Sydney Smith

rgyman might hold half-a-dozen separate preferments, and, as long as he paid curates to perform the irreducible minimum of public duty, he need never show his face inside his deserted parishes. The

on of Ely, and drew the tithes of sixteen parishes. William Van Mildert, afterwards Bishop of Durham, was Rector of St. Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, and also held the living of Farningmam, near Sevenoaks, "as an agreeable retreat within a convenient distance from town." Richard Valpy was Head Master of Reading School, and Rector of Stradishall in Suffolk. George Butler, afterwards Dean of Peterborough, was

ere any more coming to church, for there were seldom enough to make a congregation. The former Rector used to boast that he had never set foot in a sick person's cottage." When the shepherds thus deserted and starved their flocks, it was only natural that the sheep betook themselves to every form of schism, irreligion, and immorality. To remedy these evils, Spencer Perceval, whose keen interest in the affairs of the Church had a curiously irritating effect on Sydney Smith, took in hand to pass the Clergy Residence Bill, and the Bill became an Act in 1803. In 1808 a new Archbishop[60] was ent

le, so he published two volumes of sermons and paid for the journey with the ￡200 which he received for them. The rectory-house at Foston was ruinous and uninhabitable, and it was necessary to rebuild it. Meanwhile, the Rector hired a house some way off, in

f I smote the partridge. If anything ever endangers the Church, it will be the strong propensity to shooting for which the clergy are remarka

ces gradually falling off. I shall by this time have taken myself again to shy tricks, pull about my watch-chain, and become (as I was before) your ab

rote on the 3rd

at deal too much. I feel an ungovernable interest about my horses, my pigs, and my plants. I

r he wrote to

I could consider them) appeared to me to be the most eligible. I am resolved, therefore, to like it, and to reconcile myself to it; which is more manly than to feign myself above it, and to send up complaints by the post, of being thrown away, and being desolate, and such-like trash. I am prepared, therefore, either way. If the chances of life ever enable me to emerge, I will show you that I have not been wholly occupied by small and sordid pursuits. If (

of happiness, Sydney Smith had plenty to make him happy during the early y

ng in Yorkshire, where there had not been a resident clergyman for a hundred and fifty years. Fresh from London, and not kn

lerk of the works. The cost of building a house, with bo

s, as I could not afford a governess. I turned farmer, as I could not let my land.... Added to all these domestic cares, I was village parson

a shuttlecock, and I felt grateful that it was not into a neighbouring planet"; and of the ancient carriage called "the Immortal," which was so well known on the road that "the village-boys cheered it and the village-dogs barked at it"-an

not six months old, was attacked by croup, he gave her in twenty-four hours "32 grains of calomel, besides bleeding, blistering, and

es in my parish with ga

the

ping-cough here with a

filled them with th

d thing that such a spe

ow

kind without ever calling in an apothecary, but for one day. I depended

nd vegetable resources of my shop, cravatted his throat with blisters and fringed it with l

ealthy winte

buried fifteen, instead of one per annum. You will naturally suppose I have killed all these people by doctoring

which Mr. Stuart Reid has printed. They contain some excellent advice about the drugs wh

astern blasts,

rigour of th

rture seek thy

poison on his l

lady, when

thers mourn som

aliant, and s

love thee, and r

tic concerns could not

ife of politics. He watch

3, he wrote to his friend

elf about the pros

ngs come to pass, you will no longer be a Warden,[67] but a brown and impalpable powder in the tombs of Dulwich. In the meantime, enough of liberty will remain to make our old-age tolerably co

dy" he dosed his parishioners; and here, having been made a Justice of the Peace, he administered mercy to poachers. He hated the Game-Laws as they stood, and it stirred his honest wrath to reflect that "for every ten pheasants which fluttered in the wood, one English peasant was rotting in gaol." So strong was his belief in the contaminating effects of a prisoner's life that he never, if he could help it, would commit a boy or girl to gaol. He sought permission to accompany Mrs. Fry on one of her visits to Newgate, and spoke of her ministry there as "the most solemn, the most Christian, the most affecting, which any human eye ever witnessed."[69] A pleasing trait of his incumbency at Foston was the creation of allotment-gardens for the p

ney Smith's fifteen years at Foston were happily and profitably spent. He was in the fulness of his physical and intellectual vigou

s is my wont when I preach, the accumulated dust of a hundred and fifty years

gh, he was both helping forward the great causes in which he most earnestly believed, and establishing his own fame. Good healt

he establishment-all of which the Rector habitually and humorously exaggerated-the Rectory was an extremel

. Sydney says; but I think myself we are equal t

inn" was pleasantly supplied by

ly takes up a good deal of my time. Venison is an interesting subject, which is deemed among the clergy a professional one."-"Your grouse are not come by this day's mail, but I suppose they will come to-morrow. Even the rumour of grouse is agreeable."-"Lord Lauderdale has sent me two hundred and thirty pounds of salt fish."-"You have no idea what a num

ernon, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir Humphry Davy, Samuel Rogers, Dr. and Mrs. Marcet, and Francis Jeffrey were among the earliest guests. "Mrs. Sydney was dreadfully ala

the population of Yorkshire"; and the Archbishop of York, who became one of the Smiths' kindest and most faithful friends. Every year Sydney paid a visit to London, receiving the warmest of welcomes from all his old associates. In 1821 he revisited his friends at Edinburgh, and going or coming h

gas! The splendour and glory of Lambton Hall make all other houses mean. How pitiful to submit to a farthing-candle existence, when science puts such intense gratificat

ce, when staying with Philips, Sydney undertook to preach a Charity Sermon in Prestwich Church, and with reference to this he wrote i

ilips's house i

f the fine arts, as he has lately returned from Italy, and purchased some

er never bought any books. He had brought a small but serviceable library with him from Lon

great deal of agricultural reading, Godwin's Enquirer, and a great deal of Ada

, year by year, he laid down for

Latin. Five chapters of Greek Testament. Theological studies. Plato's A

views, Monday, Wednes

rday. Write ten lines o

Greek Testament on rea

ius, or Diodorus Sicu

for Latin, Catullus, Ti

; read Tasso, evening.

ogy. Wednesday, same as

same as Tuesday. Read

translate ten lines o

istory of Roman Jur

ecords of t

quarto as his morning's work. 'Cross-examine me, then,' he said; and we generally found that he knew all that was worth knowing in it." Here, obv

es; only betraying by the movements of his expressive face his amusement and interest "as fresh images came clustering round his pen." As soon as the essay was finished, he would throw it on the table, saying to his wife, "There, Kate, just look it o

he 19th of May 1820, he wrote, "I found in London both my articles very popular-upon the Poor-Laws and America. The passage on Taxation had great success."[76] Some of these papers will be considered separately, when we come to discuss his style and his opinions; but space must here be found for an unrivalled specimen of his c

century. But what he lacked in personal devotion he made up (as some have done since his day) by furious hostility to spiritual and religious enthusiasm in others. He opposed the civil claims alike of Roman Catholics and of Dissenters. He attacked the Bible Society. He denounced Charles Simeon. He insulted Isaac Milner; and he determined to purge his diocese of Evangelicalism (which, oddly enough, he seems to have identified with Calvinism). His manly resolve to stifle religious earnestness culminated in the year 1820, when he drew up a set of eighty-seven questions, which he proposed to every candidate for Orders, and to every clergyman who sought h

shop credit for good intentions; but

exatious to the clergy.... We cannot believe that we are doing wrong in ranging ourselves on the weaker side, in

tarts with the highly reasonable proposition that a man is presumably wrong when all his fri

to abandon his philocathartic propensities-if he were to gratify his convivial habits till the landlord demurred and t

hey certainly love power as well as he. Not one will defend him in debate; n

puts himself in opposition to the bishop who ordained the curate. One standard of orthodoxy is established in one dioce

stions on the art of war, according to my notions.' The same officer who commands a ship of the line in the Mediterranean is considered as equal to the same office in the North Seas. The Sixth Commandment is suspended by one medical diploma from the North of

hardihood to criticize or to resist him; and yet, the reviewer asks, to what purpose has he read his

his mitred butcher into the air? We know these men fully as well as the Bishop; he has not a chance of success against them. They will ravage, roar, and rush till the very chaplains, and the Masters and Misses Pe

are qualities far more valuable in bishops than any "vigilance of inquisition." Prelates of the ty

pirit of putting twice as many, and the Bishop of Sodor and Man with the spirit of putting forty-three questions? There would then be a grand total of two thousand three hundred and thirty-five interrogations flying about the English Church, and sorely vexed would be the land with Question and Answer....

in Bedlam, or till the mob pelts him as he passes." But the reviewer reminds him that he has no similar right as against clergymen presented to benefices in his diocese. They are protected by the patron's action of Quare Impedit; and all

the whole concern. It is not simply the tormenting bishop against the tormented curate; but the public against the system of tormenting, as tending to bring scandal upon religion and religious men. By the late alteration in the laws,[80] the Labourers in the vineyard are given up to the power of the

ies the reviewer with one of his best apologues. "So the Emperor of Hayti boasted that he had only cut off two persons' heads for disagreeable behaviour at his table. In spite of the pa

ion is to restrain the arm of Power within the limits of moderation and justice-one of the great objects which fir

ich Sydney Smith, as Chaplain to the High Sheriff, preached in York Minster at the Spring and

e preacher thus d

s theme upon the importance of human Justice to the happiness of mankind: and, if it be that theme, it is appropriate to this place, and to the solemn public duties

o stand between the governors and the governed, and in that case his hopes of advantage may be found on one side, and his sense of duty on another. At such a crisis he is trebly armed, if he is able from his heart to say-"I have vowed a vow b

ich time and toil, and many prayers to God, and many sufferings of men, have reared; who puts out the light of the times in which he lives, and leaves us to wander amid the darkness of corruption and the desolation of sin. There may be, there probably is, in this church, some young man who may hereafter fill the office of an English Judge, when the greater part of those who hear me are dead, and mingled with the dust of the grave. Let him remember my words, and let them form and fashion his spirit: he cannot tell in what dangerou

ng and practised understanding, from whose views they are perhaps at that moment differing, and whose directions they do not choose to follow; to see at such times every disposition to warmth restrained, and every tendency to contemptuous feeling kept back; to witness the submission of the great and wise, no

we acquire, under his protection we enjoy. Without him, no man would defend his character, no man would preserve his substance. Proper pride, just gains, valuable exertions, all depend upon hi

must have a scrupulous regard to the strength of temptation, the moral

always youthful, always tender, when he is going to shed human blood; retires from the business of men, communes with his own

ration of Justice is the strongest safeg

only be a wild waste of passions. Look what we are, and what just laws have done for us:-a land of piety and charity;-a land of churches, and hospitals, and altars;-a nation of good Samaritans;-a people of universal compassion. All lands, all seas, have heard we are brave. We have just sheathed that sword which defended the world; we have just laid down that buckler which covered the nations of the earth. God blesses the soil with fertility; English looms labour for every climate. All the waters of the globe are covered with English ships. We are softened by fine arts, civilized by humane literature, instructed by deep science; and every people, as they break their feudal chains, look to the founders and fathers of freedom for examples which may animate, and rules which may guide. If ever a nation was happy, if ever a nation was visibly blessed by God-if ever a nation was

eacher, asked what he should do to inherit eternal life, received a very plain answer-"not flowery, not metaphysical, not doctrinal." The answer was, in effect, thus: "

observations on the particular duties they owe to society, because I think it suitable to this particular season, because it is of much more importance to tell men how they are to be Christians in detail, than to exhort them to be Christians generally; because it is o

re not, without any speculative disbelief, perpetually sacrificed to the business of the world? Are not the habits of devotion gradually displaced by other habits of solicitude, hurry, and care? Is not the taste for devotion lessened? Is not the time for devotion abridged? Are you not more and more conquered against your warnings and against your will; not, perhaps, without pain and compunction, by the Mammon of life? And what is the cure for this great evil to which your profession exposes you? The cure is, to keep a sacred place in your heart, where Almighty God is enshrined, and where nothing human can enter; to say to the world, 'Thus far shalt thou go, and no further'; to remember you are a lawyer, without forgett

th its resulting risk to the advocate

asest of human motives. It is astonishing what unworthy and inadequate notions men are apt to form of the Christian faith. Christianity does not insist upon duties to an individual, and forget the duties which are owing to the great mass of individuals, which we call our country; it does not teach you how to benefit your neighbour, and leave you to inflict the most serious injuries upon all whose interest is bound up with you in the same land. I need not say to this congregation that there is a wrong and a right in public affairs, as there is a wrong and a right in private affairs. I need not prove that in any vote, in any line of conduct which affects the public interest, every Christian is bound, most solemnly and most religiously, to follow the dictates of his conscience. Let it be for, let it be against, l

faults of self-sufficiency and affected pessimism, the preacher

xed up for a moment with the criminal, and the crime; fling yourself back upon great principles, fling yourself back upon God; yield not one atom to violence; suffer not the slightest encroachments of injustice; retire not one step before the frowns of power; tremble not, for a single instant, at the dread of misrepresentation. The great interests of mankind are placed in your hands; it is not so much the individual you are defending; it is not so much a matter of consequence whether this, or that, is proved to be a crime; but on such occasions, you are often called upon to defend the occupation of a defender, to take care that the sacred rights belonging to that character are not destroyed; that that best privilege of your profession, which so much secures our regard, and so much redounds to your credit, is never soothed by flattery, never corrupted by favour, ne

n admonition abo

or that your talents and energy may be bought for a price: do not heap scorn and contempt upon your declining years by precipitate ardour for success in your profession; but set out with a firm determination to be unknown, rather than ill-known; and to rise honestly, if you rise at all. Let the world see that you have risen, because the natural probity of your heart leads you to truth; because the precision and extent of your legal knowledge enables you to find the right way of doing the right thing; because a thorough know

n, afterwards Har

ield (1786-1857), Bishop

piscopal wig; and John

anterbury, the

id:-"If you shoot, the s

atural enemies, and I t

peace w

alford, Bart., M

is eld

, by one medical diploma, from the North of Engl

ed to Mrs. H

71-1843) was Warden

eatest, most commodious, and most a

Fry. She is very unpopular with the clergy: examples of living, active virtue distu

n Church as "a miserable litt

ified by Mr.

ription of Dr. Arno

ell (1765-1835),

l of Carlisle (1748-182

e Leves

Smith wrote-"Castle How

hall never forget i

ee App

(1757

d Rev. George Sp

See p

Residence

cts xx

t. Luk