n's Private Tutor, called by the "endearing but unmajestic name of
Dick." It is only fair to say that these aberrations from good taste and
good feeling became less and less frequent as years went on. That they ever
were permitted to deform the splendid advocacy of great causes is due to
the fact that, when Sydney Smith began to write, the influence of Smollett
and his imitators was still powerful. Burke's obscene diatribes against the
French Revolution were still quoted and admired. Nobody had yet made any
emphatic protest against the beastliness of Swift or the brutalities of
Junius.[154]

When these necessary deductions have been made, we can return to the most
admiring eulogy. In 1835 Sydney wrote:--

"Catch me, if you can, in any one illiberal sentiment, or in any
opinion which I have need to recant; and that, after twenty years'
scribbling upon all subjects."

It was no mean boast, and it was absolutely justified by the record. From
first to last he was the convinced, eager, and devoted friend of Freedom,
and that without distinction of place or race or colour. He would make no
terms with a man who temporized about the Slave-Trade.--

"No man should ever hold parley with it, but speak of it with
abhorrence, as the greatest of all human abominations."

The toleration of Slavery was the one and grave exception to his unstinted
admiration of the United States, which afforded, in his opinion, "the most
magnificent picture of human happiness" which the world had ever seen. And
this because in America, more than in any other country, each citizen was
free to live his own life, manage his own affairs, and work out his own
destiny, under the protection of just and equal laws. As regards political
institutions in England, he seems to have been converted rather gradually
to the belief that Reform was necessary. In 1819 he wrote to his friend
Jeffrey:--

"The case that the people have is too strong to be resisted; an answer
may be made to it, which will satisfy enlightened people perhaps, but
none that the mass will be satisfied with. I am doubtful whether it is
not your duty and my duty to become moderate Reformers, to keep off
worse."

In 1820 he wrote:--"I think all wise men should begin to turn their faces
Reform-wards." In 1821 he writes about the state of parties in the House of
Commons:--

"Of all ingenious instruments of despotism, I most commend a popular
asse