Sydney 1771-1845 Smith

Later Years.

Sydney Smith, after twenty years' service in Yorkshire, obtained preferment at last from a Tory minister, Lord Lyndhurst, who presented him with a prebend in Bristol cathedral in 1828, and two livings in the neighbourhood. From this time he discontinued writing for the Edinburgh Review on the ground that it was more becoming in a dignitary of the church to put his name to what he wrote. It was expected that when the Whigs came into power Sydney Smith would be made a bishop. But though he was not without warm friends at headquarters, the opposition was too strong for them. One of the first things that Lord Grey said on entering Downing Street was, "Now I shall be able to do something for Sydney Smith"; but he was not able to do more than appoint him in 1831 to a residentiary canonry at St. Paul's in exchange for the prebendal stall he held at Bristol. He was as eager a champion of parliamentary reform as he had been of Catholic emancipation, and one of his best fighting speeches was delivered at Taunton in October 1831 when he made his well-known comparison of the House of Lords, who had just thrown out the Reform Bill, with Mrs. Partington of Sidmouth, setting out with mop and pattens to stem the Atlantic in a storm.

On the death of his brother Courtenay he inherited 15o,000, which put him out of the reach of poverty. He died at his house in Green Street, London, on Feb. 22, 1845, and was buried at

Kensal Green.

Sydney Smith's other publications include: Sermons (2 vols., 1809) ; The Ballot (1839) ; Works (3 vols., 5839), including the Peter Plymley and the Singleton Letters and many articles from the Edinburgh Review; A Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic Church (1845) ; Sermons at St. Paul's . . • (1846) and some other pamphlets and ser mons. Lady Holland says (Memoir, i. 19o) that her father left an unpublished ms., compiled from documentary evidence, to exhibit the history of English misrule in Ireland, but had hesitated to publish it. This was suppressed by his widow in deference to the opinion of Lord Macaulay.

See A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith by his daughter, Lady Holland, with a Selection from his Letters edited by Mrs. [Sarah] Austin (2 vols. 1855) ; also A Sketch of the Life and Times of . . . Sydney Smith (1884) by Stuart J. Reid ; a chapter on "Sydney Smith" in Lord Houghton's Monographs Social and Personal (1873) ; A. Chevrillon, Sydney Smith et la renaissance des idees liberates en Angle terre au XIXe siecle (1894); and especially the monograph, with a full description of his writings, by G. W. E. Russell in Sydney Smith (Eng lish Men of Letters series, 1905). There are numerous references to Smith in contemporary correspondence and journals.