Sydney Smith

as the foundation of the Edinburgh Review. Writing in 1839, and looking back upon the strugg

d Advocate for Scotland), and Lord Brougham; all of them maintaining opinions upon political subjects a little

r. Jeffrey. I proposed that we should set up a Review; this was acceded to with acclamation. I was appointed Editor, and r

sam, medit

literature on a

I am sure, ever read a single line; and so began what has since turned out to be a very important and able journal. When I left Ed

t all over the country; prisoners tried for their lives could have no counsel. Lord Eldon and the Court of Chancery pressed heavily on mankind. Libel was punished by the most cruel and vindictive imprisonments. The principles of Political Economy were little understood. The laws of debt and consp

left on record a

of contributors. There was himself, ready to write any number of articles, or to edit the whole; there was Jeffrey, facile princeps in all kinds of literature; there was myself, full of mathematics and everything relating to the Colonies; there was

usiness was arranged with Constable in Edinburgh, and Longman in London: and the first number (clad in that famous livery of Blue and B

INBURG

CAL J

O

802-Ja

ntinued

*

ur cum nocen

IUS

slashing attack on John Bowles,[20] who had published an alarmist pamphlet on the designs of France. Jeffrey thought t

red to be hired by government, and has talked about social order till be has talked himself into

The substance and style of his articles will be considered later on. As to his motives in writing, he stated them to Jeffrey as being, "First,

to send it to Jeffrey, and waited till it came out; immediately after which I enclosed to him a bill in these words, or words like them: 'Francis Jeffrey,

garding Holy Orders frankly as a profession, Sydney naturally desired professional advancement, and this of course could not be attained in presbyterian Scotland. "I could not hold myse

called it "that energetic and unfragrant city." He dwelt in memory on its "odious smells, barba

ge of Perth, on one occasion the ammunition failing, their nectarines made admirable cannon-balls. Even the enlightened mind of Jeffrey cannot shake off the illusion that myrtles flourish at Craig Crook.[22] In vain I have represented to him that they are of the genus Carduus, and pointed out their prickly peculiarities.... Jeffrey sticks to his my

England, he wrote to

good fortune will be very great, if I should ever again fall into the society of so many liberal, correct, and inst

, abandoning his philosophical pursuits. "He lives very high up in Garden Court, and thinks a good deal about Mankind." But he could spare a thought for individuals as well as for the race, and did a great deal towards securing his friend an introduction into congenial society. Doughty Street was a legal quarter, and amon

found himself a member of the most brilliant circle ever gathered under an English roof. In old age he used to declare, to the amusement of his friends, that as a young man he had been shy, but had wrestled with the temptation and overcome it. As regards the master[25] of Holland House, it was not easy to be shy in the presence of "that frank politeness which at once

to dinner in a hackney coach (a vehicle, by the bye, now become almost matter of history), when the rattling step was let

he laudable desire of putting a few pounds into a friend's pocket, he suggested that Sydney Smith should be invited to lecture before the Institution. The invitation was cordially given and gratefully accepted. The lecturer chose "Moral Philosophy" for his subject, and the Introductory Lecture, in which he defined his terms, was deli

hether any better than creditably others know better than myself. I have still ten to read." This second course followed immediately on the first, and, under the general head of "Taste," discussed topics so various

iages assembled there during the time of their delivery. There was not sufficient room for the person

arrow, was one of the audience, and remembered the lectures forty years after their delivery. As late as 1843, Dr. Whewell[29] inquired if they were still accessible

ic settles into a just equilibrium respecting them. I am most heartily ashamed of my own fame, because I am conscious I do

e erected, which had never before been required, and the success was complete." The general subject of this third course was "The Active Powers of the M

t is satisfactory to find that he did not take his performance very seriously, or set a very hi

bemarle Street blocked up with carriages, and such an uproar as I never remember to have seen excited by any other literary imposture. Every week I had a new theory about Conception and Perception, and support

ripts, a good deal damaged, from the flames, and after her husband's death she published

. A benevolent friend obtains him the opportunity of lecturing. It is not uncharitable to suppose that he chooses a subject in which accurate knowledge and close argument will be less requisite than fluency, fancy, bold statement, and extraordinarily felicitous illustration. The five years spent in Edinburgh can now be turned to profitable account. Dugald Stewards lectures can be exhumed, decorated, and reproduced. The whole book reeks of Scotland. The lecturer sets out by declaring that Moral Philosophy is taught in the Scotch Universities alone. England knows nothing about it. At Edinburgh Moral Philosophy means Mental Philosophy, and is concerned with "the faculties of the mind and the effects which our reasoning powers and our passions produce upon the actions of our lives." It has nothing to do with ethics or duty. And the definition used in Edinburgh is also used in Albemarle

lecturer goes on, as becomes a divine, to champion his study against the reproach of tending to Atheism. He groups all our senses, facultie

s contrasted, greatly to his disadvantage, with Bacon. "Volumes of Aristotelian philosophy have been written which, if piled one upon another, would have equalled the Tower of Babel in Height, and far exceeded it in Confusion." But to Bacon "we are in

to render any close criticism of them impossible. But enough has been quoted to show that Sydney Smith, so far as he was in any sense concer

d by a Scotch metaphysician: in other and better language, they are mere ideas, shot by other ideas, out of a pure intellectual notion called a gun." In another letter to the same correspondent he says-"I ho

Jeffrey he w

What's the use of honour? What's a guinea but a d--d yellow circle? The whole effort of your mind is to destroy. Because others build slightly and eagerly, yo

ue, and another pink, and another yellow. 'Why, in short,' said Douglas, 'it is their nature; and, when we say that, what do we mean? It is only a

first course. It is only by the exercise of a genial violence that his dissertations on Wit and Humour, Irish Bulls, Taste, Animals, and Habit, can be forced to take shelter under the dignified title of Moral Philosophy.

olution that they would burn his notes, which accordingly they did, with great assiduity; forgetting that, in burning his notes, they

s been revived. It would be curious to see if

Habit, I cull this

e greatest fury. The doctor caught him by the throat, threw him, and lay upon him; and, whilst he kept him down, considered what he should do in that exigence. The account the doctor gave of it to his friends was, that he had once a mind to have killed the dog; but he altered his resolution upon recollecting that it would be unjust, since the dog only did his duty, and he himself

ton, though much given to sentiment, made a Labairi snake bite itself, but no bad consequences ensued-nor would any bad consequences ensue, if a court-mar

now St. Saviour's Church, Fitzroy Square.[33] These various appointments, coupled with his lectures at the Royal Institution, brought him increasingly into public notice. His preaching was admired by some important people. His contributions to the Edinburgh, so entirely unlike anything else in periodical literature, were eagerly anticipated and keenly canvassed. It was reported that King George III. had read them, and had said, "He is a very clever fellow, but he will never be a bishop." His social gifts won him friends wherever he went; and Lord and Lady Holland, though themselves not addicted to the public observances of religion, were anxious to promote his professional

ry 1806, and Lord Grenville[34] succeeded him, at the head of the ministry of "All the Talents." In this place, pe

Honourable

rs in fore

nditure of our

oundation of Na

d the seeds

ument wa

who mistook his el

olence for

hy men whom he

en, whom he had en

pe

r Engl

raised from

een erect

om it those d

st under

e Repres

the deep

and effic

ord to his colleague; the Chancellor cordially accepted "the nominee of Lord and Lady Holland"; and that nominee was Sydney Smith. Foston was worth ￡500 a year, and Dr. Markham, Archbishop of York, allowed the new Rector to be non-resident, acceptin

. It would have made an admirable party speech in Parliament, but as

for having coined the phrase-"The elegant simplicity of the Three per cents"). The old judge took a fancy to the young clergyman, and pointed out, in a friendly spirit, how much he had lost by his devotion to Whi

from his political allegiance; and, just at this period, he was meditating the mos

s that the world has ever seen was wading through slaughter to a universal throne, and no effective resistance had as yet been offered to a progress which menaced the freedom of Europe and the existence of its states. At such a juncture it seemed to Sydney Smith that England could not spare a single soldier or sailor, nor afford to alienate the loyalty of a single citizen. "Buona

his pregnant the

OLICS TO MY BROTHER ABRAHAM WHO LIV

ore, bearing the same title, four of which appeared in the same year and five in the next. A little later Sydney Smith wrote to Lord

s to find out the author; all that they could find out was that they were brought to Mr. Budd, the publisher, by the Earl of Lauderdale.[39] Somehow or another it came to be conjectured that I was

one caution, er

t wings of Saff

ndering Brougha

nnocks, Caulifl

Bards and Sco

er of political pamphlet

91-1871), American trav

's house nea

ble loss we have all sustained. He will always live in our recollection; and it will be useful to us all, in

I have inverted the laws of nature. He r

rd (1773-1840),

lay, "Lord

zabeth Vassall (1770-1845), wife of the 3rd Lord Holland. Sydney Smith's daughter, Saba,

(1750

ster of Trinity College, Cambridge,

of the most virtuous men that ever lived. As a metaphysician, Dugald Stewart was a humbug to him. Brown had real talents for the thing. You must recognize, in reading Brown, many of those arguments with which I have so often

See p

, in London, to a clergyman of the Establishment. The proprietor was tired of his irrational tenants, and wished for better doctrine. The rector, with e

for its eloquence and power of reasoning, exceeded anything I had ever heard. The subject was the Conversion o

ville (1759-1834), create

751-1830), created

), created Lord

(1792

acquired by his marriage with

Earl of Lauder

utes the authorship of Peter Plymley to "Smug Sydney." Se