Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith.

THE witty and accomplished Canon of St. Paul's certainly required no factitious accessories or accident of birth to add lustre to his worldwide reputation; nor does it appear that the ubiquitous patronymic which he derived from his ancestors was in any way distinguished among its compeers by a greater degree of antiquity or good fortune. His father, whose family were originally from Devonshire, resided at Lydiard near Taunton; but the subject of our memoir was born in the year 1768 at Woodford in Essex. It was at Winchester, at the ancient school founded by William of Wykeham, that Sydney Smith imbibed the first draughts of knowledge, and laid the foundation of those solid attainments, and developed those intellectual powers, which have, during the past half century, exercised a much more powerful influence upon the literature and social condition of England, than a superficial observer would be willing to concede. He was elected to New College, Oxford, in the year 1780, where ten years afterwards he obtained a fellowship; but it was not until 1796 that he attained his degree of M.A. He had by this time completed his thirtieth year, without giving to the world any manifestations of those extraordinary endowments which subsequently gave him so high a position as a literary man, and rendered him so important a member of the Whig

party. He now took orders, and was ordained to the curacy of Netheravon, near Amesbury, Wilts, where he resided in almost perfect solitude for two years. This brought him into the notice and intimacy of Mr. Hicks Beach, then the representative for Cirencester, who soon prevailed upon him to undertake the tutorship of his son. Accordingly, young Mr. Beach and his liberal-minded tutor, after failing in an attempt to reach the University of Weimar, which was then the seat of war, settled down at Edinburgh, where he remained nearly five years. Here his career as an author may be said to have commenced; and he soon found himself acquainted with Brougham, Jeffrey, and Murray.

It was now, as is well known, that he struck out the happy idea of establishing the Edinburgh Review, which, for half a century, has enjoyed an uninterrupted popularity. In the lively account which Sydney Smith himself gave of its origin in the preface to the collected edition of his writings, he says: "The motto I proposed for the Review was

'Tenui musam meditamur avena.'

'We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal.'

But this was too near the truth to be admitted, and so we took our present grave motto from Publius Syrus, of whom none of us had, I am sure, ever read a single line; and so began what has since turned out to be a very important and able journal." He remained in Edinburgh only long enough to edit the first few numbers, as in 1803 he removed to London, and, in the thirth-fifth year of his age, married the daughter of Mr. Pybus, the banker.

Although Mr. Smith had now ceased to be the editor of the Edinburgh Review, he continued to be one of its most active contributors, writing frequently on subjects of social and political interest, occasionally varying his contributions with a purely literary article. After settling in London, he became an exceedingly popular preacher,

With this request he

seasons of 1804-6, to They were privately

and the chapels where he preached were crowded with the wealthy, the dignified, and even the learned. At length the Royal Institution, attracted by his great reputation, invited him to deliver a course of lectures on Moral Philosophy. complied, and the series was read in the overflowing audiences, with the greatest eclât. printed at the time for circulation among his more intimate friends; but it was not until 1850 that, at the instance of Lord Jeffrey, they were at length presented to the public, as it were, an intellectual legacy from the great mind which had so lately passed away. As might be anticipated, they abound in felicitous illustrations of wit and humour; for who could throw so playful a light round a hackneyed definition, or demolish an unfortunate paradox with greater gusto than the arch-wit himself; and here accordingly the miso-punster will find a homily to his heart's content on Dr. Johnson's famous dictum, that a man who makes a pun will pick your pocket.

Sydney Smith was now in his hey-day of fame; and Byron, who, in his Don Juan, describes him as "the loudest wit he e'er was deafened with," thus recalls

"his livelier London days,

A brilliant diner out, though but a curate,
And not a joke he cut, but carn'd its praise,

Until preferment, coming at a sure rate,

(O Providence! how wondrous are thy ways!

Who would suppose thy gifts sometimes obdurate?)
Gave him, to lay the devil who looks o'er Lincoln,

A fat hen vicarage, and nought to think on.

His jokes were sermons, and his sermons jokes;

But both were thrown away amongst the fens;
For wit hath no great friend in aguish folks.

No longer ready ears and short-hand pens
Imbibed the gay bon-mot, or happy hoax;

The poor priest was reduced to common sense,

Or to coarse efforts very ioud and long,

To hammer a hoarse laugh from the thick throng."

It was a member of the Whig ministry of 1806 who conferred upon Sydney Smith the living which he held in Yorkshire; but he was not long settled there when the cry of No Popery expelled the government of that day, and Mr. Perceval ruled in their stead. Now appeared the celebrated "Letters of Peter Plymley to his Brother Abraham in the Country," which are even at this day allowed to be amongst the most interesting and amusing publications with which a few leisure hours can be occupied. They are written in the best spirit of controversy; they abound in the happiest illustrations; and though light, lively, and sparkling, these qualities abate nothing of their logical force and downright common sense. As such, they were one of the powerful agents at work which eventually accomplished the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829.

Throughout his long life, Sydney Smith was a consistent Whig; and to do his party justice, when the time arrived for rewarding his undeviating devotion to the common interest, their ancient fellowlabourer was not altogether forgotten. In the year 1831, he was appointed Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, having already obtained in 1829 the Rectory of Combe Florey in Somersetshire, with £300 a-year. Here it should be mentioned, that Lord Lyndhurst, disregarding the political differences of his friend, had after the year 1827, presented him to a Canonry in Bristol Cathedral, and as a dignitary of the Church, he then ceased to write anonymously. By this time he had declined into the vale of years, and the pecuniary advantages to be derived from the exercise of his literary powers had ceased to become an object to him. His pen was therefore in some degree laid aside; and he was not induced to resume it till an occurrence took place which he regarded as a downright invasion of his property, and of the rights of Deans and Chapters, which, as a member of one of those corporations, he had sworn to defend. Lord John Russell had introduced into Parliament a bill, which very materially interfered