Sydney Smith Part 13

Sydney Smith's first term of official duty at St. Paul's began on the 1st of February 1832. On the eve of the new year he wrote to his married daughter:--

"We are debating how to come up to town, and how to make a Stage Coach compatible with Saba's aristocracy and dignity. The Coach sets off from Taunton at four o'clock. It is then dark. I recommend her hurrying in three minutes before the Coach departs with her face covered up. But there is a maiden lady who knows us and who lives opposite the Coach. I have promised to keep her in conversation whilst Saba steps in. Once in, all chance of detection is over.

"_PS._--We think Miss Y---- has discovered us, for, upon meeting her in Taunton, she spoke of the _Excellence of Public Conveyances_. I said it was a fine day, and, conscious of guilt, retired."

The removal to London was safely accomplished, and on the 29th of January he wrote:--

"I drove all this morning with Lady Holland. I had refused two or three times last week, but, as a good deal is due to old friendship, I wrote word that, if she would accept the company of a handsome young clergyman, I knew of one who was much at her service. She was very ill. I preached to her, not 'of Temperance and Righteousness and Judgement to come,' but said nothing of the two last and confined myself to the first topic. 'Lay aside pepper, and brandy and water, and _baume de vie_. Prevent the evil instead of curing it. A single mutton chop, a gla.s.s of toast and water'--here she cried and I stopped; but she began sobbing, and I was weak enough to allow two gla.s.ses of sherry--on which she recovered."

A few days later he wrote to his old friend Lady Morley[109]:--

"I have taken possession of my preferment. The house is in Amen Corner,--an awkward name on a card, and an awkward annunciation to the coachman on leaving any fashionable mansion.[110] I find too (sweet discovery!) that I give a dinner every Sunday, for three months in the year, to six clergymen and six singing-men, at one o'clock. Do me the favour to drop in as _Mrs._ Morley."

It soon became evident that the Whig Government, flushed with its triumph over Toryism, intended to lay reforming hands upon the Church,[111] and the newly-fledged dignitary was alarmed. On the 22nd of December 1832 he wrote--

"I see Lord Grey, the Chancellor, and the Archbishop of Canterbury have had a meeting, which I suppose has decided the fate of the Church." "Do you want a butler or respectable-looking groom of the chambers? I shall be happy to serve you in either capacity; it is time for the clergy to look out. I have also a ca.s.sock and stock of sermons to dispose of, dry and fit for use." "I am for no more movements: they are not relished by Canons of St. Paul's. When I say, 'no more movements,' however, I except the case of the Universities; which, I think, ought to be immediately invaded with Enquirers and Commissioners. They are a crying evil." "Do not imagine I am going to rat. I am a thoroughly honest, and, I will say, liberal person, but have never given way to that puritanical feeling of the Whigs against dining with Tories.

"'Tory and Whig in turns shall be my host, I taste no politics in boil'd and roast.'"

In declining an invitation to dinner he wrote:--

"On one day of the year, the Canons of St. Paul's divide a little money--an inadequate recompense for all the troubles and anxieties they undergo. This day is, unfortunately for me, that on which you have asked me (the 25th of March), when we all dine together, endeavouring to forget for a few moments, by the aid of meat and wine, the sorrows and persecutions of the Church."

Of Sydney Smith's official relations with St. Paul's abundant traces are still to be found. He took a leading part in the business of the Chapter.

Dean Milman[112] wrote:--"I find traces of him in every particular of Chapter affairs: and, on every occasion where his hand appears, I find stronger reasons for respecting his sound judgment, knowledge of business, and activity of mind; above all the perfect fidelity of his stewardship....

His management of the affairs of St. Paul's (for at one time he seems to have been _the_ manager) only commenced too late and terminated too soon."

A Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1841 to inquire into the condition of National Monuments. One fragment of Sydney Smith's evidence is quaint enough to be recalled.--

"I hope I leave the Committee with this very decided impression, that, in such an immense town as this, free admission into the Cathedral would very soon inflict upon that Cathedral the infamy of being a notorious resort for all bad characters; it would cease to be frequented as a place of worship, and the whole purpose for which it exists destroyed; and that to this the payment operates as a decided check."

When examined before the same Committee, the Surveyor to the Cathedral testified that there "had been no superintendence at all comparable to that of Mr. Sydney Smith"; that he had warmed the Library and rebound the books; that he had insured the fabric against fire; and had "brought the New River into the Cathedral by mains." The Verger testified that the monuments had fallen into a dreadful state of decay and disfigurement, and that there were "twenty thousand names scratched on the font"; but that now by Mr.

Smith's orders everything had been repaired, cleaned, and set in order.

As regards Sydney Smith's preaching, testimony is equally explicit. He said of himself, in a letter stating his claims to ecclesiastical preferment, "I am distinguished as a preacher," and this seems to have been no more than the truth. George Ticknor, writing in 1835, said that he had heard from Sydney "by far the best sermon that I have heard in England." Charles Greville wrote;--"He is very good; manner impressive, voice sonorous and agreeable: rather familiar, but not offensively so." Mrs, Austin,[113] who afterwards edited his Letters, writes:--"The choir[114] was densely filled.... The moment he appeared in the pulpit, all the weight of his duty, all the authority of his office, were written on his countenance; and, without a particle of affectation, his whole demeanour bespoke the gravity of his purpose."

This exactly corresponds with the impression of a listener to his famous sermon on Toleration, in Bristol Cathedral. "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."

Perhaps this account of Sydney Smith's relations with St. Paul's Cathedral cannot be better concluded than with some extracts from the n.o.ble sermon which he preached there on the occasion of Queen Victoria's accession. It is a remarkably fine instance of his rhetorical manner. It reveals an ardent and sagacious patriotism. It breathes a spirit of fatherly interest which excellently becomes a minister of religion, glancing, from the close of a long life spent in public affairs, at the possibilities, at once awful and splendid, which lay before the Girl-Queen.

The preacher, in his opening paragraphs, briefly announces his theme. His starting-point is the death of the King.--

"From the throne to the tomb--wealth, splendour, flattery, all gone!

The look of favour--the voice of power, no more;--the deserted palace--the wretched monarch on his funeral bier--the mourners ready--the dismal march of death prepared. Who are we, and what are we? and for what has G.o.d made us? and why are we doomed to thus frail and unquiet existence? Who does not feel all this? in whose heart does it not provoke appeal to, and dependence on, G.o.d? before whose eyes does it not bring the folly and the nothingness of all things human?"

He pauses to pay a tribute to the honesty and patriotism of William IV., and then proceeds:--

"But the world pa.s.ses on, and a new order of things arises. Let us take a short view of those duties which devolve upon the young Queen, whom Providence has placed over us: what ideas she ought to form of her duties; and on what points she should endeavour to place the glories of her reign.

"First and foremost, I think the new Queen should bend her mind to the very serious consideration of educating her people. Of the importance of this I think no reasonable doubt can exist; it does not in its effects keep pace with the exaggerated expectations of its injudicious advocates; but it presents the best chance of national improvement.

"Reading and writing are mere increase of power. They may be turned, I admit, to a good or a bad purpose; but for several years of his life the child is in your hands, and you may give to that power what bias you please. Thou shalt not kill--Thou shalt not steal--Thou shalt not bear false witness:--by how many fables, by how much poetry, by how many beautiful aids of imagination, may not the fine morality of the Sacred Scriptures be engraven on the minds of the young? I believe the arm of the a.s.sa.s.sin may be often stayed by the lessons of his early life. When I see the village school, and the tattered scholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanical art of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teaching that alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life, insuring property, fencing the altar, guarding the throne, giving s.p.a.ce and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him up to his own place in the order of Creation.

"There are, I am sorry to say, many countries in Europe which have taken the lead of England in the great business of education, and it is a thoroughly commendable and legitimate object of ambition in a Sovereign to overtake them. The names, too, of malefactors, and the nature of their crimes, are subjected to the Sovereign;--how is it possible that a Sovereign, with the fine feelings of youth, and with all the gentleness of her s.e.x, should not ask herself, whether the human being whom she dooms to death, or at least does not rescue from death, has been properly warned in early youth of the horrors of that crime, for which his life is forfeited--'Did he ever receive any education at all?--did a father and a mother watch over him?--was he brought to places of worship?--was the Word of G.o.d explained to him?--was the Book of Knowledge opened to him?--Or am I, the fountain of mercy, the nursing-mother of my people, to send a forsaken wretch from the streets to the scaffold, and to punish by unprincipled cruelty the evils of unprincipled neglect?'"

From zeal for education, we go on to love of Peace.--

"A second great object, which I hope will be impressed upon the mind of this Royal Lady, is a rooted horror of war--an earnest and pa.s.sionate desire to keep her people in a state of profound peace. The greatest curse which can be entailed upon mankind is a state of war.

All the atrocious crimes committed in years of peace--all that is spent in peace by the secret corruptions, or by the thoughtless extravagance, of nations--are mere trifles compared with the gigantic evils which stalk over the world in a state of war. G.o.d is forgotten in war--every principle of Christian charity trampled upon--human labour destroyed--human industry extinguished--you see the son, and the husband, and the brother, dying miserably in distant lands--you see the waste of human affections--you see the breaking of human hearts--you hear the shrieks of widows and children after the battle--and you walk over the mangled bodies of the wounded calling for death. I would say to that Royal child, Worship G.o.d by loving peace--it is not _your_ humanity to pity a beggar by giving him food or raiment--_I_ can do that; that is the charity of the humble and the unknown--widen you your heart for the more expanded miseries of mankind--pity the mothers of the peasantry who see their sons torn away from their families--pity your poor subjects crowded into hospitals, and calling in their last breath upon their distant country and their young Queen--pity the stupid, frantic folly of human beings who are always ready to tear each other to pieces, and to deluge the earth with each other's blood; this is your extended humanity--and this the great field of your compa.s.sion. Extinguish in your heart the fiendish love of military glory, from which your s.e.x does not necessarily exempt you, and to which the wickedness of flatterers may urge you. Say upon your death-bed, 'I have made few orphans in my reign--I have made few widows--my object has been peace. I have used all the weight of my character, and all the power of my situation, to check the irascible pa.s.sions of mankind, and to turn them to the arts of honest industry. This has been the Christianity of my throne, and this the Gospel of my sceptre. In this way I have strove to worship my Redeemer and my Judge.'"

True to his lifelong conviction, the preacher urges the sacredness of religious freedom.--

"I hope the Queen will love the National Church, and protect it; but it must be impressed upon her mind that every sect of Christians have as perfect a right to the free exercise of their worship as the Church itself--that there must be no invasion of the privileges of the other sects, and no contemptuous disrespect of their feelings--that the Altar is the very ark and citadel of Freedom.

"Though I deprecate the bad effects of fanaticism, I earnestly pray that our young Sovereign may evince herself to be a person of deep religious feeling: what other cure has she for all the arrogance and vanity which her exalted position must engender? for all the flattery and falsehood with which she must be surrounded? for all the soul-corrupting homage with which she is met at every moment of her existence? what other cure than to cast herself down in darkness and solitude before G.o.d--to say that she is dust and ashes--and to call down the pity of the Almighty upon her difficult and dangerous life.

This is the antidote of kings against the slavery and the baseness which surround them; they should think often of death--and the folly and nothingness of the world, and they should humble their souls before the Master of masters, and the King of kings; praying to Heaven for wisdom and calm reflection, and for that spirit of Christian gentleness which exalts command into an empire of justice, and turns obedience into a service of love."

Thus he recapitulates and concludes:--

"A young Queen, at that period of life which is commonly given up to frivolous amus.e.m.e.nt, sees at once the great principles by which she should be guided, and steps at once into the great duties of her station. The importance of educating the lower orders of the people is never absent from her mind; she takes up this principle at the beginning of her life, and in all the change of servants, and in all the struggle of parties, looks to it as a source of permanent improvement. A great object of her affections, is the preservation of peace; she regards a state of war as the greatest of all human evils; thinks that the l.u.s.t of conquest is not a glory, but a bad crime; despises the folly and miscalculations of war, and is willing to sacrifice every thing to peace but the clear honour of her land.

"The patriot Queen, whom I am painting, reverences the National Church--frequents its worship, and regulates her faith by its precepts; but she withstands the encroachments, and keeps down the ambition natural to establishments, and, by rendering the privileges of the Church compatible with the civil freedom of all sects, confers strength upon, and adds duration to, that wise and magnificent inst.i.tution. And then this youthful Monarch, profoundly but wisely religious, disdaining hypocrisy, and far above the childish follies of false piety, casts herself upon G.o.d, and seeks from the Gospel of His blessed Son a path for her steps, and a comfort for her soul. Here is a picture which warms every English heart, and would bring all this congregation upon their bended knees before Almighty G.o.d to pray it may be realized. What limits to the glory and happiness of our native land, if the Creator should in His mercy have placed in the heart of this Royal Woman the rudiments of wisdom and mercy; and if, giving them time to expand, and to bless our children's children with her goodness, He should grant to her a long sojourning upon earth, and leave her to reign over us till she is well stricken in years? What glory! what happiness! what joy! what bounty of G.o.d! I of course can only expect to see the beginning of such a splendid period: but, when I do see it, I shall exclaim with the pious Simeon, 'Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.'"

We turn now from ecclesiastical to social life. Though Sydney Smith still retained his beautiful Rectory of Combe Florey, and lived there a good deal in the summer, he spent more and more of his year in London, He held that the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Hyde Park, "enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a s.p.a.ce before." He frankly admitted that the summer and the country had no charms for him. His sentiments on this head found poetical expression in a parody of _Paradise Lost_. He felt

"As one who, long in rural hamlets pent, (Where squires and parsons deep potations make, With lengthen'd tale of fox, or timid hare, Or antler'd stag, sore vext by hound and horn), Forth issuing on a winter's morn, to reach In chaise or coach the London Babylon Remote, from each thing met conceives delight;-- Or cab, or car, or evening m.u.f.fin-bell, Or lamps--each city-sight, each city-sound"

"I do all I can to love the country, and endeavour to believe those poetical lies which I read in Rogers and others, on the subject; which said deviations from truth were, by Rogers, all written in St. James's Place." "I look forward anxiously to the return of the bad weather, coal fires, and good society in a crowded city." "The country is bad enough in summer, but in winter it is a fit residence only for beings doomed to such misery for misdeeds in another state of existence."

"You may depend upon it, all lives lived out of London are mistakes, more or less grievous--but mistakes." "I shall not be sorry to be in town. I am rather tired of simple pleasures, bad reasoning, and worse cookery."

His life in London, free from these kindred evils, was full of enjoyment.

He dined out as often as he liked, and entertained his friends at breakfast, luncheon, and dinner. He admits that he "sometimes talked a little," and "liked a hearty laugher,"

"I talk only the nonsense of the moment from the good humour of the moment, and nothing remains behind."

"I like a little noise and nature, and a large party, very merry and happy."

Here are some of his invitations:--

"Will you come to a philosophical breakfast on Sat.u.r.day?--ten o'clock precisely? Nothing taken for granted! Everything (except the Thirty-Nine Articles) called in question."

"I have a breakfast of philosophers to-morrow at ten punctually; m.u.f.fins and metaphysics, crumpets and contradiction. Will you come?"

"Pray come and see me. I will give you very good mutton chops for luncheon,[115] seasoned with affectionate regard and respect."

"I give two dinners next week to the following persons, whom I enumerate, as I know Lady Georgiana loves a little gossip. First dinner--Lady Holland, Eastlake, Lord and Lady Monteagle, Luttrell, Lord Auckland, Lord Campbell, Lady Stratheden, Lady Dunstanville, Baring Wall, and Mr. Hope. Second dinner--Lady Charlemont, Lord Glenelg, Lord and Lady Denman, Lord and Lady Cottenham, Lord and Lady Langdale, Sir Charles Lemon, Mr. Hibbert, Landseer, and Lord Clarendon."