Sydney Smith

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Title:     Sydney Smith
Author: Francis Darwin [More Titles by Darwin]

{175a}

"I thank God, Who has made me poor, that He has made me merry."

I. BIOGRAPHICAL.

Sydney Smith was born in 1771, the son of an eccentric Mr Robert Smith and his wife, who was the daughter of a French _émigré. 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 fiancée’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’était donc apparemment monsieur votre père qui n’était 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 Affilié, 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 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, 3rd 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.

2. LETTERS.

In 1807–8 appeared anonymously Sydney Smith’s Letters on the Subject of the Catholics to my brother Abraham who lives in the Country, by Peter Plymley.

Abraham is said to be a "kind of holy vegetable" and to be a type of people who were exclaiming:—"For God’s sake, don’t think of raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland! . . . They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a different manner to what we do!"

Sydney points out (in his character of Peter Plymley) that the "Catholic is excluded from Parliament because he will not swear that he disbelieves the leading doctrines of his religion!"

He refers to Perceval in the following passage: "What remains to be done is obvious to every human being—but to the man who, instead of being a Methodist preacher, is, for the ruin of Troy, and the misery of good old Priam and his sons, become a legislator and a politician." Sydney continues: "I say, I fear he will ruin Ireland, and pursue a line of policy destructive to the true interests of his country: and then you tell me he is faithful to Mrs Perceval, and kind to the Master Percevals!"

Finally Peter warns his brother:—"Mrs Abraham Plymley, my sister, will be led away captive by an amorous Gaul; and Joel Plymley, your first born, will be a French drummer."

I regret that I have not space to quote more from these admirable Letters, which are full of good things. On 14th July 1807, he writes to Lady Holland {186}:—"Mr Allen has mentioned to me the letters of a Mr Plymley, which I have obtained from the adjacent market-town, and read with some entertainment. My conjecture lies between three persons—Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir Arthur Pigott, or Mr Horner, for the name is evidently fictitious." I presume that Pigott was an eminently serious person to match the other supposed authors.

JEFFREY, 20th Feb. 1808.—"Your Catholic article of the last Review is, I perceive, printed separately. I am very glad of it: it is excellent, and universally allowed to be so. I envy you your sense, your style, and the good temper with which you attack prejudices that drive me almost to the limits of insanity."

He writes to Lady Holland in an early but undated letter (ii., p. 39) that he has let his house at Thames Ditton very well, and sold to the tenant his wine and poultry!—"I attribute my success in these matters to having read half a volume of Adam Smith early in the summer, and to hints that have dropped from Horner, in his playful moods, upon the subject of sale and barter."

LORD HOLLAND, 1st Nov. 1809.—Speaking of his project of publishing a pamphlet to be called Common Sense for 1810, he concludes: "But what use is there in all this, or in anything else? Omnes ibimus ad Diabolum et Buonoparte nos conquerabit, et dabit Hollandium Domum ad unum corporalium suorum, et ponet ad mortem Joannem Allenium."

LADY HOLLAND, June 1810.—"You have done an excellent deed in securing a seat for poor Mackintosh, in whose praise I most cordially concur. He is a very great, and a very delightful man, and with a few bad qualities added to his character, would have acted a most conspicuous part in life."

LADY HOLLAND, 17th Jan. 1813.—There had been meetings on the Catholic question, and he says:—"I shall certainly give my solitary voice in favour of religious liberty, and shall probably be tossed in a blanket for my pains."

JOHN ALLEN, 24th Jan. 1813.—"My fancy is my own: I may see as many crosiers in the clouds as I please; but when I sit down seriously to consider what I shall do upon important occasions, I must presume myself rector of Foston for life."

JOHN MURRAY [of Edinburgh], 12th July 1813.—"My situation is as follows:—I am engaged in agriculture without the slightest knowledge of the art; I am building a house without an architect, and educating a son without patience. . . . My new mansion springs up apace, and then I shall really have a pretty place to receive you in, and a pleasant country to show you."

LADY HOLLAND, 17th Sept. 1813.—"Few events are of so little consequence as the fecundity of a clergyman’s wife; still your kind dispositions justify me in letting you know that Mrs Sydney and her new-born son are both extremely well."

JOHN ALLEN, 13th Jan. 1814.—Of Lord Holland, Sydney writes:—"I wish he would leave off wine entirely, after the manner of the Sharpe and Rogers school. He is never guilty of excess; but there is a certain respectable and dangerous plenitude, not quite conducive to that state of health which all his friends most wish to Lord Holland."

JEFFREY, Mar. 1814.—"Pray remember me, dear Jeffrey, and say a good word for me if I die first. I shall say many for you in the contrary event."

LADY HOLLAND, 25th June 1814.—"I liked London better than ever I liked it before, and simply, I believe, from water-drinking. Without this, London is stupefaction and inflammation. It is not the love of wine, but thoughtlessness and unconscious imitation."

JEFFREY, 1814.—"I like my new house very much; . . . but the expense of it will keep me a very poor man, a close prisoner here for my life, and render the education of my children a difficult exertion for me. My situation is one of great solitude, but I preserve myself in a state of cheerfulness and tolerable content, and have a propensity to amuse myself with trifles."

F. HORNER, 1816.—Referring to Dugald Stewart’s Preliminary Dissertations, Sydney says:—"I was amazingly pleased with his comparison of the Universities to enormous hulks confined with mooring-chains, everything flowing and progressing around them. Nothing can be more happy."

LADY HOLLAND, 31st July 1817.—"It is very curious to consider in what manner Horner gained, in so extraordinary a degree, the affections of such a number of persons of both sexes—all ages, parties, and ranks in society; for he was not remarkably good-tempered nor particularly lively and agreeable; and an inflexible politician on the unpopular side. The causes are, his high character for probity, honour, and talents; his fine countenance; the benevolent interest he took in the concerns of all his friends; his simple and gentlemanlike manners; his untimely death."

LADY MARY BENNETT (n.d., but late in 1817).—"The few words I said of Mrs Fry . . . were these:—‘To see that holy woman in the midst of wretched prisoners,—to see them calling earnestly upon God, soothed by her voice, animated by her look, clinging to the hem of her garment, and worshipping her as the only human being who has ever loved them . . . or spoken to them of God!—this is the sight which breaks down the pageantry of the world,—which tells us that the short hour of life is passing away, and that we must prepare by some good deeds to meet God; that it is time to give, to pray, to comfort—to go, like this blessed woman, and do the work of our heavenly Saviour, Jesus, among the guilty, among the broken-hearted, and the sick; and to labour in the deepest and darkest wretchedness of life!’"

LADY DAVY, n.d.—"Luttrell, before I taught him better, imagined muffins grew!"

JEFFREY, 7th Aug. 1819.—There was universal complaint of the dullness of the Edinburgh Review, and Sydney writes: "Too much, I admit, would not do of my style; but the proportion in which it exists enlivens the Review, if you appeal to the whole public, and not to the eight or ten grave Scotchmen with whom you live."

LORD HOLLAND, 11th June 1820.—"You gave me great pleasure by what you said to the Chancellor of my honesty and independence. I sincerely believe I shall deserve the character at your hands as long as I live."

MRS MEYNELL, 1820.—"The usual establishment for an eldest landed baby is, two wet nurses, two ditto dry, two aunts, two physicians, two apothecaries; three female friends of the family, unmarried, advanced in life; and often in the nursery, one clergyman, six flatterers, and a grandpapa! Less than this would not be decent."

MRS MEYNELL, 11th Nov. 1821.—"My pretensions to do well with the world are three-fold:—First, I am fond of talking nonsense; secondly, I am civil; thirdly, I am brief. I may be flattering myself; but if I am not, it is not easy to get very wrong with these habits."

JOHN MURRAY [of Edinburgh], 29th Nov. 1821.—"How little you understand young Wedgwood! If he appears to love waltzing, it is only to catch fresh figures for cream-jugs. Depend upon it, he will have Jeffrey and you upon some of his vessels, and you will enjoy an argillaceous immortality."

This probably refers to Josiah, the grandson of the great potter.

LADY MARY BENNETT, 1st Nov. 1822.—"Write to me immediately: I feel it necessary to my constitution."

LADY HOLLAND, 1st Oct. 1823.—"I think you mistake Bond’s character in supposing he could be influenced by partridges. He is a man of a very independent mind, with whom pheasants at least, or perhaps turkeys, are necessary."

LADY HOLLAND, 19th Oct. 1823.—"All duchesses seem agreeable to clergymen; but she would really be a very clever, agreeable woman, if she were married to a neighbouring vicar; and I should often call upon her." (Apparently the Duchess of Bedford.)

MRS SYDNEY, 7th May 1826.—"My two reviews are very much read, and praised here for their fun; I read them the other night, and they made me laugh a good deal."

MRS SYDNEY, n.d.—In a French diligence was "a sensible man, with that propensity which the French have for explaining things which do not require explanation. He explained to me, for instance, what he did when he found coffee too strong; he put water in it!"

LADY HOLLAND, 6th Nov. 1827.—"Jeffrey has been here with his adjectives, who always travel with him. His throat is giving way; so much wine goes down it, so many million words leap over it, how can it rest? Pray make him a judge; he is a truly great man, and is very heedless of his own interests."

LORD HOLLAND, July 1828.—"I hear with great concern of your protracted illness. I would bear the pain for you for a fortnight if I were allowed to roar, for I cannot bear pain in silence and dignity. . . . God bless you, dear Lord Holland! There is nobody in the world has a greater affection for you than I have, or who hears with greater pain of your illness."

LADY HOLLAND, Dec. 1828.—"I not only was never better, but never half so well: indeed I find I have been very ill all my life, without knowing it. Let me state some of the goods arising from abstaining from all fermented liquors. First, sweet sleep; having never known what sweet sleep was, I sleep like a baby or a ploughboy. . . . If I dream, it is not of lions and tigers, but of Easter dues and tithes. . . . My understanding is improved, and I comprehend Political Economy. I see better without wine and spectacles than when I used both. Only one evil ensues from it: I am in such extravagant spirits that I must lose blood, or look out for some one who will bore and depress me."

LADY HOLLAND, July 1831.—"I thank God heartily for my comfortable situation in my old age,—above my deserts, and beyond my former hopes."

MRS MEYNELL, Sept. 1831.—"I am just stepping into the carriage to be installed by the Bishop. . . . It is, I believe, a very good thing, and puts me at my ease for life. I asked for nothing—never did anything shabby to procure preferment. These are pleasing recollections."

(It was a Prebendal Stall at St Paul’s, given to him by Lord Grey.)

COUNTESS OF MORLEY, 1831.—"I went to court, and, horrible to relate! with strings to my shoes instead of buckles—not from Jacobinism, but ignorance. I saw two or three Tory Lords look at me with dismay."

The Clerk of the Closet spoke to Sydney, who had to gather his sacerdotal petticoats about him "like a lady conscious of thick ankles."

R. SHARPE, 1835.—"You have met, I hear, with an agreeable clergyman: the existence of such a being has been hitherto denied by the naturalists; measure him, and put down on paper what he eats."

SIR WILMOT HORTON, 1835.—"No book has appeared for a long time more agreeable than the Life of Mackintosh; it is full of important judgments on important men, books, and things." Elsewhere he speaks of travelling one hundred and fifty miles in his carriage, with a green parrot and the Life of Mackintosh.

MRS ---, 7th Sept. 1835.—"I send you a list of all the papers written by me in the Edinburgh Review. Catch me, if you can, in any one illiberal sentiment, or in any opinion which I have need to recant; and that after twenty years scribbling upon all subjects."

COUNTESS GREY, 20th Oct. 1835 (Paris).—"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."

MISS G. HARCOURT, 1838.—"I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave."

SIR GEORGE PHILIPS, about Sept. 1838.—"Nickleby is very good. I stood out against Mr Dickens as long as I could, but he has conquered me."

MRS MEYNELL, Oct. 1839.—"I feel for --- about her son at Oxford; knowing as I do, that the only consequences of a University education are, the growth of vice and the waste of money."

LADY HOLLAND, 28th Dec. 1839.—"I have written against --- one of the cleverest pamphlets I ever read, which I think would cover --- and him with ridicule. At least it made me laugh very much in reading it; and there I stood, with the printer’s devil and the real devil close to me; and then I said, ‘After all, this is very funny, and very well written, but it will give great pain to people who have been very kind and good to me through life.’" Finally Sydney threw it into the fire.

MRS MEYNELL, June 1840.—"A Canon at the opera! Where have you lived? In what habitations of the heathen? I thank you, shuddering; and am ever your unseducible friend."

COUNTESS GREY, 29th Nov. 1840.—"You never say a word of yourself, dear Lady Grey. You have that dreadful sin of anti-egotism. When I am ill, I mention it to all my friends and relations, to the lord lieutenant of the county, the justices, the bishop, the churchwardens, the booksellers and editors of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews."

LADY ASHBURTON, 1841.—"Still I can preach a little; and I wish you had witnessed, the other day at St Paul’s, my incredible boldness in attacking the Puseyites. I told them that they made the Christian religion a religion of postures and ceremonies, of circumflexions and genuflexions, of garments and vestures, of ostentation and parade."

R. MURCHISON, 26th Dec. 1841.—"Immediately before my window there are twelve large oranges on one tree." He adds that they are not Linnæan orange-trees but bay-trees with oranges tied on.

LADY DAVY, 11th Sept. 1842.—"I have not yet discovered of what I am to die, but I rather believe I shall be burnt alive by the Puseyites."

LADY GREY, 19th Sept. 1842.—"I tire of Combe Florey after two months, and sigh for a change, even for the worse. This disposition in me is hereditary; my father lived, within my recollection, in nineteen different places."

LADY HOLLAND, 6th Nov. 1842.—Asked by her to go to opera, he replies: "It would be rather out of etiquette for a Canon of St Paul’s to go to an opera; and where etiquette prevents me from doing things disagreeable to myself, I am a perfect martinet."

COUNTESS GREY, 21st Dec. 1842.—"I am quite delighted with the railroad. I came down in the public carriages without any fatigue. . . . Distance is abolished—scratch that out of the catalogue of human evils."

C. DICKENS, 6th Jan. 1843.—"You have been so used to these sort of impertinences that I believe you will excuse me for saying how very much I am pleased with the first numbers of your new work. Pecksniff and his daughters, and Pinch, are admirable—quite first-rate painting, such as no one but yourself can execute."

"P.S.—Chuffey is admirable. I never read a finer piece of writing; it is deeply pathetic and affecting."

Miss G. HARCOURT, 29th March 1843.—"My dear G---

The pain in my knee
Would not suffer me
To drink your bohea.
I can laugh and talk
But I cannot walk;
And I thought His Grace would stare,
If I put my leg on a chair.
And to give the knee its former power,
It must be fomented for half an hour;
And in this very disagreeable state
If I had come at all, I should have been too late."

JOHN MURRAY, 4th June 1843.—"My youngest brother died suddenly, leaving behind him £100,000 and no will. A third of this therefore fell to my share, and puts me at my ease for my few remaining years."

MRS GROTE, 17th July 1843.—"I met Brunel at the Archbishop’s and found him a very lively and intelligent man. He said that when he coughed up the piece of gold, the two surgeons, the apothecary, and physician all joined hands, and danced round the room for ten minutes, without taking the least notice of his convulsed and half-strangled state. I admire this very much."

"I much doubt if I have ever gained £1500 by my literary labours in the course of my life" (31st Aug. 1843).

C. DICKENS, 21st Feb. 1844,—"Many thanks for the ‘Christmas Carol,’ which I shall immediately proceed upon, in preference to six American pamphlets . . . all promising immediate payment!"

COUNTESS GREY, 11th Oct. 1844.—"See what rural life is:—

"Combe Florey Gazette.

"Mr Smith’s large red cow is expected to calve this week.

"Mr Gibbs has bought Mr Smith’s lame mare.

"It rained yesterday, and, a correspondent observes is not unlikely to rain to-day.

"Mr Smith is better.

"Mrs Smith is indisposed.

"A nest of black magpies was found near the village yesterday."

Sydney Smith died 22nd February 1845.

NOTES:

{175a} A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by his daughter, Lady Holland. With a selection from his letters, edited by Mrs Austin. 2nd Edit., 1855.

{175b} Her maiden name was Pybus; they were married in 1799 or 1800.

{175c} Sydney Smith believed (i., p. 403) that "one of the Duke of Wellington’s earliest victories was at Eton, over" Sydney’s "eldest brother Bobus."

{176a} The remark was allowable since Robert was singularly handsome (i., p. 4).

{176b} I gather that the fellowship was but £100 per annum.

{177a} Francis Jeffrey, afterwards Lord Jeffrey, 1773–1850, was the son of a high Tory, but personally a Liberal. He is described as being healthy though diminutive. Sydney Smith makes jokes about his stature: e.g., 3rd September 1809, "Are we to see you? (a difficult thing at all times to do)." In character he is described as "nervous, sensitive, and tender." Sydney wrote to him in 1806:—If "you could be alarmed into the semblance of modesty you would charm everybody; but remember my joke against you about the moon;—‘D---n the solar system! bad light—planets too distant—pestered with comets—feeble contrivance;—could make a better with great ease.’"

{177b} Horner, Francis (1778–1817), called to the Bar in 1807, and was through the influence of Lord Carrington returned for the borough of Wendover. He was a man of sound judgment and unassuming manners, of scrupulous integrity, and great amiability of character. He was a correct and forcible speaker, and though without the gift of humour, exercised a remarkable influence in the House of Commons, owing to his personal character. He was one of the original founders of the Edinburgh Review, the other two being Jeffrey and Sydney Smith.

{178a} The closely allied name, Sabelina, occurs in Sir N. Moore’s History of St Bartholomew’s Hospital, vol. i., p. 64.

{178b} It was said (i., p. 138) that the King, who had been reading Sydney’s Edinburgh Review articles, remarked that he was a very clever fellow but would never be a bishop.

{183} It appears (i., p. 282) that he felt deeply the fact that he had not been offered a Bishopric, though he had made up his mind to refuse it. Lord Melbourne is said to have much regretted not having made a bishop of Sydney.

{185} Sydney wrote of Macaulay: "I always prophesied his greatness from the first moment I saw him, then a very young and unknown man, on the Northern Circuit." His enemies might say he talked rather too much, "but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful" (i., p. 415).

{186} The wife of Henry Richard Vassall Fox, 3rd Baron Holland (1773–1840), only son of Stephen, 2nd Lord Holland by Lady Mary Fitzpatrick, daughter of the Earl of Upper Ossory. He was a consistent Liberal in politics, and supported all measures against the slave trade and was in favour of emancipation, and this in spite of being the owner of "extensive plantations in Jamaica." After his death the following verse in his handwriting was found on his dressing-table:—

"Nephew of Fox, and friend of Grey,
Enough my mead of fame
If those who deign’d to observe me say
I injured neither name."

In the version quoted by Sydney Smith (Memoir and Letters, vol. ii., p. 457) the last line is "I tarnished neither name"; the punctuation is slightly different from the above, which is taken from the Dict. of Nat. Biog.

[The end]
Francis Darwin's essay: Sydney Smith

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