Sydney Smith

parson of a rural parish. They proceed throughout on the assumption that the parson is a kind-hearted, honest, and conscientious man; but rather stupid, grossly ignor

brother Peter in London, and Peter's Le

been housed by the Spencers or the Hollands or the Grenvilles. "The best-informed clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropo

Europe, which in twenty years' time will be nothing but a mass of French slaves: and then you, and ten thousand other such boobies as you, call out-'For God's sake, do not think of raising cavalry and infantry in Ireland! They interpret the Epistle to Timothy in a different manner from what we do.... 'What! when Turk, Jew, Heretic, Infidel, Catholic, Protestant, are

the reproach of unfrien

ur

aid with a rich proportion of haycocks and wheat sheaves. When I have laid this foundation for a national religion in the state-when I have placed ten thousand well-educated men in different parts of the kingdom to preach it up, and compelled every one to pay them, whether they hear them or not-I have taken such measures as I know must always procure an immense majori

e feeling that they are persecuted for righteousness' sake; and, the mor

congregation of the Old Jewry[42] to suffocation; and enabled every sublapsarian, and supralapsarian, and semipelagia

is Coronation Oath to resist the emancipa

f a Coronation Oath? or would the spirit of this country tolerate for an hour such ministers and such unheard-of nonsense, if the most distant prospect existed of conciliating the Catholics by every species even of

inder that "there were as many persons put to death for religious opinions under the m

own than that he makes pretty Latin verses; the second seems to me to have the head of a country parson and the tongue of an Old Bailey barrister. If I could see good measures pursued,

ibits a Catholic to sit in Parliament. There could be no such law; because it is impossible to find out what passes in the interior of any man's mind.... The Catholic is excluded from Parliament because he will not swear that he disbelieves the leading doctrines of his religion. The Catholic asks you to abo

general, Peter now turns

lan

ce with England, would in three years render its existence as an independent nation absolutely impossible. You speak of danger to the Establishment; I request to know when the Establishment was ever so much in danger as when Hoche was in Bantry Bay, and whether all the books of Bossuet, or the arts of the Jesuits, were half so terrible?... Whatever you think of the Catholics, there they are-you cannot get rid of them. Your alternative is to give them a lawful place for stating their grievances, or an unlawful one. I

stility to the Roman claims, by affirming that exclusion from civil office was not persecution; and Peter handles him w

hall be a candidate for lucrative and honourable offices but you, who are a Catholic,' I do not persecute! What barbarous nonsense is this! As if degradation was not as great an evil as bodily pain, or as severe poverty; as if I could not be as great a tyrant by saying, 'You shall not enjoy,' as by saying, 'You shall suffer.'... You may not be aware of it, most reverend Abraham, but you deny their freedom to the Cathol

hom she has ever known, and her defence is entrusted to Canning and Perceval. Canning's armoury contains nothing more serviceable than "schoolboy jokes

te Easter offerings; and he will adjust the stipends of curates, when the flag of France is unfurled on the hills of Kent.[46]... Whatever can be done b

Bonaparte. "There is nothing to oppose to the conqueror of the world

vive the recent misfortunes of Europe. Peter replies that if Bonaparte lives, and a great deal

ome; and to perish because we have raised up worse enemies within, from our own b

ery fast, the peril is extreme. How do you think the captain (whom we will call Perceval) acts? Does he call all hands on deck and talk to them of king, country, glory, sweethearts,

f against his infidel opponents, he goes upon deck, reminds the sailors, in a very bitter harangue, that they are of different religions; exhorts the Episcopal gunner not to trust to the Presbyterian quartermaster, issues positive orders that the Catholics should be fired at upon the first appearance of discontent; rushes throug

of Spencer Perceval's official career. Perceval had held a sinecure for several years; at the time of writing he was Chancellor of the Exchequer; and he had j

e revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster for life; would not Mr. Perceval have contended eagerly against the injustice of refusing moderate requests, because immoderate ones may hereafter be made? Would he not have said (and said truly), 'Leave suc

tended that England ought not to pay for the ed

ent amount, this sum was objected to by that most indulgent of Christians, Mr. Spencer Perceval, as enormous; he himself having secured for his own eating and drinking, and the eating and drinking of the Master and Miss Percevals, the reversionary sum of ￡21,000 a year of the public money,[48] and having just failed in

e Roman Catholics date from the Revolution of 1688, and that la

the principal incapacities under which the Irish suffer, they were subjected after that great and glorious Revolution, to which we are indebted for so many blessings..

for Scotland was resolute and rebellious. Then "the true and only remedy was applied. The Scotch were suffered to worship God after their own tiresome manner, without pain, penalty, and privation." And Scotland had become

ion Catholics, lured by all kinds of promises to yield up the separate dignity and sovereignty of their country, are forced to squabble with such a man as Mr. Spencer Perceval for five thousand pounds with which to educate their children in their own mode of worship; he, the same Mr. Spencer, having secured to his own Protestant self a reversionary portion of the

Irish question. It is much too urgent and

, clamours for the knife, and expires under its late operation. Believe me, you talk folly when you speak of suppressing the Irish question. I wish to God that the case admitted of such a remedy ... but, if

who cannot believe that England will

s to the most obvious means of self-defence. As for the spirit of the peasantry, in making a gallant defence behind hedgerows and through plate-racks and hencoops, highly as I think of their bravery, I do not know any nation in Europe so likely to be struck with panic as the English; and this from their total unacquaintance with the science of war. Old wheat and beans blazing for twenty miles round-cart-mares shot-sows of Lord Somerville's[49] breed running wild over the country-the minister of the parish wounded sorely in his hinder parts-Mrs. Plymley in fits-all these scenes of war an Austrian or

d unless she behaves more wisely to her Roman Catholic population, he is not the least afraid o

rd Lord Redesdale speak will knowingly and willingly hear him again; that Lord Eldon has assented to the fact of two and two making four, without shedding tears, or expressing the smallest doubt or scruple; tell me any other thing absurd or incredible, but,

sorbed by France, and will welcome her deliverance from England; that the civil existence of England will be m

-dogs in holy water, and confiscate the salt butter of the Milesian Republic to the last tub? But what matters this? or who is wise enough in Ireland to heed it? or when had common sense much influence with my poor dear Irish? Mr. Perceval does not know the Irish; but I know them, and I know that, at every rash and mad hazard, they will break the Union, revenge their wounded pride and their insulted religion, and fling themselves into the open arms of France, sure of dying in th

and foot, laid them on their backs, and compelled them to look on while the majority were stuffing themselves with beef and beer-and this, although they had contributed an equal quota to the expense. Next year the same assault was perpetrated. It soon grew into a custom; and, as years went on, the village came to look on the annual act of tyranny as the most sacred of its institutions. Unfortunately, however, for the tyrannical majority, the inhabitants of the persecuted street increased in numbers, determination, and

equalled by your ingratitude, you have the impudence to ask for knives and forks, and to request, in terms too plain to be mistaken, that you may sit down to table with the rest, and be indulged even with beef and beer. There are not more than half a dozen dishes which we have reserved for ourselves; the rest has been thrown

f the village and live in one of the three favoured streets, have retained some sense of justice, and I most earnestly counsel these half-fed

let them desire him to empty his pockets, and to pull out all the pieces of duck, fowl, and

he lesser of the two Jenkinsons."[51] Lord Hawkesbury has said that "nothing is to be

om the bottom of my heart, do I believe to be the present state of that country; and so little does it appear to me to be impolitic and unstatesmanlike to concede anything to such a danger, that if the Catholics, in addition to their present just demands, were to petition for the perpetual removal of the said Lord Hawkesbury fro

lacing all his hopes for the salvation of England in the

ry is a gentleman-a respectable as well as a highly agreeable man in private life; but you may as well feed me with decayed potatoes as console me for the miseries of Ireland by the resources of his 'sense' and his 'discretion.' It is only the public situation which this gentleman holds that entitles m

nd his colleagues, Ireland

l state Ireland is in! The common toast among the low Irish is, 'The Feast of the Pass-over.' Some allusion to Bonaparte, in a play lately acted at Dublin, produced thunders of applause from the pit and the galleries; and a politician should not be inattentive to the public feelings expressed in theatres. Mr. Perceval thinks he has disarmed the Irish. He has no more disarmed the Irish than he has resigned a shilling of his own public

e remedies, Mr. Secretar

nt, unseasonable, and so

nius, in the estimation of brother Abraham, is to extinguish the genius of Bonaparte. Pompey was killed by a slave, Goliath smitten by a stripling; Pyrrhus died by the hand of a woman. Tremble, thou gr

eeded for the capture of Ireland. And Bonaparte can increase his forces every day. With all Europe at his feet, he can get timber and stores and men to any conceivable amount. "He is at present the despotic monarch of above twe

s one point, and there is nothing which I would not consent to grant them. Perceval should have full liberty to insult the tomb of Mr. Fox, and to torment every eminent Dissenter in Great Britain. Lord Camden should have large boxes of plums; Mr. Rose receive permission to prefix to his name the appellation of Virtuous; and to

eat Britain, reaching from the Firth of Clyde north to the Bristol Channel south, and varying in distance from 20 to 100 miles; so that the subjugation of Ireland would compel us to guard with ships and soldiers a new line of coast, certainly amounting, with all its sinuosities, to more than 700 miles-an addition of p

f admitting the Protestants to an equality of rights with the Catholics, and that he had left in the middle of his empire these vigorous seeds of hatred and disaffection. But the world was never yet conquered by a blockhead. One of the very first measures we saw him recurring to was the complete establishment of religious liberty. If his subjects fought and paid as he pleased, h

al in subjects of religion because he has no religion, is this a reason why we should be illiberal because we are Christians? If he owes this excellent qua

ies, he says, will, in the process of time, become matter of pleasantry even to "the sedulous housewife and the Rural Dean." There is always a copi

here are always a set of worthy and moderately-gifted men who bawl out death and ruin upon every

esult of continued injustice. Brother Abraham, "skilled in the arithmetic of Tithe," must perceive that it is better to have four friends and one enemy, than four enemies and one friend; and, the more violent the hatred of the Orangemen, the mor

turing between Lady Day and Michaelmas; a short specimen of Mr. Perceval's rigour. I have malice enough to ask this slight atonement for the groans and

ration of offices not tenable

r or Custos Rotulorum of Counties, Chief Governor's Secretary, Privy Councillor, King's Counsel, Serjeant, Attorney, Solicitor-General, Master in Chancery, Provost or Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, Postmaster-General, Master and Lieutenant-General of Ordnance, Commander-in-Chief, General on the Staff, Sheriff, Sub-Sheriff, Mayor, Bailiff, Recorder, Burgess, or any other officer in

unacquainted with that country, can conceive the obstacles to justice which exclusion from these offices entails. The lives, liberties, and properties of the Roman Catholic

ould be a most unpardonable breach of his duty if he did not summon a Protestant panel. I can easily believe that the Protestant panel may conduct themselves very conscientiously in hanging the gentlemen of the Crucifix; but I blame the law which does not guard the Catholic against the probable tenour of those feelings which m

the great scene of Jobbery. They have the power of levying a county rate for roads, bridges, and other public accommodation

ve the bridge constructed in a situation where it will make a bea

and who believes in Seven Sacraments can carry a public road, or bridge, one yard out of its way, and that nobody can cheat the public who does not expound the Scriptures in the purest

e which consists in exclusion from t

rt, much differ from these opinions. Do you think that the fathers and mothers of the holy Catholic church are not as absurd as Protestant papas and mammas? The probability I admit to be, in each case, that the sweet little blockhead will in fact never get a brief. But I venture to say that there is not a parent from the Giant's Causeway to Bantry Bay, who does not co

raised at the General Election of 1807, and derides the loyal indignation then directed against

an accident which once befell the Russian Ambassador in London. His Excellency fell down in a fit when paying a morning call. A doctor was summoned, who declared that the patient must be instantly bled; and he prepared to perform t

in Ireland, and pay for the maintenance of their schools and churches. He calculated that this would cost ￡250,000 a year. The clergy should all receive their salari

himself, if he were a living blockhead instead of a dead saint, could withstand the temptation of bouncing from ￡100 a year in Sligo, to ￡300 in Tipperary. This i

e the time-honoured remedy of Coercion. This had been demanded by Spencer Perceval, when attacking the con

pleasingly combed; if the Almighty had blessed me with every earthly comfort-how awfully would I pause before I sent forth the flame and the sword over the cabins of the poor, brave, generous, open-hearted peasants of Ireland! How easy it is to shed human blood! How easy it is to persuade ourselves that it i

twenty miles round him, and who has nothing to preach to but bare walls." Let the landowner pay the tithe, and charge the labourer a higher rent. This, Peter seems to think, will meet all the difficulties of the case, and yet not impoverish the Established clergy. And he is more than eve

oid of morality, honesty, knowledge, and civility, as Protestant loungers in Pall Mall; and return home with a supreme contempt for Father O'Leary and Father O'Callaghan.... The true receipt for preserving the Roman Catholic

novations in the Constitution. This, replies Peter, "is as much as to say that the worst time for making friends is the period when yo

o other reason, because King George III. dislikes it. This is an argument which Peter cannot away with. He r

cannot make use of so violent a metaphor; but I am delighted to hear it, when it is a cry of genuine affection: I am delighted to hear it when they hail not only the individual man, but the outward and living sign of all English blessings. These are noble feelings, and the heart of every good man must go

, with his enormous emoluments from the public purse, his dream of pacifying Ireland by con

dream of a wild apothecary indulging in his own opium; this is not the distempered fancy of a pounder of drugs, delirious from smallness of profits-but it is the sober,

ee from the legalized animosities of religion. Did Frederick the Great ever refuse the services of a Catholic soldier? There is a Catholic Secretary of State at St. Petersburgh. There was a Greek Patriarch associated with a Vicar-Apostolic in the government of Venice. A Catholic Emp

th. And now, instead of the plain and manly policy of increasing unanimity at home, by equalizing rights and privileges, what is the ignorant, arrogant, and wicked system which has been pursued? Such a career of madness and of folly was, I believe, never run in so short a period. The vigour of the ministry is like the vigour of a grave-digger-the tomb becomes more ready and more wide for every effort which they make.... Every Englishman felt proud of the integrity of his country; the character of the country is lost for ever. It is of the utmost consequence to a commercial people at war with the greatest part of Europe, that there should be a free entry of neutrals into the enemy's ports; the neutrals who carried our manufactures we have not only excluded, but we have compelled them to declare war against us. It was our interest to make a good peace, or convince our own people that it could not be obtained; we have not made a peace, and we have convinced the people of nothing but of the arrogance of the Foreign Secretary: and all this has taken place in the short space of a year, because a King's Bench barrister and a writer of epigrams, turned into Ministers of State, were determined to show country gentlemen that the late administration had no vigour. In the mean time commerce stands still, manufactures perish, Ireland is more and more irritated, India is threatened, fresh taxes are accumulated upon the wretched people, the war is carried on without it being possible to conceive any one single object which a rational being can propose to himself by its continuation; and in the midst of this unparalleled insanity we are told that the Continent is to be reconquered by the want of rhubarb and plums. A better spiri

performance." In later years Lord Murray[58] said, "After Pascal's Letters, it is the most instructive piece of wisdom in the form of Irony ever written." Macaulay declared that Sydney Smith was "universally admitted to have been a great reasoner, and the greatest master of rid

d Andrew Kippis, D.D. (1723-1795), were

destroyed in 1808. It "covered 2600 square feet, and was

e Canning

r Perceval

to exclude King's Colleg

ity of

rought in several bills

ay their curate

btained the sinecure of

Clerk of the

her's office of Registrar to the Court of Admiralty, and

rd Somerville, President o

encer P

nson (1770-1820), 2nd Ea

y from 17

s appointed Lord Warden

of ￡300

h were not carried from this country and had not paid an export-duty here. But there were certain articles which the Minister decided that the Continent should have on no terms, and amongst others quinine, or Jesuit's Bark, as it was called. Sydney S

putation on Lord Castlereagh." Robert Stewart (1769-1823),

1757-1844), created Vi

d recently taken a villa

of his wif

lder brother, Charles Geo

d Lord Ard

ay (1779-1859), a Judge

hé sous le pseudonyme de Peter Plymley il adresse ces nouvelles provinciales à un révérend pasteur, qui est bi