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It was about this time that an old lady, Aunt Mary by name, who possessed considerable wealth, suddenly proposed to pay us a visit; and, as it seemed, so much approved all she saw in the little establishment at Foston, that on her death, the following year, she left my father a most unexpected legacy. Though not large, it then seemed to us all unbounded wealth. On receiving this accession of fortune, my father of course immediately released my uncle from the contribution he had so kindly made towards my brother’s education. His next step was to call us all around him, saying, “You must all share in this windfall: so choose something you would like.” We all made our selection.
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In the winter of this year, we all went to Edinburgh on a visit to Lord Jeffrey, after ten years’ absence on our side; and a most agreeable visit we had; for, in addition to the enjoyment of Lord Jeffrey’s society at every stray moment he could steal from business, we were received with open arms by all our old Scotch friends; and when they do open their arms, there are no people so kind and so hospitable as the Scotch.
In May, next year (1822), my father went up to stay a short time in his
brother’s house in town, as indeed he usually did every spring. And the rush of
invitations, and the struggle for his society, would have been quite enough to turn any
head less strong than his. Many weeks before he set off, invitations used to come down into
the country; and I have known him engaged every night during his stay, for three weeks
beforehand; but in the midst of all this dissipation and popularity he never forgot his
home and family. Every morning, at breakfast, appeared his letter to my mother, giving an
account of his daily proceedings, together with minute directions about his farm and
parish; not always, it must be admitted, in the most legible hand. A family council was
often held over his directions; once, so entirely without success, that, after many
endeavours on our part to decipher what they could be, as it seemed urgent, my mother cut
out the passage and enclosed it to him; he returned it, saying, “he must decline
ever reading his own handwriting four-and-twenty hours after he
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 193 |
The interests of his villagers, too, were not neglected. On one occasion, in
a broiling sun, with no other equipage than his umbrella, he paced down to one of the
public offices to obtain some information about a young soldier, the only son of a poor
labourer and his wife, in his village, who were in a great state of anxiety about him, not
having received any tidings for months. He entered the office, hot, tired, and dusty, and I
daresay very ill-dressed; and proceeded to put the necessary questions to one of the young
officials, in all the splendour of whisker and waistcoat; but, after much delay and cool
impertinence, obtained no satisfactory answer. He then said, giving his card, and making
his bow, “I have but one other question to trouble you with, Sir, and that is your
name; as I am about to proceed from this
| 194 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
In the winter of the following year, about six o’clock in the evening,
we were assembled round a blazing fire, waiting for dinner. The weather had been unusually
severe, and the roads were so filled by drifts of snow, that they were considered quite
impassable. The butcher and the baker even could hardly make their way on horseback to the
house, and the front door was so blocked up by snow as to be quite unapproachable. Suddenly
a tremendous peal was heard on the bell: all started at the unwonted sound in such a season
and at such an hour, and were lost in conjectures what it could mean.
Bunch rushed to the door, and presently entered the room
breathless, exclaiming, “Please, Sir, Lord and Lady Mackincrush is com’d in
a coach-and-four, and wants to stay with you, but they can’t get up to the front
door!” Who Lord and Lady Mackincrush could be, and why they bestowed
themselves upon us, was alike a mystery. But Sydney,
calling for a lantern, sallied forth, and found, to his no less joy than surprise, his old
friend Sir James Mackintosh and his daughter, half
buried in the snow.
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My father’s sketch, in the Life of Sir James, shows his estimate of this great man; and the keen enjoyment his society ever afforded him was enhanced by the rarity of their meeting, now that he was so far removed from his former friends.
Sir James Mackintosh went after a few days; leaving behind not recollections only, but hat, books, gloves, papers, and various portions of his wardrobe, with characteristic carelessness. “What a man that would be,” said my father, “had he a particle of gall, or the least knowledge of the value of red tape!” As Curran said of Grattan, “he would have governed the world.”
In 1823, having received a presentation to the Charterhouse from the
Archbishop of York, for his second son,
Wyndham, he took him there in the spring. Whilst
he was in town, Mr. Rogers says, “I had
been ill some weeks, confined to my bed. Sydney
heard of it, found me out, sat by my bed, cheered me, talked to me, made me laugh more
than I ever thought to have laughed again. The next day a bulletin was brought to my
bedside, giving the physician’s report of my case; the following day the report
was much worse; the next day declaring there was no hope, and Eng-
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In the course of the summer a young friend came to spend a month with us, the freshness and originality of whose character both interested and amused my father; he chanced on one occasion to call her “a nice person.” “Oh, don’t call me nice,’ Mr. Sydney; people only say that where they can say nothing else.” “Why? have you ever reflected what ‘a nice person’ means?” “No, Mr. Sydney,” said she, laughing, “but I don’t like it.” “Well, give me pen and ink; I will show you,” said my father, “a
“A nice person is neither too tall or too short, looks clean and cheerful, has no prominent feature, makes no difficulties, is never misplaced, sits bodkin, is never foolishly affronted, and is void of affectations.
“A nice person helps you well at dinner, understands you, is always gratefully received by young and old, Whig and Tory, grave and gay.
“There is something in the very air of a nice person which inspires
you with confidence, makes you talk, and talk without fear of malicious
misrepresentation; you feel that you are reposing upon a nature which God has made
kind, and created for the benefit and
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“A nice person is clear of little, trumpery passions, acknowledges superiority, delights in talent, shelters humility, pardons adversity, forgives deficiency, respects all men’s rights, never stops the bottle, is never long and never wrong, always knows the day of the month, the name of everybody at table, and never gives pain to any human being.
“If anybody is wanted for a party, a nice person is the first thought of; when the child is christened, when the daughter is married,—all the joys of life are communicated to nice people; the hand of the dying man is always held out to a nice person.
“A nice person never knocks over wine or melted butter, does not tread upon the dog’s foot, or molest the family cat, eats soup without noise, laughs in the right place, and has a watchful and attentive eye.”
This same year, his eldest son, Douglas, having left Westminster with great distinction (and been elected Captain of the College, after struggling with unusual difficulties), went in the autumn to Christ Church, Oxford.* My father mentions, in the autumn of this
* “His father had always taught him the Eton grammar. The intention of sending him to Westminster was sudden. The change of grammar was a dreadful difficulty, only a few months before the competition, which was to admit him as a King’s scholar. In addition to this, a most severe fever seized him shortly after he went to Westminster, and for six weeks kept him confined to his bed: but so eager was he for success, for our sakes, that even while keeping his bed from fever and weakness, he ever had his Westminster |
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In 1824, my father took us for a short time to town, Miss Vernon having kindly lent us her house in Hertford-street. We returned to York for the assizes, as he had been appointed by Sir John Johnstone (then High Sheriff) his chaplain; and it was upon this occasion that he preached in the Cathedral two remarkable sermons, upon the unjust judge, and the lawyer who tempted Christ. There was great curiosity to hear him, particularly amongst the lawyers on the Northern circuit, to most of whom he was personally known. The cathedral was crowded to the utmost. I well remember the startling effect on every one present when, after rising and looking round with that calm dignity so peculiar to him in the pulpit, he slowly delivered, with his powerful voice (the two judges sit-
grammar under his pillow; and, too ill to get up, he was incessantly working at it, in spite of all we could say. The challenges last about six weeks; there were, this year, twenty-eight candidates, of whom eight were admitted; and dear Douglas was sixth, to our inexpressible joy; for I verily believe it would have broken his heart had he failed, so very desirous was he, on this first occasion that had occurred in his young life, to repay by his success all the anxious and agitating fears his father had felt about him for the future. Having become a King’s scholar, the hardships and cruelties he suffered, as a junior boy, from his master, were such as at one time very nearly to compel us to remove him from the school. He was taken home for a short period, to recover from his bruises, and restore his eye. His first act, on becoming Captain himself, was to endeavour to ameliorate the condition of the juniors, and to obtain additional comforts for them from the head-master.”—From my Mother’s Journal. |
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“He who takes the office of a judge, as it now exists in this country, takes in his hands a splendid gem, good and glorious, perfect and pure. Shall he give it up mutilated? shall he mar it? shall he darken it? shall it emit no light? shall it be valued at no price? shall it excite no wonder? shall he find it a diamond? shall he leave it a stone?
“What should we say to the man who would wilfully destroy with fire the magnificent temple of God in which I am now preaching? Far worse is he who ruins the moral edifice of the world, which time and toil, and many prayers to God, and many sufferings of men have reared; who puts out the light of the times in which he lives, and leaves us to wander in the darkness of corruption and the desolation of sin.
“There may be, there probably is, in this church some young man who
may hereafter fill the office of an English judge, when the greater part of those who
hear me this day are dead and gone. Let him remember my words, and let them form and
fashion his spirit. He cannot tell in what dangerous and awful times he may be placed:
but, as a mariner looks to
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During one of his visits to London, at a dinner at Spencer House, the
conversation turned upon dogs. “Oh,” said my father, “one of
the greatest difficulties I have had with my parishioners has been on the subject of
dogs.” “How so?” said Lord
Spencer. “Why, when I first went down into Yorkshire, there had not
been a resident clergyman in my parish for a hundred and fifty years. Each farmer kept
a huge mastiff dog, ranging at large, and ready to make his morning meal on clergy or
laity, as best suited his particular taste; I never could approach a cottage in pursuit
of my calling, but I rushed into the jaws of one of these shaggy monsters. I scolded,
preached, and prayed, without avail; so I determined to try what fear for their pockets
might do. Forthwith appeared in the county papers a minute account of a trial of a
farmer, at the Northampton Sessions, for keeping dogs unconfined; where said farmer was
not only fined five pounds and reprimanded by the magistrates, but sentenced to three
months’ imprisonment. The effect
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In the year 1825, a meeting of the clergy of the diocese having been called in the East Riding of Yorkshire, to petition Parliament against the emancipation of the Catholics, was held at the Tiger Inn, at Beverley. My father, though much disliking such meetings, felt that, if they were called, it was his duty to attend; and, attending, to speak. Two petitions were sent up to Parliament; one to the House of Lords, to be presented by the Archbishop of York; the other to the Commons, by Sir Robert Peel; which were acceded to unanimously by all the clergy present, my father’s being the only dissentient voice.*
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I see, in the very interesting Life of Dr. Bathurst, Bishop of Norwich, lately published by his daughter, that at an advanced age he stood alone in the House of Lords to advocate the cause of religions toleration against all the bench of Bishops. She speaks with honest pride of the just admiration his courage obtained from his friends, and the gratitude of the Ministry. But if this required such courage in the “Good Bishop,” who came to that House with all the weight of the family connection, whose influence first placed him there; and invested with the dignity of high office; will it be ungraceful in me to ask, what courage it required in my father, still young, under a Tory administration, poor, with a heavy debt still hanging over him, without family or friends to support him there, to come forward alone, in opposition to the whole clergy of his diocese, to advocate the
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About this period a very considerable and most unexpected addition was made to my father’s income
* I hope I shall not be understood as wishing to depreciate one whom all good men must admire, but as only desirous of doing justice to my father. |
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This was the more striking from one the buoyancy of whose spirits usually rose above all difficulties. It made a deep impression upon us; and I remember many little family councils, to see if it were not possible to economize in something more, and lessen our daily expenses to assist him.
The following year he accomplished what he had long wished to do, but had
never been able to afford,
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He has given his impressions of Paris in his letters to my mother. These Paris letters are, I am sorry to say, almost the only ones to her which have been preserved; for though, when absent, he wrote to my mother regularly every day, yet the interesting matter they contained was so mixed up with directions and home details, that they were not considered of permanent value. The only purchase he made for himself in Paris, though he brought us all a gift, was a huge seal, containing the arms of a peer of France, which he met with in a broker’s shop, and bought for four francs; and which he declared should henceforth be the arms of his branch of the Smith family. From all he witnessed in Paris, and seeing the little wisdom the Bourbons seemed to have gained from misfortune, he predicted the revolution which took place so few years afterwards. He renewed there his early acquaintance with two remarkable men, Talleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo, of whom he saw a good deal.
After his return we had a visit from Lord Jeffrey; our old and valued friend Mr. Whishaw, the Hannibal of his suppers; and Mr. John Romilly, now Master of the Rolls.
My father, who, however he might indulge in attacks on what he thought the
shortcomings of the Church, never for a moment tolerated anything approaching to
irreligion, even in his most private transactions, re-
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In 1827 the Junction Ministry was formed, which combined a portion of the Whigs with the remains of Mr. Canning’s party. My father, knowing that there were in this Ministry many upon whom he had just claims, finding his family now grown up, his son about to enter on an expensive profession,* and aware that his clerical income would shortly be diminished to nearly one-third by the resignation of the living of Londesborough to Mr. Howard, felt it due to himself and his family to make some application for preferment to his friends. He wrote, therefore, to one or two of those in the Ministry, and to his friend Lord Brougham likewise, stating to him his hopes and wishes, and requesting his influence with those in power. From Lord Brougham I have reason to believe he received the answer he had a right to expect from so very old a friend. From one of the others he received an answer politely deferring his promises to some future period, as I presume from the following reply, which is so very characteristic of my father, and so very unlike the usual mode of address from an ex-
* He was destined for the Law. |
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“I am much obliged by your polite letter. You appeal to my good-nature to prevent me from considering your letter as a decent method of putting me off: your appeal, I assure you, is not made in vain. I do not think you mean to put me off; because I am the most prominent, and was for a long time the only clerical advocate of that question, by the proper arrangement of which you believe the happiness and safety of the country would be materially improved. I do not believe you mean to put me off; because, in giving me some promotion, you will teach the clergy, from whose timidity you have everything to apprehend, and whose influence upon the people you cannot doubt, that they may, under your Government, obey the dictates of their consciences without sacrificing the emoluments of their profession. I do not think you mean to put me off; because, in the conscientious administration of that patronage with which you are entrusted, I think it will occur to you that something is due to a person who, instead of basely chiming in with the bad passions of the multitude, has dedicated some talent and some activity to soften religious hatreds, and to make men less violent and less foolish than he found them.
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We received a visit in the autumn from a clergyman, who, though a comparatively recent friend, was one ever highly valued by my father, and who was afterwards promoted to the bench. A letter he wrote on this occasion, descriptive of his visit, which has been most kindly sent me by his widow, is so graphic, and it is so flattering to my father that such a letter should have been written by such a man, that I cannot resist inserting it here, though it speaks of things some of which have been alluded to before.
“A man’s character is probably more faithfully represented in
the arrangements of his home than in any other point; and Foston is a facsimile of its
master’s mind, from first to last. He had no architect, but I question whether a
more 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 snugness and
comfort, and its internal arrangements are perfect. The drawing-room is the colour you
covet, the genuine chromium, with a sort of yellow flowering pattern. 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 by shadrachs, tubes furnished with air from without, opening into the centre
of the fire; his poker, tongs, and shovel are secured from falling with that
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“His own study has no appearance of comfort; but as he 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 out of a large bag, giving me an illustrated lecture upon each component part. Fancy him in a fit of rheumatism, his legs 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 bedrooms are counterparts of the lower rooms; 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 them hung 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: contrivance and singularity in every hole and corner.
“‘What, in the name of wonder, is that skeleton sort of
machine in the middle of your field?’ ‘Oh, that is my universal Scratcher;
a framework so con-
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“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 fireside for some time before the host appeared, and the mistake 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 setout! The family chariot, which he calls the Immortal, from having been altered 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 substituted for the pole, in which shafts stood one of his 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,
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“His domestic establishment is on a par with the rest: his head servant is his carpenter, and never appears excepting on company days. We were waited upon by his usual corps domestique, one little girl, about fourteen years of age; named, I believe, Mary or Fanny, but invariably called by them Bunch. With the most immovable gravity she stands before him when he gives his orders, the answers to which he makes her repeat verbatim, to ensure accuracy.
“Not to lose time, he farms with a tremendous speaking-trumpet from his door; a proper companion for which machine is a telescope, slung in leather, for observing what they are doing.
“On Monday came Lady H. Hall, her two daughters and her two sons; the latter, Captain B. Hall, a rara avis I have long wished to see; and Peter Tytler, son (is he not?) to the author. What a charm there is in good society and well-informed people! what would you not have given to have heard the mass of wit, sense, anecdote, and instruction that flowed incessantly!”
The equipage alluded to in this letter requires a little explanation. Our
house was above a mile from the little church, with roads to it of the stiffest and deepest
clay, hardly passable to women in wet weather or winter, and my mother was in delicate
health.
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A word, too, ought to be said in explanation of the drawing-room furniture
alluded to in this letter with so much praise. It consisted of a few relics preserved from
the valuable Indian furniture left by my grandmother, the greater part of which had been
parted with by my mother for our benefit. All the rest was plain enough, though still in
good taste. Economy, in the estimation of common minds, often means the absence of all
taste and comfort; my father had the rare art to combine it with both. For instance, he
found it added much to the expense of building to have high walls; he therefore threw the
whole space of the roof into his bedrooms, coved the ceilings and papered them, and thus
they were all airy, gay, cheap, and pretty. Cornices he found expensive; so not one in the
house, but the paper border, thrown on the ceiling with a line of shade under it. This
relieved the eye, and atoned for their absence. Marble chimney-pieces were too dear; so he
hunted out a cheap, warm-looking Portland stone, had them cut after his
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After my father became rich, at the end of life, he amusingly alludes, in one of his letters, to the joy my mother would feel on finding he had put up marble chimneypieces in his town-house.*
In his youth my father had been very fond of the game of chess, but had left it off for many years. He suddenly took it into his head to resume it this winter, and selected me, faute de mieux, as his antagonist. His mode of play was very characteristic—bold, rapid attack, without a moment’s pause or indecision, which I suspect would have exposed him to danger from a more experienced adversary; but as it was, with a profound contempt for my skill, promising me a shilling if I beat him, he sat down with a book in his hand, looked up for an instant, made a move, and beat me regularly every night all through the winter. At last I won my shilling, but lost my playfellow; he challenged me no more.
My father was very fond of singing, but rather slow in learning a song, though when once he had accomplished it, he sang it very correctly. As he never tired of his old friends, and had always some new one on the stocks, there was a tolerable variety of songs to select from; and, with my mother’s beautiful accompaniment (she was a very accomplished musician) and
* See Letter to Mrs. Holland in the Correspondence. |
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 215 |
On the 1st of January, 1828, his youngest daughter, Emily, was married by the Archbishop of York to Mr. Hibbert,
in the little barn church before mentioned. And on the 24th of the same month Lord Lyndhurst, then Chancellor, had the real friendship and
courage to brave the opinions and opposition of his own party; and, though differing
entirely from my father in politics, from private friendship and the respect he had for his
character and talents, to bestow on him a stall which was then vacant at Bristol;—two
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For this promotion he always felt deeply grateful to Lord Lyndhurst, as it was of the greatest importance to him; less in a pecuniary point of view (as, though rendering permanent what was before temporary, it rather diminished than increased his previous income), than from breaking that spell which had hitherto kept him down in his profession, and enabling him to show the world how well he could fulfil its duties, wherever placed. And this was strikingly exemplified at Bristol, where he arrived with a strong prejudice felt not only against himself by a large party, but against the Church generally; Bristol being full of Dissenters, and the cathedral almost deserted at the time of his arrival. There was a good deal of curiosity excited, to hear what line he would take.
He commenced his duties by preaching a sermon on the 5th of November, before the Mayor and Corporation, who came expecting to hear the usual attack on Catholics made on these occasions, and were much startled and astonished at hearing religious toleration preached from the pulpit of their cathedral, and from the lips of a dignitary of the Church. This letter, sent to me by Lord Hatherton, gives my father’s account of what passed:—
“My dear Littleton,—Many thanks for your game,
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“At Bristol, on the 5th of November, I gave the Mayor and Corporation (the most Protestant Mayor and Corporation in England) such a dose of toleration, as shall last them for many a year. A deputation of pro-Popery papers waited on me today to print, but I declined. I told the Corporation, at the end of my sermon, that beautiful rabbinical story quoted by Jeremy Taylor, ‘As Abraham was sitting at the door of his tent,’ etc. etc., which, by the bye, would make a charming and useful placard against the bigoted.
“Be assured I shall make a discreet use of the intelligence you give me, and compromise you in nothing.
“Remember me, if you please, to Wilmot Horton when you write; I like him very much, and take a sincere interest in his welfare.
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I have heard that this sermon occasioned an immense sensation at the time, “and the cathedral, from that period, whenever he was to preach (though previously almost deserted), was filled to suffocation. A crowd collected round the doors long before they were opened, and the heads of the standers in the aisle were so thick-set you could not have thrust in another; and I saw the men holding up their hats above their heads, that they might not be crushed by the pressure.”
“He preached,” says an eye-witness, “finely and bravely on this occasion, in direct opposition to the principles and prejudices of the persons in authority present; and ended by that beautiful apologue from Jeremy Taylor, illustrating Charity and Toleration, where Abraham, rising in wrath to put the wayfaring man forth from his tent for refusing to worship the Lord his God,* the voice of the Lord was heard in
* Extract from the liberty of Prophesying, by Jeremy Taylor, D.D., ed. 1657, p. 606:— § 22. “I end with a story which I find in the Jew’s Books. When Abraham sat at his tent-door, according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man stooping and leaning on his staffe, weary with age and travelle, coming towards him, who was an hundred years of age; he received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down; but observing that the old man eat and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing on his meat, asked him, why he did not worship the God of heaven? The old man told him that he worshiped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God: at which answer Abraham grew so zealously 1 Gentius, the Latin translator of Saadi at Amsterdam, was that Jew, as appears by its being copied into Taylor’s second edition, subsequent to its publication at Amsterdam in 1651. |
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“And yet,” says the same eye-witness of whom I have before spoken, “never did anybody to my mind look more like a High Churchman, as he walked up the aisle to the altar,—there was an air of so much proud dignity in his appearance; and when I saw him afterwards more intimately in private life, I became aware he had a lofty, brave soul, with an intense contempt for everything that was mean, base, or truckling.”
The following letter from Mr. Everett gives some interesting information on this remarkable apologue, before alluded to:—
“My dear Mrs. Smith,—I duly received, a short time since, your very interesting letter of the 7th of July, with the copy of Mr. Smith’s speech, so kindly sent by you, and the memorandum relative to the Parable on Persecution. The speech, like everything from the same source, breathes a spirit of noble liberality and sound sense, which cannot be too highly praised. I am greatly indebted to you for
angry, that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to him and asked him where the stranger was; he replied, ‘I thrust him away because he did not worship thee;’ God answered him, ‘I have suffered him these hundred years, although he dishonoured me, and couldst not thou endure him one night, when he gave thee no trouble?’ Upon this, saith the story, Abraham fetcht him back again, and gave him hospitable entertainment and wise instruction. Go thou and do likewise, and thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham.” |
| 220 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
“The Parable on Persecution is one of the most curious topics in literary history. It has often been made the foundation of a charge of plagiarism against Dr. Franklin, but, as I think, without foundation. In its modern form, it was first published by Lord Kames, in 1774. He says, ‘It was communicated to me by Dr. Franklin of Philadelphia;’ but he does not say that Dr. F. claimed the authorship of it. It was not long after inserted in a small collection of Dr. Franklin’s miscellaneous writings, published by Mr. B. Vaughan (a gentleman recollected by Lord Lansdowne) in London. Mr. Vaughan took it from Lord Kames’s work. In 1788 it was traced to its source in Gentius’s preface; and Dr. Franklin having been then charged with plagiarism, some friend well acquainted with his habits vindicated him in the same work, the ‘Repository,’ in which the charge was made. These, and some other interesting facts, are given in the new edition (Mr. Sparks’s) of Franklin’s works, vol. ii. p. 118, which, with the note to Bishop Heber’s Life of Jeremy Taylor, in the first volume of the works, p. 365, contains, I believe, all that is known on the subject. I see one slight mistake in this learned note: it states that the famous parable did not appear in the first edition of the ‘Liberty of Prophesying,’ which was published in 1647, but in the second, which was printed in 1657; the work of Gentius having appeared in the interval. I have before me a volume which purports to be the second edition of the ‘Liberty of Prophesying,’ published in London in 1702, and not containing the parable, but this is quite immaterial.
“I lean a little to the opinion, that
Bishop Taylor may have taken it from
some Jewish book not yet discovered. There is no reason why, if he quoted
Gentius, he should
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 221 |
“Whatever be its source, there are few teachings as impressive of Jewish or Christian wisdom. It is an undoubted chapter of that great primitive Gospel, which God has written in the hearts and consciences of men, but which, like the page of revelation, is too apt to be forgotten under the influence of selfish and corrupt motives.
“I rejoice to hear that Mr. Smith’s works are so frequently reprinted. In this way he will for ages to come continue to teach lessons of toleration and humanity to all who speak the English tongue. There is no one of my friends in England, with respect to whom I am more frequently questioned than Mr. Smith; and I esteem it one of the chief blessings of my residence in London to have known him, and been honoured with so much of his kindness.
“I remain, my dear Mrs. Smith, with the highest regards, ever faithfully yours,
On his appointment to the prebendal stall at Bristol, he went for the first time to Court, and he gives an amusing account of himself on the occasion.
| 222 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
“I found my colleague Tate, the other day, in his simplicity consulting the Archdeacon of Newfoundland what he should wear at the levee;—a man who sits bobbing for cod, and pocketing every tenth fish. However, I did worse when I went, by consulting no one; and, through pure ignorance, going to the levee in shoe-strings instead of shoe-buckles. I found, to my surprise, people looking down at my feet; I could not think what they were at. At first I thought they had discovered the beauty of my legs, but at last the truth burst on me, by some wag laughing, and thinking I had done it as a good joke. I was of course excessively annoyed to have been supposed capable of such a vulgar, unmeaning piece of disrespect, and kept my feet as coyly under my petticoats as the veriest prude in the country, till I could make my escape; so perhaps, after all, I had better have followed my friend’s example.”
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