SMITH, Sidney, English clergyman, au thor and wit: b. Woodford, Essex, 3 June 1771; d. London, 22 Feb. 1845. He was edu cated at New College, Oxford, of which he be came a Fellow in 1791, and obtained in 1794 the curacy of Netheravon, a village in Salisbury Plain, near Amesbury. In 1746-1801 he was in charge of an Episcopal congregation at Edin burgh and tutor to Michael Hicks Beach. Here he continued for five years, and made the ac quaintance of the most distinguished intellectual men of the day, including more especially that circle of youthful composed of such men as Jeffrey, Horner, Walter Scott, Lord Brougham, Leyden and others. Many of them espoused with ardor liberal views in politics and literature, and with the view of disseminating these Smith proposed to his comrades the start ing of a Review, a project entered upon with enthusiasm. Thus commenced in 1802 the famous Edinburgh Review, of which Jeffrey acted as editor for many years and Smith as one of its raciest and most influential contribu tors. In 1803 Smith removed to London, where he delivered a course of lectures on moral philosophy at •the Royal Institution (1804-06), which were extremely popular, and were subse quently published. In 1806, during the reign of the Whig party, he was presented to the living of Fosbrooke, near York, in 1828 was given a prebend at Bristol and in 1831 was made canon residentiary of Saint Paul's, London. This was the utmost dignity to which he attained in the Church, it being generally believed that but for his Whig views he would have reached a bishop ric. Not long afterward he came prominently
forward in a series of pungent epistolary attacks on Lord John Russell, occasioned by his intro duction of a bill into Parliament which ma terially encroached on the rights of deans and chapters. About his last literary effort was the exposure of the fraud perpetrated by the State of Pennsylvania in the repudiation of its pub lic debts. Smith was himself a sufferer by this breach of national faith, and his sarcastic re marks on the subject excited both a little amuse ment in England and not a little indignation in the United States. Another characteristic pub lication was 'Letters on the Subject of Catho lics' (1807-08), which was of influence in secur ing Catholic emancipation. A few years before his death a collected edition of his writings was published under his own superintendence. It has been said, reputation as an English wit is solid—if that word can be applied to so volatile a quality? He was one of the greatest of jesters and makers of bon-mots, but remarkable also as a thinker and English stylist. Consult Reid, 'Life and Times of Sidney Smith' (1884) ; also the 'Memoir' by Lady Holland; and Duyckwick, 'Wit and Wisdom of Sidney Smith' (1856).