SYDNEY SMITH, of the same age as Walter Scott, was born at Woodford, in
Essex, in the year 1771, and he died of heart disease, aged seventy-four,
on the 22nd of February, 1845. His father was a clever man of wandering
habits who, when he settled in England, reduced his means by buying,
altering, spoiling, and then selling about nineteen different places in
England. His mother was of a French family from Languedoc, that had been
driven to England by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Sydney
Smith’s grandfather, upon the mother’s side, could speak no English, and
he himself ascribed some of his gaiety to the French blood in his veins.
He was one of four sons. His eldest brother Robert—known as Bobus—was
sent to Eton, where he joined Canning, Frere, and John Smith, in writing
the Eton magazine, the _Microcosm_; and at Cambridge Bobus afterwards was
known as a fine Latin scholar. Sydney Smith went first to a school at
Southampton, and then to Winchester, where he became captain of the
school. Then he was sent for six months to Normandy for a last polish to
his French before he went on to New College, Oxford. When he had
obtained his fellowship there, his father left him to his own resources.
His eldest brother had been trained for the bar, his two younger brothers
were sent out to India, and Sydney, against his own wish, yielded to the
strong desire of his father that he should take orders as a clergyman.
Accordingly, in 1794, he became curate of the small parish of
Netherhaven, in Wiltshire. Meat came to Netherhaven only once a week in
a butcher’s cart from Salisbury, and the curate often dined upon potatoes
flavoured with ketchup.
The only educated neighbour was Mr. Hicks Beach, the squire, who at first
formally invited the curate to dinner on Sundays, and soon found his wit,
sense, and high culture so delightful, that the acquaintance ripened into
friendship. After two years in the curacy, Sydney Smith gave it up and
went abroad with the squire’s son. “When first I went into the Church,”
he wrote afterwards, “I had a curacy in the middle of Salisbury Plain;
the parish was Netherhaven, near Amesbury. The squire of the parish, Mr.
Beach, took a fancy to me, and after I had served it two years, he
engaged me as tutor to his eldest son, and it was arranged that I and his
son should proceed to the University of Weimar in Saxony. We set out,
but before reaching our destination Germany was disturbed by war, and, in
stress of politics, we put into Edinburgh, where I remained five years.”
Young Michael Beach, who had little taste for study, lived with Sydney
Smith as his tutor, and found him a wise guide and pleasant friend. When
Michael went to the University, his brother William was placed under the
same good care. Sydney Smith, about the same time, went to London to be
married. His wife’s rich brother quarrelled with her for marrying a man
who said that his only fortune consisted in six small silver teaspoons.
One day after their happy marriage he ran in to his wife and threw them
in her lap, saying, “There, Kate, you lucky girl, I give you all my
fortune!” The lucky girl had a small fortune of her own which her
husband had strictly secured to herself and her children. Mr. Beach
recognised the value of Sydney Smith’s influence over his son by a
wedding gift of £750. In 1802 a daughter was born, and in the same year
Sydney Smith joined Francis Jeffrey and other friends, who then
maintained credit for Edinburgh as the Modern Athens, in the founding of
_The Edinburgh Review_, to which the papers in this volume, added to the
Peter Plymley Letters, were contributed. The Rev. Sydney Smith preached
sometimes in the Episcopal Church at Edinburgh, and presently had, in
addition to William Beach, a son of Mr. Gordon, of Ellon Castle, placed
under his care, receiving £400 a year for each of the young men.
In 1803 Sydney Smith left Edinburgh for London, where he wrote busily in
_The Edinburgh Review_, but remained poor for many years. His wit
brought friends, and the marriage of his eldest brother with Lord
Holland’s aunt quickened the growth of a strong friendship with Lord
Holland. Through the good offices of Lord Holland, Sydney Smith
obtained, in 1806, aged thirty-five, the living of Foston-le-Clay, in
Yorkshire. In the next year appeared the first letter of Peter Plymley
to his brother Abraham on the subject of the Irish Catholics.
These letters fell, we are told, like sparks on a heap of gunpowder. All
London, and soon all England, was alive to the sound reason recommended
by a lively wit. Sydney Smith lived to be recognised as first among the
social wits, and it was always the chief praise of his wit that wisdom
was the soul of it. Peter Plymley’s letters, and Sydney Smith’s articles
on the same subject in _The Edinburgh Review_ were the most powerful aids
furnished by the pen to the solution of the burning question of their
time. Lord Murray called the Plymley letters “after Pascal’s letters the
most instructive piece of wisdom in the form of irony ever written.”
Worldly wealth came later; but in wit, wisdom, and kindly helpful
cheerfulness, from youth to age, Sydney Smith’s life was rich.