Sydney Smith

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sydney Smith, by George W. E. Russell This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: Sydney Smith Author: George W. E. Russell Release Date: July 22, 2004 [eBook #12994] Language: English ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SYDNEY SMITH*** E-text prepared by Robert Connal and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team from images generously provided by the Million Books Project ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS SYDNEY SMITH by GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL LONDON, NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FIVE PREFACE In writing this Study of Sydney Smith, I have been working in a harvest-field where a succession of diligent gleaners had preceded me. As soon as Sydney Smith died, his widow began to accumulate material for her husband's biography. She did not live to see the work accomplished, but she enjoined in her will that some record of his life should be written. The duty was undertaken by his daughter, Saba Lady Holland, who in 1855 published A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith. To this memoir was subjoined a volume of extracts from his letters, compiled by his friend and admirer Mrs. Austin. For nearly thirty years Lady Holland's Memoir and Mrs, Austin's Selection of Letters together constituted the sole Biography of Sydney Smith, and they still remain of prime authority; but they are lamentably inaccurate in dates. Lord Houghton's slight but vivid monograph was published in 1873. In 1884 Mr. Stuart Reid produced A Sketch of the Life and Times of Sydney Smith, in which he supplemented the earlier narrative with some traditions derived from friends then living, and "painted the figure of Sydney Smith against the background of his times." In 1898 the late Sir Leslie Stephen contributed an article on Sydney Smith to the Dictionary of National Biography; but added little to what was already known. On these various writings I have perforce relied, for their respective authors seemed to have exhausted all available resources. Lord Carlisle has some of Sydney Smith's letters at Castle Howard, and Lord Ilchester has some at HollandHouse; but both assure me that everything worth publishing has already been published. I have, however, been more fortunate in my application to my cousin, Mr. Rollo Russell, and to four of Sydney Smith's descendants—Mr. Sydney Holland, Mr. Holland-Hibbert of Munden, Miss Caroline Holland, and Mrs. Cropper of Ellergreen. To all these my thanks are due for interesting information, and access to valuable records. In common with all who use the Reading-Room of the British Museum, I am greatly indebted to the skill and courtesy of Mr. G.F. Barwick. So much for the biographical part of my work. In the critical part I have relied less on authority, and more on my own devotion to Sydney Smith's writings. That devotion dates from my schooldays at Harrow, and is due to the kindness of my father. He had known "dear old Sydney" well, and gave me the Collected Works, exhorting me to study them as models of forcible and pointed English. From that day to this, I have had no more favourite reading. G.W.E.R. November 12th, 1904.CONTENTS CHAPTER I EDUCATION—SALISBURY PLAIN—EDINBURGH CHAPTER II "THE EDINBURGH REVIEW"—LONDON—"MORAL PHILOSOPHY" CHAPTER III "PETER PLYMLEY" CHAPTER IV FOSTON—"PERSECUTING BISHOPS"—BENCH AND BAR CHAPTER V "CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION "—BRISTOL—COMBE FLOREY—REFORM—PROMOTION CHAPTER VI ST. PAUL'S—THE PARALLELOGRAM—"ARCHDEACON SINGLETON"—COLLECTED WORKS CHAPTER VII CHARACTERISTICS—HUMOUR—POLITICS—CULTURE—THEORIES OF LIFE—RELIGION APPENDICES INDEXSYDNEY SMITHCHAPTER I EDUCATION—SALISBURY PLAIN—EDINBURGH A worthy tradesman, who had accumulated a large fortune, married a lady of gentle birth and manners. In later years one of his daughters said to a friend of the family, "I dare say you notice a great difference between papa's behaviour and mamma's. It is easily accounted for. Papa, immensely to his credit, raised himself to his present position from the shop; but mamma was extremely well born. She was a Miss Smith—one of the old Smiths, of Essex." It might appear that Sydney Smith was a growth of the same majestic but mysterious tree, for he was born at Woodford; but further research traces his ancestry to Devonshire. "We are all one family," he used to say, "all the Smiths who dwell on the face of the earth. You may try to disguise it in any way you like—Smyth, or Smythe, or Smijth[1]—but you always get back to Smith after all—the most numerous and most respectable family in England." When a compiler of pedigrees asked permission to insert Sydney's arms in a County History, he replied, "I regret, sir, not to be able to contribute to so valuable a work; but the Smiths never had any arms. They invariably sealed their letters with their thumbs." In later life he adopted the excellent and characteristic motto—Faber meæ fortunæ; and, to some impertinent questions about his grandfather, he replied with becoming gravity—"He disappeared about the time of the assizes, and we asked no questions." As a matter of fact, this maligned progenitor came to London from Devonshire, established a business in Eastcheap, and left it to his two sons, Robert and James. Robert Smith[2] made over his share to his brother and went forth to see the world. This object he pursued, amid great vicissitudes of fortune and environment, till in old age he settled down at Bishop's Lydeard, in Somerset. He married Maria Olier, a pretty girl of French descent, and by her had five children: Robert Percy—better known as "Bobus"—born in 1770; Sydney in 1771; Cecil in 1772; Courtenay in 1773; and Maria in 1774. Sydney Smith was born on the 3rd of June; and was baptized on the 1st of July in the parish church of Woodford. His infancy was passed at South Stoneham, near Southampton. At the age of six he was sent to a private school at Southampton, and on the 19th of July 1782 was elected a Scholar of Winchester College. He stayed at Winchester for six years, and worked his way to the top place in the school, being "Prefect of Hall" when he left in 1788. Beyond these facts, Winchester seems to retain no impressions of her brilliant son, in this respect contrasting strangely with other Public Schools. Westminster knows all about Cowper—and a sorry tale it is. Canning left an ineffaceable mark on Eton. Harrow abounds in traditions, oral and written, of Sheridan and Byron, Peel and Palmerston. But Winchester is silent about Sydney Smith. Sydney, however, was not silent about Winchester. In one of the liveliest passages of his controversial writings, he said: — "I was at school and college with the Archbishop of Canterbury:[3] fifty-three years ago he knocked me down with the chess-board for checkmating him—and now he is attempting to take away my patronage. I believe these are the only two acts of violence he ever committed in his life." Now Howley was a prefect when Sydney was a junior, and this game of chess must have been (as a living Wykehamist has pointed out to me) "a command performance." The big boy liked chess, so the little boy had to play it: the big boy disliked being checkmated, so the little boy was knocked down. This and similar experiences probably coloured Sydney's mind when he wrote in 1810:— "At a Public School (for such is the system established by immemorial custom) every boy is alternately tyrant and slave. The power which the elder part of these communities exercises over the younger is exceedingly great; very difficult to be controlled; and accompanied, not unfrequently, with cruelty and caprice. It is the common law of these places, that the younger should be implicitly obedient to the elder boys; and this obedience resembles more the submission of a slave to his master, or of a sailor to his captain, than the common and natural deference which would always be shown by one boy to another a few years older than himself. Now, this system we cannot help considering as an evil, because it inflicts upon boys, for two or three years of their lives, many painful hardships, and much unpleasant servitude. These sufferings might perhaps be of some use in military schools; but to give to a boy the habit of enduring privations to which he will never again be called upon to submit—to inure him to pains which he will never again feel—and to subject him to the privation of comforts, with which he will always in future abound—is surely not a very useful and valuable severity in education. It is not the life in miniature which he is to lead hereafter, nor does it bear any relation to it; he will never again be subjected to so much insolence and caprice; nor ever, in all human probability, called upon to make so many sacrifices. The servile obedience which it teaches might be useful to a menial domestic; or the habit of enterprise which it encourages prove of importance to a military partisan; but we cannot see what bearing it has upon the calm, regular, civil life, which the sons of gentlemen, destined to opulent idleness, or to any of the more learned professions, are destined to lead. Such a system makes many boys very miserable; and produces those bad effects upon the temper and disposition which boyish suffering always does produce. But what good it does, we are much at a loss to conceive. Reasonable obedience is extremely useful in forming the disposition. Submission to tyranny lays the foundation of hatred, suspicion, cunning, and a variety of odious passions…."The wretchedness of school tyranny is trifling enough to a man who only contemplates it, in ease of body and tranquillity of mind, through the medium of twenty intervening years; but it is quite as real, and quite as acute, while it lasts, as any of the sufferings of mature life: and the utility of these sufferings, or the price paid in com