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