In 1823:—

"Peveril is a moderate production, between his best and his worst; rather agreeable than not."

His judgment on The Bride of Lammermoor is indeed deplorable. He thought it like Scott's previous work, but "laboured in an inferior way, and more careless, with many repetitions of himself. Caleb is overdone.... The catastrophe is shocking and disgusting."[168]

Incidentally we find him praising Lister's Granby, and Hope's Anastasius. He early discovered and consistently admired Macaulay, though he drew the line at the Lays of Ancient Rome, on the ground that he "abhorred all Grecian and Roman subjects." It is curious to note the number and variety of new books which he more or less commends, and which are now equally and completely forgotten. As we come nearer our own times, however, we find an important conversion. In 1838 he writes:—

"Nickleby is very good. I stood out against Mr. Dickens as long as I could, but he has conquered me."

In 1843 he writes to Dickens:—

"Pecksniff and his daughters, and Pinch, are admirable—quite first-rate painting, such as no one but yourself can execute. Chuffey is admirable. I never read a finer piece of writing."

And, when Dickens asks him to dinner, he replies:—

"I accept your obliging invitation conditionally. If I am invited by any man of greater genius than yourself, or one by whose works I have been more completely interested, I will repudiate you, and dine with the more splendid phenomenon of the two."

His crowning glory in the matter of literary criticism is that, as Ruskin told us, he was the first man in the literary circles of London to assert the value of Modern Painters. "He said it was a work of transcendent talent, presented the most original views in the most elegant and powerful language, and would work a complete revolution in the world of taste."[169]

With the physical sciences Sydney Smith seems to have had no real acquaintance, unless we include among them the art of the apothecary, which all through life he studied diligently and practised courageously. But he recommended Botany, with some confidence, as "certain to delight little girls"; and his friendship with the amiable and instructive Mrs. Marcet[170] gave him a smattering of scientific terms. In a discussion on the Inferno he invented a new torment especially for that excellent lady's benefit.—

"You should be doomed to listen, for a thousand years, to conversations between Caroline and Emily, where Caroline should always give wrong explanations in chemistry, and Emily in the end be unable to distinguish an acid from an alkali."

When we turn, from these smaller matters of taste and accomplishment, to the general view of life, Sydney Smith would seem, at first sight, to have been a Utilitarian: and yet he declared himself in vigorous terms an opponent of the Utilitarian School.—

"That school treat mankind as if they were mere machines; the feelings or affections never enter into their calculations. If everything is to be sacrificed to utility, why do you bury your grandmother? why don't you cut her into small pieces at once, and make portable soup of her?"

In a similar vein, he said of his friend George Grote that he would have been an important politician if the world had been a chess-board. Any system, social, political, or philosophical, which did not directly concern itself with the wants and feelings and impulses of human flesh and blood, appealed to him in vain.

"How foolish," he wrote, "and how profligate, to show that the principle of general utility has no foundation; that it is often opposed to the interests of the individual! If this be true, there is an end of all reasoning and all morals: and if any man asks, Why am I to do what is generally useful? he should not be reasoned with, but called rogue, rascal, etc., and the mob should be excited to break his windows."

He liked what he called "useful truth." He could make no terms with thinkers who were "more fond of disputing on mind and matter than on anything which can have a reference to the real world, inhabited by real men, women, and children." Indeed, all his thinking was governed by his eager and generous humanitarianism. He thought all speculation, which did not bear directly on the welfare and happiness of human beings, a waste of ingenuity; and yet, at the same time, he taught that all practical systems, which left out of account the emotional and sentimental side of man, were incomplete and ineffectual. This higher side of his nature showed itself in his lively affections, his intense love of home and wife and children, his lifelong tenacity of friendship, and his overflowing sympathy for the poor, the abject, and the suffering.

"The haunts of Happiness," he wrote, "are varied, and rather unaccountable; but I have more often seen her among little children, and by home firesides, and in country houses, than anywhere else,—at least, I think so."

When his mother died, he wrote—"Everyone must go to his grave with his heart scarred like a soldier's body," and, when he lost his infant boy, he said—"Children are horribly insecure; the life of a parent is the life of a gambler."

His more material side was well exhibited by the catalogue of "Modern Changes" which he compiled in old age, heading it with the characteristic couplet:—

"The good of ancient times let others state, I think it lucky I was born so late."[171]

It concludes with the words, "Even in the best society one third of the gentlemen at least were always drunk."

This reminds us that, in the matter of temperance, Sydney Smith was far in advance of his time. That he was no

"budge doctor of the Stoic fur, Praising the lean and sallow Abstinence,"

is plain enough from his correspondence. "The wretchedness of human life," he wrote in 1817, "is only to be encountered upon the basis of meat and wine"; but he had a curiously keen sense of the evils induced by "the sweet poyson."[172] As early as 1814 he urged Lord Holland to "leave off wine entirely," for, though never guilty of excess, Holland showed a "respectable and dangerous plenitude." After a visit to London in the same year, Sydney wrote:—

"I liked London better than ever I liked it before, and simply, I believe, from water-drinking. Without this, London is stupefaction and inflammation. It is not the love of wine, but thoughtlessness and unconscious imitation: other men poke out their hands for the revolving wine, and one does the same, without thinking of it. All people above the condition of labourers are ruined by excess of stimulus and nourishment, clergy included. I never yet saw any gentleman who ate and drank as little as was reasonable."

In 1828 he wrote to Lady Holland (of Holland House):—

"I not only was never better, but never half so well: indeed I find I have been very ill all my life, without knowing it. Let me state some of the goods arising from abstaining from all fermented liquors. First, sweet sleep; having never known what sweet sleep was, I sleep like a baby or a plough-boy. If I wake, no needless terrors, no black visions of life, but pleasing hopes and pleasing recollections: Holland House, past and to come! If I dream, it is not of lions and tigers, but of Easter dues and tithes. Secondly, I can take longer walks, and make greater exertions, without fatigue. My understanding is improved, and I comprehend Political Economy. Only one evil ensues from it: I am in such extravagant spirits that I must look out for some one who will bore and depress me."

In 1834 he wrote:—

"I am better in health, avoiding all fermented liquors, and drinking nothing but London water, with a million insects in every drop. He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women, and children on the face of the globe."

In spite of this disquieting analysis he persevered, and wrote two years later:—

"I have had no gout, nor any symptom of it: by eating little, and drinking only water, I keep body and mind in a serene state, and spare the great toe. Looking back at my past life, I find that all my miseries of body and mind have proceeded from indigestion. Young people in early life should be thoroughly taught the moral, intellectual, and physical evils of indigestion."

Saba, Lady Holland, who had a discreet but provoking trick of omitting the proper name wherever we specially thirst to know it, thus reports her father's conversation:—

"Now, I mean not to drink one drop of wine to-day, and I shall be mad with spirits. I always am when I drink no wine. It is curious the effect a thimbleful of wine has upon me; I feel as flat as——'s jokes; it destroys my understanding: I forget the number of the Muses, and think them xxxix, of course; and only get myself right again by repeating the lines, and finding 'Descend, ye Thirty-Nine!' two feet too long."

All this profound interest in the matter of food and drink was closely connected in Sydney Smith with a clear sense of the influence exercised by the body over the soul.—

"I am convinced digestion is the great secret of life; and that character, talents, virtues, and qualities are powerfully affected by beef, mutton, pie-crust, and rich soups. I have often thought I could feed or starve men into many virtues and vices, and affect them more powerfully with my instruments of cookery than Timotheus could do formerly with his lyre."[173]

According to his own accounts of himself he seems, like most people who are boisterously cheerful, to have had occasional tendencies to melancholy. "An extreme depression of spirits," he writes in 1826, "is an evil of which I have a full comprehension." But, on the other hand, he writes:—

"I thank God, who has made me poor, that He has made me merry. I think it a better gift than much wheat and bean-land, with a doleful heart."

"My constitutional gaiety comes to my aid in all the difficulties of life; and the recollection that, having embraced the character of an honest man and a friend to rational liberty, I have no business to repine at that mediocrity of fortune which I knew to be its consequence."

The truth would seem to be that, finding, in his temperament and circumstances, some predisposing causes of melancholy, he refused to sit down under the curse and let it poison his life, but took vigorous measures with himself and his surroundings; cultivated cheerfulness as a duty, and repelled gloom as a disease. He "tried always to live in the Present and the Future, and to look upon the Past as so much dirty linen." After reading Burke, and praising his "beautiful and fruitful imagination," he says—"With the politics of so remote a period I do not concern myself." He had a robust confidence in the cheering virtues of air and exercise, early hours and cold water, light and warmth, temperance in tea and coffee as well as wine—"Apothegms of old women," as he truly said, but tested by universal experience and found efficacious. He recommended constant occupation, combined with variety of interests, and taught that nothing made one feel so happy as the act of doing good. He thus describes his own experience, when, as Canon of St. Paul's, he had presented a valuable living to the friendless son of the deceased incumbent. He announced the presentation to the stricken family.—

"They all burst into tears. It flung me also into a great agitation, and I wept and groaned for a long time. Then I rose, and said I thought it was very likely to end in their keeping a buggy, at which we all laughed as violently. The poor old lady, who was sleeping in a garret because she could not bear to enter into the room lately inhabited by her husband, sent for me and kissed me, sobbing with a thousand emotions. The charitable physician wept too.... I never passed so remarkable a morning, nor was more deeply impressed with the sufferings of human life, and never felt more thoroughly the happiness of doing good."

Of all his various remedies against melancholy, the one on which he most constantly and most earnestly insisted, was the wisdom of "taking short views,"—

"Dispel," he said, "that prophetic gloom which dives into futurity, to extract sorrow from days and years to come, and which considers its own unhappy visions as the decrees of Providence. We know nothing of to-morrow: our business is to be good and happy to-day."

Our business is to be good and happy. This dogma inevitably suggests the question—What was Sydney Smith's religion? First and foremost, he was a staunch and consistent Theist.—

"I hate the insolence, persecution, and intolerance, which so often pass under the name of religion, and have fought against them; but I have an unaffected horror of irreligion and impiety, and every principle of suspicion and fear would be excited in me by a man who professed himself an infidel."[174]

In a lighter vein, he talked with dread of travelling in a stage-coach with "an Atheist who told me what he had said in his heart."[175] And in 1808 he wrote to his friend Jeffrey with reference to the tone of the Edinburgh Review:—

"I must beg the favour of you to be explicit on one point. Do you mean to take care that the Review shall not profess or encourage infidel principles? Unless this is the case, I must absolutely give up all thoughts of connecting myself with it."

The grounds on which his theism rested seem, as Sir Leslie Stephen points out, to have been exactly those which satisfied Paley. Lord Murray, who, though he was a judge, does not seem to have been exacting about the quality of argument, admiringly relates this anecdote of his friend:—

"A foreigner, on one occasion, indulging in sceptical doubts of the existence of an overruling Providence in his presence, Sydney, who had observed him evidently well satisfied with his repast, said, 'You must admit there is great genius and thought in that dish.' 'Admirable!' he replied; 'nothing can be better,' 'May I then ask, are you prepared to deny the existence of the cook?"

Of course this is nothing but Paley's illustration of the Watch, reproduced in a less impressive form.

But Sydney Smith was not content with a system of thought which provided him with a working hypothesis for the construction of the physical universe and the conduct of this present life. He looked above and beyond; and reinforced his own faith in immortality by an appeal to the general sense of mankind.—

"Who ever thinks of turning into ridicule our great and ardent hope of a world to come? Whenever the man of humour meddles with these things, he is astonished to find that in all the great feelings of their nature the mass of mankind always think and act aright; that they are ready enough to laugh, but that they are quite as ready to drive away, with indignation and contempt, the light fool who comes with the feather of wit to crumble the bulwarks of truth, and to beat down the Temples of God. We count over the pious spirits of the world, the beautiful writers, the great statesmen, all who have invented subtlely, who have thought deeply, who have executed wisely:—all these are proofs that we are destined for a second life; and it is not possible to believe that this redundant vigour, this lavish and excessive power, was given for the mere gathering of meat and drink. If the only object is present existence, such faculties are cruel, are misplaced, are useless. They all show us that there is something great awaiting us,—that the soul is now young and infantine, springing up into a more perfect life when the body falls into dust."

"Man is imprisoned here only for a season, to take a better or a worse hereafter, as he deserves it. This old truth is the fountain of all goodness, and justice, and kindness among men: may we all feel it intimately, obey it perpetually, and profit by it eternally!"

He was not a theist only, but a Christian. Here again, as in the argument from Design, he followed Paley, laid great stress on Evidences, and "selected his train of reasoning with some care from the best writers." He said;—"The truth of Christianity depends upon its leading facts, and of these we have such evidence as ought to satisfy us, till it appears that mankind have ever been deceived by proofs as numerous and as strong." Having convinced himself that the Christian religion was true, he was loyal in word and act to what he had accepted. He remonstrated vigorously against an "anti-Christian article" which crept into the Edinburgh Review; and felt, as keenly as the strongest sacerdotalist or the most fervent Evangelical, the bounden duty of defending the body of truth to which his Ordination had pledged him.

It can scarcely be contested that his conceptions of that truth were, in some grave respects, defective. The absolute dominion and overruling providence of God are always present to his mind, and he urges as the ground of all virtuous effort the Character and Example of Christ. But the notion of Atonement finds no place in his thought. The virtuous will attain to eternal blessedness, and the vicious will perish in their vices. The free pardon of confessed sin—access to happiness through a Divine Mediation—in a word, the Doctrine of the Cross—seems, as far as his recorded utterances go, to have been quite alien from his system of religion. The appeal to personal experience of sinfulness, forgiveness, and acceptance, he would have dismissed as mere enthusiasm—and he declared in his sermon on the Character and Genius of the Christian Religion, that "the Gospel has no enthusiasm." That it once was possible for a clergyman to utter these five words as containing an axiomatic truth, marks, perhaps as plainly as it is possible for language to mark it, the change effected in the religion of the Church of England by the successive action of the Evangelical Revival and of the Oxford Movement.

Sydney Smith's firm belief, from first to last, was that Religion was intended to make men good and happy in daily life. This was "the calm tenor of its language," and the "practical view" of its rule. And, as far as it goes, no one can quarrel with the doctrine so laid down. After staying with some Puritanical friends, he wrote:—

"I endeavour in vain to give them more cheerful ideas of religion: to teach them that God is not a jealous, childish, merciless tyrant; that He is best served by a regular tenour of good actions,—not by bad singing, ill-composed prayers, and eternal apprehensions. But the luxury of false religion is, to be unhappy!"

It was probably this strong conviction that everything pertaining to religion ought to be bright and cheerful, that led him, as far back as the days when he was preaching in Edinburgh, to urge the need for more material beauty in public worship.—

"No reflecting man can ever wish to adulterate manly piety (the parent of all that is good in the world) with mummery and parade. But we are strange, very strange creatures, and it is better perhaps not to place too much confidence in our reason alone. If anything, there is, perhaps, too little pomp and ceremony in our worship, instead of too much. We quarrelled with the Roman Catholic Church, in a great hurry and a great passion; and, furious with spleen, clothed ourselves with sackcloth, because she was habited in brocade; rushing, like children, from one extreme to another, and blind to all medium between complication and barrenness, formality and neglect. I am very glad to find we are calling in, more and more, the aid of music to our services. In London, where it can be commanded, good music has a prodigious effect in filling a church; organs have been put up in various churches in the country, and, as I have been informed, with the best possible effect. Of what value, it may be asked, are auditors who come there from such motives? But our first business seems to be, to bring them there from any motive which is not undignified and ridiculous, and then to keep them there from a good one: those who come for pleasure may remain for prayer."

When Sydney speaks of our "quarrel with the Roman Catholic Church," he speaks of a quarrel in which, at least as far as doctrine is concerned, he had his full share. Never was a stouter Protestant. Even in the passages in which he makes his strongest appeals for the civil rights of Romanists, he goes out of the way to pour scorn on their religion. Some of his language is unquotable: here are some milder specimens:—

"As for the enormous wax candles, and superstitious mummeries, and painted jackets of the Catholic priests, I fear them not."

"Spencer Perceval is in horror lest twelve or fourteen old women may be converted to holy water and Catholic nonsense."

"I am as disgusted with the nonsense of the Roman Catholic religion as you can be; and no man who talks such nonsense shall ever tithe the products of the earth."

"Catholic nonsense" is not a happy phrase on the lips of a man who was officially bound to recite his belief in the Catholic Faith and to pray for the good estate of the Catholic Church. A priest who administers Baptism according to the use of the Church of England should not talk about "the sanctified contents of a pump," or describe people who cross themselves as "making right angles upon the breast and forehead." But time brings changes in religious, as well as in social, manners, and Peter Plymley prophesied nearly thirty years before Keble's sermon on "National Apostasy" had started the second revival of the English Church.[176]

No one who has studied the character and career of Sydney Smith would expect him to be very sympathetic with the work which bore the name of Pusey. In 1841 he preached against it at St. Paul's.

"I wish you had witnessed, the other day, my incredible boldness in attacking the Puseyites. I told them that they made the Christian religion a religion of postures and ceremonies, of circumflexions and genuflexions, of garments and vestures, of ostentation and parade; that they took tithe of mint and cummin, and neglected the weightier matters of the law,—justice, mercy, and the duties of life: and so forth."

From Combe Florey he wrote:—

"Everybody here is turning Puseyite. Having worn out my black gown, I preach in my surplice; this is all the change I have made, or mean to make."

In 1842 he wrote to a friend abroad:—

"I have not yet discovered of what I am to die, but I rather believe I shall be burnt alive by the Puseyites. Nothing so remarkable in England as the progress of these foolish people.[177] I have no conception what they mean, if it be not to revive every absurd ceremony, and every antiquated folly, which the common sense of mankind has set to sleep. You will find at your return a fanatical Church of England, but pray do not let it prevent your return. We can always gather together, in Green Street, a chosen few who have never bowed the knee to Rimmon."

It may be questioned whether the Hermit of Green Street was very well qualified to settle the points at issue between the "Puseyites" and himself, or had bestowed very close attention on what is, after all, mainly a question of Documents. In earlier days, when it suited his purpose to argue for greater liberality towards Roman Catholics, he had said:—

"In their tenets, in their church-government, in the nature of their endowments, the Dissenters are infinitely more distant from the Church of England than the Catholics are."

In 1813 he had intervened in the controversy which raged round the cradle of that most pacific institution, the British and Foreign Bible Society, and had taken the unexpectedly clerical view that Churchmen were bound to "circulate the Scriptures with the Prayer Book, in preference to any other method." But he grounded a claim to promotion on the fact that he had "always avoided speculative, and preached practical, religion." He spoke of a "theological" bishop in the sense of dispraise, and linked the epithet with "bitter" and "bustling." Beyond question he had read the Bible, but he was not alarmingly familiar with the sacred text. It is reported[178] that he once referred to the case of the man who puts his hand to the plough and looks back[179] as being "somewhere in the Epistles." He forgot the names of Job's daughters, until reminded by a neighbouring Squire who had called his greyhounds Jemima, Kezia, and Keren-Happuch. He attributed the Nunc Dimittis to an author vaguely but conveniently known as "The Psalmist," and by so doing drew down on himself the ridicule of Wilson Croker.[180] It may be questioned whether he ever read the Prayer Book except in Church. With the literature of Christian antiquity he had not, so far as his writings show, the slightest acquaintance; and his knowledge of Anglican divines—Wake, and Cleaver, and Sherlock, and Horsley—has a suspicious air of having been hastily acquired for the express purpose of confuting Bishop Marsh. So we will not cite him as a witness in a case where the highest and deepest mysteries of Revelation are involved, and where a minute acquaintance with documents is an indispensable equipment. We prefer to take leave of him as a Christian preacher, seeking only the edification of his hearers. In a sermon on the Holy Communion, preached from the pulpit of St. Paul's, he delivers this striking testimony to a religious truth, which, if stated in a formal proposition, he would probably have disavowed:—

"If you, who only partake of this Sacrament, cannot fail to be struck with its solemnity, we who not only receive it, but minister it to every description of human beings, in every season of peril and distress, must be intimately and deeply pervaded by that feeling.... To know the power of this Sacrament, give it to him whose doom is sealed, who in a few hours will be no more. The Bread and the Wine are his immense hope! they seem to stand between him and infinite danger, to soothe pain, to calm perturbation, and to inspire immortal courage."

What is the conclusion of the whole matter? It is, in my judgment, that Sydney Smith was a patriot of the noblest and purest type; a genuinely religious man according to his light and opportunity; and the happy possessor of a rich and singular talent which he employed through a long life in the willing service of the helpless, the persecuted, and the poor. To use his own fine phrase, the interests of humanity "got into his heart and circulated with his blood."[181] He wrote and spoke and acted in prompt and uncalculating obedience to an imperious conviction.—

"If," he said, "you ask me who excites me, I answer you, it is that Judge Who stirs good thoughts in honest hearts—under Whose warrant I impeach the wrong, and by Whose help I hope to chastise it."

Here was both the source and the consecration of that glorious mirth by which he still holds his place in the hearts and on the lips of men. His playful speech was the vehicle of a passionate purpose. From his earliest manhood, he was ready to sacrifice all that the sordid world thinks precious for Religious Equality and Rational Freedom.

[145] Eden Upton Eddis (1812-1901).

[146] Miss Holland writes—"His hair, when I know him, was beautifully fine, silvery, and abundant; rather taille en brosse, like a Frenchman's."

[147] Lord Houghton.

[148] A hostile reviewer of his Sermons quotes from them such phrases as—"Lays hid," "Has sprang," "Has drank," "Rarely or ever."

[149] See p. 90.

[150] I have not attempted to make a catalogue of these jokes. Such catalogues will be found in the previous Memoirs of Sydney Smith, and in Sir Wemyss Reid's Life of Lord Houghton.

[151] Hugo Charles Meynell-Ingram (1784-1869), of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam.

[152] (1808-1891), became 7th Duke of Devonshire in 1858.

[153] This insinuation was quite unfounded.

[154] It is pleasant to cite the testimony of Lord Houghton, who assured Mr. Stuart Reid that he "never knew, except once, Sydney Smith to make a jest on any religious subject; and then he immediately withdrew his words and seemed ashamed that he had uttered them."

[155] Spencer Perceval.

[156] Lord Hawkesbury.

[157] See Appendix E.

[158] William IV.

[159] Charles Richard Fox (1796-1873).

[160] Benjamin West (1738-1820).

[161] Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786-1846).

[162] I am indebted for this tradition to the Rev. H.S. Holland, D.D., Canon of St. Paul's.

[163] John Allen was nicknamed "Lady Holland's Atheist."

[164] Bishop of Gloucester.

[165] Bishop of London.

[166] Bishop of Durham.

[167] Bishop of Peterborough.

[168] Quoted by Mr. Stuart Reid.

[169] Praeterita, vol. II. chap. ix.

[170] Jane Marcet (1769-1858), authoress of Conversations on Chemistry.

[171] See Appendix C.

[172] Comus.

[173] See Appendix D.

[174] Compare his attack on Hobbes, of whom he says that his "dirty recreation" of smoking did not interrupt any "immoral, irreligious, or unmathematical track of thought in which he happened to be engaged."— Lectures on Moral Philosophy, xxvi.

[175] Dixit insipiens in corde suo; Non est Deus.—Psalm xiv.

[176] July 14, 1833. "I have ever considered and kept the day as the start of the religious movement of 1833."—CARDINAL NEWMAN, Apologia.

[177] In early life he wrote from Edinburgh;—"In England, I maintain, (except among ladies in the middle rank of life) there is no religion at all. The Clergy of England have no more influence over the people at large than the Cheesemongers of England."

[178] By Mr. Stuart Reid.

[179] St. Luke ix. 62.

[180] "What can we think of the fitness of a man to address his Queen and his country in the dogmatical strain of this pamphlet, who does not know the New Testament from the Old; the Psalms from the Gospel, David from Simeon; who expatiates so pompously on the duty and benefit of prayer, yet mistakes and miscalls a portion of the Common Prayer, which he is bound in law and in conscience to repeat every evening of his life."—Quarterly Review, July 1837.

The reference is to the Sermon on the Queen's Accession. The blunder was rectified in a later edition.

[181] He said this of Lord Grey.



APPENDIX A

LIST OF SYDNEY SMITH'S ARTICLES IN THE EDINBURGH REVIEW

Vol. Art. Page. 1 2 18 1 3 24 1 9 83 1 12 94 1 16 113 1 18 122 1 20 128 1 6 314 1 10 382 2 2 30 2 4 53 2 6 86 2 14 136 2 17 172 2 22 202 2 2 287 2 4 330 2 10 398 3 12 146 3 7 334 3 9 355 9 12 177 10 4 299 10 6 329 11 5 341 12 5 82 12 9 151 13 2 25 13 5 77 13 4 333 14 3 40 14 11 145 14 5 353 14 13 490 15 3 40 15 3 299 16 7 158 16 3 326 16 7 399 17 4 330 17 8 393 18 3 325 21 4 93 22 4 67 23 8 189 31 2 44 31 6 132 31 2 295 32 2 28 32 3 309 32 6 111 32 6 389 33 3 68 33 5 91 34 5 109 34 2 320 34 8 242 35 5 92 35 7 123 35 2 286 36 6 110 36 3 353 37 2 325 37 7 432 38 4 85 39 2 43 39 2 299 40 2 31 40 7 427 41 7 143 42 4 367 43 2 299 43 7 395 44 2 47 45 3 74 45 7 423

Of these articles, sixty-five were reprinted by the author and are to be found in his Works. Those which he did not reprint are the following:—

Vol. Art. 1 3 2 4 3 1 3 12 3 7 13 5 16 7 17 4 32 6 34 5 34 8 37 2



APPENDIX B

"We can inform Jonathan what are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of glory; TAXES upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot—taxes upon every thing which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste—taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion—taxes on every thing on earth and the waters under the earth, on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home—taxes on the raw material—taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man—taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health—on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal—on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice—on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the bride. At bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay—the schoolboy whips his taxed top—the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with a taxed bridle, on a taxed road;—and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid 7 per cent., into a spoon that has paid 15 per cent.—flings himself back upon his chintz bed, which has paid 22 per cent—and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a licence of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed front 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and he is then gathered to his fathers—to be taxed no more."—Review of Seybert's "America" in the Collected Works.

"What would our ancestors say to this, Sir? How does this measure tally with their institutions? How does it agree with their experience? Are we to put the wisdom of yesterday in competition with the wisdom of centuries? (Hear! hear!) Is beardless youth to show no respect for the decisions of mature age? (Loud cries of hear! hear!) If this measure be right, would it have escaped the wisdom of those Saxon progenitors to whom we are indebted for so many of our best political institutions? Would the Dane have passed it over? Would the Norman have rejected it? Would such a notable discovery have been reserved for these modern and degenerate times? Besides, Sir, if the measure itself is good, I ask the Honourable Gentleman if this is the time for carrying it into execution—whether, in fact, a more unfortunate period could have been selected than that which he has chosen? If this were an ordinary measure, I should not oppose it with so much vehemence; but, Sir, it calls in question the wisdom of an irrevocable law—of a law passed at the memorable period of the Revolution. What right have we, Sir, to break down this firm column on which the great men of that age stamped a character of eternity? Are not all authorities against this measure—Pitt, Fox, Cicero, and the Attorney and Solicitor-General? The proposition is new, Sir; it is the first time it was ever heard in this House. I am not prepared, Sir—this House is not prepared, to receive it. The measure implies a distrust of his Majesty's Government; their disapproval is sufficient to warrant opposition. Precaution only is requisite where danger is apprehended. Here the high character of the individuals in question is a sufficient guarantee against any ground of alarm. Give not, then, your sanction to this measure; for, whatever be its character, if you do give your sanction to it, the same man by whom this is proposed, will propose to you others to which it will be impossible to give your consent. I care very little, Sir, for the ostensible measure; but what is there behind? What are the Honourable Gentleman's future schemes? If we pass this bill, what fresh concessions may he not require? What further degradation is he planning for his country? Talk of evil and inconvenience, Sir! look to other countries—study other aggregations and societies of men, and then see whether the laws of this country demand a remedy or deserve a panegyric. Was the Honourable Gentleman (let me ask him) always of this way of thinking? Do I not remember when he was the advocate in this House of very opposite opinions? I not only quarrel with his present sentiments, Sir, but I declare very frankly I do not like the party with which he acts. If his own motives were as pure as possible, they cannot but suffer contamination from those with whom he is politically associated. This measure may be a boon to the constitution, but I will accept no favour to the constitution from such hands. (Loud cries of hear! hear!) I profess myself, Sir, an honest and upright member of the British Parliament, and I am not afraid to profess myself an enemy to all change, and all innovation. I am satisfied with things as they are; and it will be my pride and pleasure to hand down this country to my children as I received it from those who preceded me. The Honourable Gentleman pretends to justify the severity with which he has attacked the Noble Lord who presides in the Court of Chancery, But I say such attacks are pregnant with mischief to Government itself. Oppose Ministers, you oppose Government; disgrace Ministers, you disgrace Government; bring Ministers into contempt, you bring Government into contempt; and anarchy and civil war are the consequences. Besides, Sir, the measure is unnecessary. Nobody complains of disorder in that shape in which it is the aim of your measure to propose a remedy to it. The business is one of the greatest importance; there is need of the greatest caution and circumspection. Do not let us be precipitate, Sir; it is impossible to foresee all consequences. Every thing should be gradual; the example of a neighbouring nation should fill us with alarm! The honourable gentleman has taxed me with illiberality. Sir, I deny the charge. I hate innovation, but I love improvement. I am an enemy to the corruption of Government, but I defend its influence. I dread reform, but I dread it only when it is intemperate. I consider the liberty of the press as the great Palladium of the Constitution; but, at the same time, I hold the licentiousness of the press in the greatest abhorrence. Nobody is more conscious than I am of the splendid abilities of the Honourable Mover, but I tell him at once, his scheme is too good to be practicable. It savours of Utopia. It looks well in theory, but it won't do in practice. It will not do, I repeat, Sir, in practice; and so the advocates of the measure will find, if, unfortunately, it should find its way through Parliament. (Cheers.) The source of that corruption to which the Honourable Member alludes, is in the minds of the people; so rank and extensive is that corruption, that no political reform can have any effect in removing it. Instead of reforming others—instead of reforming the State, the Constitution, and every thing that is most excellent, let each man reform himself! let him look at home, he will find there enough to do, without looking abroad, and aiming at what is out of his power. (Loud Cheers). And now, Sir, as it is frequently the custom in this House to end with a quotation, and as the gentleman who preceded me in the debate has anticipated me in my favourite quotation of the 'Strong pull and long pull,' I shall end with the memorable words of the assembled barons—Nolumus leges Angliae mutari'"—Review of Bentham's "Book of Fallacies" in the Collected Works.



APPENDIX C

"It is of some importance at what period a man is born. A young man, alive at this period, hardly knows to what improvements of human life he has been introduced; and I would bring before his notice the following eighteen changes which have taken place in England since I first began to breathe in it the breath of life—a period amounting now to nearly seventy-three years.

"Gas was unknown: I groped about the streets of London in all but the utter darkness of a twinkling oil lamp, under the protection of watchmen in their grand climacteric, and exposed to every species of depredation and insult.

"I have been nine hours in sailing from Dover to Calais before the invention of steam. It took me nine hours to go from Taunton to Bath, before the invention of railroads, and I now go in six hours from Taunton to London! In going from Taunton to Bath, I suffered between 10,000 and 12,000 severe contusions, before stone-breaking Macadam was born.

"I paid L15 in a single year for repairs of carriage-springs on the pavement of London; and I now glide without noise or fracture, on wooden pavements.

"I can walk, by the assistance of the police, from one end of London to the other, without molestation; or, if tired, get into a cheap and active cab, instead of those cottages on wheels, which the hackney coaches were at the beginning of my life.

"I had no umbrella! They were little used, and very dear. There were no waterproof hats, and my hat has often been reduced by rains into its primitive pulp.

"I could not keep my smallclothes in their proper place, for braces were unknown. If I had the gout, there was no colchicum. If I was bilious, there was no calomel. If I was attacked by ague, there was no quinine. There were filthy coffee-houses instead of elegant clubs. Game could not be bought. Quarrels about Uncommuted Tithes were endless. The corruptions of Parliament, before Reform, infamous. There were no banks to receive the savings of the poor. The Poor Laws were gradually sapping the vitals of the country; and, whatever miseries I suffered, I had no post to whisk my complaints for a single penny to the remotest corners of the empire; and yet, in spite of all these privations, I lived on quietly, and am now ashamed that I was not more discontented, and utterly surprised that all these changes and inventions did not occur two centuries ago.

"I forgot to add that, as the basket of stage-coaches, in which luggage was then carried, had no springs, your clothes were rubbed all to pieces; and that even in the best society one third of the gentlemen at least were always drunk."—"Modern Changes" in the Collected Works.



APPENDIX D

"The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the apothecary is of more importance than Seneca; and that half the unhappiness in the world proceeds from little stoppages, from a duct choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place, from a vext duodenum, or an agitated pylorus.

"The deception, as practised upon human creatures, is curious and entertaining. My friend sups late; he eats some strong soup, then a lobster, then some tart, and he dilutes these esculent varieties with wine. The next day I call upon him. He is going to sell his house in London, and to retire into the country. He is alarmed for his eldest daughter's health. His expenses are hourly increasing, and nothing but a timely retreat can save him from ruin. All this is the lobster; and, when over-excited nature has had time to manage this testaceous encumbrance, the daughter recovers, the finances are in good order, and every rural idea effectually excluded from the mind.

"In the same manner old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide. Unpleasant feelings of the body produce correspondent sensations in the mind, and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel of indigestible and misguided food. Of such infinite consequence to happiness is it to study the body."—Quoted by Lady Holland in her "Memoir of Sydney Smith."



APPENDIX E

"I am sorry that I did not, in the execution of my self-created office as a reviewer, take an opportunity in this, or some other military work, to descant a little upon the miseries of war; and I think this has been unaccountably neglected in a work abounding in useful essays, and ever on the watch to propagate good and wise principles. It is not that human beings can live without occasional wars, but they may live with fewer wars, and take more just views of the evils which war inflicts upon mankind. If three men were to have their legs and arms broken, and were to remain all night exposed to the inclemency of weather, the whole country would be in a state of the most dreadful agitation. Look at the wholesale death of a field of battle, ten acres covered with dead, and half dead, and dying; and the shrieks and agonies of many thousand human beings. There is more of misery inflicted upon mankind by one year of war, than by all the civil peculations and oppressions of a century. Yet it is a state into which the mass of mankind rush with the greatest avidity, hailing official murderers, in scarlet, gold, and cocks' feathers, as the greatest and most glorious of human creatures. It is the business of every wise and good man to set himself against this passion for military glory, which really seems to be the most fruitful source of human misery.

"What would be said of a party of gentlemen who were to sit very peaceably conversing for half an hour, and then were to fight for another half hour, then shake hands, and at the expiration of thirty minutes fight again? Yet such has been the state of the world between 1714 and 1815, a period in which there was in England as many years of war as peace. Societies have been instituted for the preservation of peace, and for lessening the popular love of war. They deserve every encouragement. The highest praise is due to Louis Philippe for his efforts to keep Europe in peace,"—Footnote to Review of "Letters from a Mahratta Camp" in the Collected Works.



INDEX

Abbot, The (Scott), 208. Advocates, duties of, 102. Allen, John, 84, 206. Althorp, Lord, 173. America, Seybert's, Review of, 227-228. American affairs, 190,195,199. —— War of Independence, 140. Anastasius (Hope), 209. Apologia (Newman), 76, 221 n. Aristotle, 36. Auckland, Lord, 161. Austin, Mrs, 145 n., 153.

B

Bacon, 36. Ballot, the, 177. Banks, Sir Joseph, 187. Barrington, Bishop, 16. Beach, Hicks-, family, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22. Beaconsfield, Lord, 128,161,162 n. Beattie, 35. Bedford, Duke of, 18, Benefices, inequality of, 164, 168, seq., 171. Bennet, Lady Mary, 85, 205. Berkeley, Bishop, 35. Bernard, Mr. Thomas, 30, 31, 39. Bethell, Bishop, 78. Bishops, powers of, 165 seq. Blomfield, Bishop, 79, 173, 175, 176, 207. Book of Fallacies (Bentham), Review of, 228-230. Bossuet, 49. Bowles, John, 26. Bride of Lammermoor, The (Scott), 209. Brougham, Lord, 18, 24, 25, 26, 128. Brown, Thomas (metaphysician), 18, 25, 34. Burke, 198, 215. Butler, George, Head-master of Harrow, 78. Byron, 3, 26 n.

C

Camden, Lord, 63 Campbell, Lord, 161. Canning, 3, 48 50, 60, 61, 62, 63, 124, 125, 198. Carey, William (missionary), 180, 181. Carlisle, Lord, 87. —— see Howard. Carr, Bishop, 145 n. Castlereagh, Lord, 55, 56, 63, 140. Cathedral property, 164, 168 seq., 171 seq. Catholic Question, 42, 43, 45-76, 106 seq. —— Church, Roman, 115. Catholicism, Roman, 221. Channing, 191 n. Charlemont, Lady, 161. Charles I., 119. —— II., 119. Church, Dean, 91. Church of England, 46, 77 seq., 108, 121, 178. Church Reform, 163-176. Clarendon, Lord, 161. Classics, study of, 10. Clergy, English, 91, 106, 163, 221, 222. —— non-residence of, 77 seq. —— Catholic, education of, 53. Coercion of Ireland, 69. Combe Florey, Somerset, 131, 132 seq., 142. Commission, Ecclesiastical, 163 seq. Constable (publisher), 26. Contempt of Wealth (Seneca), 176. Copley, see Lyndhurst. Cornewall, Bishop, 145 n. Coronation Oath, 47, 165. Cottenham, Lord, 161. Courtenay, Bishop, 78. Cowper, 3. Croker, John Wilson, 168, 221. Cromwell, 117. Cromwell, Henry, 120 n.

D

Davy, Sir Humphry, 87. Denman, Lord, 161. Devonshire, William Cavendish, 7th Duke of, 196. Dickens, Charles, 209. Disabilities, Catholic, 65 seq., 113 seq. Don Juan (Byron), 44 n. Dryden, 207. Dudley, Lord, see Ward. Duigenan, Patrick, 107, Dundas, Henry (Viscount Melville), 7 n., 21, 24, 140. Dunstanville, Lady, 161. Durham, Lord, 88.

E

Eastlake, Mr., 161. Ecclesiastical Commission, 163 seq. Education, 135-56; public school, 5, 6. value of Classical, 5 seq. Edinburgh, 28. —— University, 17 seq. Edinburgh Review, 21 seq., 86, 90, 177, 183, 207, 208, 217, 219. —— —— Sydney Smith's contributions to, 26, 27, 40, 90, 91, 92 seq. 126, 177, 184, 226, 227. Eldon, Lord, 25, 56, 140. Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy, 33 seq. Elizabeth, Queen, 47, 119. Ellenborough, Lord, 115 n. Emancipation, Catholic, 65, 106 seq., 128, 136 n., 140. Endymion (Beaconsfield), 128 n. England at the beginning of the nineteenth century, 25. English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (Byron), 26 n., 11 n. English Church in the Nineteenth Century (Overton), 16 n. Enquirer (Godwin), 89. Epitaph on Pitt, Sydney Smith's, 40, 41. Erskine, Lord, 11. Essex, Lord, 160 n. Evangelical clergy, 178, 183; Revival, 219. Evangelical Magazine, 179.

F

Ferguson, 35. Fitzgerald, William Vesey, 125. Foston-le-Clay, 41, 78 seq. Fox, Miss, 87. —— (martyrologist), 119. —— General, 203, 204. France and Ireland, 57, 60, 61, 62, 68. Fry, Mrs., 85.

G

Game Laws, 85 Gas, introduction of, 88, 231. George III., 40, 42, 68, 71. —— IV, 124, 125, 135. Gladstone, 49, 163, 190 n. Gleanings, 163 n. Glenelg, Lord, 161. Goderich, Lord, 125. Godwin, William, 89. Gower, Leveson-, Lady, 87 n. Granby (Lister), 209. Grattan, Henry, 29, 56, 184. Grenville, Lord, 40, 41, 55, 75. Greville, Charles, 135, 153. Grey, Lord, 44, 88, 112, 136, 141, 143, 145, 147, 149, 151, 196, 197, 225. —— Lady, 112. Grote, 177, 211. "Gunpowder Treason," Sermon on, 128, 154.

H

Habit, Lecture on, 38. Halford, Sir Henry, 83. Hallam, 163. Harcourt, Vernon-, Archbishop, 79 n., 88, 107. —— William, 107. —— Miss Georgiana, 190, 191. Harrowby, Lord, 107. Hawkesbury, Lord, 59, 60, 201 n. Haydon (painter), 204, Heart of Midlothian (Scott), 208. Henley, Lord, 41 n. Henry VIII., 119. Hermann, 175. Hibbert, Nathaniel, 23, 125, 161. Hill, John, 17. History of Roman Jurisprudence (Terrasson), 90. Hobbes, 216 n. Hoche, General, 49. Holland, Lady (Sydney Smith's daughter), 5, 22, 192, 214. See Smith, Saba. —— Sir Henry, 23, 161, 192. —— Miss Caroline, 193. —— Lady (Elizabeth Vassall), 30, 36, 40, 41, 79, 80, 87, 161, 167 n., 203, 213 —— Lord, 29, 40, 41, 75, 87, 128, 206, 212. —— Scott, Canon, 205 Holy Living and Dying (Jeremy Taylor), 130. Hope, Mr., 161. —— Thomas, 209. Horner, Francis, 18, 25, 29, 32. Houghton, Lord, 32, 144 n., 194 n., 198 n. Life of (Sir Wemyss Reid), 195 n. Howard, William (Earl of Carlisle), 110. —— Mrs. Henry, 83 n. Howick, Lord, 56. Howley, Archbishop, 3. Hume, 34 n., 35.

I

Improvements, Modern, 230-232. Ingram, Meynell-, H.C., 196. Invasion of England, 55. Ireland, Roman Catholics of, 48. Irish Question, see Catholic. Ivanhoe (Scott), 208.

J

James I., 119. Jeffrey (Edinburgh Review), 18, 24 seq., 31, 32, 36, 80, 87, 181, 195, 199, 217. Judges, duties of, 97 seq. —— Sermon to, 96 seq. "Junius," 198. Juries, Irish, 66, 67.

K

Keble, 151 n., 221. Keogh, Mr., 57.

L

Labouchere, Henry, 161. Landseer, 161. Langdale, Lord, 161. Lansdowne, Lord, 18. Lauderdale, Earl of, 44, 87, 88. Laws, the Penal, 117, 120. Lawyers, Sermon to, 101. Lays of Ancient Rome (Macaulay), 209. Lectures on Moral Philosophy, 31, 33 seq., 216 n. Lee, Professor, 169. Lemon, Sir Charles, 161. Letter to the Electors upon the Catholic Question, 112 Letters to Archdeacon Singleton, 163 seq., 167 seq., 195. Letters from a Mahratta Camp, Review of, 233. Letters (Pascal), 76. Liberty of Prophesying (Jeremy Taylor), 130 n. Lister, Thomas Henry, 209. Liverpool, Lord, 124. Livings, Poor, 164, 168 seq., 171. Locke, 207. Londonderry, Marquis of, 63 n. Longman (publisher), 26. Lords, House of, speech on, 148. Louis XIV., 128. Luttrell, Henry, 29, 87, 132, 161. Lyndhurst, Lord, 124, 125.

M

Macaulay, 76, 84 n., 86 n., 122, 123, 141, 193, 195, 209. Mackintosh, Sir James, 29, 87, 184, 185, 207. Maltby, Bishop, 207. Marcet, Alexander, 29, 87. Marcet, Mrs., 87, 210. Markham, Archbishop, 41. Marsh, Bishop, 91 seq., 207. Martyrology, English, 119. Mary, Queen, 47. Massinger, 207. Melbourne, Lord, 144 n., 161, 173, 178 n. Methodism, 178, 179-183. Methodist Magazine, 178. Meynell, see Ingram. Mildert, Van, Bishop, 77. Milman, Dean, 152. Milner, Isaac, 92. Milton, 207. Mind, Lectures on, 32. Missions, Indian, 179, 180. Missionary Society, Baptist, 180. Modern Painters (Ruskin), 210. Monk, Bishop, of Gloucester, 173, 174, 207. Montaigne, 208. Monteagle, Lord, 161. Montgomery, "Satan," 195. Monuments, National, 153, 205. Moore, Thomas, 206. More, Hannah, 16, 183. Morley, Lady, 151. Morpeth, Lord, 88. Murray, Lord, 24, 25, 76, 217. Musical Festivals, 206.

N

Napoleon, 43, 47, 50, 51, 57, 61, 62, 64, 202. Netheravon, 14 seq. Newman, Cardinal, 221 n. Newton, Bishop, 77. Nicholas Nickleby (Dickens), 209. Noodle's Oration, 188, 228. Norfolk, Duke of, 113.

O

O'Connell, 106, 128. Orangemen, 65. Oswald, 35. Oxford, 9, 13. Oxford Movement, 151 n., 219.

P

Paley, 217, 218. Palmerston, 3. Paradise Lost, parody of, 159. Paris, 122, 162. "Partington, Mrs," Speech, 148. Pascal, 76. Peace, blessings of, 156-7, 191, 202. Peel, 3, 32, 125, 161. Pelham, Bishop, 78. Perceval, Spencer, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 70, 72, 73, 78, 124, 140, 198, 201 n., 221. —— Charles George, 73 n. Persecuting Bishops, 88 n., 91,195, 207. Persecution, Religious, 117 seq., 200. Peter Plymley's Letters, 43, 44, 45-76, 195, 197. Petre, Catholic family, 117. Peveril of the Peak (Scott), 209. Philips, Sir George, 34 n., 88, 89. Phillips, J.S.R., 110. Philosophy, Moral, Lectures on, 31, 33seq., 216 n. Pirate, The (Scott), 208. Pitt, 7n 22, 40, 41, 50, 51, 75, 106. Plato, 35. Playfair, John, 17, 25. Pluralities, Church, 77 seq. "Pocket Boroughs," 137 seq. Poetical Medicine Chest, The, 83. Pope, 207. Praeterita (Ruskin), 210, Preaching, 19seq. Prebends, confiscation of, 164, 168, seq. Provincial Letters (Pascal), 76, Puseyites, 222-3. Pybus, John, 22.

Q

Quarterly Review, 139, 224 n.

R Raikes, Robert, 15. Railways, Mismanagement of, 189, 190, Records of the Creation (Bishop of Chester), 90. Redesdale, Lord, 56. Reform Bill, 136 seq., 147-149, 199. Reform, Speech on, 139 seq., 142-144. Reid, Mr. Stuart, 16, 83, 86, 111, 198, 209 n. —— (philosopher), 34. Religion in England, 222 n. Retaliation, Policy of, 62, 72. Revolution of 1688, 53, 54, 117. —— French, 135, 201. Riots, Bristol, 202. Rogers, Samuel, 29, 87, 160 Romilly, Sir Samuel, 29. Rose, Mr., 63. Rousseau, 80. Ruskin, 210. Russell, Lord John, 42, 123, 138, 140, 167, 172. Life of (Walpole), 62n.

S

Sadler, Michael Thomas, 139. Salaries, Bishops', 172. Scarlett, James (Lord Abinger), 29. Schools, Public, 3, 5seq., 10, 131n. Scotch, The, 28, 54. Scott, 18, 208, 209. Selwyn, George Augustus, 189. Seneca, 176. Sermons, extracts from, 20, 21, 96, 97-105, 220, 224-5. Sevigne, Madame de, 208. Seymour, Lord, 19. Shakespeare, 207. Sharp, "Conversation," 29. Sheil, 106. Sidmouth, Lord, 64. Simeon, Charles, 91. Singleton, Archdeacon, 163, 167 seq. Slave Trade, 199. Smith, Sydney—ancestry, 1. birth, 2. schooldays, 2. life at Winchester, 3 seq. goes to Normandy to perfect his French, 9. enters New College, Oxford, 9. Fellow, 9. straitened circumstances, 9. choice of a profession, 12. ordained Deacon, 13. Priest, 14 n. Curate of Netheravou, 13. tutor to Hicks-Beach family, 17. goes to Edinburgh, 17. sermons at Charlotte Chapel, 18 seq. publishes volume of sermons, 19, 21. marriage, 22. children, 23. founds the Edinburgh Review, 24. leaves Edinburgh for London, 27. forms various friendships, 29. lectures at the Royal Institution, 31. Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy, 33. various duties in London, 39. increasing prominence, 39. preferred to the living of Foston-le-Clay, 41. Peter Plymley's Letters, 43. life at Foston-le-Clay, 79 seq. visits his friends in Edinburgh, 88. scheme of study at Foston, 89. Persecuting Bishops, 91. attack on Bishop March, 91. efforts on behalf of Catholic Emancipation, 106 seq. Rector of Londesborough, 110. Letter to the Electors on the Catholic Question, 112. improved financial condition, 112. visit to Paris, 122. promoted to prebendal stall at Bristol Cathedral, 125. severs his connection with the Edinburgh Review, 125. preaches sermon on "Gunpowder Treason," 129. death of his eldest son, 130. moves to Combe Flozey, Somerset, 131. Speech to the Freeholders on Reform, 138. Canon of St. Paul's, 145. presented at Court, 146. leads a less strenuous life, 149. official relations with St. Paul's, 152. life in London, 159. marriage of his eldest daughter, 161. goes to Paris again, 162. summit of his social fame, 163. Letters to Archdeacon Singleton, 163, 167. inherits a fortune from his brother, 176. publishes reprint of articles in Edinburgh Review, 177. decreasing health, 189. last illness and death, 192. as father, 131, 161. preacher, 19, 86, 96-105, 110, 123, 129, 130, 134, 153 seq. politician, 21, 22, 29, 40, 42, 84, 136 seg., 147 seq., 167, 199. lecturer, 31 seq. letter-writer, 80, 123, 124, 126, 189, 190. pastor, 79 seq., 110, 135 n., 141. student, 89, 207. motives in writing, 27. philosophical attainments, 33 seq. versatility, 33, 81, 195. methods of writing, 84, 90, 133. a rapid reader and reviewer, 90. style, 194. humour, 195-198. occasional coarseness, 197. controversial methods, 197-199. judgment of various authors, 207 seq. affectionate and sympathetic nature, 21, 85, 131, 133, 184, 211, 212, 216. honesty and outspokenness, 21, 124, 129. financial affairs, 27, 33, 41, 121, 125, 145. friends, 29, 84, 87, 88, 151, 161. tolerant nature, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45 seq., 106 seq., 130, 136. fancy for dabbling in medicine, 12, 18, 82, 83, 123, 133, 134, 210, 232. personal appearance, 122, 154, 193. chief pleasures, 133. general good qualities, 152, 153. not a lover of the country, 159-160. love of fun, 185-189, 191. manner in society, 194. a friend of Freedom, 199. lover of Peace, 202-204. his aesthetic sense, 204 seq. attitude towards Music, 205-206. theories of life, 210-216. temperance, 212 seq. religious views, 216 seq. some shortcomings, 219-224. summary of his character, 225. Smith, Sydney, Memoirs of (Lady Holland), 232. —— Robert (father), 2. —— James (uncle), 2. —— Mrs., nee Olier (mother), 2, 12, 212. —— Robert (brother), 2, 29. —— Cecil (brother), 2. —— Courtenay (brother), 2, 9, 176. —— Marie (sister), 2. —— Mrs., nee Pybus (wife), 22, 30, 33, 80, 86, 87, 131, 134, 135. —— Saba (daughter), 23, 81, 150, 161, 214. —— Douglas (son), 23, 37, 81, 83, 130, 131. —— Emily (daughter), 23, 37, 81, 125, 150. —— Wyndham (son), 23, 81. —— Adam, 34, 89. Smollett, 198. Somerset, Duke of, 18. Somerville, Lord, 56. Spencer, Hon. and Rev. George, 91. Stanley, Bishop, 78. Stephen, Sir Leslie, 217. Stewart, Dugald, 17, 18, 25, 34, 36. Stourton, Lord, 117. Stowell, Lord, 42. Strathaden, Lady, 161. Styles, Rev. John, 182, 183. Sumner, Archbishop, 79 n., 169. Sunday-schools, 15, 16 n., 17. Swift, 75, 76, 198.

T

Tait, Archbishop, 179, 180. Tale of a Tub (Swift), 195. Talfourd, Thomas Noon, 173. Tankerville, Lord, 87, 88. Taste, Lectures on, 31. Taxes, 227. Temperance, 212-214. Terrasson, 90. Thomson (poet), 25, 207. Thurloe, Lord, 120 n. Ticknor, George, 27, 153, 193. Tithes, Irish, 70. Toleration, Religious, 63, 64, 72, 157. —— Sermons on, 41, 42, 128, 154. Travels in South America (Waterton), 38, 185 seq. Troy, Cardinal, 57.

U

Union of Great Britain and Ireland, 54, 57. Universities, the, 10, 11, 12, 152. Utilitarianism, 210-211.

V

Valpy, Richard, 78. Vernon, Miss, 87. Victoria, Queen, Sermon on Accession of, 154, 155, 224 n. Villages, life in, 14 seq. Voltaire, 80, 113.

W

Wall, Mr. Baring, 161. Walpole, Horace, 207. Walpole, Sir Spencer, 145 n. War, horrors of, 156, 157, 191, 202-204, 233. Ward, John William (Lord Dudley), 29. Waterton, O., 38, 185 n. Watson, Bishop, 77. Waverley (Scott), 208. Wellington, Duke of, 125, 136, 143, 149. West, Benjamin, 204. Wetherell, Sir Charles, 139. Whewell, Dr., 32. Wilberforce, Bishop, 189. Wilkie, Sir David, 39. William iv., 135, 138, 141, 142, 143, 155, 202 n. Wilton, Rev. Richard, 110. Winchester College, 2, 3, 5. Wordsworth, 208. Wrangham, Francis, 107.

Y

Yorkshire Gazette, 109 n., 110. —— Herald, 109 n.



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SHAKESPEARE. By WALTER RALEIGH.

JAMES THOMSON, By G. C. MACAULAY.

EDWARD FITZGERALD. By A. C. BENSON.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE. By EDMUND GOSSE.

WALTER PATER. By A. C. BENSON.



VOLUMES NOW READY.

GEORGE ELIOT. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

Mr. HERBERT PAUL in the NINETEENTH CENTURY.—"The first of English living critics has been fitly chosen to inaugurate the new series of Messrs. Macmillan's 'English Men of Letters.' Mr. Leslie Stephen's 'George Eliot' is a grave, sober, and measured estimate of a great Englishwoman."

Mr. W.L. COURTNEY in the DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"One of the most fascinating and accomplished pieces of criticism that have appeared for some time past Mr. Stephen is a prince of contemporary critics, and any one who ventures to disagree with him incurs a very heavy responsibility."

WILLIAM HAZLITT. By AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.

ACADEMY.—"We have read this book through in a single sitting, delighted by its easy yet careful narrative, its sane and kindly comment, and last, not least, by its wealth of quotation."

DAILY NEWS.—"Mr. Birrell has made judicious use of the mass of materials at his disposal, and with the aid of his acute and thoughtful running commentary, has enabled his readers to form a tolerably accurate and complete conception of the brilliant essays and critic with no greater expenditure of time and pains than is needed for the perusal of this slender volume."

MATTHEW ARNOLD. By HERBERT PAUL.

Canon AINGER in the PILOT.—"A most interesting and admirably written estimate of Matthew Arnold. This estimate, so far as regards Mr, Arnold's poetry and his prose critical essays, seems to me so nearly faultless as hardly to justify any counter criticism."

WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—"An exceedingly effective essay in criticism."

SPECTATOR.—"This monograph is valuable as a succinct statement, set out in an appreciative, interesting, skilful, and sometimes sparkling fashion, of the labours and pursuits that make up the tireless life of the great poet and essayist."

JOHN RUSKIN. By FREDERIC HARRISON.

TIMES.—"Mr. Harrison knew Ruskin at his best; lectured with him at the Working Men's College; visited him at Denmark Hill; and in later years often saw and corresponded with him. The result is a study of the writer marked in equal measure by discrimination and sympathy; and a picture of the man, vivid and arresting."

GLOBE.—"The best account of Ruskin and his work which has yet been given to the world. The writer is sure of his facts, and is able to illuminate them by means not only of a close personal acquaintance with his subject, but also of a wide and deep knowledge of many other men and things."

TENNYSON. By Sir ALFRED LYALL, K.C.B,

TIMES.—"The criticism is always sane, and sometimes brilliant; it never errs on the side of exuberance; and it is expressed in excellent English, moulded into dignified paragraphs."

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"The memoir is admirably carried out, telling the reader precisely what he wants to know, giving an account of what the poems contain, as well as a running commentary upon their character and value, being written, in short, not for the superior person, but for the average man of the world with literary tastes."

SAMUEL RICHARDSON. By AUSTIN DOBSON.

TIMES.—"Mr. Austin Dobson has written what is very nearly a perfect little book of its kind.... Mr. Dobson's book is composed with infinite literary tact, with precision, and a certain smiling grace, and friendly and easy touch at once remarkable and charming. Mr. Dobson is always accurate in his facts. He is fresh, vivacious, and interesting in his conclusions."

Mr. W.L. COURTNEY in the DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"Mr. Dobson's study is absolutely in the first rank, worthy to be put by the side of Sir Leslie Stephen's criticism of George Eliot."

WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—"We have nothing but praise to utter of Mr. Dobson's contribution to 'English Men of Letters.'"

BROWNING. By G. K. CHESTERTON.

TIMES.-"The originality and suggestiveness of Mr. Chesterton's work... his sanity and virility of temper are evident and refreshing."

Mr. W.L. COURTNEY in the DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"One of the most illuminating and stimulating pieces of work which have been produced in our not wholly critical age."

ATHENAEUM.—"This new volume of the 'English Men of Letters' is one of the most refreshing in that admirable series."

PILOT.—"An interesting, entertaining, and even inspiring life of a great poet."

CRABBE. By ALFRED AINGER.

TIMES.—"Canon Ainger has given us the book we should expect from him, one full of sincerity, good taste, and good sense. The story of the poet's uneventful life is admirably retold, with the quiet distinction of a style which is intent on its own business and too sure of producing its effect to care about forcing attention by rhetorical or epigrammatic fireworks. And Canon Ainger has been fortunate enough to be able to add a few new facts, and throw a little new light on the poet's life."

GLOBE.—"Unquestionably, and even obviously, this volume by Canon Ainger is the best available account of Crabbe and his works. The treatment is careful, thorough, and, while sympathetic, shrewd."

FANNY BURNEY. By AUSTIN DOBSON.

TIMES.—"A book of unfailing charm—perhaps the most charming of this admirable series."

GLOBE.—"Eloquent and sparkling."

SPECTATOR.—"The monograph is in all respects worthy of the admirable series in which it appears."

PILOT.—"In asking Mr. Dobson to undertake the book, the publishers have certainly found the best man for the task ... Mr. Dobson is too well known and esteemed a craftsman to need fresh praises, and it is enough to say that here is another book of his as good as the rest."

JEREMY TAYLOR. By EDMUND GOSSE.

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"It is right that so great an ornament to our Church should have fitting commentary in a modern series dedicated to the history of English letters, and Mr. Gosse's little book worthily and eloquently expounds his high theme."

ACADEMY.—"A worthy monument to one of the greatest of Anglican divines."

MORNING POST.—"His profound and brilliant study of Jeremy Taylor's life and writings."

ROSSETTI. By ARTHUR C. BENSON.

TIMES.—"A very good book, full of well-chosen, facts and of discreet sympathy with a character that needs a good deal of understanding."

PILOT.—"Mr. Benson displays not only a delicate sympathy, but a penetration and a sanity of judgment that enable him to put before us not merely a plausible, but a convincing portrait of a man who twenty years after his death, in spite of changing fashions, exercises, as in his own day, a strange and potent spell over the imagination."

MARIA EDGEWORTH. By the Hon. EMILY LAWLESS.

GUARDIAN.—"Miss Lawless is to be congratulated upon having produced what is very nearly the ideal life of Maria Edgeworth. Within little more than two hundred pages she has included all necessary facts, and has achieved a living presentment of a most estimable and lovable character."

STANDARD.—"Miss Lawless has drawn a most acceptable portrait of a delightful woman."

GLOBE.—"A memoir of great interest."

HOBBES. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

TIMES.—"One of the most remarkable additions to the 'Men of Letters.'... The admirable judgment and remarkable knowledge of Sir Leslie Stephen have rarely been seen to more advantage than in these pages."

GLOBE.—"Valuable little work."

PALL MALL GAZETTE.—"One of the happiest examples of Sir Leslie's marvellous success in making biography unfailing in its interest."

ADAM SMITH. By FRANCIS W. HIRST.

THE WORLD.—"A careful and sympathetic survey of the life, work, and teaching of the famous political economist."

TIMES.—"Mr. Hirst's interesting sketch leaves the impression of a life singularly full, rich, and successful, lightened and warmed even, towards the close by the sunshine of friendship and affection."



English Men of Letters.

EDITED BY JOHN MORLEY.

RE-ISSUE OF THE ORIGINAL SERIES.

LIBRARY EDITION. UNIFORM WITH THE NEW SERIES.

Crown 8vo. Gilt tops. Flat backs. 2s. net per vol.

ADDISON. By W. J. COURTHOPE.

BACON. By Dean CHURCH.

BENTLEY. By Sir RICHARD JEBB.

BUNYAN. By J. A. FROUDE.

BURKE. By JOHN MORLEY.

BURNS. By Principal SHAIRP.

BYRON. By Professor NICHOL.

CARLYLE. By Professor NICHOL.

CHAUCER. By Dr. A. W. WARD.

COLERIDGE. By H. D. TRAILL.

COWPER. By GOLDWIN SMITH.

DEFOE. By W. MINTO.

DE QUINCEY. By Professor MASSON.

DICKENS. By Dr. A. W. WARD.

DRYDEN. By Professor SAINTSBURY.

FIELDING. By AUSTIN DOBSON.

GIBBON. By J. C. MORISON.

GOLDSMITH. By W. BLACK.

GRAY. By EDMUND GOSSE.

HAWTHORNE. By HENRY JAMES.

HUME. By Professor HUXLEY, F.R.S.

JOHNSON. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

KEATS. By SIDNEY COLVIN.

LAMB, CHARLES. By Canon AINGER.

LANDOR. By SIDNEY COLVIN.

LOCKE. By THOMAS FOWLER.

MACAULAY. By J. C. MORISON.

MILTON. By MARK PATTISON.

POPE. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

SCOTT. By R. H. HUTTON.

SHELLEY. By J. A. SYMONDS.

SHERIDAN. By Mrs. OLIPHANT.

SIDNEY. By J. A. SYMONDS.

SOUTHEY. By Professor DOWDEN.

SPENSER. By Dean CHURCH.

STERNE. By H. D. TRAILL.

SWIFT. By Sir LESLIE STEPHEN, K.C.B.

THACKERAY. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.

WORDSWORTH. By F. W. H. MYERS.

THE END