Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/267

SMI from having been captain of Winchester school, he was cast by his father upon his own resources. His inclination would have led him to the bar as a profession; but in obedience to his father's wishes he entered the church, and became in 1794 curate in the small village of Netherhaven, in the midst of Salisbury Plain. This residence in uncongenial solitude, where he was "the first and purest pauper of the hamlet," was not without its advantages, in forcing his active mind to deeper study and reflection, than would have been possible to so brilliant a talker thrown into general intercourse with the world. He commenced also the exercise of that active, practical, and ingenious charity which distinguished his management of poor parishioners to the end of his life. Having fascinated the squire of Netherhaven, Mr. Beach, by his entertaining conversation, that gentleman requested Mr. Smith to become tutor to his son. Accepting this charge he set out with his pupil in 1797 for the university of Weimar; but the troubled condition of the continent frustrated this scheme, and master and scholar were forced by "stress of politics" to put into Edinburgh, where Smith passed some of the happiest days of his not unhappy life. He was a welcome addition to the group of able men who then procured for the Scotch capital the title of Modern Athens. He spared not his jokes, called Scotland "the garret of the earth, the knuckle end of England," and pretended to doubt the capacity of a Scotchman for appreciating wit; but he always entertained, says his daughter, a sincere affection both for the country and the people. la 1802 occurred that meeting of three or four literary friends in "the elevated residence of Mr. Jeffrey," at which Smith proposed that they should set up a review with the motto, Tenui musam meditamur avena, interpreted by the witty proposer to mean "We cultivate literature upon a little oatmeal." The proposal resulted in the appearance of the Edinburgh Review, to which Smith was one of the ablest and most popular contributors for nearly thirty years. It is impossible in this second half of the century to appreciate the boldness or understand the startling effect produced by the new periodical in 1802. It flew bravely at the most cherished prejudices of the majority of the people, the court, and the government of the country. Mr. Smith's review articles attacking catholic disabilities, the test and corporation acts, the law of debt, the treatment of prisoners who were allowed no counsel, the game laws, and various other abuses, alone entitle him to the gratitude of his countrymen. The unfailing wit and humour of these writings, no less than the sound sense pervading them, will cause them to be read long after the subjects discussed have ceased to be matters of dispute. His exertions in the cause of Roman catholic emancipation took a more decided form in 1808, when the public mind was at once roused and delighted by the appearance of "Letters on the Catholics from Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham." The government of the day took great pains to find out the author. All that they could find was that they were brought to Mr. Budd, the publisher, by the earl of Lauderdale. Mr. Smith included them in the collection of his works published in 1839. His severe strictures in the Plymley letters on Canning as "the light and frivolous jester," seem strange when read by the light of his own subsequent reputation. In later years indeed he admitted some of the excesses into which party feeling led him, and he was a stanch partisan of the whigs, even in their darkest days. The small chance of success which seemed to attend liberal politics, made the few supporters of that cause more desperate in its behalf. Mr. Smith had ceased to reside in Edinburgh in 1803, and in 1804 was settled in Doughty Street, London, in the midst of a colony of lawyers, with the best of whom he became acquainted. His preaching had been much admired both in Edinburgh and London, and he endeavoured to secure a private chapel then occupied by dissenters, but for some unexplained reasons the rector of the parish refused him the necessary license. His opinion of pulpit oratory, what it often is and what it ought to be, was expressed in the query, "Is sin to be taken front men, as Eve was from Adam, by casting them into a deep slumber?" In 1804-5-6 he delivered to a crowded audience at the Royal Institution, Albemarle Street, the lectures afterwards published under the title of "Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy." Those upon wit and humour are exceedingly interesting. "Genuine and innocent wit," he says in one passage, "is surely the flavour of the mind." In 1809, through the exertions of Lord and Lady Holland, Mr. Smith was appointed by Lord-chancellor Erskine to the benefice of Foxton-le-Olay, where he went with his family to reside, and where he remained for twenty-two years. The incidents of his life there constitute the most original and amusing portion of Lady Holland's memoirs of her father, whose ingenious devices and readiness of adaptation to circumstances are as admirable as they are sometimes ludicrous. His next preferment came from a tory chancellor, Lord Lyndhurst, who in 1829 gave him a prebendal stall at Bristol, and shortly afterwards enabled him to exchange Foxton for the smaller but more beautifully situated living of Combe Florey, near Taunton. His love for organizing and arranging a house and grounds found new room for its exercise in the Somersetshire rectory, which soon became a delightful retreat, and the resort of the most distinguished persons of the day, who loved to gather round the ever cheerful and witty rector. That he was never made a bishop was owing to the timidity of the whigs, who feared the perfectly groundless rumour that Sydney Smith was not orthodox. He was sincerely a christian, a hearty friend of the poor, and always most sedulous in the discharge of his parochial duties. In 1831 he received from Lord Grey the appointment to a prebendal stall in St. Paul's cathedral. One result of the good spirits caused by this preferment was the popular squib which he wrote of Mrs. Partington battling against the ocean with her mop. In 1837-39 he published strictures on the conduct of the ecclesiastical commission in the form of "Three Letters to Archdeacon Singleton," which exhibit the conservative side of his character. His petition to the American government, and his letters in 1843 on the repudiation of the Pennsylvanian bonds, were stinging enough to make the people of the United States unjustly angry and vituperative. The private letters—a collection of which, edited by Mrs. Austen, forms the second volume of his memoirs—display to the greatest advantage his abounding gaiety and warmth of heart, his unaffected piety, his sterling sense, and his sparkling wit. He died in London on the 22d February, 1845, and was buried in Kensall Green cemetery, by the side of his beloved eldest son.—(Memoirs by Lady Holland, &c., 2 vols., 1855; Edinburgh Review, ch., 236; Fraser's Magazine, with portrait, xvii., 468.)—R. H.  SMITH,, one of the principal secretaries of state in the reign of King Edward VI., and Queen Elizabeth, was one of the most learned men of his time. He was born at Saffron Walden in Essex, about 1514; his father being a man of sufficient importance to have served the office of high sheriff of the counties of Essex and Hertford. He was sent very young to Cambridge, and entered at Queen's college in 1526, where he became together with Cheke a king's scholar. At nineteen years of age his great proficiency in learning caused him to be chosen a fellow of his college, and two years later he was made Greek lecturer. In conjunction with Cheke he brought about an important reform in the pronunciation of Greek, which is set forth in a work he published, "De Pronunciatione recta," &c. In 1538 he was appointed the university orator, in which office he greatly extended his fame. After this he travelled abroad mingling in the society of the learned at Paris, Orleans, Padua, and other places. At the university of Padua he received a degree. On the death of Henry VIII., Smith's learning, high character, and favour to the reformed religion, recommended him to the patronage of the Protector Somerset, by whom he was advanced to important offices. On the fall of his patron, he was imprisoned for a short time, but he was soon restored to office, and sent on an embassy to France touching the young king's marriage. On the accession of Queen Mary Smith lost all his places, but found a friend in Gardiner, who protected him from the worst dangers. In 1558 he left the retirement in which he had taken refuge, to enter the service of Queen Elizabeth, for whom in 1562 and 1563, he conducted important negotiations in France. It was during this embassy that he composed his "Book of the English Commonwealth," which has often been reprinted. After his return to England he was sworn of the queen's council, was made chancellor of the garter in 1672, and the same year secretary of state. His endeavours to improve the coin of the realm, deserve especial mention. His project for transmuting iron into copper, on which much money was lost, stands by the side of the record of his severe treatment of witches. Alchemy was then more respectable than witchcraft. Another project on which he spent in vain both thought and money, was the founding of a colony at Ardes in the north of Ireland, which came to a gloomy end with the murder of his natural son Thomas, who led the expedition. He died after a lingering illness at his manor-house in 