[From _The Quarterly Review_, February, 1810]
This sermon[1] is written on the characters and duties of the clergy.
Perhaps it would have produced more effect upon the Yorkshire divines
had it come from one who had lived longer among them, and of the
correspondence of whose life with his doctrines, they had better
opportunities of judging; one whom, from long experience, they knew to
be neither sullied by the little "affectations," nor "agitated by the
little vanities of the world," whose strict observance of "those
decencies and proprieties," which persons in their profession "owe to
their situation in society," they had remarked through a long course of
years. Whether the life of Mr. Smith would form an illustration of his
own precepts remains to be proved. But, if we rightly recollect dates,
he is still to his neighbours a sort of unknown person, and hardly yet
tried in his new situation of a parish priest. We therefore think, in
spite of all the apologies with which he has prefaced his advice, that a
more judicious topic might easily have been selected.
[1] A sermon preached before His Grace the Archbishop of York, and the
clergy, at Malton, at the Visitation, Aug., 1809. By the Rev. Sydney
Smith, A.M., Rector of Foston, in Yorkshire, and late Fellow of New
College, Oxford. Carpenter, 1809.
In the execution of this sermon there is little to commend. As a system
of duties for any body of clergy, it is wretchedly deficient:--and
really, when we call to mind the rich, the full, the vigorous, eloquent,
and impassioned manner in which these duties are recommended and
inforced in the writings of our old divines, we are mortified beyond
measure at the absolute poverty, crudeness, and meanness of the present
attempt to mimic them. As a composition, it is very imperfect: it has
nearly the same merits, and rather more than the same defects, which
characterise his former publications. Mr. Smith never writes but in a
loose declamatory way. He is careless of connection, and not very
anxious about argument. His sole object is to produce an effect at the
moment, a strong first impression upon an audience, and if that can be
done he is very indifferent as to what may be the result of examination
and reflection....
If Mr. Smith is not only not a Socinian, but if in his heart he doubts
as to the least important point of the most abstruce and controverted
subject on which our articles have decided, if, in short, he is not one
of the most rigorously orthodox divines that exists, he has been guilty
of the grossest and most disgusting hypocrisy--he has pronounced in the
face of the public to which he appeals, and of the church to which he
belongs, in the most solemn manner, and on the most solemn subject, a
direct, intentional, and scandalous falsehood--he has acted in a way
utterly subversive of all confidence among men; and the greater part of
the wretches who retire from a course of justice degraded for perjury
rank higher in the scale of morality, than an educated man holding a
respectable place in society, who could thus trifle with the most sacred
obligations. He could be induced to this base action only by a base
motive, that of obviating any difficulties which a suspicion of his
holding opinions different from those avowed by the establishment, might
throw in the way of his preferment: and of rendering himself a possible
object of the bounty of "his worthy masters and mistresses," whenever
the golden days arrive, in which they shall again dispense the favours
of the crown. Such must be the case, if Mr. Smith is not sincere. There
is no alternative. Now this is scarcely to be believed of any gentleman
of tolerably fair character, still less of a teacher of morality and
religion, who holds forth in all his writings the most refined
sentiments of honour and disinterestedness.
The style of his profession of faith, however, partakes very much of the
most offensive peculiarities of his manner. It is abrupt and violent to
a degree which not only shocks good taste, but detracts considerably
from the appearance of sincerity. It seems as if he considered his creed
as a sort of nauseous medicine which could only be taken off at a
draught, and he looks round for applause at the heroic effort by which
he has drained the cup to its very dregs.
But the passage about the verse in St. John is yet more extraordinary.
Has Mr. Smith really gone through the controversy upon this subject? And
even if he has, is this the light way in which a man wholly unknown in
the learned world, is entitled to contradict the opinion of some of the
greatest scholars of Europe? We have, however, the mere word of the
facetious rector of Foston, opposite to the authority and the arguments
of a Porson and a Griesbach. It is at his command, unsupported by the
smallest attempt at reasoning, that we are to set aside the opinion of
men whose lives have been spent in the study of the Greek language, and
of biblical criticism, and which has been acquiesced in by many of the
most competent judges both here and abroad. Such audacity (to call it by
no coarser name) is in itself only calculated to excite laughter and
contempt: coupled as it is with a most unprovoked and unwarrantable
mention of the name of the Bishop of Lincoln, it excites indignation. We
feel no morbid sensibility for the character of a mitred divine: but we
cannot see a blow aimed at the head of one of the chiefs of the church,
a pious, learned, and laborious man, by the hand of ignorance and
presumption, without interposing, not to heal the wound, for no wound
has been made, but to chastise the assailant. The Bishop of Lincoln
gives up these verses, not carelessly, and unadvisedly, but doubtless
because he is persuaded that the cause of true Religion can never be so
much injured as by resting its defence upon passages liable to so much
suspicion; and because he knows, that the doctrine of the Trinity by no
means depends upon that particular passage, but may be satisfactorily
deduced from various other expressions, and from the general tenor of
holy writ. Indeed, if we were not prevented from harbouring any such
suspicion by Mr. Smith's flaming profession of the _iotal_ accuracy of
his creed; and if we could doubt the orthodoxy of the divine, without
impugning the honesty of the man, we should be inclined to suspect that
his defence of the verses proceeded from a concealed enemy. We are not
unaware that the question cannot even yet be regarded as finally and
incontrovertibly settled, but we apprehend the truth to be that Mr.
Smith, not having read one syllable upon the subject, but having
accidentally heard that there was a disputed verse in St. John relative
to the doctrine of the Trinity, and that it had been given up by the
Bishop of Lincoln, thought he could not do better than by one dash of
the pen, to show his knowledge of controversy, and the orthodoxy of his
belief, at the expense of that prelate's character for discretion and
zeal....
The next note is mere political, an ebullition of party rage, in which
Mr. Smith abuses the present ministry with great bitterness, talks of
"wickedness," "weakness," "ignorance," "temerity," after the usual
fashion of opposition pamphlets, and clamours loudly against what, with
an obstinacy of misrepresentation hardly to be credited, he persists in
terming the "persecuting laws" against the Roman Catholics.... He is
very anxious that his political friends should not desist from urging
the question--an act of tergiversation and unconsistency which, he
thinks, would ruin them in the estimation of the public. Yet, if we
mistake not, these gentlemen, at least that portion of them with which
Mr. Smith (as we are told) is most closely connected, gave up, without a
blush, India, Reform, and Peace, all of which they taught us to believe
were vital questions in which the honour or the security of the country
was involved. But Catholic emancipation has some peculiar
recommendations. It is odious to the people, and painful to the King,
and therefore it cannot be delayed, without an utter sacrifice of
character....
Now we are by no means so eager on Mr. Smith in what he would term the
cause of _religious freedom_. We belong to that vulgar school of timid
churchmen, to whom the elevation of a vast body of sectaries to a level
with the establishment, is a matter of very grave consideration, if not
of alarm. We think that something is due to the prejudices (supposing
them to be no more than prejudices) of nine-tenths of the people of
England; and we are even so childish (for which we crave Mr. Smith's
pardon) as to pay some regard to the feelings of the King, in whose
personal mortification, we fairly own, we should not take the smallest
pleasure....
We now take leave of the sermon and its notes. But, before we conclude,
we are desirous ... to convey to Mr. Smith a little salutary advice ...
to remind him that unmeasured severity of invective against others, will
naturally produce, at the first favourable opportunity, a retort of
similar harshness upon himself; and that unless he feels himself
completely invulnerable, the conduct which he has hitherto pursued, is
not only uncharitable and violent, but foolish. He should be told that,
although he possesses some talents, they are by no means, as he
supposes, of the first order. He writes in a tone of superiority which
would hardly be justifiable at the close of a long and successful
literary career. His acquirements are very moderate, though he wants
neither boldness nor dexterity in displaying them to the best advantage;
and he is far, very far indeed, from being endowed with that powerful,
disciplined, and comprehensive mind, which should entitle him to decide
authoritatively and at once upon the most difficult parts of subjects so
far removed from one another as biblical criticism and legislation. His
style is rapid and lively, but hasty and inaccurate; and he either
despises or is incapable of regular and finished composition.
Humour, indeed (we speak now generally, of all these performances which
have been ascribed to him by common consent), is his strong point; and
here he is often successful; but even from this praise many deductions
must be made. His jokes are broad and coarse; he is altogether a
mannerist, and never knows where to stop. The [Greek: _Paedenagan_]
seems quite unknown to him. His pleasantry does not proceed from keen
and well-supported irony; just, but unexpected comparisons; but depends,
for effect, chiefly upon strange polysyllabic epithets, and the endless
enumeration of minute circumstances. In this he, no doubt, displays
considerable ingenuity, and a strong sense of what is ludicrous; but his
good things are almost all prepared after one receipt. There is some
talent, but more trick, in their composition. The thing is well done,
but it is of a low order; we meet with nothing graceful, nothing
exquisite, nothing that pleases upon repetition and reflection. In
everything that Mr. Smith attempts, in all his "bravura" passages,
serious or comic, one is always shocked by some affectation or
absurdity; something in direct defiance of all those principles which
have been established by the authority of the best critics, and the
example of the best writers: indeed, bad taste seems to be Mr. Smith's
evil genius, both as to sentiment and expression. It is always hovering
near him, and, like one of the harpies, is sure to pounce down before
the end of the feast, and spoil the banquet, and disgust the guests.
The present publication is by far the worst of all his performances,
avowed or imputed. Literary merit it has none; but in arrogance,
presumption, and absurdity, it far outdoes all his former outdoings.
Indeed, we regard it as one of the most deplorable mistakes that has
ever been committed by a man of supposed talents....