ent 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 noble 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--wea