SMITH, Rev. SYDNEY, a celebrated wit and humorist, and the original projector of the Edinburgh Review, was born at Woodford, in Essex, in 1771. His father was an eccentric English gentleman of moderate independence; his mother was the granddaugh ter of a French refugee; and Sydney, it was said, fairly represented both nations. He was educated at Winchester school, and New college, Oxford, and, having entered the church, became curate of Amesbury in Wiltshire. " The squire of the parish," he says, " took a fancy to me, and requested me to go with his son to reside at the university of Weimar; before we got there, Germany became the seat of war, and in stress of. polities we put into Edinburgh, where I remained five years." During this time he officiated in the Episcopal chapel there, and published Six Sermons (1800). In conjunction with a few accomplished literary associates—Jeffrey, Horner, Brougham, Dr. Thomas Brown, Playfair, etc.—Smith started the Edinburgh Review, the first number of which appeared in Oct.,_ 1802, constituting a new era in the history of periodical literature, and of 'independent thought and criticism in this country. In 1803 Smith removed to London, and was soon popular as a preacher, as a lecturer on moral philosophy (1804-6), and as a brilliant conversationist, the delight and wonder of society. Church preferment, however, came slowly. In 1806, during the short reign of the whigs, he obtained from lord Erskine, chancellor, the rectory of Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire; some eighteen years after ward the duke of Devonshire gave him the living of Londesborough, worth £700 per annum, to hold until Mr. Howard, son of the earl of Carlisle, came of age. In 1823 lord chancellor Lyndhurst presented him to a prebendal stall in Bristol, and enabled him to exchange Foston for Combe Florey, a more desirable rectory in Somersetshire. In 1831 earl Grey appointed him one of the canons residentiary of St. Paul's; and this
completed his round of ecclesiastical preferments. He sighed for a miter, but it never Caine; and lord Melbourne is said to have regretted this omission in his career as prime minister. The writings of Smith subsequent to 1800 were his contributions to the Edin burgh Review, which he collected and republished, with other miscellaneous works, in 1839; Peter Ply mley's Letters, in 1807, to promote the cause of Catholic emanci pation, and abounding in wit and irony worthy of Swift; Ser-mons in two volumes (1809); Speeches on the Catholic Claims and Reform Bill (1825-31); Three Letters to Archdeacon Singleton on the Ecclesiastical Commission (1837-39); The Ballot, a political pamphlet (1837); Letter to Lord John Russell on the Church Dias (1838); Letters on Railways (1842); Letters on American Debts (1843); etc. Though gay, exuberant, and witty to the last, Smith suffered from periodical attacks of gout and other complaints, and he died on Feb. 22, 1845. Ten years afterward, his daughter, wife of sir Henry Holland, physician, published a memoir of her father, with a selection from his letters.
The works of Smith were mostly written on temporary topics and controversies, yet they bid fair to take a permanent place in our literature as specimens of clear and vigorous reasoning, rich unctuous humor, and solid good sense. His jokes, exaggeration, and ridicule are all logical, driving home his argument; and his wit was sportive, untinctured with malice. IIis views on political and social questions were moderate, wise, and prac tical; and he lived to see most of them realized. He erred at times in treating sacred subjects with levity and seeming irreverence; but this fault was one of natural tempera ment, and had no root in infidelity. He was a sincere, benevolent, and a good man, a 'true patriot, and a happy Christian philosopher.