SOCIAL AND POLITICAL. 1802-1825. BY THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. With Portrait and Memoir: LONDON: WARD, LOCK AND CO., WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C. NEW YORK: 10, BOND STREET. THE HE author and speaker, whose works, here reprinted, will retain a place in the British Classics, was born in the county of Essex, in the pleasant village of Woodford. June 3rd, 1771, was the date of his birth, and his life terminated on February 22nd, 1845. His father was an English gentleman, whose habits are described to have been eccentric; his mother was the daughter of a French emigrant; and he was the second of their four sons. The liveliness of his disposition may not have been foreign to the intermixture of the gayer spirit which runs, generally, in Gallic blood, with the usually more sluggish English temperament. He showed early promise; went to Winchester, and became captain of that school; was elected to a scholarship in New College, Oxford, and two years after, in 1792, took his degree of B.A. He also obtained a fellowship of £100 a-year, a fact of consequence to him, as he was by no means well off. His own predilections were for the law, but in obedience to his father's wishes he took orders, and secured a curacy at Nether-Avon, on Salisbury Plain. There he attracted the attention of a wealthy neighbour, Mr. Hicks Beach, M.P. for Cirencester, and became tutor to that gentleman's eldest son. He had previously acquired the French language in a tour through Normandy, and it had been his design to visit, with his pupil, a German University, but the distracted state of the Continent, owing to the French revolution, prevented this step. An abode in Edinburgh was substituted, and during a residence there of several years, Sydney Smith made many valuable and lasting friendships, and acquired some reputation as a preacher and humourist. In 1799, being then 28 years of age, he was married to Miss Pybus, an English lady, the daughter of a banker. At this period the Scottish metropolis could boast of no inconsiderable literary power, and the young clergyman became acquainted with Henry, afterwards Lord Brougham, Francis, afterwards Lord Jeffrey, Francis |