Sydney Smith was born in 1771, the son of an eccentric Mr Robert Smith
and his wife, who was the daughter of a French _emigre_. Robert Smith is
said to have bought and re-sold something like twenty houses in the
course of his life. This may help to account for Sydney being early
dependent on his own resources. When he was engaged to be married, he
threw six silver teaspoons into his fiancee's lap, saying: "There Kate,
you lucky girl, I give you my whole fortune!" {175b}
The only one of Sydney's brothers who need be mentioned was Robert,
commonly called Bobus {175c} (an Eton nickname). He once spoke of his
mother's beauty in the presence of Talleyrand, who, "with a shrug and a
sly disparaging look," said, "Ah! mon ami, c'etait donc apparemment
monsieur votre pere qui n'etait pas bien." {176a}
Sydney went to Winchester on the foundation, where he had to endure
"years of misery and positive starvation." He used to say that he had at
school made about ten thousand Latin verses, "and no man in his senses
would dream in after-life of ever making another."
Sydney passed from Winchester to New College, Oxford, where his rank as
Captain of the School apparently entitled him to a fellowship. In spite
of this he seems to have been poor and to have lived in consequence very
much out of society. Between Winchester and Oxford he was sent to Mont
Villiers in Normandy to learn French, in which he succeeded admirably.
The revolution was then at its height, and he had to be enrolled in a
Jacobin Club as "Le Citoyen Smit, Membre Affilie, etc." It speaks well
for Sydney's self-restraint and powers of self-management, that after he
became a Fellow {176b} of his college he never received a farthing from
his father. On leaving Oxford he was _faute de mieux_ ordained, and
became a curate at a small village in the middle of Salisbury Plain.
Here he made the acquaintance of the neighbouring squire, Mr Beach. He
became tutor to the squire's son, and it was arranged that they should go
to the University of Weimar; but this turned out impracticable, and (says
Sydney) "in stress of politics we put into Edinburgh," where he remained
five years. Here he came in contact with a number of interesting
people--Jeffrey, {177a} Horner, {177b} Playfair, Walter Scott, Dugald
Stewart, Brougham, Murray, Leyden and others, many of whom were life-long
friends of Sydney. Another eminent person whose acquaintance he made
later, may be mentioned here. Sydney wrote to Lady Holland in 1831 (ii.,
p. 326):--"Philosopher Malthus came here last week. I got an agreeable
party for him of unmarried people. There was only one lady who had had a
child; but he is a good-natured man, and if there are no appearances of
approaching fertility, is civil to every lady."
Sydney's housekeeping difficulties at Edinburgh proved an unexpected
difficulty; his servants "always pulled off their stockings, in spite of
my repeated objurgations, the moment my back was turned." I cannot
resist quoting, _apropos des bottes_, the following story. The reigning
bore at Edinburgh was X, his favourite subject the North Pole. Sydney
met X, indignant at Jeffrey having darted past him exclaiming, "Damn the
North Pole." Sydney tried to console him: "Why, you will scarcely
believe it, but it is not more than a week ago that I heard him speak
disrespectfully of the Equator."
In 1799 or 1800 he was married to Miss Pybus, and in 1802, when a child
was about to be born, Sydney hoped it would be a girl, and that she might
have but one eye so that she might never marry. Part of the wish was
fulfilled; the baby was a girl, but, unfortunately, quite normal in every
way. Saba, for so she was called (a name {178a} invented by her father),
ultimately became the wife of Sir Henry Holland, the well-known
physician.
About this time Sydney suggested to Jeffrey and Brougham the foundation
of a Liberal Quarterly--in those days a contradiction in terms--which was
named the _Edinburgh Review_ after the town of its birth. Sydney
proposed as a motto, "_Tenui Musam meditamur avena_," _i.e._, "We
cultivate literature on a little oatmeal," but this was too near the
truth to be admitted. {178b}
Throughout his life literature was combined with vigorous activity as a
clergyman. Speaking of two or three "random sermons" which he
"discharged" in London, he says he believed that the congregation thought
him mad. "The clerk was as pale as death in helping me off with my gown,
for fear I should bite him."
He made many friends in London. Among these he specially valued Lord and
Lady Holland, with whom he often stayed. They agreed in gaiety, humour,
and political opinions. And it must be remembered that a Liberal parson
was a rare bird in those days. Dugald Stewart (i., p. 127) said of
Sydney Smith's preaching, "Those original and unexpected ideas gave me a
thrilling sensation of sublimity never before awakened by any other
oratory." But his most celebrated triumph was a charity sermon which
actually moved old Lady C. (Cork?) to borrow a sovereign to put in the
plate.
Sydney lectured on Moral Philosophy at the Royal Institution. Many years
afterwards, in 1843, he wrote to Whewell: "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 pounds to furnish my house. The
success, however, was prodigious; all Albemarle Street blocked with
carriages, and such an uproar as I never remembered to have been excited
by any other literary impostor."
Leonard Horner wrote: "Nobody else, to be sure, could have executed such
an undertaking. For who could make such a mixture of odd paradox, quaint
fun, manly sense, Liberal opinions, and striking language?"
He used, like Charles Lamb, to give weekly suppers. Sir James Mackintosh
brought to one of these parties "a raw Scotch cousin, an ensign in a
Highland regiment. On hearing the name of his host he . . . said in an
audible whisper, 'Is that the great Sir Sudney?'" Mackintosh gave a hint
to Sydney, who "performed the part of the hero of Acre to perfection," to
the "torture of the other guests, who were bursting with suppressed
laughter." A few days later Sydney and his wife met Mackintosh and the
wonderful cousin in the street, to whom Sydney introduced his wife. The
Scotch youth didna' ken the great Sir Sudney was married. "Why, no,"
said Sir James, ". . . not exactly married; only an Egyptian slave. . . .
Fatima--you know--you understand." Mrs Smith was long known as Fatima.
With regard to Sydney's talk, his daughter speaks of "the multitude of
unexpected images which sprang up in his mind, and succeeded each other
with a rapidity that hardly allowed his hearers to follow him, but left
them panting and exhausted with laughter, to cry out for mercy." When he
met Mrs Siddons for the first time she "seemed determined to resist him,
and preserve her tragic dignity," but finally she fell into such a
"paroxysm of laughter . . . that it made quite a scene, and all the
company were alarmed."
In 1807 Sydney's first _Letter from Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham_
appeared. It was on the Irish Catholic question, and made a great
sensation--Government trying to discover the author, etc. Lord Murray
said, "After _Pascal's Letters_, it is the most instructive piece of
wisdom in the form of irony ever written, and had the most important and
lasting effects."
About the year 1806 he was presented to the living of Foston le Clay in
Yorkshire through Lord Holland's interest. He had to build a parsonage
"without experience or money," and to make a journey with family and
furniture "into the heart of Yorkshire--a process, in the year 1808, as
difficult as a journey to the back settlements of America now." He had,
moreover, to turn farmer, since the living consisted of 300 acres of land
and no tithe. The local Squire was shy of him as a Jacobin, but finally
they became fast friends. He used to "bring the papers, that I might
explain the difficult words to him; actually discovered that I had made a
joke, laughed till I thought he would have died of convulsions, and ended
by inviting me to see his dogs."
He was advised to employ oxen on his farm, which, however, turned out a
failure; but their names deserve remembrance, for they were christened
Tug and Lug, Haul and Crawl. He looked after his men through a
telescope, and gave orders with a speaking-trumpet. He records "that a
man-servant was too expensive" for him, so "I caught up a little
garden-girl, made like a milestone, christened her Bunch, put a napkin in
her hand, and made her my butler." She became "the best butler in the
county." Bunch is described as pacing up and down before her master's
door, saying, "Oh, ma'am, I can't get no peace of mind till I've got
master shaved." This meant "making ready for him with a large painter's
brush, a thick lather in a huge wooden bowl." A visitor at Foston
records:--"Mr Smith suddenly said to Bunch, who was passing, 'Bunch, do
you like roast duck or boiled chicken?' Bunch had probably never tasted
either the one or the other in her life, but answered, without a moment's
hesitation, 'Roast duck, please, sir,' and disappeared. I laughed. 'You
may laugh,' said he, 'but you have no idea of the labour it has cost me
to give her that decision of character.'"
Poor Bunch used to be told to repeat her crimes, and gravely recited,
"Plate-snatching, gravy-spilling, door-slamming,
blue-bottle-fly-catching, and curtsey-bobbing." The blue-bottle crime
was standing with her mouth open and not attending. Curtsey-bobbing was
"Curtseying to the centre of the earth, please, sir."
One little fact is worth recording. In 1825 a meeting of clergy was held
in Yorkshire to petition Parliament against the emancipation of the
Catholics. Sydney's was the only dissentient voice. No doubt in those
days it was hard for a Liberal parson to get preferment, and George III.
was right in his prophecy that Sydney would never be a bishop. But in
January 1828 the Chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst, bestowed on Sydney a stall
then vacant at Bristol. This was not of much importance from a pecuniary
point of view, but it broke the "spell which had hitherto kept him down
in his profession." {183} In the autumn of that year he preached
toleration to the Mayor and Corporation of Bristol, the "most Protestant
civic body in England." About the same time he exchanged his living in
Yorkshire for that of Combe Florey near Taunton.
In 1831 (i., p. 290) Lord Grey appointed him to a Prebendal Stall at St
Paul's in exchange for the inferior one at Bristol. With regard to
ecclesiastical preferment, he wrote to Lady Holland (8th October 1808):
You "may choose to make me a bishop, and if you do I . . . shall never do
you discredit, for I believe it is out of the power of lawn and velvet,
and the crisp hair of dead men fashioned into a wig, to make me a
dishonest man; but if you do not, I am perfectly content, and shall be
ever grateful to the last hour of my life to you and to Lord Holland."
And to Lady Mary Bennett, July 1820, p. 200: "Lord Liverpool's messenger
mistook the way, and instead of bringing the mitre to me, took it to my
next-door neighbour, Dr Carey, who very fraudulently accepted it. Lord
Liverpool is extremely angry, and I am to have the next!"
And to Murray: "I think Lord Grey will give me some preferment, if he
stays in long enough; but the upper parsons live vindictively. The
Bishop of --- has the rancour to recover after three paralytic strokes,
and the Dean of --- to be vigorous at eighty-two. And yet these are men
who are called Christians!"
In the following letter to Lord John Russell (3rd April 1837, p. 399) he
is for once in a way egoistic:--
"I defy X to quote a single passage in my writing contrary to the
doctrines of the Church of England; for I have always avoided
speculative, and preached practical, religion. I defy him to mention a
single action in my life which he can call immoral. . . . I am
distinguished as a preacher, and sedulous as a parochial clergyman. His
real charge is, that I am a high-spirited, honest, uncompromising man,
whom all the bench of bishops could not turn, and who would set them all
at defiance upon great and vital questions. . . . I am thoroughly
sincere in saying I would not take any bishopric whatever, and to this I
pledge my honour and character as a gentleman."
It came to Sydney's turn to appoint to the valuable living of Edmonton:
he was allowed to take it himself, but he gave it to the son of the late
parson, Tate. Sydney said to Tate junior, that by an odd coincidence the
new vicar was called Tate, and by a more singular chance Thomas Tate, "in
short . . . you are vicar of Edmonton." They all burst into tears, and
"I wept and groaned for a long time. Then I rose, and said I thought it
was very likely to end in their keeping a buggy, at which we all laughed
as violently. . . . The charitable physician wept too" (i., p. 343). He
wrote to:--
MRS GROTE, 3_rd Jan._ 1844.--"You have seen more than enough of my giving
the living of Edmonton to a curate. The first thing the unscriptural
curate does, is to turn out his fellow curate, the son of him who was
vicar before his father. . . . The Bishop, the Dean and Chapter, and I
have in vain expostulated; he perseveres in his harshness and cruelty."
Towards the end of 1843 he made his well-known attack on the scandal of
the State of Pennsylvania not paying interest to English investors--he
being one. He declares them to be "men who prefer any load of infamy,
however great, to any pressure of taxation, however light" (i., p. 352).
Sydney Smith died 22nd February 1845 from disease of the heart. He was
buried at Kensal Green "as privately as possible."
Macaulay {185} wrote in 1847 to Mrs Sydney: "He is universally admitted
to have been a great reasoner, and the greatest master of ridicule that
has appeared among us since Swift." Mrs Sydney adds in a note that there
is not a line in his writing "unfit for the eye of a woman," a great
contrast to Swift.