SMITH, SYDNEY (]771-1S45). English humorist, born at Woodford, in Essex. Sydney Was sent to Winehester School, from which he passed to New College. Oxford (1789). Tn 1794 he was ordained to the curaey of Nether Avon, near Amesbury, in Wiltshire. From 1798 to 1803 he lived in Edinburgh. During this time he occasionally preached at the Charlotte Chapel and published Six Sermons (1800). In 1802 he joined Jeffrey, Horner. and Brougham in founding the Edinburgh Review, the first three numbers of which he mainly edited. To this periodical he contributed during the next 25 years about SO articles of various kinds. In 1503 he gave up tutoring, which he had hitherto combined with preaching, and settled in London. He there gained fame as preacher, lecturer, and humorist. Church preferment, however, came slowly. In 1806 lie obtained from Lord Erskine the rectory of Foston-le-Clay in Yorkshire. In 1809 lie settled at Hesslington, near his parish, and in 1814 moved to Foston, where he rebuilt the rectory in which he lived fur 14 years.' Tic proved an admirable village parson. In 1828, to his great delight, Lord Lyndhurst, the chancel lor, presented him to a prebend in Bristol Cathe dral, and the next year enabled him to exchange Foston for Combe-Florey, a more desirable rec tory in Somersetshire, where he now moved. In 1831 Earl Grey appointed him one of the canons residentiary of Saint Paul's; and this completed his round of ecclesiastical preferments. In 1839 he inherited from his brother £50,000 and took a house in Grosvenor Square, London.
Smith's writings comprise the famous Letters on the Subject of the Catholics, to my Brother Abraham, who Lives in the Country, by Peter Plymley (anonymous, 1807-08), written to pro mote the cause of Catholic emancipation, and abounding in wit and irony worthy of Swift; Three Letters to Archdeacon Singleton on the Ecclesiastical Commission (1837-39) ; and Let ters on American Debts (1843). Though the
works of Smith relate mostly to temporary con troversies, they yet hold a place in our literature as specimens of clear and vigorous reasoning, rich humor, and solid good sense. His jokes, exaggeration, and ridicule are all logical, driv ing home his arguments; and his wit is sportive, untinctured with malice. The House of Lords, standing in the way of reform, he likened to the excellent Mrs. Partington attempting with her mop and pail to hold back the Atlantic Ocean in storm. This story, related in detail in a speech delivered at Taunton (October 11, 1831 ), is one of the humorist's best-known in ventions.
Consult: Memoir by his daughter, Lady Ho] land (London, 1855) ; Reid, Sketch of Life and Times (4th ed., ib., ]S96) ; Saintsbury, Essays in. English Literature (1st series, ib., 1590) ; Wit and Wisdom of S. Smith, with memoir, by Duye kinek (New York, 1856, often reprinted) ; Works (London, 1840; Philadelphia, 1844) ; Selection-9, ed. by Rhys (London, 1592), and in Elia Series (New York, 1897) ; Peter Plymiey's Letters (Saintshury's Pocket Library, 1891) ; and Bon Mots of Smith. and Sheridan, ed. by Jerrold (New York, 1893).