sing, benevolence almost absurd, but the humorous
man, the kind man, shone forth in all things. He was one of the first,
if not the first, who introduced allotment-gardens for the poor: he was
one who could truly say at the last, when he had lived sixty-six years,
'I have done but very little harm in the world, and I have brought up my
family.'

We have taken a glimpse--and a glimpse merely--of the 'wise Wit' in
London, among congenial society, where every intellectual power was
daily called forth in combative force. See him now in the provincial
circles of the remote county of York. 'Did you ever,' he once asked,
'dine out in the country? What misery do human beings inflict on each
other under the name of pleasure!' Then he describes driving in a
broiling sun through a dusty road, to eat a haunch of venison at the
house of a neighbouring parson. Assembled in a small house, 'redolent of
frying,' talked of roads, weather, and turnips; began, that done, to be
hungry. A stripling, caught up for the occasion, calls the master of the
house out of the room, and announces that the cook has mistaken the soup
for dirty water, and has thrown it away. No help for it--agreed; they
must do without it; perhaps as well they should. Dinner announced; they
enter the dining-room: heavens! what a gale! the venison is high!

Various other adverse incidents occur, and the party return home,
grateful to the post-boys for not being drunk, and thankful to
Providence for not being thrown into a wet ditch.

In addition to these troubles and risks, there was an enemy at hand to
apprehend--prejudice. The Squire of Heslington--'the last of the
Squires'--regarded Mr. Smith as a Jacobin; and his lady, 'who looked as
if she had walked straight out of the Ark, or had been the wife of
Enoch,' used to turn aside as he passed. When, however, the squire found
'the peace of the village undisturbed, harvests as usual, his dogs
uninjured, he first bowed, then called, and ended by a pitch of
confidence;' actually discovered that Sydney Smith had made a joke;
nearly went into convulsions of laughter, and finished by inviting the
'dangerous fellow,' as he had once thought him, to see his dogs.

In 1813 Sydney Smith removed, as he thought it his duty to do, to
Foston-le-Clay, and, 'not knowing a turnip from a carrot,' began to farm
three hundred acres, and not having any money, to build a
parsonage-house.

It was a model parsonage, he thought, the plan being