CHAPTER VI

ST. PAUL'S--THE PARALLELOGRAM--ARCHDEACON SINGLETON--COLLECTED WORKS

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 Sydney 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 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 1824,

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 Partington, 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 thus 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."[107]

This was his last public act in connexion with Parliamentary Reform; but

the keenness of his interest remained unabated till the day was won. On the

12th 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 intention

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 Royal 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[108] 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 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 unglued?

Are we prepared for a second Heptarchy, and to see the King of Sussex

fighting with the Emperor of Essex, or marrying the Dowager Queen of

Hampshire?"

Just before the first elections under the Reform Act, he wrote to a Scotch

friend:--

"What 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.

"_PS._--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 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

stopped; 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[109]:--

"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.[110] 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._ Morley."

It soon became evident that the Whig Government, flushed with its triumph

over Toryism, intended to lay reforming hands upon the Church,[111] 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 respectable-looking groom of the

chambers? I shall be happy to 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 boil'd 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[112] 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 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 River

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,[113] who

afterwards edited his Letters, writes:--"The choir[114] 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 prepared. Who are we, and what are

we? and for what has God made us? and why are we doomed to thus 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 of education, and it

is a thoroughly commendable and legitimate 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 worship?--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--_I_ can do that; that is the charity of the humble and 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 their 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

Redeemer and my Judge.'"

True to his lifelong conviction, the preacher urges the sacredness of

religious freedom.--

"I hope the Queen will love the National Church, and protect 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 contemptuous 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

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 reflection, 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, disdaining 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 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 Woman 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 beginning 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, Regent 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 _Paradise 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"

"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 Rogers, 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 existence."

"You may depend upon it, all lives lived out of London 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 "sometimes 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! Everything (except the

Thirty-Nine Articles) called in question."

"I have a breakfast of philosophers to-morrow at ten punctually;

muffins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. Will you come?"

"Pray come and see me. I will give you very good mutton chops for

luncheon,[115] seasoned with affectionate regard and respect."

"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 son."

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 keeping 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

Robert Peel. A General Election took place at Christmas. In the spring of

1835 Peel's Government was displaced by a vote of the House of Commons, and

a Whig Government was formed again under Lord Melbourne. Henry

Labouchere,[116] M.P. for Taunton, accepted office, and thereby vacated his

seat. On seeking re-election, he was opposed, unsuccessfully, by Benjamin

Disraeli. "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."[117]

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

reflection that, "as I had so little life to lose, it was of little

consequence 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

a _poulet à la Tartare_ at Grignon's, These are impressions which no

changes in future life can obliterate."

Before the year ended, he was established in London. The remaining ten

years of his life saw him, in spite of some bodily infirmities, at the

summit of his social fame. An immense proportion of the anecdotes 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 clergyman of my age, you may be quite sure he is a bad

clergyman.'"[118]

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 distasteful to

Sydney Smith; and, as time went 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."[119] The Letter

begins with an attack on the constitution of the Commission. It was stuffed

with Bishops. Deans and Canons and Rectors 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 Central Fund from the proceeds of

confiscated Prebends,[120] 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 wages 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

hopeless 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 liberties 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 Canterbury 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 take away; and this little apparent

inconsistency is not confined to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but is

shared equally by all the Bishop-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 embarrassed 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 meaning, 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 contrast 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 Catholic 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 ourselves, 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. Everybody 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."

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. He 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 away; and

this often happens to a man who has had no opportunities of seeing the

world, whose parents were in very humble life, and who has given up

all his thoughts to the Frogs of Aristophanes and the Targum of

Onkelos. How is it possible that such a man should not lose his head?

that he should not swell? that lie 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 consenting to all these attacks on

the Church and the Chapters, Sydney had his parting word of reminiscent

rebuke.--

"I neither wish to offend them nor any body else. I consider myself to

be as good a Whig as any amongst them. I was a Whig before many of

them were born--and while some of them were Tories and Waverers.[121]

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 Russell (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 convincing 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 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 England 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."[122]

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 estates of

which are about equal to keeping a pack of foxhounds. If this had been

in the hands of a country gentleman; instead of Precentor, Succentor,

Bean, 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, waistcoats, and pantaloons: and how many generations might it

be before the fortuitous concourse of noodles would produce such a man

as Professor Lee,[123] 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 preferments 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 footmen if they were not

vicars--or figure on the coach-box if they were not lecturing from the

pulpit.

* * * * *

"If 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 confiscation of the Cathedral property, I am

convinced they would reject the measure, and prefer splendid hope, and

the expectation of good fortune in advanced life, to the trifling

improvement of poverty which such a fund, could afford. Charles James,

of London, was a Curate; the Bishop of Winchester[124] 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 destruction of

Cathedral property is the great sacrifice of the patronage of the

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 manner. I don't care

for popular clamour, and think it might now be defied; but I confess

the Gentleman Volunteers alarm me. They have unfortunately, too,

collected their addresses, and published them in a single

volume!!!"[125]

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.--

"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 please--a proxy to consent to

arrangements of estates if wanted; but a proxy sent down in the

Canterbury Ply, 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 produce, a scene

which would have puzzled the _Dudor Dubitantiim._ The attorney who

took the oath for the Archbishop is, they say, seized with religious

horrors at the approaching confiscation 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 lie 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 must be drawn from the property of the 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 why 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, a house

in St. James's Square, and £10,000 a year? Could not all the Episcopal

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 opinion were

different--if I thought the important improvement was to equalize

preferment 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,[126] with a voice more bland, and a look more ardently

affectionate, than that which the masculine mouse bestows 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 rightful possessors. Such an effect,

they say, was never before produced by a _coup de théâtre_. The

Commission was separated in an instant, London clenched his fist.

Canterbury was hurried 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[127] would have made of all this? Why are such talents wasted

on _Ion_ and _The Athenian Captive_?"

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 saying, 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 discover 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 measures 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. He

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 Commission

with Chapters and Cathedrals, he remains convinced 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,[128] 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 of my life; the

Corporation and Test Acts; the Penal Laws against the Catholics; the

Compulsory Marriages of Dissenters, 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 Lordship a lesson of good manners, I had prepared for him

a chastisement which would have been echoed from the _Segrave_ who

banqueteth in the castle,[129] 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 _Æschylus_. 'We find,' he says, '_a great arbitrariness of

proceeding, and much boldness of innovation, guided by no sure

principle_'; here it is: _qualis ab incepto_. He begins with Æschylus,

and ends with the Church of England; begins with profane, and ends

with holy innovations--scratching out old readings which every

commentator had sanctioned; abolishing ecclesiastical dignities which

every reformer had spared; thrusting an anapæest 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 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 making 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 perpetual 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 Archbishop 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 Smith died suddenly, and left no will.[130]

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 paralyse his pen. In 1839 he 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,[131] he says--"Mr. Grote knows the relative 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_ amount 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 poverty 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 changes in human affairs. The Tories are now on the

treadmill, and the well-paid Whigs are riding in chariots: with many

faces, however, looking out of the windows (including that of our

Prime Minister[132]), which I never remember to have seen in the days

of the poverty and depression of Whiggism. Liberality is now a

lucrative business. Whoever 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 Archbishop 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 reflections of the religious

observer who saw a man driving clumsily in a gig.--"'What (I said to

myself) if a single untoward circumstance should happen! Should the horse

take fright, or the wheel on either side get entangled, or 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,--what 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

conviction. 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

fervour, is the article on Indian Missions, for which, fifty years after,

Archbishop Tait found it hard to forgive him.[133] Here again the

artificial quaintness 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[134]--so he delighted

in lampooning "Ram Boshoo," and "Buxoo a brother," and "the Catechist of

Collesigrapatuam." The saintly and scholarly Carey[135] 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 complaint, 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.--

"_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 enjoyment with God."

"_1794. Jan, 26. Lord's-day_. Found much pleasure in reading Edwards's

_Sermon on the Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners_."

"_April 6_. Had some sweetness to-day, especially in reading 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 _Edinburgh 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 displayed--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 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

Rev. 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 _kimes_. 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 _kime_ was imperiously called for;

and the want of it is a subtle evasion, for which 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. _Kimes_, 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 Dædalean instrument of

torture, called a _kime_! 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 accurate 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 Voltaire, 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 disturbance. 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 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 deliriously 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,[136] 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 would be

the greatest man of your age, Grattan, if you 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 represented 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,

diminish 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 canvass, 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[137] _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 snake, who feels fourteen or fifteen stone

stamping upon his tail, has little time for reflection, 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 interesting; 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 what 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 astonishing 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 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,[138] 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!

* * * * *

"Insects are the curse of tropical climates. The bête 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, got 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 over seen before, except Swammerdam and

Meriam. An insect with eleven legs is swimming in your teacup, a

nondescript 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 entomological 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 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 concatenation of fallacies in "Noodle's Oration."[139] Both these

pieces will he 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 consists in rushing about to

entertainments which do not amuse. In 1840 he wrote, in answering an

invitation 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,[140] 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. _Tête d'Évêque_ will be the

most _recherché_ dish, and the servant will 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, sirs, 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 eating 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 with controversy. In 1842 he published three

Letters on the Mismanagement of Railways,[141] and in 1843 two on a

tendency displayed by the "drab-coloured men of Pennsylvania" to repudiate

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 charming letter,

written in September 1843 to his special favourite, Miss Georgiana

Harcourt,[142] 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!"

At the beginning of 1844 he wrote, "I am tolerably 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 was back again at St. Paul's, preaching 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."[143] 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 protest

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 no more in this world."[144]

He now left London for Combe Florey. "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 Church. You would plunge a poisoned pin into your heart, and I

should swallow the leaf of a sermon dipped in hydro-cyanic acid."

In October, after an alarming attack of breathlessness 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 unsuspected 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 agitation 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.

[107] R.A. Kinglake, quoted by Mr. Stuart Reid.

[108] The Beer-house Act, 1830, allowed any one to retail beer, on merely

taking out an excise-licence.

[109] Frances Talbot, wife of John, 1st Earl of Morley.

[110] As a matter of fact he lived at 33 Charles Street, and subsequently

at 56 Green Street.

[111] 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 14th of July 1833.

[112] Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868).

[113] Born Sarah Taylor (1793-1867).

[114] At that period there were no sermons under the Dome

[115] In 1825, after a visit to Lord Essex at Cassiobury, he noted with

disapproval--"No hot luncheons."

[116] (1798-1869), created Lord Taunton in 1859.

[117] This is interesting as being, so far as I know, Sydney Smith's only

reference to Lord Beaconsfield.

[118] Gladstone's _Gleanings_, vol. vii. p. 220.

[119] Thomas Singleton (1783-1842), Canon of Worcester and Archdeacon of

Northumberland.

[120] It is sometimes forgotten that a Prebend is a thing; a Prebendary a

person.

[121] 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!"

[122] John Wilson Croker (1780-1857), M.P. and Tory pamphleteer.

[123] Samuel Lee (1783-1852).

[124] Charles Richard Sumner (1790-1874).

[125] 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."

[126] Lord John Russell.

[127] Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854), Judge and Dramatist.

[128] James Henry Monk (1784-1856).

[129] William FitzHardinge Berkeley (1786-1857) was created Lord Segrave of

Berkeley Castle in 1831, and Earl FitzHardinge in 1841.

[130] "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

but 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).

[131] (1794-1871), Banker, Historian, and Politician.

[132] William, Viscount Melbourne (1779-1848).

[133] "Have you read Sydney Smith's Life? There is a strange mixture in his

character of earnest common-sense and fun. On the whole, I think he

will be thought more highly of in consequence of the publication of

the Life, though it may be doubted whether his religion was not

injured by his strong sense of the ludicrous. I cannot forgive him for

his anti-missionary articles in the _Edinburgh Review_."--_Life of

Archbishop Tait_, 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 dissented, 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."

[134] "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."

[135] William Carey (1761-1834), Shoemaker, Orientalist, and Missionary.

[136] (1765-1832), Historian and Philosopher.

[137] Charles Waterton (1782-1865), Naturalist.

[138] (1748-1820.)

[139] 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?"

[140] (1809-1878.)

[141] In these a special appeal is made to "our youthful Gladstone," then

recently appointed Vice-President of the Board of Trade.

[142] Afterwards Mrs. Malcolm: died in 1886.

[143] He said afterwards that this Sermon on Peace was really Channing's.

[144] Compare his letter on parting from his friends at Edinburgh, quoted

by Lady Holland:--"All adieus are melancholy; and principally, I

believe, because they put us in mind of the 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 pillboxes, gallipots, phials, and jugs of

barley-water."