Lord; he is dressed in a magnificent dress,
decorated with a title, flattered by Chaplains, and surrounded by
little people looking up for the things which he has to give away; and
this often happens to a man who has had no opportunities of seeing the
world, whose parents were in very humble life, and who has given up
all his thoughts to the Frogs of Aristophanes and the Targum of
Onkelos. How is it possible that such a man should not lose his head?
that he should not swell? that lie should not be guilty of a thousand
follies, and worry and tease to death (before he recovers his common
sense) a hundred men as good, and as wise, and as able as himself?"

On all accounts, therefore, both public and private, it was very good for
Bishops to hear the voice of candid criticism, and their opportunities of
enjoying that advantage were all too rare.--

"Bishops live in high places with high people, or with little people
who depend upon them. They walk delicately, like Agag. They hear only
one sort of conversation, and avoid bold reckless men, as a lady veils
herself from rough breezes."

And for the Whig Government, which was consenting to all these attacks on
the Church and the Chapters, Sydney had his parting word of reminiscent
rebuke.--

"I neither wish to offend them nor any body else. I consider myself to
be as good a Whig as any amongst them. I was a Whig before many of
them were born--and while some of them were Tories and Waverers.[121]
I have always turned out to fight their battles, and when I saw no
other Clergyman turn out but myself--and this in times before
liberality was well recompensed, and therefore in fashion, and when
the smallest appearance of it seemed to condemn a Churchman to the
grossest obloquy, and the most hopeless poverty. It may suit the
purpose of the Ministers to flatter the Bench; it does not suit mine.
I do not choose in my old age to be tossed as a prey to the Bishops; I
have not deserved this of my Whig friends."

It is perhaps not surprising that the Whig Ministers should have remained
impervious to arguments thus enforced. On the 10th of February, Sydney
Smith wrote to Lord John Russell (whom he addressed as "My dear John"):--

"You say you are not convinced by my pamphlet I am afraid that I am a
very arrogant person; but I do assure you that, in the fondest moments
of self-conce