manity and justice then seem to have had their fullest influence upon the advisers of the crown but in 1807—a year, I suppose, eminently fruitful in moral and religious scruples, (as some years are fruitful in apples, some in hops,)—it is contended by the wellpaid John Bowles, and by Mr. Perceval (who tried to be well paid), that that is now perjury which we had hitherto called policy and benevolence! Religious liberty has never made such a stride as under the reign of his present Majesty; nor is there any instance in the annals of our history, where so many infamous and damnable laws have been repealed as those against the Catholics which have been put an end to by him and then, at the close of this useful policy, his advisers discover that the very measures of concession and indulgence, or (to use my own language) the measures of justice, which he has been pursuing through the whole of his reign, are contrary to the oath he takes at its commencement! That oath binds his Majesty not to consent to any measure contrary to the interest of the Established Church: but who is to judge of the tendency of each particular measure? Not the King alone; it can never be the intention of this law that the King, who listens to the advice of his Parliament upon a road bill, should reject it upon the most important of all measures. Whatever be his own private judgment of the tendency of any ecclesiastical bill, he complies most strictly with his oath if he is guided in that particular point by the advice of his Parliament, who may be presumed to understand its tendency better than the King, or any other individual. You say, if Parliament had been unanimous in their opinion of the absolute necessity for Lord Howick's bill, and the King had thought it pernicious, he would have been perjured if he had not rejected it. I say, on the contrary, his Majesty would have acted in the most conscientious manner, and have complied most scrupulously with his oath, if he had sacrificed his own opinion to the opinion of the great council of the nation; because the probability was that such opinion was better than his own; and upon the same principle, in common life, you give up your opinion to your physician, your lawyer, and your builder. You admit this bill did not compel the King to elect Catholic officers, but only gave him the option of doing so if he pleased; but you add, that the King was right in not trusting such dangerous power to himself or his successors. Now you are either to suppose that the King for the time being has a zeal for the Catholic establishment, or that he has not. If he has not, where is the danger of giving such an option? If you suppose that he may be influenced by such an admiration of the Catholic religion, why did his present Majesty, in the year 1804, consent to that bill which empowered the Crown to station ten thousand Catholic soldiers in any part of the kingdom, and placed them absolutely at the disposal of the Crown? If the King of England for the time being is a good Protestant, there can be no danger in making the Catholic eligible to anything: if he is not, no power can possibly be so dangerous as that conveyed by the bill last quoted: to which, in point of peril, Lord Howick's bill is a mere joke. But the real fact is, one bill opened a door to his Majesty's advisers for trick, jobbing, and intrigue; the other did not. Besides, what folly to talk to me of an oath, which, under all possible circumstances, is to prevent the relaxation of the Catholic laws! for such a solemn appeal to God sets all conditions and contingencies at defiance. Suppose Bonaparte was to retrieve the only very great blunder he has made, and were to succeed, after repeated trials, in making an impression upon Ireland, do you think we should hear any thing of the impediment of a coronation oath? or would the spirit of this country tolerate for an hour such ministers, and such unheard-of nonsense, if the most distant prospect existed of conciliating the Catholics by every species even of the most abject concession? And yet, if your argument is good for anything, the coronation oath ought to reject, at such a moment, every tendency to conciliation, and to bind Ireland for ever to the crown of France. I found in your letter the usual remarks about fire, fagot, and bloody Mary. Are you aware, my dear Priest, that there were as many persons put to death for religious opinions under the mild Elizabeth as under the bloody Mary? The reign of the former was, to be sure, ten times as long; but I only mention the fact, merely to show you that something depends upon the age in which men live, as well as on their religious opinions. Three hundred years ago, men burnt and hanged each other for these opinions. Time has softened Catholic as well as Protestant: they both required it; though each perceives only his own improvement, and is blind to that of the other. We are all the creatures of circumstances. I know not a kinder and better man than yourself; but you (if you had lived in those times) would certainly have roasted your Catholic and I promise you, if the first exciter of this religious mob had been as powerful then as he is now, you would soon have been elevated to the mitre. I do not go the length of saying that the world has suffered as much from Protestant as from Catholic persecution; far from it; but you should remember the Catholics had all the power, when the idea first started up in the world that there could be two modes of faith; and that it was much more natural they should attempt to crush this diversity of opinion by great and cruel efforts, than that the Protestants should rage against those who differed from them, when the very basis of their system was complete freedom in all spiritual matters. I cannot extend my letter any further at present, but you shall soon hear from me again. You tell me I am a party man. I hope I shall always be so, when I see my country in the hands of a pert London joker and a second-rate lawyer. Of the first, no other good is known than that he makes pretty Latin verses; the second seems to me to have the head of a country parson, and the tongue of an Old Bailey lawyer. If I could see good measures pursued, I care not a farthing who is in power; but I have a passionate love for common justice, and for common sense, and I abhor and despise every man who builds up his political fortune upon their ruin. God bless you, reverend Abraham, and defend you from the Pope, and all of us from that administration who seek power by opposing a measure which Burke, Pitt, and Fox all considered as absolutely necessary to the existence of the country. CCXLVIII. Would it be uncharitable to surmise that the witty parson would not have written the following letter had he been a good shot. He himself has admitted that the birds on Lord Grey's preserves seemed to consider the muzzle of his gun as their safest position, and that he gave up shooting because I never could help shutting my eyes when I fired my gun, so was not likely to improve.' The Rev. Sydney Smith to Lady Holland. June 24, 1809. My dear Lady Holland,―This is the third day since I arrived at the village of Heslington, two hundred miles from London. I missed the hackney-coaches for the first three or four days in York, but after that, prepared myself for the change from the aurelia to the grub state, and dare say I shall become fat, torpid, and motionless with a very good grace. I have laid down two rules for the country: first, not to smite the partridge; for, if I fed the poor, and comforted the sick, and instructed the ignorant, yet I should be nothing worth, if I smote the partridge. If anything ever endangers the Church, it will be the strong propensity to shooting for which the clergy are remarkable. Ten thousand good shots dispersed over the country do more harm to the cause of religion than the arguments of Voltaire and Rousseau. The squire never reads, but is it possible he can believe THAT religion to be genuine whose ministers destroy his game? I mean to come to town once a year, though of that, I suppose, I shall soon be weary, finding my mind growing weaker and weaker, and my acquaintance gradually falling off. I shall by that time have taken myself again to shy tricks, pull about my watch-chain, and become (as I was before) your abomination. I am very much obliged to Allen for a long and very sensible letter upon the subject of Spain. After all, surely the fate of Spain depends upon the fate of Austria. Pray tell the said Don Juan, if he comes northward to visit the authors of his existence, he must make this his restingplace. Mrs. Sydney is all rural bustle, impatient for the parturition of hens and pigs; I wait patiently, knowing all will come in due season! SYDNEY SMITH. CCXLIX. This letter was written during a meeting of the British Association at Glasgow, under the presidency of the Marquess of Breadalbane. Sydney Smith was a voracious and rapid reader, and Mr. Hayward, in one of his essays, likens his method of reading to that of Dr. Johnson, who could tear out the heart of a book. In this wise he acquired a considerable amount of scientific knowledge, especially of geology; but, says Mr. Hay- The Rev. Sydney Smith to Roderick Murchison. Dear Murchison,-Many thanks for your kind recollections of me in sending me your pamphlet, which I shall read with all attention and care. My observation has been necessarily so much fixed on missions of another description, that I am hardly recon-, ciled to zealots going out with voltaic batteries and crucibles, for the conversion of mankind, and baptizing their fellow-creatures with the mineral acids; but I will endeavour to admire, and believe in you. My real alarm for you is, that by some late decisions of the magistrates, you come under the legal definition of strollers; and nothing would give me more pain than to see any of the sections upon the mill, calculating the resistance of the air, and showing the additional quantity of flour which might be ground in vacuo,—each man in the mean time imagining himself a Galileo. Mrs. Sydney has eight distinct illnesses, and I have nine. We take something every hour, and pass the mixture from one to the other. About forty years ago, I stopped an infant in Lord Breadalbane's grounds, and patted his face. The nurse said, 'Hold up your head, Lord Glenorchy.' This was the President of your society. He seems to be acting an honourable and enlightened part in life. Pray present my respects to him and his beautiful Marchioness. SYDNEY SMITH. CCL. This is a very characteristic note written to the author of the 'Ingoldsby Legends.' The Rev. Sydney Smith to the Rev. R. H. Barham. 39, Green Street: November 15, 1841. Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your kind present of game. If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is the roast |