blishing
has already been published.

I have, however, been more fortunate in my application to my cousin, Mr.
Rollo Russell, and to four of Sydney Smith's descendants--Mr. Sydney
Holland, Mr. Holland-Hibbert of Munden, Miss Caroline Holland, and Mrs.
Cropper of Ellergreen. To all these my thanks are due for interesting
information, and access to valuable records. In common with all who use the
Reading-Room of the British Museum, I am greatly indebted to the skill and
courtesy of Mr. G.F. Barwick.

So much for the biographical part of my work. In the critical part I have
relied less on authority, and more on my own devotion to Sydney Smith's
writings. That devotion dates from my schooldays at Harrow, and is due to
the kindness of my father. He had known "dear old Sydney" well, and gave me
the Collected Works, exhorting me to study them as models of forcible and
pointed English. From that day to this, I have had no more favourite
reading.

G.W.E.R.

November 12th, 1904.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

EDUCATION--SALISBURY PLAIN--EDINBURGH

CHAPTER II

"THE EDINBURGH REVIEW"--LONDON--"MORAL PHILOSOPHY"

CHAPTER III

"PETER PLYMLEY"

CHAPTER IV

FOSTON--"PERSECUTING BISHOPS"--BENCH AND BAR

CHAPTER V

"CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION "--BRISTOL--COMBE FLOREY--REFORM--PROMOTION

CHAPTER VI

ST. PAUL'S--THE PARALLELOGRAM--"ARCHDEACON SINGLETON"--COLLECTED WORKS

CHAPTER VII

CHARACTERISTICS--HUMOUR--POLITICS--CULTURE--THEORIES OF LIFE--RELIGION

APPENDICES

INDEX

SYDNEY SMITH

CHAPTER I

EDUCATION--SALISBURY PLAIN--EDINBURGH

A worthy tradesman, who had accumulated a large fortune, married a lady of
gentle birth and manners. In later years one of his daughters said to a
friend of the family, "I dare say you notice a great difference between
papa's behaviour and mamma's. It is easily accounted for. Papa, immensely
to his credit, raised himself to his present position from the shop; but
mamma was extremely well born. She was a Miss Smith--one of _the old
Smiths, of Essex_."

It might appear that Sydney Smith was a growth of the same majestic but
mysterious tree, for he was born at Woodford; but further research traces
his ancestry to Devonshire. "We are all one family," he used to say, "all
the Smiths who dwell on the face of the earth. You may try to disguise it
in any way you like--Smyth, or Smythe, or Smijth[1]--but you always get
back to Smith after al