 
 as he saw in the Vale of Taunton, and hated grim- 
 ness and barrenness such as he remembered at Harro- 
 gate. " I thought it the most heaven- forgotten country 
 under the sun when I saw it ; there were only nine 
 mangy fir-trees there, and even they all leaned away 
 from it." He enjoyed bright colours and sweet scents, 
 and had a passion for light. His views of Art were 
 primitive. We have seen that he preferred gas to 
 Correggio. He admired West,^ and did not admire 
 Haydon.^ He bought pictures for the better decora- 
 tion of his drawing-room, and, when they did not please 
 him, had them altered to suit his taste. — 
 
 "Look at that sea-piece, now; what would you desire 
 
 1 Benjamin West (1738-1820). 
 
 2 Benjamin Robert Haydon (178G-1846). 
 
VII.] CULTURE 205 
 
 more? It is true, the moon in the corner was rather dingy 
 when I first bought it ; so I had a new moon put in for 
 half-a-crown, and now I consider it perfect." 
 
 This perhaps may be regarded as burlesque, and 
 so may his sympathetic remark to the gushing con- 
 noisseur — 
 
 "I got into dreadful disgrace with him once, when, stand- 
 ing before a picture at Bowood, he exclaimed, turning to me, 
 ' Immense breadth of light and shade ! ' I innocently said, 
 ' Yes ; — about an inch and a half.' He gave me a look that 
 ought to have killed me." 
 
 But his gratitude to his young friend Lady Mary 
 Bennet, who covered the walls of his Eectory with 
 the sweet products of her pencil, is only too palpably 
 sincere. It may perhaps be imputed to him for aesthetic 
 virtue that he considered the national monuments in 
 St. Paul's, with the sole exception of Dr. Johnson's, 
 " a disgusting heap of trash." It is less satisfactory 
 that he found the Prince Kegent's "suite of golden 
 rooms " at Carlton House " extremely magnificent." 
 
 To music he was more sympathetic, but even here his 
 sympathies had their limitations. Music in the minor 
 key made him melancholy, and had to be discontinued 
 when he was in residence at St. Paul's ; ^ and this was 
 not his only musical prejudice. — 
 
 " Nothing can be more disgusting than an oratorio. How 
 absurd to see five hundred people fiddling like madmen about 
 the Israelites in the Red Sea ! " 
 
 " Yesterday I heard Rubini and Grisi, Lablache and Tam- 
 burini. The opera, by Bellini, / Puritani, was dreadfully 
 
 1 1 am indebted for this tradition to the Rev. H. S. Holland, D.D., 
 Canon of St. Paul's. 
 
206 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 tiresome, and unintelligible in its plan. I hope it is the last 
 opera I shall ever go to." 
 
 " Semiramis would be to me pure misery. I love music 
 very little. I hate acting. I have the worst opinion of 
 Semiramis herself, and the whole thing seems to me so child- 
 ish and so foolish that I cannot abide it. Moreover, it would 
 be rather out of etiquette for a Canon of St. Paul's to go to 
 the opera; and, where etiquette prevents me from doing 
 things disagreeable to myself, I am a perfect martinet." 
 
 After a Musical Festival at York he writes to Lady 
 Holland : — 
 
 " I did not go once. Music for such a length of time (un- 
 less under sentence of a jury) I will not submit to. What 
 pleasure is there in pleasure, if quantity is not attended to, 
 as well as quality ? I know nothing more agreeable than a 
 dinner at Holland House ; but it must not begin at ten in 
 the morning, and last till six. I should be incapable for the 
 last four hours of laughing at Lord Holland's jokes, eating 
 Raffaelle's cakes, or repelling Mr. Allen's ^ attack upon the 
 Church." 
 
 Yet, in spite of these limitations, lie took lessons 
 on the piano, and often warbled in the domestic circle. 
 In 1843 he writes — "I am learning to sing some of 
 Moore's songs, which I think I shall do to great per- 
 fection." His daughter says, with filial piety, that, 
 when he had once learnt a song, he sang it very cor- 
 rectly, and, " having a really fine voice, often encored 
 Mmsel/y A lady who visited him at Combe Florey 
 corroborates this account, saying that after dinner he 
 said to his wife, "I crave for Music, Mrs. Smith. 
 Music ! Music ! " and sang, " with his rich sweet voice, 
 A Few Gay Soarings Yet. " In old age he said : — 
 
 " If I were to begin life again, I would devote much time 
 
 1 John Allen was nicknamed *' Lady Holland's Atheist." 
 
VII.] CULTURE 207 
 
 to music. All musical people seem to me happy ; it is the 
 most engrossing pursuit ; almost the only innocent and un- 
 punished passion." 
 
 When we turn from the aesthetic to the literary- 
 faculty, we find it a good deal better developed. That 
 lie was a sound scholar in the sense of being able 
 to read the standard classics with facility and enjoy- 
 ment we know from his own statements. In the early 
 days of the Edinburgh Review lie perceived and ex- 
 tolled the fine scholarship of Monk ^ and Blomfield^ 
 and Maltby.^ The fact that Marsh* was a man of 
 learning mitigated the severity of the attack on 
 "Persecuting Bishops." His glowing tribute to the 
 accomplishments of Sir James Mackintosh is qualified 
 by the remark that " the Greek language has never 
 crossed the Tweed in any great force." In biief, he 
 understood and respected classical scholarship. He 
 was keenly interested in English literature, and kept 
 abreast of what was produced in France ; but German 
 he seems to have regarded as a kind of joke, and Italian 
 he only mentions as part of a young lady's education. 
 
 In 1819 be wrote to his son at Westminster : — 
 
 " For the English poets, I will let you off at present with 
 Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Shakespeare; and remember, 
 always in books, keep the best company. Don't read a line 
 of Ovid till you have mastered Virgil ; nor a line of Thom- 
 son till you have exhausted Pope ; nor of Massinger, till 
 you are familiar with Shakespeare." 
 
 He thought Locke " a fine, satisfactory sort of 
 a fellow, but very long-winded " ; considered Horace 
 Walpole's " the best wit ever published in the shape of 
 
 1 Bishop of Gloucester. 2 Bishop of London. 
 
 8 Bishop of Durham. ■* Bishop of Peterborough. 
 
208 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 letters " ; and dismissed Madame de Sevigne as " very 
 much over-praised." Of Montaigne he says — " He 
 thinks aloud, that is his great merit, but does not 
 think remarkably well. Mankind has improved in 
 thinking and writing since that period." 
 
 It was, of course, part of his regular occupation to 
 deal with new books in the Edinhurgh ; and, apart 
 from these formal reviews, his letters are full of curious 
 comments. In 1814 he declines to read the Edinburgh's 
 criticism of Wordsworth, because "the subject is to me 
 so very uninteresting." In the same year he writes : — 
 
 " I think very highly of Waverley, and was inclined to 
 suspect, in reading it, that it was written by Miss Scott of 
 Ancrum." 
 
 In 1818 he wrote about The Heart of Midlothian : — 
 
 " I think it excellent — quite as good as any of his novels, 
 excepting that in which Claverhoiise is introduced, and of 
 which I forget the name. ... He repeats his characters, 
 but it seems they will bear repetition. Who can read the 
 novel without laughing and crying twenty times? " 
 
 In 1820 : — 
 
 " Have you read Ivanhoe ? It is the least dull, and the 
 most easily read through, of all Scott's novels ; but there are 
 many more powerful." 
 
 Later in the same year : — 
 
 "I have just read The Abbot; it is far above common 
 novels, but of very inferior execution to his others, and 
 hardly worth reading. He has exhausted the subject of 
 Scotland, and worn out the few characters that the early 
 periods of Scotch history could supply him with. Meg 
 JNIerrilies appears afresh in every novel." 
 
 In 1821 : — 
 
 " The Pirate is certainly one of the least fortunate of Sir 
 
VII.] CULTURE 209 
 
 Walter's productions. It seems now that he cannot write 
 without Meg Merrilies and Dominie Sampson. One other 
 such novel, and there 's an end; but who can last for ever? 
 who ever lasted so long?" 
 
 In 1823 : — 
 
 " Peveril is a moderate production, between his best and 
 his worst ; rather agreeable than not." 
 
 His judgment on TJie Bride of Lammermoor is indeed 
 deplorable. He thought it like Scott's previous work, 
 but " laboured in an inferior way, and more careless, 
 ^vith many repetitions of himself. Caleb is overdone. 
 . . . The catastrophe is shocking and disgusting." ^ 
 
 Incidentally we find him praising Lister's Granby, 
 and Hope's jinastasius. He early discovered and 
 consistently admired Macaulay, though he drew the 
 line at the Lays of Ancient Rome, on the ground that 
 he "abhorred all Grecian and Roman subjects." It is 
 curious to note the number and variety of new books 
 which lie more or less commends, and which are now 
 equally and completely forgotten. As we come nearer 
 our own times, however, we find an important con- 
 version. In 1838 he writes : — 
 
 " NicUehy is very good. I stood out against Mr. Dickens 
 as long as I could, but he has conquered me." 
 
 In 1843 he w^rites to Dickens : — 
 
 " Pecksniff and his daughters, and Pinch, are admirable 
 — quite first-rate painting, such as no one but yourself can 
 execute. Chuffey is admirable. I never read a finer piece 
 of writing." 
 
 And, when Dickens asks him to dinner, he replies : — 
 " I accept your obliging invitation conditionally. If I am 
 
 1 Quoted by Mr. Stuart Reid. 
 
210 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 invited by any man of greater genius than yourself, or one 
 by whose works I have been more completely interested, I 
 will repudiate you, and dine with the more splendid phe- 
 nomenon of the two." 
 
 His crowning glory in the matter of literary criticism 
 is that, as Ruskin told us, he was the first man in the 
 literary circles of London to assert the value of Modem 
 Painters. "He said it was a work of transcendent 
 talent, presented the most original views in the most 
 elegant and j)owerful language, and would work a 
 complete revolution in the world of taste." ^ 
 
 With the physical sciences Sydney Smith seems to 
 have had no real acquaintance, unless we include among 
 them the art of the apothecary, which all through life he 
 studied diligently and practised courageously. But he 
 recommended Botany, with some confidence, as " certain 
 to delight little girls"; and his friendship with the 
 amiable and instructive Mrs. Marcet^ gave him a 
 smattering of scientific terms. In a discussion on the 
 Inferno he invented a new torment especially for that 
 excellent lady's benefit. — 
 
 " You should be doomed to listen, for a thousand years, to 
 conversations between Caroline and Emily, where Caroline 
 should always give wrong explanations in chemistry, and 
 Emily in the end be unable to distinguish an acid from an 
 alkali." 
 
 When we turn, from these smaller matters of taste 
 and accomplishment, to the general view of life, 
 Sydney Smith would seem, at first sight, to have 
 been a Utilitarian ; and yet he declared himself 
 
 1 Prxterita, vol. ii. chap. ix. 
 
 2 Jane Marcet (1769-1858), authoress of Conversations on 
 Chemistry. 
 
VII.] THEORIES OF LIEE 211 
 
 in vigorous terms an opponent of the Utilitarian 
 School. — 
 
 " That school treat mankind as if they were mere machines ; 
 the feelings or affections never enter into their calculations. 
 If everything is to be sacrificed to utility, why do you bury 
 your grandmother ? why don't you cut her into small pieces 
 at once, and make portable soup of her ? " 
 
 In a similar vein, he said of his friend George Grote 
 that he would have been an important politician if the 
 world had been a chess-board. Any system, social, 
 political, or philosophical, which did not directly con- 
 cern itself with the wants and feelings and impulses of 
 human flesh and blood, appealed to him in vain. 
 
 "How foolish," he wrote, " and how profligate, to show that 
 the principle of general utility has no foundation, that it is 
 often opposed to the interests of the individual ! If this be 
 true, there is an end of all reasoning and all morals : and if 
 any man asks, Why am I to do what is generally useful ? he 
 should not be reasoned with, but called rogue, rascal, etc., and 
 the mob should be excited to break his windows." 
 
 He liked what he called "useful truth.'^ He could 
 make no terms with thinkers who were "more fond 
 of disputing on mind and matter than on anything 
 which can have a reference to the real world, inhabited 
 by real men, women, and children." Indeed, all his 
 thinking was governed by his eager and generous 
 humanitarianism. He thought all speculation, which 
 did not bear directly on the welfare and happiness 
 of human beings, a waste of ingenuity; and yet, at 
 the same time, he taught that all practical systems, 
 which left out of account the emotional and sentimental 
 side of man, were incomplete and ineffectual. This 
 higher side of his nature showed itself in his lively 
 
212 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 affections, his intense love of home and wife and 
 children, his lifelong tenacity of friendship, and his 
 overflowing sympathy for the poor, the abject, and 
 the suffering. 
 
 "The haunts of Happiness," he wrote, "are varied, and 
 rather unaccountable ; but I have more often seen her among 
 little children, and by home firesides, and in country houses, 
 thau anywhere else, — at least, I think so." 
 
 When his mother died, he wrote — " Everyone must 
 go to his grave with his heart scarred like a soldier's 
 body," and, when he lost his infant boy, he said — 
 " Children are horribly insecure : the life of a parent is 
 the life of a gambler.'^ 
 
 His more material side was well exhibited by the 
 catalogue of "Modern Changes" which he compiled 
 in old age, heading it with the characteristic couplet : — 
 
 "The good of ancient times let others state, 
 I think it lucky I was born so late." i 
 
 It concludes with the words, " Even in the best society 
 
 one third of the gentlemen at least were always drunk." 
 
 This reminds us that, in the matter of temperance, 
 
 Sydney Smith was far in advance of his time. That 
 
 he was no 
 
 " budge doctor of the Stoic fur, 
 Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence," 
 
 is plain enough from his correspondence. " The wretch- 
 edness of human life," he wrote in 1817, " is only to be 
 encountered upon the basis of meat and wine " ; but he 
 had a curiously keen sense of the evils induced by 
 " the sweet poyson." ^ As early as 1814 he urged Lord 
 Holland to "leave off wine entirely," for, though 
 
 1 See Appendix C. ^ Comus. 
 
VII.] THEORIES OF LIFE 213 
 
 never guilty of excess, Holland showed a " respectable 
 and dangerous plenitude." After a visit to London 
 in the same year, Sydney wrote : — 
 
 " I liked London better than ever I liked it before, and 
 simply, I believe, from water-drinking. Without this, London 
 is stupefaction and inflammation. It is not the love of wine, 
 but thoughtlessness and unconscious imitation : other men 
 poke out their hands for the revolving wine, and one does the 
 same, without thinking of it. All people above the condition 
 of labourers are ruined by excess of stimulus and nourishment, 
 clergy included. I never yet saw any gentleman who ate and 
 drank as little as was reasonable." 
 
 In 1828 he wrote to Lady Holland (of Holland 
 House) : — 
 
 " I not only was never better, but never half so well : in- 
 deed I find I have been very ill all my life, without knowing 
 it. Let me state some of the goods arising from abstaining 
 from all fermented liquors. First, sweet sleep ; having never 
 known what sweet sleep was, I sleep like a baby or a plough- 
 boy. If I wake, no needless terrors, no black visions of life, 
 but pleasing hopes and pleasing recollections : Holland House, 
 past and to come! If I dream, it is not of lions and tigers, 
 but of Easter dues and tithes. Secondly, I can take longer 
 walks, and make gTeater exertions, without fatigue. My 
 understanding is improved, and I comprehend Political 
 Economy. Only one evil ensues from it: I am in such 
 extravagant spirits that I must look out for some one who 
 will bore and depress me." 
 
 In 1834 he wrote : — 
 
 " I am better in health, avoiding all fermented liquors, and 
 drinking nothing but London water, with a million insects in 
 every drop. He who drinks a tumbler of London water has 
 literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are 
 men, women, and children on the face of the globe." 
 
 In spite of this disquieting analysis he persevered, 
 and wrote two years later : — 
 
214 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 " I have had no gout, nor any symptom of it : by eating 
 little, and drinking only water, I keep body and mind in a 
 serene state, and s^^are the great toe. Looking back at my 
 past life, I find that all my miseries of body and mind have 
 proceeded from indigestion. Young people in early life should 
 be thoroughly taught the moral, intellectual, and physical 
 evils of indigestion." 
 
 Saba, Lady Holland, who had a discreet but pro- 
 voking trick of omitting the proper name wherever we 
 specially thirst to know it, thus reports her father's 
 conversation : — 
 
 " Now, I mean not to drink one drop of wine to-day, and 
 I shall be mad with spirits. I always am when I drink no 
 wine. It is curious the effect a thimbleful of wine has upon 
 me ; I feel as flat as 's jokes ; it destroys my understand- 
 ing : I forget the number of the Muses, and think them xxxix, 
 of course ; and only get myself right again by repeating the 
 lines, and finding ' Descend, ye Thirty-Nine ! ' two feet too 
 long." 
 
 All this profound interest in the matter of food and 
 drink was closely connected in Sydney Smith with a 
 clear sense of the influence exercised by the body over 
 the soul. — 
 
 " I am convinced digestion is the great secret of life ; and 
 that character, talents, virtues, and qualities are powerfully 
 affected by beef, mutton, pie-crust, and rich soups. I have 
 often thought I could feed or starve men into many virtues 
 and vices, and affect them more powerfully with my instru- 
 ments of cookery than Timotheus could do formerly with his 
 lyre."i 
 
 According to his own accounts of himself he seems, 
 like most people who are boisterously cheerful, to 
 have had occasional tendencies to melancholy. " An 
 
 1 See Appendix D. 
 
VII.] THEORIES OF LIFE 215 
 
 extreme depression of spirits," he writes in 1826, " is 
 an evil of which I have a full comprehension." But, 
 on the other hand, he writes : — 
 
 " I thank God, who has made me poor, that He has made 
 me merry. I think it a better gift than much wheat and 
 bean-land, with a doleful heart." 
 
 " Mj constitutional gaiety comes to my aid in all the 
 difficulties of life ; and the recollection that, having em- 
 braced the character of an honest man and a friend to 
 rational liberty, I have no business to repine at that medioc- 
 rity of fortune which I Jcneiv to be its cousequence." 
 
 The truth would seem to be that, finding, in his 
 temperament and circumstances, some predisposing 
 causes of melancholy, he refused to sit down under 
 the curse and let it poison his life, but took vigor- 
 ous measures with himself and his surroundings ; culti- 
 vated cheerfulness as a duty, and repelled gloom as 
 a disease. He "tried always to live in the Present 
 and the Future, and to look upon the Past as so much 
 dirty linen." After reading Burke, and praising his 
 " beautiful and fruitful imagination," he says — 
 "With the politics of so remote a period I do not 
 concern myself." He had a robust confidence in the 
 cheering virtues of air and exercise, early hours and cold 
 water, light and warmth, temperance in tea and coffee 
 as well as wine — " Apothegms of old women," as he 
 truly said, but tested by universal experience and found 
 efficacious. He recommended constant occupation, 
 combined with variety of interests, and taught that 
 nothing made one feel so happy as the act of doing 
 good. He thus describes his own experience, when, 
 as Canon of St. Paul's, he had presented a valuable 
 living to the friendless son of the deceased incum- 
 
216 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 bent. He announced the presentation to the stricken 
 family. — 
 
 " They all burst into tears. It flung me also into a great 
 agitation, and I wept and groaned for a long time. Then I 
 rose, and said I thought it was very likely to end in their 
 keeping a buggy, at which we all laughed as violently. The 
 poor old lady, who was sleeping in a garret because she could 
 not bear to enter into the room lately inhabited by her hus- 
 band, sent for me and kissed me, sobbing with a thousand 
 emotions. The charitable physician wept too. ... I never 
 passed so remarkable a morning, nor was more deeply im- 
 pressed with the sufferings of human life, and never felt 
 more thoroughly the happiness of doing good." 
 
 Of all his various remedies against melancholy, the 
 one on which he most constantly and most earnestly 
 insisted, was the wisdom of " taking short views.'' — 
 
 " Dispel," he said, " that prophetic gloom which dives into 
 futurity, to extract sorrow from days and years to come, and 
 which considers its own unhappy visions as the decrees of 
 Providence. We know nothing of to-morrow : our business 
 is to be good and happy to-day." 
 
 Our business is to be good and happy. This dogma 
 inevitably suggests the question — What was Sydney 
 Smith's religion? First and foremost, he was a 
 staunch and consistent Theist. — 
 
 " I hate the insolence, persecution, and intolerance, which 
 so often pass under the name of religion, and have fought 
 against them ; but I have an unaffected horror of irreligion 
 and impiety, and every principle of suspicion and fear would 
 be excited in me by a man who professed himself an infidel." i 
 
 1 Compare his attack on Hobbes, of whom he says that his 
 "dirty recreation" of smoking did not interrupt any "im- 
 moral, irrehgious, or uumathematical track of thought in which 
 he happened to be engaged." — Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 
 XX vi. 
 
VII.] RELIGION 217 
 
 In a lighter vein, he talked with dread of travelling 
 in a stage-coach with " an Atheist who told me what 
 he had said in his heart." ^ And in 1808 he wrote to 
 his friend Jeffrey with reference to the tone of the 
 Edinburgh Review : — 
 
 " I must beg the favour of you to be explicit on one point. 
 Do you mean to take care that the Review shall not profess 
 or encourage infidel principles? Unless this is the case, I 
 must absolutely give up all thoughts of connecting myself 
 with it." 
 
 The grounds on which his theism rested seem, as Sir 
 Leslie Stephen points out, to have been exactly those 
 which satisfied Paley. Lord Murray, who, though he 
 was a judge, does not seem to have been exacting 
 about the quality of argument, admiringly relates this 
 anecdote of his friend : — 
 
 "A foreigner, on one occasion, indulging in sceptical 
 doubts of the existence of an overruling Providence in his 
 presence, Sydney, who had observed him evidently well 
 satisfied with his repast, said, 'You must admit there is 
 great genius and thought in that dish.' ' Admirable ! ' he 
 replied ; ' nothing can be better.' ' May I then ask, are you 
 prepared to deny the existence of the cook ? ' " 
 
 Of course this is nothing but Paley's illustration of 
 the Watch, reproduced in a less impressive form. 
 
 But Sydney Smith was not content with a system of 
 thought which provided him with a working hypothesis 
 for the construction of the physical universe and the 
 conduct of this present life. He looked above and 
 beyond ; and reinforced his own faith in immortality 
 by an appeal to the general sense of mankind. — 
 
 1 Dixit insipiens in corde suo : Non est Deus. — Psa/m xiv. 
 
218 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 " Who ever thinks of turning into ridicule our great and 
 ardent hope of a world to come? Whenever the man of 
 humour meddles with these things, he is astonished to find 
 that in all the great feelings of their nature the mass of 
 mankind always think and act aright ; that they are ready 
 enough to laugh, but that they are quite as ready to drive 
 away, with indignation and contempt, the light fool who 
 comes with the feather of wit to crumble the bulwarks of 
 truth, and to beat down the Temples of God. We count 
 over the pious spirits of the world, the beautiful writers, the 
 great statesmen, all who have invented subtly, who have 
 thought deeply, who have executed wisely: — all these are 
 proofs that we are destined for a second life ; and it is not 
 possible to believe that this redundant vigour, this lavish and 
 excessive power, was given for the mere gathering of meat 
 and drink. If the only object is present existence, such 
 faculties are cruel, are misplaced, are useless. They all show 
 us that there is something great awaiting us, — that the soul 
 is now young and infantine, springing up into a more per- 
 fect life when the body falls into dust." 
 
 " Man is imprisoned here only for a season, to take a bet- 
 ter or a worse hereafter, as he deserves it. This old truth 
 is the fountain of all goodness, and justice, and kindness 
 among men : may we all feel it intimately, obey it perpetu- 
 ally, and profit by it eternally ! " 
 
 He was not a theist only, but a Christian. Here 
 again, as in the argument from Design, lie followed 
 Paley, laid great stress on Evidences, and '' selected his 
 train of reasoning with some care from the best writers.'^ 
 He said : — " The truth of Christianity depends upon 
 its leading facts, and of these we have such evidence 
 as ought to satisfy us, till it appears that mankind 
 have ever been deceived by proofs as numerous and 
 as strong.'' Having convinced himself that the Chris- 
 tian religion was true, he was loyal in word and act 
 to what he had accepted. He remonstrated vigor- 
 
VIII.] RELIGION 219 
 
 ously against an " anti-Christian article " which crept 
 into the Edinburgh Review ; and felt, as keenly as the 
 strongest sacerdotalist or the most fervent Evangelical, 
 the boimden duty of defending the body of truth to 
 which his ordination had pledged him. 
 
 It can scarcely be contested that his conceptions of 
 that truth were, in some grave respects, defective. The 
 absolute dominion and overruling providence of God 
 are always present to his mind, and he urges as the 
 ground of all virtuous effort the Character and Example 
 of Christ. But the notion of Atonement finds no place 
 in his thought. The virtuous will attain to eternal 
 blessedness, and the vicious will perish in their vices. 
 The free pardon of confessed sin — access to happiness 
 through a Divine Mediation — in a word, the Doctrine 
 of the Cross — seems, as far as his recorded utterances 
 go, to have been quite alien from his system of religion. 
 The appeal to personal experience of sinfulness, for- 
 giveness, and acceptance, he would have dismissed as 
 mere enthusiasm — and he declared in his sermon on 
 the Character and Genius of the Christian Eeligion, 
 that ^Hhe Gospel has no enthusiasm.''^ That it once 
 was possible for a clergyman to utter these five words 
 as containing an axiomatic truth, marks, perhaps as 
 plainly as it is possible for language to mark it, the 
 change effected in the religion of the Church of Eng- 
 land by the successive action of the Evangelical Eevival 
 and of the Oxford Movement. 
 
 Sydney Smith's firm belief, from first to last, was 
 that Eeligion was intended to make men good and 
 happy in daily life. This was " the calm tenor of its 
 language," and the " practical view " of its rule. And, 
 as far as it goes, no one can quarrel with the doctrine 
 
220 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 SO laid down. After staying with some Puritanical 
 friends, he wrote : — 
 
 " I endeavour in vain to give them more cheerful ideas of 
 religion : to teach them that God is not a jealous, childish, 
 merciless tyrant ; that He is best served by a regular tenor 
 of good actions, — not by bad singing, ill-composed prayers, 
 and eternal apprehensions. But the luxury of false religion 
 is, to be unhappy ! " 
 
 It was probably this strong conviction that every- 
 thing pertaining to religion ought to be bright and 
 cheerful, that led him, as far back as the days when 
 he was preaching in Edinburgh, to urge the need for 
 more material beauty in public worship. — 
 
 " No reflecting man can ever wish to adulterate manly piety 
 (the parent of all that is good in the world) with mummery 
 and parade. But we are strange, very strange creatures, and 
 it is better perhaps not to place too much confidence in our 
 reason alone. If anything, there is, perhaps, too little pomp 
 and ceremony in our worship, instead of too much. We 
 quarrelled with the Roman Catholic Church, in a great hurry 
 and a great passion ; and, furious with spleen, clothed our- 
 selves with sackcloth, because she was habited in brocade ; 
 rushing, like children, from one extreme to another, and blind 
 to all medium between complication and barrenness, formality 
 and neglect. I am very glad to find we are calling in, more 
 and more, the aid of music to our services. In London, 
 where it can be commanded, good music has a prodigious 
 effect in filling a church ; organs have been put up in various 
 churches in the country, and, as I have been informed, with 
 the best possible effect. Of what value, it may be asked, are 
 auditors who come there from such motives ? But our first 
 business seems to be, to bring them there from any motive 
 which is not undignified and ridiculous, and then to keep 
 them there from a good one : those who come for pleasure 
 may remain for prayer." 
 
VII.] RELIGION 221 
 
 When Sydney speaks of onr "quarrel with the 
 Eoman Catholic Church," he speaks of a quarrel in 
 which, at least as far as doctrine is concerned, he 
 had his full share. Never was a stouter Protestant. 
 Even in the passages in which he makes his strongest 
 appeals for the civil rights of Eomanists, he goes out 
 of the way to pour scorn on their religion. Some of 
 his language is unquotable : here are some milder 
 specimens : — 
 
 " As for the enormous wax candles, and superstitious mum- 
 meries, and painted jackets of the Catholic priests, I fear 
 them not." 
 
 " Spencer Perceval is in horror lest twelve or fourteen 
 old women may be converted to holy water and Catholic 
 nonsense." 
 
 " I am as disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman 
 Catholic religion as you can be ; and no man who talks such 
 nonsense shall ever tithe the products of the earth." 
 
 " Catholic nonsense " is not a happy phrase on the 
 lips of a man who was officially bound to recite his 
 belief in the Catholic Faith and to pray for the good 
 estate of the Catholic Church. A priest who administers 
 Baptism according to the use of the Church of England 
 should not talk about "the sanctified contents of a 
 pump," or describe people who cross themselves as 
 " making right angles upon the breast and forehead." 
 But time brings changes in religious, as well as in 
 social, manners, and Peter Plymley prophesied nearly 
 thirty years before Keble's sermon on " National Apos- 
 tasy " had started the second revival of the English 
 Church.i 
 
 1 July 14, 1833. ** I have ever considered and kept the day 
 as the start of the religious movement of 1833." — Cardinal 
 Newman, Apologia. 
 
222 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. ] 
 
 No one who has studied the character and career 
 of Sydney Smith would expect him to be very 
 sympathetic with the work which bore the name of 
 Pusey. In 1841 he preached against it at St. Paul's. 
 
 " I wish you had witnessed, the other day, my incredible 
 boldness in attacking the Puseyites. I told them that they 
 made the Christian religion a religion of postm-es and 
 ceremonies, of circumflexions and genuflexions, of garments 
 and vestures, of ostentation and parade ; that they took 
 tithe of mint and cummin, and neglected the weightier 
 matters of the law, — justice, mercy, and the duties of life: 
 and so forth." 
 
 From Combe Florey he wrote : — 
 
 "Everybody here is turning Puseyite. Having worn out 
 my black gown, I preach in my surplice; this is all the 
 change I have made, or mean to make." 
 
 In 1842 he wrote to a friend abroad : — 
 
 " I have not yet discovered of what I am to die, but I 
 rather believe I shall be burnt alive by the Puseyites. 
 Nothing so remarkable in England as the progress of these 
 foolish people.^ I have no conception what they mean, if 
 it be not to revive every absurd ceremony, and every 
 antiquated folly, which the common sense of mankind has 
 set to sleep. You will find at your return a fanatical Church 
 of England, but pray do not let it prevent your return. We 
 can always gather together, in Green Street, a chosen few 
 who have never bowed the knee to Rimmon." 
 
 It may be questioned whether the Hermit of Green 
 Street was very well qualified to settle the points at 
 
 1 In early life he wrote from Edinburgh : — "In England, I 
 maintain, (except among ladies in the middle rank of life) there 
 is no religion at all. The Clergy of England have no more 
 influence over the people at large than the Cheesemongers of 
 England." 
 
VII.] RELIGION 223 
 
 issue between the " Puseyites " and himself, or had 
 bestowed very close attention on what is, after all, 
 mainly a question of Documents. In earlier days, 
 when it suited his purpose to argue for greater 
 liberality towards Eoman Catholics, he had said: — 
 
 " In their tenets, in their church-government, in the nature 
 of their endowments, the Dissenters are infinitely more dis- 
 tant from the Church of England than the Catholics are." 
 
 In 1813 he had intervened in the controversy 
 which raged round the cradle of that most pacific 
 institution, the British and Foreign Bible Society, 
 and had taken the unexpectedly clerical view that 
 Churchmen were bound to '^ circulate the Scriptures 
 with the Prayer Book, in preference to any other 
 method." But he grounded a claim to promotion on 
 the fact that he had " always avoided speculative, and 
 preached practical, religion." He spoke of a ^theo- 
 logical " bishop in the sense of dispraise, and linked 
 the epithet with '^ bitter " and " bustling." Beyond 
 question he had read the Bible, but he was not 
 alarmingly familiar with the sacred text. It is 
 reported^ that he once referred to the case of the 
 man who puts his hand to the plough and looks 
 back ^ as being '' somewhere in the Epistles." He 
 forgot the names of Job's daughters, until reminded 
 by a neighbouring Squire who had called his grey- 
 hounds Jemima, Kezia, and Keren-Happuch. He at- 
 tributed the Nunc Dimittis to an author vaguely but 
 conveniently known as "The Psalmist," and by so 
 doing drew down on himself the ridicule of Wilson 
 
 1 By Mr. Stuart Reid. 2 st. Luke ix. 62. 
 
224 SYDNEY SMITH [chap. 
 
 Croker.^ It may be questioned whether he ever read 
 the Prayer Book except in Church. With the litera- 
 ture of Christian antiquity he had not, so far as his 
 writings show, the slightest acquaintance; and his 
 knowledge of Anglican divines — Wake, and Cleaver, 
 and Sherlock, and Horsley — has a suspicious air of 
 having been hastily acquired for the express purpose 
 of confuting Bishop Marsh. So we will not cite 
 him as a witness in a case where the highest 
 and deepest mysteries of Eevelation are involved, 
 and where a minute acquaintance with Documents is 
 an indispensable equipment. We prefer to take leave 
 of him as a Christian preacher, seeking only the 
 edification of his hearers. In a sermon on the Holy 
 Communion, preached from the pulpit of St. Paul's, 
 he delivers this striking testimony to a religious 
 truth, which, if stated in a formal proposition, he 
 would probably have disavowed: — 
 
 " If you, who only partake of this Sacrament, cannot fail 
 to be struck with its solemnity, we who not only receive it, 
 but minister it to every description of human beings, in every 
 season of peril and distress, must be intimately and deeply 
 pervaded by that feehng. ... To know the power of this 
 Sacrament, give it to him whose doom is sealed, who in a 
 
 i**What can we think of the fitness of a man to address 
 his Queen and his country in the dogmatical strain of this 
 pamphlet, who does not know the New Testament from the 
 Old; the Psalms from the Gospel, David from Simeon; who 
 expatiates so pompously on the duty and benefit of Prayer, 
 yet mistakes and miscalls a portion of the Common Prayer, which 
 he is bound in law and in conscience to repeat every evening of his 
 life." — Quarterly Review, July 1837. 
 
 The reference is to the Sermon on the Queen's Accession. The 
 blunder was rectified in a later edition. 
 
VII.] RELIGION 225 
 
 few hours will be no more. The Bread and the Wine are 
 his immense hope ! they seem to stand between him and 
 infinite danger, to soothe pain, to calm perturbation, and to 
 inspire immortal courage." 
 
 What is the conclusion of the whole matter ? It is, 
 in my judgment, that Sydney Smith was a patriot of 
 the noblest and purest type ; a genuinely religious man 
 according to his light and opportunity ; and the happy 
 possessor of a rich and singular talent which he em- 
 ployed through a long life in the willing service of the 
 helpless, the persecuted, and the poor. To use his own 
 fine phrase, the interests of humanity "got into his 
 heart and circulated with his blood." ^ He wrote and 
 spoke and acted in prompt and uncalculating obedience 
 to an imperious conviction. — 
 
 " If," he said, " you ask me who excites me, I answer you, 
 it is that Judge Who stirs good thoughts in honest hearts — 
 under Whose warrant I impeach the wrong, and by Whose 
 help I hope to chastise it." 
 
 Here was both the source and the consecration of 
 that glorious mirth by which he still holds his place in 
 the hearts and on the lips of men. His playful speech 
 was the vehicle of a passionate purpose. From his 
 earliest manhood, he was ready to sacrifice all that the 
 sordid world thinks precious for Eeligious Equality and 
 Eational Freedom. 
 
 1 He said this of Lord Grey. 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 LIST OF SYDNEY SMITH'S ARTICLES IN THE 
 
 EDINBURGH REVIEW 
 
 Vol. 
 
 Art. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 Art. 
 
 Page. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 Art. 
 
 Page. 
 
 
 2 
 
 18 
 
 12 
 
 9 
 
 151 
 
 32 
 
 6 
 
 389 
 
 
 3 
 
 24 
 
 13 
 
 2 
 
 25 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 68 
 
 
 9 
 
 83 
 
 13 
 
 5 
 
 77 
 
 33 
 
 5 
 
 91 
 
 
 12 
 
 94 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 333 
 
 34 
 
 5 
 
 109 
 
 
 16 
 
 113 
 
 14 
 
 3 
 
 40 
 
 34 
 
 2 
 
 320 
 
 
 18 
 
 122 
 
 14 
 
 11 
 
 145 
 
 34 
 
 8 
 
 242 
 
 
 20 
 
 128 
 
 14 
 
 5 
 
 353 
 
 35 
 
 5 
 
 92 
 
 
 6 
 
 314 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 
 490 
 
 35 
 
 7 
 
 123 
 
 
 10 
 
 382 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 40 
 
 35 
 
 2 
 
 286 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 30 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 299 
 
 36 
 
 6 
 
 110 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 53 
 
 16 
 
 7 
 
 158 
 
 36 
 
 3 
 
 353 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 86 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 
 326 
 
 37 
 
 2 
 
 325 
 
 2 
 
 14 
 
 136 
 
 16 
 
 7 
 
 399 
 
 37 
 
 7 
 
 432 
 
 2 
 
 17 
 
 172 
 
 17 
 
 4 
 
 330 
 
 38 
 
 4 
 
 85 
 
 2 
 
 22 
 
 202 
 
 17 
 
 8 
 
 393 
 
 39 
 
 2 
 
 43 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 287 
 
 18 
 
 3 
 
 325 
 
 39 
 
 2 
 
 299 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 330 
 
 21 
 
 4 
 
 93 
 
 40 
 
 2 
 
 31 
 
 2 
 
 10 
 
 398 
 
 22 
 
 4 
 
 67 
 
 40 
 
 7 
 
 427 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 146 
 
 23 
 
 8 
 
 189 
 
 41 
 
 7 
 
 143 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 334 
 
 31 
 
 2 
 
 44 
 
 42 
 
 4 
 
 367 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 355 
 
 31 
 
 6 
 
 132 
 
 43 
 
 2 
 
 299 
 
 9 
 
 12 
 
 177 
 
 31 
 
 2 
 
 295 
 
 43 
 
 7 
 
 395 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 299 
 
 32 
 
 2 
 
 28 
 
 44 
 
 2 
 
 47 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 329 
 
 32 
 
 3 
 
 309 
 
 45 
 
 3 
 
 74 
 
 11 
 
 5 
 
 341 
 
 32 
 
 6 
 
 111 
 
 45 
 
 7 
 
 423 
 
 12 
 
 5 
 
 82 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 227 
 
228 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 Of these articles, sixty-five were reprinted by the author 
 and are to be found in his Works. Those which he did not 
 reprint are the following : — 
 
 Vol. 
 
 Art. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 Art. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 Art. 
 
 Vol. 
 
 Art 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 7 
 
 34 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 17 
 
 4 
 
 34 
 
 8 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 13 
 
 5 
 
 Vol. 
 
 40 
 
 32 
 
 Art. 
 
 2 
 
 6 
 
 37 
 
 2 
 
 APPENDIX B 
 
 " We can inform Jonathan what are the inevitable conse- 
 quences of being too fond of glory ; Taxes upon every article 
 which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed 
 under the foot — taxes upon every thing which it is pleasant 
 to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste — taxes upon warmth, light, 
 and locomotion — taxes on every thing on earth and the 
 waters under the earth, on every thing that comes from abroad, 
 or is grown at home — taxes on the raw material — taxes on 
 every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man 
 — taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and 
 the drug that restores him to health — on the ermine which 
 decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal — 
 on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice — on the brass 
 nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the bride. At bed 
 or board, couchant or levant, we must pay — the schoolboy 
 whips his taxed top — the beardless youth manages his taxed 
 horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road : — and the dying 
 Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid 7 per cent., 
 into a spoon that has paid 15 per cent. — flings himself back 
 upon his chintz bed, which has paid 22 per cent. — and expires 
 in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a licence of a 
 hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. 
 
APPENDIX B 229 
 
 His whole property is then immediately taxed from 2 to 10 
 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for 
 burying him in the chancel ; his virtues are handed down to 
 posterity on taxed marble ; and he is then gathered to his 
 fathers — to be taxed no more." — Review of SeyherVs " Amer- 
 ica " in the Collected Works. 
 
 " What would our ancestors say to this, Sir ? How does 
 this measure tally with their institutions ? How does it agree 
 with their experience ? Are we to put the wisdom of yester- 
 day in competition with the wisdom of centuries ? (^Hear ! 
 hear /) Is beardless youth to show no respect for the deci- 
 sions of mature age? {Loud cries of hear ! hear!) If this 
 measure be right, would it have escaped the wisdom of those 
 Saxon progenitors to whom we are indebted for so many of 
 our best political institutions ? Would the Dane have passed 
 it over? Would the Norman have rejected it? Would such 
 a notable discovery have been reserved for these modern and 
 degenerate times ? Besides, Sir, if the measure itself is good, 
 I ask the Honourable Gentleman if this is the time for carry- 
 ing it into execution — whether, in fact, a more unfortunate 
 period could have been selected than that which he has chosen ? 
 If this were an ordinary measure, I should not oppose it with 
 so much vehemence ; but, Sir, it calls in question the wisdom 
 of an irrevocable law — of a law passed at the memorable period 
 of the Revolution. What right have we. Sir, to break down 
 this firm column on which the great men of that age stamped 
 a character of eternity? Are not all authorities against this 
 measure — Pitt, Fox, Cicero, and the Attorney and Solicitor- 
 General ? The proposition is new, Sir ; it is the first time it 
 was ever heard in this House. I am not prepared. Sir — this 
 House is not prepared, to receive it. The measure implies a 
 distrust of his Majesty's Government ; their disapproval is 
 sufficient to warrant opposition. Precaution only is requisite 
 where danger is apprehended. Here the high character of 
 the individuals in question is a sufficient guarantee against 
 any ground of alarm. Give not, then, your sanction to this 
 
230 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 measure ; for, whatever be its character, if you do give your 
 sanction to it, the same man by whom this is proposed, will 
 propose to you others to which it will be impossible to give 
 your consent. I care very little. Sir, for the ostensible 
 measure ; but what is there behind ? What are the Honour- 
 able Gentleman's future schemes? If we pass this bill, what 
 fresh concessions may he not require ? What further degrada- 
 tion is he planning for his country? Talk of evil and inconven- 
 ience. Sir ! look to other countries — study other aggregations 
 and societies of men, and then see whether the laws of this 
 country demand a remedy or deserve a panegyric. W^as the 
 Honourable Gentleman (let me ask him) always of this way 
 of thinking ? Do I not remember when he was the advocate 
 in this House of very opposite opinions? I not only quarrel 
 with his present sentiments. Sir, but I declare very frankly I 
 do not like the party with which he acts. If his own motives 
 were as pure as possible, they cannot but suffer contamination 
 from those with whom he is politically associated. This 
 measure may be a boon to the constitution, but I will accept 
 no favour to the constitution from such hands. {Loud cries of 
 hear! hear!) I profess myself. Sir, an honest and upright 
 member of the British Parliament, and I am not afraid to 
 profess myself an enemy to all change, and all innovation. I 
 am satisfied with things as they are ; and it will be my pride 
 and pleasure to hand down this country to my children as I 
 received it from those who preceded me. The Honourable 
 Gentleman pretends to justify the severity with which he 
 has attacked the Noble Lord who presides in the Court of 
 Chancery. But I say such attacks are pregnant with mischief 
 to Government itself. Oppose Ministers, you oppose Govern- 
 ment; disgrace Ministers, you disgrace Government; bring 
 Ministers into contempt, you bring Government into con- 
 tempt; and anarchy and civil war are the consequences. Be- 
 sides, Sir, the measure is unnecessary. Nobody complains of 
 disorder in that shape in which it is the aim of your measure 
 to propose a remedy to it. The business is one of the great- 
 est importance; there is need of the greatest caution and 
 circumspection. Do not let us be precipitate. Sir ; it is im- 
 possible to foresee all consequences. Every thing should be 
 
APPENDIX C 231 
 
 gradual ; the example of a neighbouring nation should fill us 
 with alarm ! The honourable gentleman has taxed me with 
 illiberality. Sir, I deny the charge. I hate innovation, but I 
 love improvement. I am an enemy to the corruption of 
 Government, but I defend its influence. I dread reform, but 
 I dread it only when it is intemperate. I consider the liberty 
 of the press as the great Palladium of the Constitution ; but, 
 at the same time, I hold the licentiousness of the press in the 
 greatest abhorrence. Nobody is more conscious than I am of 
 the splendid abilities of the Honourable Mover, but I tell 
 him at once, his scheme is too good to be practicable. It 
 savours of Utopia. It looks well in theory, but it won't do 
 in practice. It will not do, I repeat, Sir, in practice ; and so 
 the advocates of the measure will find, if, unfortunately, it 
 should find its way through Parliament. (Cheers.) The 
 source of that corruption to which the Honourable Member 
 alludes, is in the minds of the people ; so rank and extensive 
 is that corruption, that no political reform can have any effect 
 in removing it. Instead of reforming others — instead of 
 reforming the State, the Constitution, and every thing that 
 is most excellent, let each man reform himself ! let him look 
 at home, he will find there enough to do, without looking 
 abroad, and aiming at what is out of his power. (Loud 
 Cheers.) And now. Sir, as it is frequently the custom in this 
 House to end vtdth a quotation, and as the gentleman who 
 preceded me in the debate has anticipated me in my favourite 
 quotation of the ' Strong pull and long pull,' I shall end with 
 the memorable words of the assembled barons — ^ Nolumus 
 leges AnglicB mutari.'^' — Review of Bentham's "Book of 
 Fallacies " in the Collected Works. 
 
 APPENDIX C 
 
 " It is of some importance at what period a man is born. 
 A young man, alive at this period, hardly knows to what 
 improvements of human life he has been introduced ; and I 
 would bring before his notice the following eighteen changes 
 
232 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 which have taken place in England since I first began to 
 breathe in it the breath of life — a period amounting now to 
 nearly seventy-three years. 
 
 " Gas was unknown : I groped about the streets of London 
 in all but the utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under 
 the protection of watchmen in their grand climacteric, and 
 exposed to every species of depredation and insult. 
 
 " I have been nine hours in sailing from Dover to Calais 
 before the invention of steam. It took me nine hours to go 
 from Taunton to Bath, before the invention of railroads, and 
 I now go in six hours from Taunton to London ! In going 
 from Taunton to Bath, I suffered between 10,000 and 12,000 
 severe contusions, before stone-breaking Macadam was born. 
 
 " I paid £15 in a single year for repairs of carriage-springs 
 on the pavement of London ; and I now glide without noise 
 or fracture, on wooden pavements. 
 
 " I can walk, by the assistance of the police, from one end 
 of London to the other, without molestation ; or, if tired, get 
 into a cheap and active cab, instead of those cottages on 
 wheels, which the hackney coaches were at the beginning of 
 my life. 
 
 " I had no umbrella ! They were little used, and very dear. 
 There were no waterproof hats, and my hat has often been 
 reduced by rains into its primitive pulp. 
 
 " I could not keep my smallclothes in their proper place, for 
 braces were unknown. If I had the gout, there was no col- 
 chicum. If I was bilious, there was no calomel. If I was 
 attacked by ague, there was no quinine. There were filthy 
 coffee-houses instead of elegant clubs. Game could not be 
 bought. Quarrels about Uncommuted Tithes were endless. 
 The corruptions of Parliament, before Reform, infamous. 
 There were no banks to receive the savings of the poor. The 
 Poor Laws were gradually sapping the vitals of the country; 
 and, whatever miseries I suffered, I had no post to whisk my 
 complaints for a single penny to the remotest corners of the 
 empire ; and yet, in spite of all these privations, I lived on 
 quietly, and am now ashamed that I was not more discon- 
 tented, and utterly surprised that all these changes and 
 inventions did not occur two centuries ago. 
 
APPENDIX E 233 
 
 "I forgot to add that, as the basket of stage-coaches, in 
 M'hich luggage was then carried, had no springs, your clothes 
 were rubbed all to pieces ; and that even in the best society- 
 one third of the gentlemen at least were always drunk." — 
 ^^ Modern Changes" in the Collected Works. 
 
 APPENDIX D 
 
 "The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the 
 apothecary is of more importance than Seneca ; and that half 
 the unhappiness in the world proceeds from little stoppages, 
 from a duct choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place, 
 from a vext duodenum, or an agitated pylorus. 
 
 *' The deception, as practised upon human creatures, is 
 curious and entertaining. My friend sups late ; he eats some 
 strong soup, then a lobster, then some tart, and he dilutes these 
 esculent varieties with wine. The next day I call upon him. 
 He is going to sell his house in London, and to retire into the 
 country. He is alarmed for his eldest daughter's health. 
 His expenses are hourly increasing, and nothing but a timely 
 retreat can save him from ruin. All this is the lobster ; and, 
 when over-excited nature has had time to manage this testa- 
 ceous encumbrance, the daughter recovers, the finances are in 
 good order, and every rural idea effectually excluded from the 
 mind. 
 
 "In the same manner old friendships are destroyed by 
 toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide. Un- 
 pleasant feelings of the body produce correspondent sensations 
 in the mind, and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched 
 out by a morsel of indigestible and misguided food. Of such 
 infinite consequence to happiness is it to study the body ! " — 
 Quoted by Lady Holland in her " Memoir of Sydney Smith." 
 
 APPENDIX E 
 
 " I am sorry that I did not, in the execution of my self- 
 created office as a reviewer, take an opportunity in this, or 
 
234 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 some other military work, to descant a little upon the miseries 
 of war; and I think this has been unaccountably neglected in 
 a work abounding in useful essays, and ever on the watch to 
 propagate good and wise principles. It is not that human 
 beings can live without occasional wars, but they may live 
 with fewer wars, and take more just views of the evils which 
 war inflicts upon mankind. If three men were to have their 
 legs and arms broken, and were to remain all night exposed 
 to the inclemency of weather, the whole country would be in 
 a state of the most dreadful agitation. Look at the wholesale 
 death of a field of battle, ten acres covered with dead, and 
 half dead, and dying; and the shrieks and agonies of many 
 thousand human beings. There is more of misery inflicted 
 upon mankind by one year of war, than by all the civil pecu- 
 lations and oppressions of a century. Yet it is a state into 
 which the mass of mankind rush with the greatest avidity, 
 hailing official murderers, in scarlet, gold, and cocks' feathers, 
 as the greatest and most glorious of human creatures. It is 
 the business of every wise and good man to set himself against 
 this passion for military glory, which really seems to be the 
 most fruitful source of human misery. 
 
 " What would be said of a party of gentlemen who were to 
 sit very peaceably conversing for half an hour, and then were 
 to fight for another half hour, then shake hands, and at the 
 expiration of thirty minutes fight again ? Yet such has been 
 the state of the world between 1714 and 1815, a period in 
 which there was in England as many years of war as peace. 
 Societies have been instituted for the preservation of peace, 
 and for lessening the popular love of war. They deserve 
 every encouragement. The highest praise is due to Louis 
 Philippe for his elforts to keep Europe in peace." — Footnole 
 to Review o/" Letters from a Maliratta Camp " in the Collected 
 Works. 
 
INDEX 
 
 A 
 
 ^660^, The (Scott), 208. 
 
 Advocates, duties of, 102. 
 
 Allen, John, 84, 206. 
 
 Althorp, Lord, 173. 
 
 America, Seybert's, Review of, 
 
 227-228. 
 American affairs, 190, 195, 199. 
 
 War of Independence, 140. 
 
 Anastasius (Hope), 209. 
 Apologia (Newman), 76, 221 7i. 
 Aristotle, 36. 
 Auckland, Lord, 161. 
 Austin, Mrs., 145 n., 153. 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon, 36. 
 
 Ballot, the, 177. 
 
 Banks, Sir Joseph, 187. 
 
 Barrington, Bishop, 16. 
 
 Beach, Hicks-, family, 14, 15, 17, 
 
 18, 19, 22. 
 Beaconsfield, Lord, 128, 161, 162 n. 
 Beattie, 35. 
 Bedford, Duke of, 18. 
 Benefices, inequality of, 164, 168 
 
 seq., 171. 
 Bennet, Lady Mary, 85, 205. 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 35. 
 Bernard, Mr. Thomas, 30, 31, 39. 
 Bethell, Bishop, 78. 
 Bishops, powers of, 165 seq. 
 Blomfield, Bishop, 79, 173, 175, 
 
 176, 207. 
 
 Book of Fallacies (Bentham), 
 
 Beview of, 228-230. 
 Bossuet, 49. 
 Bowles, John, 26. 
 Bride of Lammermoor, The 
 
 (Scott), 209. 
 Brougham, Lord, 18, 24, 25, 26, 
 
 128. 
 Brown, Thomas (metaphysician), 
 
 18, 25, 34. 
 Butler, George, Head-master of 
 
 Harrow, 78. 
 Burke, 198, 215. 
 Byron, 3, 26 7i. 
 
 C 
 
 Camden, Lord, 63. 
 
 Campbell, Lord, 161. 
 
 Canning, 3, 48, 50, 60, 61, 62, 63, 
 
 124, 125, 198. 
 Carey, William (missionary), 
 
 180, 181. 
 Carlisle, Lord, 87. 
 
 see Howard. 
 
 Carr, Bishop, 145 n. 
 Castlereagh, Lord, 55, 56, 63, 140. 
 Cathedral property, 164, 168 seq., 
 
 171 seq. 
 Catholic Question, 42, 43, 45-76, 
 
 106 seq. 
 
 Church, Roman, 115. 
 
 Catholicism, Roman, 221. 
 Channing, 191 ?i. 
 
 235 
 
236 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 Charlemont, Lady, 161. 
 Charles I., 119. 
 
 II., 119. 
 
 Church, Dean, 91. 
 
 Church of England, 46, 77 seq., 
 
 108, 121, 178. 
 Church Reform, 163-176. 
 Clarendon, Lord, 161. 
 Classics, study of, 10. 
 Clergy, English, 91, 106, 163, 221, 
 
 222. 
 
 non-residence of, 77 seq. 
 
 Catholic, education of, 53. 
 
 Coercion of Ireland, 69. 
 
 Combe Florey, Somerset, 131, 132 
 
 seq., 142. 
 Commission, Ecclesiastical, 163 
 
 seq. 
 Constable (publisher), 26. 
 Contempt of Wealth (Seneca), 
 
 176. 
 Copley, see Lyndhurst. 
 Cornewall, Bishop, 145 n. 
 Coronation Oath, 47, 165. 
 Cottenham, Lord, 161. 
 Courtenay, Bishop, 78. 
 Cowper, 3. 
 
 Croker, John Wilson, 168, 224. 
 Cromwell, 117. 
 Cromwell, Henry, 120 n. 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphry, 87. 
 
 Denman, Lord, 161. 
 
 Devonshire, William Cavendish, 
 7th Duke of, 196. 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 209. 
 
 Disabilities, Catholic, 65 seq., 113 
 seq. 
 
 Don Juan (Byron), 44 n. 
 
 Dryden, 207. 
 
 Dudley, Lord, see Ward. 
 
 Duigenan, Patrick, 107. 
 
 Dundas, Henry (Viscount Mel- 
 ville), 7 71., 21, 24, 140. 
 
 Dunstanville, Lady, 161. 
 
 Durham, Lord, 88. 
 
 Eastlake, Mr., 161. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Commission, 163 
 seq. 
 
 Education, 155-156 ; public school, 
 5, 6; value of Classical, 5 seq. 
 
 Edinburgh, 28. 
 
 University, 17 seq. 
 
 Edinburgh Review, 24:seq., 86, 90, 
 177, 183, 207, 208, 217, 219. 
 
 Sydney Smith's con- 
 tributions to, 26, 27, 40, 90, 91, 
 92 seq., 126, 177, 184, 226, 227. 
 
 Eldon, Lord, 25, 56, 140. 
 
 Elementary Sketches of Moral 
 Philosophy, 33 seq. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 47, 119. 
 
 Ellenborough, Lord, 145 n. 
 
 Emancipation, Catholic, 65, 106 
 seq., 128, 136 ?i., 140. 
 
 Endymion (Beaconsfield), 128 n. 
 
 England at the beginning of the 
 nineteenth century, 25. 
 
 English Bards and Scotch Re- 
 viewers (Byron), 26 n., 44 n. 
 
 English Church in the Nine- 
 teenth Century (Overton), 16 n. 
 
 Enquirer (Godwin), 89. 
 
 Epitaph on Pitt, Sydney Smith's, 
 40, 41. 
 
 Erskine, Lord, 41. 
 
 Essex, Lord, 160 n. 
 
 Evangelical clergy, 178, 183 ; Re- 
 vival, 219. 
 
 Evangelical Magazine, 179. 
 
 Ferguson, 35. 
 
 Fitzgerald, William Vesey, 128. 
 Foston-le-Clay, 41, 78 seq. 
 Fox, Miss, 87. 
 
 (martyrologist), 119. 
 
 General, 203, 204. 
 
 France and Ireland, 57, 60, 61, 
 
 62, 63. 
 Fry, Mrs., 85. 
 
INDEX 
 
 237 
 
 Game Laws, 85. 
 
 Gas, iutroduction of, 88, 231. 
 
 George in., 40, 42, 68, 71. 
 
 IV., 124,125, 135. 
 
 Gladstone, 49, 163, 190 n. ; Glean- 
 ings, 163 71. 
 
 Glenelg, Lord, 161. 
 
 Goderich, Lord, 125. 
 
 Godwin, William, 89. 
 
 Gower, Leveson-, Lady, 87 n. 
 
 Granhij (Lister) , 209. 
 
 Grattau, Henry, 29, 56, 184. 
 
 Gren villa, Lord, 40, 41, 55, 75. 
 
 Greville, Charles, 135, 153. 
 
 Grev, Lord, 44, 88, 112, 136, 141, 
 143, 145, 147, 149, 151, 196, 197, 
 225. 
 
 Lady, 112. 
 
 Grote, 177, 211. 
 
 " Gunpowder Treason," Sermon 
 on, 128, 154. 
 
 Habit, Lecture on, 38. 
 Halford, Sir Henry, 83. 
 Hallam, 163. 
 Harcourt, Vernon-, Archbishop, 
 
 79n.,88, 107. 
 
 William, 107. 
 
 Miss Georgiana, 190, 191. 
 
 Harrowby, Lord, 107. 
 
 Hawkesbury, Lord, 59, 60, 201 n. 
 
 Haydon (painter), 204. 
 
 Heart of Midlothian (Scott) , 208. 
 
 Heuley, Lord, 41 n. 
 
 Henry viii., 119. 
 
 Hermann, 175. 
 
 Hibbert, Nathaniel, 23, 125, 161. 
 
 Hill, John, 17. 
 
 History of Roman Jurisprudence 
 
 (Terrasson), 90. 
 Hobbes, 216 n. 
 Hoche, General, 49. 
 
 Holland, Lady (Sydney Smith's 
 daughter), 5, 22, 192, 214. See 
 Smith, Saba. 
 
 Sir Henry, 23, 161, 192. 
 
 Miss Caroline, 193. 
 
 Holland, Lady (Elizabeth Yas- 
 sall), 30, 36, 40, 41, 79, 80, 87, 
 161, 167 ?i., 203, 213. 
 
 Lord, 29, 40, 41, 75, 87, 128, 
 
 206, 212. 
 
 Scott, Canon, 205. 
 
 Holy Living and Dying (Jeremy 
 Taylor), 130. 
 
 Hope, Mr., 161. 
 
 Hope, Thomas, 209. 
 
 Horner, Francis, 18, 25, 29, 32. 
 
 Houghton, Lord, 32, 144 n., 194 71., 
 198 n. ; Life of (Sir Wemyss 
 Reid) , 195 n. 
 
 Howard, William (Earl of Car- 
 lisle), 110. 
 
 Mrs. Henry, 83 n. 
 
 Ho wick, Lord, 56. 
 
 Howley, Archbishop, 3. 
 
 Hume, 34 ?i., 35. 
 
 Improvements, Modern, 230-232. 
 Ingram, Meynell-, H. C, 196. 
 Invasion of England, 55. 
 Ireland, Roman Catholics of, 48. 
 Irish Question, see Catholic. 
 Ivanhoe (Scott) , 208. 
 
 James i., 119. 
 
 Jeffrey {Edinburgh Revieio), 18, 
 
 24 seq., 31, 32, 36, 80, 87, 181, 
 
 195, 199, 217. 
 Judges, duties of, 97 seq. 
 
 Sermon to, 96 seq. 
 
 "Junius," 198. 
 Juries, Irish, 66, 67. 
 
238 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 Keble, 151 n., 221. 
 Keogh, Mr., 57. 
 
 Labouchere, Henry, 161. 
 Landseer, 161. 
 Langdale, Lord, 161. 
 Lansdowne, Lord, 18. 
 Lauderdale, Earl of, 44, 87, 88. 
 Laws, the Penal, 117, 120. 
 Lawyers, Sermon to, 101. 
 Lays of Ancient Rome (Macau- 
 lay), 209. 
 Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 
 
 31, 33seg., 216 n. 
 Lee, Professor, 169. 
 Lemon, Sir Charles, 161. 
 Letter to the Electors upon the 
 Catholic Question, 112. 
 
 Letters to Archdeacon Singleton, 
 163 seg., 167 se^., 195. 
 
 JjCtters from a Mahratta Camp, 
 Review of, 233. 
 
 Letters (Pascal), 76. 
 
 Liberty of Prophesying (Jeremy 
 Taylor), 130 n. 
 
 Lister, Thomas Henry, 209. 
 
 Liverpool, Lord, 124. 
 
 Livings, Poor, 164, 168 seq., 171. 
 
 Locke, 207. 
 
 Londonderry, Marquis of, 63 n. 
 
 Longman (publisher), 26. 
 
 Lords, House of, speech on, 148. 
 
 Louis XIV., 123. 
 
 Luttrell, Henry, 29, 87, 132, 161. 
 
 Lyndhurst, Lord, 124, 125. 
 
 M 
 
 122, 
 
 Macaulay, 76, 84 ?i., 86 w., 
 
 123, 141, 193, 195, 209. 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, 29, 87, 
 
 184, 185, 207. 
 Maltby, Bishop, 207. 
 Marcet, Alexander, 29, 87. 
 Marcet, Mrs., 87, 210. 
 
 Markham, Archbishop, 41. 
 
 Marsh, Bishop, 91 seq., 2Qil. 
 
 Martyrology, English, 119. 
 
 Mary, Queen, 47. 
 
 Massinger, 207. 
 
 Melbourne, Lord, 144 n., 161, 173, 
 
 178 71. 
 Methodism, 178, 179-183. 
 Methodist Magazine, 178. 
 Meynell, see Ingram. 
 Mildert, Van, Bishop, 77. 
 Milman, Dean, 152. 
 Milner, Isaac, 92. 
 Milton, 207. 
 Mind, Lectures on, 32. 
 Missions, Indian, 179, 180. 
 Missionary Society, Baptist, 180. 
 Modern Painters (Ruskin), 210. 
 
 Monk, Bishop, of Gloucester, 
 173, 174, 207. 
 
 Montaigne, 208. 
 
 Monteagle, Lord, 161. 
 
 Montgomery, " Satan," 195. 
 
 Monuments, National, 153, 205. 
 
 Moore, Thomas, 206. 
 
 More, Hannah, 16, 183. 
 
 Morley, Lady, 151. 
 
 Morpeth, Lord, 88. 
 
 Murray, Lord, 24, 25, 76, 217. 
 
 Musical Festivals, 206. 
 
 N 
 
 Napoleon, 43, 47, 50, 51, 57, 61, 
 
 62, 64, 202. 
 Netheravon, 14 seq. 
 Newman, Cardinal, 221 n. 
 Newton, Bishop, 77. 
 Nicholas Nicklehy (Dickens), 
 
 209. 
 Noodle's Oration, 188, 228. 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 113. 
 
 O 
 
 O'Connell, 106, 128. 
 Orangemen, 65. 
 
INDEX 
 
 239 
 
 Oswald, 35. 
 
 Oxford, 9, 13. 
 
 Oxford Movement, 151 n., 219. 
 
 Paley, 217, 218. 
 
 Palmerston, 3. 
 
 Paradise Lost, parody of, 159. 
 
 Paris, 122, 162. 
 
 " Partington, Mrs.," Speech, 148. 
 
 Pascal, 76. 
 
 Peace, blessings of, 156-157, 191, 
 
 202. 
 Peel, 3, 32, 125, 161. 
 Pelham, Bishop, 78. 
 Perceval, Spencer, 48, 50, 51, 52, 
 
 53, 54, 57, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 70, 
 
 72, 73, 78, 124, 140, 198, 201 n., 
 
 221. 
 
 Charles George, 73 n. 
 
 Persecuting Bishops, 83 n., 91, 
 
 195, 207. 
 Persecution, Religious, 117 seq., 
 
 200. 
 Peter Plymley's Letters, 43, 44, 
 
 45-76, 195, 197. 
 Petre, Catholic family, 117. 
 Peveril of the Peak (Scott), 209. 
 Philips, Sir George, 34 7i., 88, 89. 
 Phillips, J. S. R., 110. 
 Philosophy, Moral, Lectures on, 
 
 31, 33 seq., 216 n. 
 Pirate, The (Scott), 208. 
 Pitt, 7 n., 22, 40, 41, 50, 51, 75, 
 
 106. 
 Plato, 35. 
 
 Playfair, John, 17, 25. 
 Pluralities, Church, 77 seq. 
 " Pocket Boroughs," 137 seq. 
 Poetical Medicine Chest, The, 83. 
 Pope, 207. 
 
 Praeterita (Ruskiu), 210. 
 Preaching, 19 seq. 
 Prebends, confiscation of, 164, 
 
 168 seq. 
 Provincial Letters (Pascal), 76. 
 Puseyites, 222-223, 
 
 Pybus, John, 22. 
 
 Q 
 
 Quarterly Revieio, 139, 224 n. 
 
 R 
 
 Raikes, Robert, 15. 
 
 Railways, Mismanagement of, 
 
 189, 190. 
 Records of the Creation (Bishop 
 
 of Chester), 90. 
 Redesdale, Lord, 56. 
 Reform Bill, 136 seq., 147-149, 199. 
 Reform, Speech on, 139 seq., 142- 
 
 144. 
 Reid, Mr. Stuart, 16, 83, 86, 111, 
 
 198, 209 n. 
 
 (philosopher) , 34. 
 
 Religion in England, 222 n. 
 Retaliation, Policy of, 62, 72. 
 Revolution of 1688, 53, 54, 117. 
 
 French, 135, 201. 
 
 Riots, Bristol, 202. 
 
 Rogers, Samuel, 29, 87, 160. 
 
 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 29. 
 
 Rose, Mr., 63. 
 
 Rousseau, 80. 
 
 Ruskin, 210. 
 
 Russell, Lord John, 42, 123, 138, 
 
 140, 167, 172; Life of (Wal- 
 
 pole), 62 n. 
 
 S 
 Sadler, Michael Thomas, 139. 
 Salaries, Bishops', 172. 
 Scarlett, James (Lord Abinger), 
 
 29. 
 Schools, Public, 3, 5 seq., 10, 
 
 131 n. 
 Scotch, The, 28, 54. 
 Scott, 18, 208, 209. 
 Selwyn, George Augustus, 189. 
 Seneca, 176. 
 Sermons, extracts from, 20, 21, 
 
 96, 97-105, 220, 224-225. 
 Sevigne, Madame de, 208. 
 Seymour, Lord, 19. 
 Shakespeare, 207. 
 
240 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 Sharp, "Conversation," 29. 
 
 Shell, 106. 
 
 Sidmouth, Lord, 64. 
 
 Simeon, Charles, 91. 
 
 Singleton, Archdeacon, 163, 167 
 seq. 
 
 Slave Trade, 199. 
 
 Smith, Sydney — ancestry, 1 ; 
 birth, 2; school-days, 2; life 
 at "Winchester, 3 seq.', goes 
 to Normandy to perfect his 
 French, 9; enters New College, 
 Oxford, 9; Fellow, 9; strait- 
 ened circumstances, 9; choice 
 of a profession, 12; ordained 
 Deacon, 13; Priest, 14 n. ; Cu- 
 rate of Netheravon, 13; tutor 
 to Hicks-Beach family, 17 ; goes 
 to Edinburgh, 17 ; sermons at 
 Charlotte Chapel, 18 seq. ; pub- 
 lishes volume of sermons, 19, 
 21 ; marriage, 22 ; children, 23 ; 
 founds the Edinburgh Beview, 
 24 ; leaves Edinburgh for Lon- 
 don, 27; forms various friend- 
 ships, 29 ; lectures at the Royal 
 Institution, 31; Elementary 
 Sketches of Moral Philosophy , 
 33; various duties in London, 
 39 ; increasing prominence, 39 ; 
 preferred to the living of 
 Foston-le-Clay, 41 ; Peter 
 Plymley's Letters, 43; life at 
 Foston-le-Clay, 79 seq.; visits 
 his friends in Edinburgh, 88; 
 scheme of study at Foston, 89; 
 Persecutvig Bishops, 91; at- 
 tack on Bishop Marsh, 91; 
 efforts on behalf of Catholic 
 Emancipation, 106 seq. ; Rector 
 of Londesborough, 110; Letter 
 to the Electors on the Catholic 
 Question, 112; improved finan- 
 cial condition, 112; visit to 
 Paris, 122; promoted to pre- 
 bendal stall at Bristol Cathe- 
 dral, 125 ; severs his connection 
 
 with the Edinburgh Review, 
 125 ; preaches sermon on " Gun- 
 powder Treason," 129; death 
 of his eldest son, 130; moves 
 to Combe Florey, Somerset, 
 131 ; Speech to the Freeholders 
 on Reform, 138 ; Canon of St. 
 Paul's, 145 ; presented at Court, 
 146 ; leads a less strenuous life, 
 149 ; official relations with St. 
 Paul's, 152 ; life in London, 159 ; 
 marriage of his eldest daughter, 
 161; goes to Paris again, 162; 
 summit of his social fame, 163 ; 
 Letters to Archdeacon Single- 
 ton, 163, 167 ; inherits a fortune 
 from his brother, 176 ; publishes 
 reprint of articles in J5^c?in6w?-5'/i 
 Revieio, 177 ; decreasing health, 
 189 ; last illness and death, 192 ; 
 as father, 131, 161; preacher, 
 19, 86, 96-105, 110, 123, 129, 130, 
 134, 153 seq. ; politician, 21, 22, 
 29, 40, 42, 84, 136 seq., 147 seq., 
 167, 199; lecturer, 31 seq. ; let- 
 ter-writer, 80, 123, 124, 126, 
 189, 190; pastor, 79 seq., 110, 
 135 n., 141; student, 89, 207; 
 motives in writing, 27 ; philo- 
 sophical attainments, 33 seq. ; 
 versatility, 33, 81, 195 ; methods 
 of writing, 84, 90, 133 ; a rapid 
 reader and reviewer, 90 ; style, 
 194; humour, 195-198; occa- 
 sional coarseness, 197; con- 
 troversial methods, 197-199; 
 judgment of various authors, 
 207 seq. ; affectionate and sym- 
 pathetic nature, 21, 85, 131, 133, 
 184, 211, 212, 216; honesty and 
 outspokenness, 21, 124, 129; 
 financial affairs, 27, 33, 41, 121, 
 125, 145; friends, 29, 84,87,88, 
 151, 161; tolerant nature, 40, 
 41, 42, 43, 45 seq., 106 seq., 130, 
 136; fancy for dabbling in 
 medicine, 12, 18, 82, 83, 123, 
 
INDEX 
 
 241 
 
 133, 134, 210, 232; persoual 
 appearance, 122, 154, 193 ; chief 
 p easures, 133 ; general good 
 qualities, 152, 153; not a lover 
 of the country, 159-lGO; love 
 of fun, 185-189, 191; manner 
 in society, 194; a friend of 
 Freedom, 199; lover of Peace, 
 202-204; his aesthetic sense, 
 204 seq.; attitude towards 
 Music, 205-206; theories of 
 life, 210-216; temperance, 212 
 seq. ; religious views, 216 seq. ; 
 some shortcomings, 219-224; 
 summary of his character, 225. 
 
 Smith, Sydneij, Memoirs of (Lsidj 
 Holland), 232. 
 
 Robert (father) , 2. 
 
 James (uncle) , 2. 
 
 Mrs., nee Olier (mother), 2, 
 
 12, 212. 
 
 Robert (brother), 2, 29. 
 
 Cecil (brother) , 2. 
 
 Courtenay (brother), 2, 9, 
 
 176. 
 
 Marie (sister), 2. 
 
 Mrs., nee Pybus (wife), 22, 
 
 30, 33, 80, 86, 87, 131, 134, 135. 
 
 Saba (daughter), 23, 81, 150, 
 
 161, 214. 
 
 Douglas (son), 23, 37, 81, 83, 
 
 130, 131. 
 
 Emily (daughter) , 23, 37, 81, 
 
 125, 150. 
 
 Wyndham (son), 23, 81. 
 
 Adam, 34, 89. 
 
 Smollett, 198. 
 
 Somerset, Duke of, 18. 
 
 Somerville, Lord, 56. 
 
 Spencer, Hon. and Rev. George, 
 91. 
 
 Stanley, Bishop, 78. 
 
 Stephen, Sir Leslie, 217. 
 
 Stewart, Dugald, 17, 18, 25, 34, 36. 
 
 Stourton, Lord, 117. 
 
 Stowell, Lord, 42. 
 
 Stratheden, Lady, 161. 
 
 R 
 
 Styles, Rev. John, 182, 183. 
 Sumner, Archbishop, 19 n., 169. 
 Sunday-schools, 15, 16 n., 17. 
 Swift, 75, 76, 198. 
 
 Tait, Archbishop, 179, 180. 
 Tale of a Tub (Swift), 195. 
 Talfourd, Thomas Noon, 173. 
 Tankerville, Lord, 87, 88. 
 Taste, Lectures on, 31. 
 Taxes, 227. 
 Temperance, 212-214. 
 Terrasson, 90. 
 Thomson, 25, 207. 
 Thurloe, Lord, 120 n. 
 Ticknor, George, 27, 153, 193. 
 Tithes, Irish, 70. 
 Toleration, Religious, 63, 64, 72, 
 
 157. 
 
 Sermons on, 41, 42, 128, 154. 
 
 TravelsinSouthAmerica(Watev- 
 
 tou), 38, 185 56^. 
 Troy, Cardinal, 57. 
 
 Union of Great Britain and Ire- 
 land, 54, 57. 
 Universities, the, 10, 11, 12, 152. 
 Utilitarianism, 210-211. 
 
 Valpy, Richard, 78. 
 Vernon, Miss, 87. 
 Victoria, Queen, Sermon on Ac- 
 cession of, 154, 155, 224 n. 
 Villages, life in, 14 seq. 
 Voltaire, 80, 113. 
 
 W 
 
 Wall, Mr. Baring, 161. 
 Walpole, Horace, 207. 
 
242 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH 
 
 Wa]pole, Sir Spencer, 145 n. 
 
 War, horrors of, 156, 157, 191, 
 1^02-204, 233. 
 
 Ward, John William (Lord Dud- 
 ley), 29. 
 
 Waterton, C, 38, 185 n. 
 
 Watson, Bishop, 77. 
 
 Waverley (Scott), 208. 
 
 Wellington, Duke of, 125, 136, 143, 
 149. 
 
 West, Benjamin, 204. 
 
 Wetherell, Sir Charles, 139. 
 
 Whewell, Dr., 32. 
 
 Wilberforce, Bishop, 189. 
 Wilkie, Sir David, 39. 
 William IV., 135, 138, 141, 
 
 143, 155, 202 n. 
 Wilton, Rev. Richard, 110. 
 Winchester College, 2, 3, 5. 
 Wordsworth, 208. 
 Wrangham, Francis, 107. 
 
 142, 
 
 Yorkshire Gazette, 109 n. 
 Herald, 109 n. 
 
 110. 
 
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