ar, but his father, who had already brought
up one son to that profession and found it more expensive than profitable,
looked very unfavourably on the design; and under paternal pressure the
wittiest Englishman of his generation determined to seek Holy Orders, or,
to use his own old-fashioned phrase, to "enter the Church." He assumed the
sacred character without enthusiasm, and looked back on its adoption with
regret. "The law," he said in after life, "is decidedly the best profession
for a young man if he has anything in him. In the Church a man is thrown
into life with his hands tied, and bid to swim; he does well if he keeps
his head above water."

Under these rather dismal auspices, Sydney Smith was ordained Deacon in
1794. He might, one would suppose, have been ordained on his Fellowship,
and have continued to reside in College with a view to obtaining a
Lectureship or some other office of profit. Perhaps he found the mental
atmosphere of Oxford insalubrious. Perhaps he was unpopular in College.
Perhaps his political opinions were already too liberal for the place.
Certain it is that his visit to France, in the earlier stages of the
Revolution, had led him to extol the French for teaching mankind "the use
of their power, their reason, and their rights." Whatever was the cause, he
turned his back on Oxford, and, as soon as he was ordained, became Curate
of Netheravon, a village near Amesbury.[7] As he himself said, "the name of
Curate had lost its legal meaning, and, instead of denoting the incumbent
of a living, came to signify the deputy of an absentee." He had sole charge
of the parish of Netheravon, and was also expected to perform one service
every Sunday at the adjoining village of Fittleton. "Nothing," wrote the
new-fledged Curate, "can equal the profound, the immeasurable, the awful
dulness of this place, in the which I lie, dead and buried, in hope of a
joyful resurrection in 1796." Indeed, it is not easy to conceive a more
dismal situation for a young, ardent, and active man, fresh from Oxford,
full of intellectual ambition, and not very keenly alive to the spiritual
opportunities of his calling. The village, a kind of oasis in the desert of
Salisbury Plain, was not touched by any of the coaching-roads. The only
method of communication with the outside world was by the market-cart which
brought the necessaries of life from Salisbury once a week. The vicar was
non-resident; and the squire, Mr. Hicks-Beach, wa