_THE EDINBURGH REVIEW_--LONDON--"MORAL PHILOSOPHY"--PREFERMENT
We now approach what was perhaps the most important 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 Review originated:--
"Among the first persons with whom I became acquainted [in 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 Review; 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 proposed 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 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 worst 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, was 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 Jeffrey, _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 receive 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 prevailed. The financial part of the business was
arranged with Constable in Edinburgh, and Longman in London: and the first
number (clad in that famous livery of Blue and Buff[19] 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 be 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,[20] 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 government, and has
talked about social order till be has talked himself into £600 or £700
per annum. That there 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 contribute, 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[21] 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;
immediately 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 Edinburgh 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 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 you 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 upon record that
at the Siege of Perth, on one occasion the ammunition failing, their
nectarines made admirable cannon-balls. Even the enlightened mind of
Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion that myrtles flourish at Craig
Crook.[22] 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 you know whom, at
Edinburgh."
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
themselves at 8 Doughty Street. Sydney's dearest friend, Francis
Horner,[23] had preceded him to London, and was already beginning to make
his mark at the Bar, without, 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 introduction
into congenial society. Doughty Street was a legal quarter, and among those
with whom the Smiths soon made friends were Sir Samuel Romilly, 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 Robert ("Bobus"[24]) 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 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[25] 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."[26] And even the imperious mistress[27] 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,[28] afterwards a baronet of good estate in Buckinghamshire,
and a zealous worker in all kinds of social and educational reform. Mr.
Bernard was Treasurer of the Royal 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 Perception; the fifth, with Conception; the sixth, with Memory;
the seventh, with Imagination; the eighth, with Reason and Judgment; and
the ninth, with the Conduct of the Understanding.
These lectures were treated by the author as forming 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 Beautiful," "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 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. Whewell[29]
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 adventured on a third
course, 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
Benevolent 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 satisfactory to find that he did not take his
performance very seriously, or set a very high value on his philosophical
attainments. In 1843 he wrote, in reply to Dr. Whewell's inquiry:--
"My lectures are gone to the dogs, and are utterly forgotten. I knew
nothing of Moral 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 Conception 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 in 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
contribution 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 character 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 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 profitable account. Dugald Stewards
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 Philosophy, and is concerned with
"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[30] and Adam Smith, Hume
and Reid and 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 explained 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 with 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 proceed."
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, 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,
intelligible 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 philosophical 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, because 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:--
"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 your 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 his little boy's, "which in Scotland would be heard
as of high metaphysical promise. Emily was asking why 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 only 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 miscellaneous 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 conceived a
high degree of indignation against some great banker, passed a
resolution that they would burn his notes, which accordingly they did,
with great assiduity; forgetting that, in burning his notes, they 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 morning, 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,[31] 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 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 employment for his friend. Through his influence the
Rev. 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 Rector in whose
parish it was situate.[32] 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.[33] These various
appointments, coupled with his lectures at the Royal Institution, brought
him increasingly into public notice. His preaching was admired by some
important people. His contributions 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 misfortune 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[34] succeeded him, at the head of the ministry of "All the
Talents." In this place, perhaps, may be not unsuitably inserted the
epitaph which Sydney Smith suggested for Pitt's statue in Hanover Square.
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 efficient 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 Rector 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:[35]--
"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,[36] 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 Russell[37]--"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[38] 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 Roman 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.
Meanwhile 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
defrauding 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 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.[39] Somehow or another it
came to be conjectured that I was the author.[40]... 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.
[19] "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_.
[20] Barrister, and writer of political pamphlets between 1791 and 1807.
[21] George Ticknor (1791-1871), American traveller and man of letters.
[22] Jeffrey's house near Edinburgh.
[23] (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."
[24] Sydney Smith used to say, "Bobus and I have inverted the laws of
nature. He rose by his gravity; I sank by my levity."
[25] Henry Richard (1773-1840), 3rd Lord Holland.
[26] Macaulay, "Lord Holland."
[27] 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.
[28] (1750-1818).
[29] William Whewell (1794-1866), Master of Trinity College, Cambridge,
author of _Elements of Morality_, 1845.
[30] 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 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!"
[31] See p. 185.
[32] 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 tenants, 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."
[33] Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) wrote in 1808:--"To church, where I heard
Sydney Smith preach a sermon, which, for its eloquence 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."
[34] William Wyndham Grenville (1759-1834), created Lord Grenville in 1790.
[35] Morton Eden (1751-1830), created Lord Henley in 1799.
[36] (1745-1836), created Lord Stowell in 1821.
[37] (1792-1878).
[38] A house which Lord Stowell acquired by his marriage with an heiress,
Anna Maria Bagnall.
[39] James, 8th Earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839).
[40] 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.