Sydney Smith's Spiritual Character [pp. 291-304]

Sydney Smith's Spiritual Character.
I shall do to great perfection"-no doubt
some of those convivial songs which
would lead him to drive away melan choly. It was probably suggested by a
visit which the poet had made to him a
few weeks before; for he says —'We
have had little Tommy Moore here, who
seemed to be very much pleased with his
visit; he talked and sung in his peculiar
fashion, like any nightingale of the
'Flower Valley' to the delight of us all."
After the death of Sydney Smith, this
poet was applied to, to write the memoir
of his friend, but his serious and sudden
illness prevented. It was truly unfortu nate that the design was not executed.
It would have been peculiarly fitting for
two such intimate friends to be thus associated; for the minister of religion, to
whom Byron dedicated some stanzas in
his "Don Juan," to have his life written
by Thomas Moore.
But little is said of his death, nothing
of his feelings, in view of the past, or
hope of the future. It was to be expected that these things would be hurried
over. One last saying, however, is striking, uttered when he must have known
that there was no hope of recovery-" I
feel so weak, both in body and mind, that
I verily believe that if the knife were put
into my hand, I should not have strength
or energy enough to stick it into a Dissenter." There is "a ruling passion
strong in death;" there are exceptions to
the remark of Young,
"Men may live fools; but fools they cannot die."
Though Sydney Smith was through
life an enemy of evangelical religion, and
a very unsuitable man for the clerical
profession, there is much to admire in
the manly perseverance with which he
laboured in an obscure parish, for the
improvement of the people according to
his own standard of religion. He was a
disappointed man, more to be pitied than
either admired or imitated.
In a very different spirit from this
rigorous judgment is conceived the other
article which we propose to adduce.
Every page of it breathes the largest
charity for the man, and the genial and
sympathising tone of the whole betrays
the hand of a gentle nature, quick to
discover and admit excellencies, and desirous of dealing tenderly with faults.
As an estimate of literary and moral
characteristics, it challenges a respect
ful perusal, and the style, as the reader
will perceive, is marked with rare afflu ence and felicity of language. We find the
article in the Methodist Quarterly Review
of New York. The very opening para graph shows how readily the writer
enters into the spirit of his subject.
Within the last six months Sydney
Smith has, probably, been named more
frequently than he was during any twen ty years of his life. What an instance,
this, of the power of literature! What a
significance does it give to pen and press!
A few sheets of paper, growing into a
volume beneath the gentle hand of wo man; a widow's love collecting worthy
mnaterials, and a daughter's affection ar ranging and combining them into order
and beauty; then the mechanical service
of types, and Sydney Smith is an inmate
of thousands of homes, living his life over
again; talking in the same gushing and
exhaustless strain of thought and humour; writing, reviewing, reforming,
and preaching; a struggling man, a
brave man, a hearty man; a kind, gener ous, philanthropic man. whose moral
qualities honoured a genius that rendered
most valuable and praiseworthy services
to the truth, wisdom, and heroism of the
age. The new Sydney Smith, we incline
to believe, is better than the old; or, to
speak more exactly, he has a better position before the world. It is the same
man-the distinct, unmistakable Sydney
Smith-the broad-chested, round-built
Englishman, with just enough French
blood to quicken his nerves without any
injury to his substantial muscles. Here
he is, with all his instant-telling, sharppointed faculties; with all his learning in
ready obedience; with clear, vigorous,
accurate language for the despatch of
ideas as fast as a teaming brain could
originate them: here he is, the fullfreighted man, with more diversity of
intellect, and more adaptedness to this
many-sided world than any one of his
day; here he is, busy at all imaginable
things, from inventing horse-scratchers to
the manufacture of a grotesque wardrobe
for rheumatism, from training stupid servants to the management of official revenues, from a tender oversight of the sick
of his parish to the most formidable sort
of surgery on some cancerous affection of
the body politic. Here he is —curate,
joker, satirist, Utilitarian, Whig, Canon
of St. Paul's —with all his versatile endowments, each as fresh, as spirited, as
demonstrative, as if the great soul had to
diffuse itself into its action alone.
1856.]
297