of his arguments was expediency; the practical effect of continuing wrongs, which would throw the population of Ireland into the arms of the French; and, on the other hand, the practical effect of freedom, and free intercourse in repressing differences, the chief nutriment of which was oppression. Wit, irony, logic, the author's peculiar weapons of the argumentum ad hominem, and the reductio ad absurdum, are freely employed in illustration of these views. Though the letters have lost some of their interest since the local absurdities of the day which they refuted have been forgotten, they remain the completest exhibition of the author's powers, in his favourite method of conquering prejudice, and substituting perennial wit and wisdom for darkness and error. Lessons of universal interest in religious toleration may still be learnt by the world, from this partisan skirmish in behalf of a cause which has since been nobly established in England.

Smith further assisted the question in this year, by a sermon on Toleration, preached before the influential audience, chiefly of barristers, at the Temple church. It was, also, printed at the time, and is included in his collection of sermons of 1809. Following the outline of Paley, he defines in it the essentials of a Church establishment: "An order of men set apart for the ministerial office; a regular provision made for them; and a particular creed containing the articles of their faith." His maintenance of these points though they probably fell short of the views of the High-Church party, go beyond what would be asserted in America. Indeed, it would be a sorry fact in the world's history, if America had not fully disproved what he chose to anticipate of the fate of Christianity in this hemisphere: "Homely and coarse," he somewhat gratuitously interpolates in this discourse," as these principles may appear, to many speculative men, they are the only ones by which the existence of any religion can be secured to the community; and we have now too much reason to believe that the system of greater latitude, attempted naturally enough in the new world, will end fatally for the Christian religion, and for good

42

THE CATHOLIC QUESTION.

practical morality." Sydney Smith was a valiant man when he offended his friends and brother churchmen by his plea for the Catholics; but he himself here needs the mantle of indulgence. cast by the poet over the "fears of the brave and follies of the wise." His main positions are, that the Roman Church is to be judged, not by its past history, but its present conduct; that the Established Church of England, with a proper respect for its powers and advantages, should be magnanimous to those who differ from it, should prove its superiority by charity, and maintain the lesson of his text from St. Paul, that "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, in all the churches."

At the same time he enforced his views of the Catholic Question by an article in the Edinburgh Review,* in which he separated the historical causes of the disaffection of Ireland growing out of the political conquest, and those attributable to religious hostilities-assigning a slight proportional weight to the latter. To these views he held till the close of his life. Thirty-two years later he wrote, in reviving this article, in reference to agitations which survived Catholic emancipation: "It is now only difficult to tranquillize Ireland, before it was impossible. As to the danger from Catholic doctrines, I must leave such apprehensions to the respectable anility of these realms." One of the latest and most vigorous of Sydney Smith's productions was devoted to this cause. Among his papers, after his death, was found an unfinished pamphlet, that "startling and matchless Fragment," as Jeffrey called it, which was published in 1845, with the tithe, A Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic Church. None of his earlier writings surpass it in wit and felicity of illustration. Every sentence is a jest or an epigram worthy the fame of a Pascal or a Swift. It is an advocacy of the appropriation of the Irish tithes. by the state, to the regular payment of the Roman Catholic clergy, as an effective cure of the prevalent wrangling and disaffection— the O'Connellism of the time. Upon that arch-agitator himself, *July, 1807.

† Works, 1st ed., i. 84.

he bestows some memorable counsel, not the less wisdom for the humour in which it is sheathed. He also recommends the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Roman Pontiff.*

To return from this continuous sketch of Sydney Smith's literary efforts in the cause of Catholic Emancipation, to the year 1808. By a new residence bill, clerical incumbents were compelled to build or restore and inhabit the parsonage houses, which, under the prevalent absenteeism, had very numerously gone to decay throughout England. The parochial establishment of Foston-le-Clay, though with capabilities of improved fortune to its new possessor, was one of the least inviting for a restoration or a residence. The parsonage, bounded by a foalyard and a churchyard, was simply a kitchen with a room above it, ready to tumble upon the occupant. Sydney Smith surveyed the premises, the shambling hovel and three hundred acres of glebe land without tithe, to be farmed by himself, and hesitated. To gain time for consideration, and to effect, if possible, an exchange, he secured from the archbishop, Dr. Vernon Harcourt, a respite of three years, during which he established himself at Heslington, a village in the immediate vicinity of York. The proceeds of his two volumes of sermons, and a loan from his brother Robert of about five hundred pounds, assisted his removal from London to the north in the summer of 1809.

Heslington mitigated the descent from London to Foston, or, in Smith's words, "the change from the aurelia to the grub state."† With the resources of York at his elbow, he lived in comparative retirement, visiting his parish, concocting plans of study, reading much, writing for the Edinburgh Review and familiarizing himself with the occupations of his farm land. In truth, though the society of

Sydney Smith also prepared an account of English misrule in Ireland from the earliest date of English possession, which Lady Holland tells us, "formed so fearful a picture that he hesitated to give it to the world when done." It still exists in manuscript. Macaulay, who was consulted on its publication as a posthumous work, by Mrs. Sydney Smith, recommended its suppression His letter is given in Lady Holland's Memoir.

† To Lady Holland, June 24, 1809.

London was the natural home of his talents, he liked the practical demands of his new life, the management of crops and cattle and peasants, the contrivances of building and the regulation of his parish. The loss of London society to an already established diner-out, who watched with eagerness the political and social movements of the day, was a privation; but these things had brought with them something of satiety, and they were relinquished cheerfully, as he expresses it in a letter to Jeffrey, "for more quiet, more leisure, less expense and more space for his children," while he adds, "Mrs. Sydney is delighted with her rustication. She has suffered all the evils of London, and enjoyed none of its goods." In his philosophical way he writes the next year to Lady Holland: "I am not leading precisely the life I should choose, but that which (all things considered as well as I could consider them) appeared to me the most eligible. I am resolved, therefore, to like it, and to reconcile myself to it; which is more manly than to feign myself above it, and to send up com plaints by the post, of being thrown away, and being desolate, and such like trash. ... If, with a pleasant wife, three children, a good house and farm, many books, and many friends, who wish me well, I cannot be happy, I am a very silly, foolish fellow, and what becomes of me is of very little consequence. I have, at least, this chance of doing well in Yorkshire, that I-am heartily tired of London." "Instead of being unamused by trifles," he writes to Jeffrey, drawing on his fund of happiness, "I am, as I well knew I should be, amused by them a great deal too much; I feel an ungovernable interest about my horses, or my pigs, or my plants; I am forced, and always was forced, to task myself up into an interest for any higher objects." Of his reading, he tells Jeffrey that, "having scarcely looked at a book for five years, I am rather hungry." Burke, Homer, Suetonius, Godwin's Enquirer, agricul*York, Nov. 20, 1808.

......

†To Lady Holland, Heslington, Sept. 9, 1809.

To Jeffrey, Heslington, Sept. 3, 1809.

To Jeffrey, Heslington, 1810.

OXFORD EDUCATION.

45

tural matters, and "a great deal of Adam Smith," were thrown in to fill the vacuum. "I am," he writes to his friend John Murray, the lawyer of Edinburgh, "reading Locke in my old age, never having read him thoroughly in my youth: a fine, satisfactory sort of fellow, but very long-winded."* These transition years at Heslington supplied to the Edinburgh Review a series of articles on Education of Women, Public Schools and the Universities, a Vindication of Fox's Historical Work, an account of the Walcheren Expedition, and a paper on Indian affairs. "I am about," he writes to Lady Holland, "to open the subject of classical learning, in the Review, from which, by some accident or other, it has hitherto abstained. It will give great offence, and therefore be more fit for this journal, the genius of which seems to consist in stroking the animal the contrary way to that which the hair lies.”

The Edinburgh Review united its forces against the Oxford system of education. The University was attacked in several articles by various writers, on the score of its devotion to Aristotle, the inefficiency of its press, particularly in an edition of Strabo, and the excessive employment of its students in the minutiae of Latin and Greek. The general assault was made by Sydney Smith. The University was compelled to defend itself; and its renowned champion, Edward Copleston, Provost of Oriel, afterward Bishop of Llandaff, published "A Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review against Oxford." This was met in the Edinburgh by an article evidently proceeding from the three authors of the original remarks on Aristotle, the edition of Strabo, and Professional Education. "A Second Reply to the Edinburgh Review," also from the pen of Copleston, commenting on the triple article, closed the controversy.† Sydney Smith, always an excel

*To John Murray, Heslington, Dec. 6, 1811.

†The Edinburgh Review articles alluded to are an Analysis of Laplace's Mechanique Celeste, in its concluding pages, January, 1808; the Oxford Edition of Strabo, Jan. 1809; Edgeworth's Professional Education, Oct. 1809; Calumnies against Oxford, April, 1810. Copleston's publications are entitled, "A Reply to the Calumnies of the Edinburgh Review against Ox