The Press. — London, England, 1855-06-16 00:00:00

yittraturt. A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith. By his Daughter, Lady Holland. With a Selection from his Letters. 2 vols. Edited by Mrs. Austin. London : Longmans. SYDNEY SMITE, when expecting the birth of his first child, expressed a wish that it might be a girl, and that she might have but one eye, as then he should stand but little chance of losing her. In due time the "little stranger" came and was announced to be a girl, but with two eyes, and no doubt bright ones. The joyous father was at the time residing in Edinburgh. His best friends were the young men who soon became the famous reviewers. So in the momentary absence of the nurse he stole the infant from its cradle and exhibited it in triumph to Jeffrey and his other friends. Next be employed himself to find a name fur it. His taste was fastidious : Nobody would believe the meditations, the consultations, and the discussions he held on this impoitant point. At list he determined to invent one, and Saba was the result. His invention in this instance was not very happy ; he certainly did not improve on the names from which he might have chosen. But that was of little consequence. The baby throve; in due tune bloomed into the grace of womanhood, and became the wife of her father's friend and physician, Dr., now Sir Henry, Holland. The prepara tion of this memoir was commenced by her mother as a labour of love, and at last has been completed by herself. Though con structed on a false principle, as far as the profession in the preface and in other parts of the book is concerned, it is yet a very delight ful narrative, presenting 311 the salient features of the witty Canon's character—telling the story of his life in an artless, but truly grace ful style, preserving some of his cleverest talk, and with great good taste drawing the line be tween what it is proper the public should know, and what it would be injudicious to relate. Then how does Lady Holland start from a wrong principle? Only thus. That she writes : I trust to lay before the public such a record of my father's character as a sun, a clergyman, a father, a hus band, and friend, as may be deemed by them nut unworthy of the reputation he has already acquired for talent and honesty by his writings. Now, had Sydney Smith possessed no other claim to distinction than that he acquired by reason of his virtues duly enumerated above, it would have been sufficient to have recorded theni on his tombstone, as no persons apart from his immediate circle would have desired to see them set forth in a memoir. It is on account of his talents that this book will be widely welcomed and read, and it is to under rate the very highest and brightest gift which God can confer on man—superior intellect—to set it below those social 'virtues which are un doubtedly always to be reverenced, but which, happily, are too common to demand any special notice from the world at large. It is only on the supposition that good clergymen, good sons, husbands, fathers, and friends, are as rare, and in a wide sense as useful, as the brilliant intellects which have the power of command ing the attention and influencing the mind of the public, that an extended memoir of such characters Would be allowable. But not even filial devotion would hint that this is the ease. No. We want a memoir of Sydney Smith primarily because he was an influential and witty writer, and because it is natural that we should feel interested in the lives of men with whose minds we have ourselves held communion. Gibbon, in a well-known passage, thanked his stars—he was too philosophical to thank his God—that he was born in England, and in a period of advancing civilisation. Sydney Smith might further be thankful that he was bred a Whig, at a time when Whiggery was rising into fashion, though to be sure he had to struggle against long neglect from the ruling Tory Governments. In this memoir it is hinted, with some soreness, that the valuable Church preferments he received from his Whig friends when the day or Their power came THE PRESS. were far inferior to his merit, and that he ought to have been a bishop, though Sydney often himself shouted " Nolo Episcopari" with all his might. Still a bishopric, it is intimated, should have been offered him. His amiable daughter forgets how many near relatives of Whig magnates had first to be provided for, and that kindred before friendship, and blood before service, is a fundamental rule of Whig policy. Sydney Smith, however, did not fare badly; he became wealthy long before he died, as in addition to his clerical preferments he received a third of the large fortune accumu lated by his younger brother, Courtenay, in India. Sydney was born in 1771 at Woodford, in Essex. His father was eccentric, and bad some of the humour for which two of his sons were conspicuous. Sydney was educated at Winchester with Courtenay, and received, we are toll, A most flattering but involuntary compliment from his achoolfellows, who signed a round•robin, " refusing to try fur the college prizes if the Smiths were allowed to con• tend for them any more, as they always gained them." lie used to say, " I believe, whilst a boy at school, I made above ten thousand Latin verses, and no man in his senses would dream in afterlife of ever making another. So much for life and time wasted." No doubt he was early remarkable for superior capacity. At college he gained a fellowship of 1001. a y ear, and from this time had to rely on his own resources, as his father would allow him nothing. At the wish of his father he entered the Church, and became curate in a small village in the midst of Salis bury Plain : One of the first professional duties he was called upon to perform was to marry his eldest brother Robert to Miss Vernon, aunt to the present Lord Lansdowne. In a letter to his mother on the occasion he says, " The marriage took place in the library at Bowood, and all I can tell you of it is, that he cried, she cried, and I cried." His brother Robert was, of course, the " Convivial Bobus " of happy memory ; and from this marriage issued the Right Honour able Vernon Smith, through the care of Lord Lansdowne and his Whig friends—it would be uncivil irony to say that Mr. Smith has any other claim to the distinction—now President of the India Board, and a member of the Cabinet. Even in the middle of Salisbury Plain, For• tune found out and smiled on one who in the best gifts conducive to happiness was emi nently her favorite. He related, himself:— The squire of the parish, Mr. Bench, took a fancy to me, and after I had served it two years, he engaged me as tutor to hie eldest son, and it was arranged that I and his son should proceed to the University of Weimar, in Saxony. We set out ; but before reaching our destination, Ger- many was disturbed by war, and, in stress of politics, we put into Edinburgh, where 1 remained five years. The principles of the French Revolution were then fully afloat, and it is impossible to conceive a more violent and agi- tated state of society. Those five years at Edinburgh determined the future character of his life. He had pre viously been engaged to a young lady, Miss Pybus, and to Edinburgh he brought her on his marriage : It was lucky that Miss Pybus had some fortune, for my father's only contribution towards their future menage (save his own talents and character) were six small silver teaspoons, which, from much wear, had become the ghosts of their former selves. One day, in the madness of his joy, he came running into the room and flung these into her lap, saying, " There, Kate, you lucky girl, I give you all my fortune! " The fortune of the lady was settled on her self and her children, at the express desire of Sydney ; but for a splendid pearl necklace be queathed her by her mother the young lady obtained 5001., and this furnished their house. Not all young ladies would, .for the six old silver spoons, have been capable of so great a sacrifice. Soon after Sydney received 1,0001. from Mr. Beach for the care of his son ; and with this amount the young couple must have appeared to their friends, from what we know of the frugal commencement ofJeffrey's married life, in com parative affluence. The Edinburgh Review was started soon afterwards, and must have formed a welcome addition to Sydney's income, as he was for many years a regular contributor to it. The high spirits for which he was conspicu ous all through life were in full play during his residence ftt Edinburgh, and he amused himself with playful satire on peculiarities of the Scotch character: — It requires (he used to say) a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. . . . They SATURDAY, are so imbued *ith metaphysics that they even make love metaphysically ; I overheard a young lady of my acquaint. ance, at a dance in Edinburgh, exclaim, in a sudden pause of the music, " What you say, my lord, is very true of love in tne aibsiract, but—" here the fiddlers began fiddling furiously and the rest was lost. When the education of his pupils finished he broke up his camp at Edinburgh and came to London. He obtained some preacherships— lectured at the Royal Institution—became popular—was received with open arms by Holland-house—and when the Whigs came in with Lord Grenville in 1806, obtained tile living of Foston-le-Clay in Yorkshire. soon a difficulty presented itself; he was riot only required to reside in hie parish, but, by an act just passed, to build a residence if no house existed. He tried in vain to exchange, then manfully set himself to his appointed task, built a house after his own plan, finding the architect's design too etpensive, and thence forth farmed and lived in a perfectly inde pendent style, making a joke of unavoidable inconveniences, and snapping his fingers at all the Mistress Gruudys in creation. His establishment at Foston is so admirably de scribed in a letter from a clergyman who paid him a visit, that we are tempted to transcribe the whole passage : A man's character is probably more faithful y repre sented in the arrangements of his home than in any other point ; and Fostou is a facsimile of its master's mind, from first to last. He had no architect, bat 1 question whether a u.ore compact, convenient house could well be imagined. In the midst of a field, commanding no very attractive view, he has contrived to give it an air of snug ness and comfort, and its internal arrangements are per fect. The drawing-room is the colour you covet, the genuine chromium, with a sort of yellow fioweringpattern. It is exquisitely filled with irregular regularities—tables, books, chairs, Indian wardrobes ; everything finished in thorough taste, without the slightest reference to smartness or useless finery; and his inventive genius appears in every corner ; his fires are blown into brightness Ify snadrachs, tubes furnished with air from without, opening into the centre of the fire; his poker, tongs, and shovel Nre secured from falling with that horrid crash which is so de structive to the nerves and temper. His own study has no appearance of comfort • but as Ile reads and writes in his family circle, in spite of talking and other interruptions, this is of less consequence. In other respects it has its attractions: there, for instance, he keeps his rheumatic armour, all of which he displayed oat of a large bag, giving me an illustrated lecture upon each com ponent part. Fancy him in a fit of rheumatism, his lege in two narrow buckets, which he calls his jack-boots; round the throat a hollow tin collar ; over each shoulder a large tin thing like a shoulder of mutton ; on his head a hollow tin helmet, all filled with hot water ; and fancy him expatiating upon each and all of them with ultra energy. His bed-rooms are counterparts of the lower roorria ; in mine there were twenty-eight large Piranesi prints of ancient Rome, mounted just as we do ours, but without frames, and, indeed, in every vacant part of the house he has hung them up. His store-room is more like that of an Indiaman than anything else, containing such a complete and well assorted portion of every possible want or wish in a country establishment. The same spirit prevails in his garden and farm : con trivance and singularity in every bole and corner. " What, in the name of wonder, is that skele•on sort di' machine in the middle of your field ?" " Oh, that is Ti'! universal scratcher • a framework so contrived that every animal, from a lamb to a bullock, can rub and scratch it self with the greatest facility and luxury." I arrived there on Saturday evening, walking from York, by which I contrived to lose my way, and take possession of another man's home and drawing-room fire side for some time before the host appeared, and the mis take was discovered. On Sunday we prepared for church ; he was hoarse, so I was to read; against preaching I had provided by having no sermon. Good heavens ! what a set-out ! The family chariot, which be calls the immortal, from having been al tered and repaired in every possible way—the last novelty, a lining of green cloth, worked and fitted by the village tailor—appeared at the door, with a pair of shafts substi tuted for the pole, in which shafts stood one of hie cart horses, with the regular cart harness, and a driver by its side. In the inside the ladies were seated : on the dicky behind I mounted with him ; but his servant having placed the cushions without first putting in the wooden board, on sitting down, we sank through, to his great amusement. These preliminaries being adjusted, we set out. The church resembles a barn more than anything else, in size and shape ; though, from two old Saxon doors, it shows claim to higher antiquity than most others. About fifty people were assembled ; I entered the reading-desk ; he followed the prayers with a plain, sound sermon upon the duty of forgiving injuries, but in manner and voice clearly proving that he felt what he said, and meant that others should feel it too. His domestic establishment is on a par with the rest : his head servant is his carpenter, and never appears ex cepting on company days. We were waited upon by his usual corps dontestique, one little girl, about fourteen years of age ; named, I believe, Mary or Fanny, but invariably called by them anal. With the moat immovable gravity she stands before him when he gives his orders , 572