AND ANOTHER THING
A first blast on the literary trumpet for the Smith of Smiths
PAUL JOHNSON
There is a simple and enjoyable way to hit back at the deconstructionists and other academic yobbos who are trying to destroy our literature. These chippy class-warriors may rule the roost on certain campuses and teach the young there is no difference between a pop song and a sonnet by Mil- ton, but they cannot stop the rest of us enjoying the classics and seeking to expand our knowledge of them. And the best and latest way to do both is by joining one of the proliferating literary societies.
The success of the recently established Trollope Society, which is putting out a superbly produced complete edition (the first) of his 43 novels, is notorious. There are plenty of others. I am familiar with them because I am sometimes asked to address their meetings. Thus I gave a talk, a few years ago, on 'Byron in Italy' to a meet- ing sponsored jointly by the Byron Society and the Accademia Italiana in Knights- bridge, and was amazed to find it packed by over 500 enthusiastic Byron fans. More recently, I talked to the Coleridge Society at their get-together in his birthplace at Ottery St Mary in Devon. They were more metaphysical, scholarly types — very learned, some of them. This July, I am looking forward to giving the annual address to the Jane Austen Society at Chawton, on the subject of 'Jane Austen and Geopolitics'. The Austen Society is the outstanding example of this phenomenon. Even before the latest Janeite afflatus in the movies and on television, it had 5,000 members in Britain and 3,000 in America — and over a thousand turn up for their jamboree. The Kipling Society is now another big draw.
But there are many smaller organisa- tions, some of which produce high-quality publications, like the Keats-Shelley Journal. Many have branches all over the world. And all are financed by the voluntary sub- scriptions of members — unlike the tenured deconstructionists, who would van- ish without trace if their antics were not subsidised by the taxpayers, who loathe them but have no choice in the matter.
The latest recruit to the genre is the Syd- ney Smith Society, which has been conjured up by his biographer, Alan Bell of the Lon- don Library. Smith, who died 150 years ago, is a man after my own heart for many reasons, and one in particular which I will come to in a minute. So I am certainly going to join this one; and, while I remem- ber, the subscription is £5 and the Secretary is Graham Parry, Department of English, University of York, Heslington, York YO1 5DD.
Why is Smith of interest? He was not, strictly speaking, a literary man. He was a Wykehamist who went into holy orders after coming down from New College. He supported himself by tutoring and preach- ing, then as a parish clergyman, first in Yorkshire, later in Combe Florey — the beautiful valley across the hill from where I live in Somerset. He had an extraordinary range of talents. He was one of the best sermonisers of the age, who could reduce the ladies — sometimes men too — to cataracts of tears. His lectures on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution were, next to the courses given by Davy and Fara- day, the most successful ever held there. Like Jefferson he was an architect, and built his own parsonage. He was a gourmet and an inventive cook, who not only creat- ed one of the best salad dressings there is —and wrote the recipe in verse —but was also an expert at producing tasty soups and stews for the poor during the hungry years after Waterloo. He provided a free health service at his parsonage, and seems to have known about plumbing, carpentry, arable farming, sheep-rearing and growing vegeta- bles. He designed fireplaces and furniture. He took a close interest in the first gas- lights and all other mechanical inventions. In short, a practical man for all seasons so parishioners were lucky to have him. Like many clever writers, Smith could never actually bring himself to write a prop- er book. He wrote pamphlets, which were racy and went into many editions, and he published sermons and essays. He was by far the best reviewer in the country until the arrival of Macaulay in the mid-1820s. Most of all, it was his idea to create the Edinburgh Review, the progressive quarterly Man bites dog? That's hardly news.' which introduced a new epoch both in jour- nalism and literature. Francis Jeffrey edited the thing, but the idea and the spirit were Smith's, and for long he was its most popu- lar contributor. However, his real genius lay in his wit, which suffused his letters and conversation. He was for 40 years the star of Holland House, Bowood and other grand Whig circles, building up huge crescendos of laughter with his absurdities. It was an age of professional wits; rivals came to sneer and remained to chuckle, and all acknowledged Smith their master. There was no malice in him, either, nor did he save his sallies for the smart — he kept his family in fits too. Not enough of his jokes survive even in his letters (he had no Boswell), but those that do still make me roar. Oh, to have met the man and heard him perform!
What attracts me most to Smith, howev- er, is his reputation, among the powerful and the bien-pensants of his day, for being unsound. I am all for unsound men, not least because they are nearly always right. All my own life I have been dismissed as: `Oh yes, he is a clever fellow, but not sound, you know.' Smith was the ablest Anglican clergyman of his day. He was a great pastor, and a superb administrator too, as he proved when he ran St Paul's. But for three decades the Tories were in power and would not notice him because he was a Whig. And when the Whigs finally came in, in 1830, the most his friend Earl Grey would give him was a miserable canonry. Make Smith a bishop? Good heavens, no! Not sound. Why, he cracks jokes, and has advanced ideas, like ending the slave-trade before sound people agreed it was time, or emancipating the Catholics years before sensible men were ready. Not only that: he wants to reform the Game Laws and the criminal code and all kinds of things it's not time to change yet. You can't have fellows like that in responsible posi- tions. So the nonentities were promoted and have now sunk utterly without trace can anyone name an Anglican bishop of Smith's day? — and the portly little cleric thus kept his irreverence and had more time to delight his family, his friends and his readers. Now he is to have a society of his own, which will delve into little-known corners of his life and times and introduce younger generations to his felicities. So, long live the Smith of Smiths and may there be many of us Smithsonians!
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