ermined to try. Thus the
thorn which troubled Sydney Smith was not an affliction, but was what he
regarded as a danger; and, though less patent and pointed than that
in the life of Charles Lamb, probably had not less influence in the
discipline of character.

Behold, then, the long and venerable line of the clergy opening to
receive him, and behold him entering it! The clergy, the priesthood,
the holy fathers, the strong bishops, the monks, the ghostly race, the
retired enthusiasts, now melancholy, now rapt, now merry-making, the
consolers of sorrow, the divine heroes in an earthly life,--even one
of this family does Sydney propose to be. At the age of twenty-four
he becomes curate in the little hamlet of Salisbury Plain,--the young
graduate of Oxford sent into the country to be pastor to the inmates of
half-a-dozen hovels! Then he writes his description of a curate:--"The
poor working man of God,--a learned man in a hovel, good and patient,--a
comforter and a teacher,--the first and purest pauper of the hamlet;
yet showing that in the midst of worldly misery he has the heart of a
gentleman, the spirit of a Christian, and the kindness of a pastor."
He regards himself as almost excluded from his kind, and quotes (or
originates) the proverb, that there are three sexes, men, women, and
clergymen. He took long solitary walks over the plains of Salisbury,
reflecting upon the manifold activities of the world, in which he had no
part. The only society that he had was during the occasional visits of
the squire to the neighborhood, who, surprised to find the curate so
interesting a person, gave him frequent invitations to dinner. Thus
passed two years, when the squire consigned his son to the curate to
be educated, and Sydney Smith, starting with the young man for the
Continent, was driven by stress of war to Edinburgh.

There he met Horner, Jeffrey, Brougham, and others, young thinkers and
full of matter,--Horner the philosopher, Jeffrey the critic, Brougham
the statesman, and Sydney Smith the divine,--and the divine was
unsurpassed by any of the others in wit, energy, or decision of
character. While the events with which the times were rife were striking
fire in all their brains, it was the divine who first turned their
thoughts to account by suggesting that they should start a review.
The suggestion was acted upon, and under his editorial care the
first numbers of the "Edinburgh Review" appeared. His prudence and
remonstran