“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.