ry 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."

In July he wrote to a friend:--

"The worst political news is that Canning is not well, and that the
Duke of Wellington has dined with the King. Canning dead, Peel is the
only man remaining alive in the House of Commons, I mean, the only man
in his senses."

On the 8th of August Canning died, and was succeeded by Lord Goderich, who
in turn made way for the Duke of Wellington in January 1828, Lord Lyndhurst
again becoming Chancellor.

On the 1st of January 1828, Sydney Smith's Second daughter, Emily, was
married to Nathaniel Hibbert, afterwards of Munden House, near Watford, Her
father wrote:--

"We were married on New Year's Day, and are _gone_! I feel as if I had
lost a limb, and were walking about with one leg--and nobody pities
this description of invalids."

Three weeks later, Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, yielding to private
friendship what the Whigs had refused to political loyalty, appointed the
Rector of Foston to a Prebendal Stall in Bristol Cathedral. This brought
him at length official station in the Church, and a permanent instead of a
terminable income. He wrote from Bristol on the 17th of February:--

"An extremely comfortable Prebendal house; seven-stall stables and
room for four carriages, so that I can hold all your _cortege_ when
you come; looks to the south, and is perfectly snug and parsonic;
masts of West-Indiamen seen from the windows... I have lived in perfect
solitude ever since I have been here, but am perfectly happy. The
novelty of this place amuses me."

From the time of his appointment to Bristol, Sydney Smith severed