THE WIT AND WISDOM OF THE REVEREND SYDNEY SMITIL •

Tins selection of humourous and instructive sentences from the writings of a very admirable man, is a fair compendium of his wise as well as of his witty sayings. We doubt, indeed, whether it be possible to separate from the interpreting context, the sage remark, or the brilliant illustration, without injustice to the writer. Wisdom in fragments, or wit in ruins, is not a successful exhibition. The palace cannot be estimated by any number of specimen bricks;' nor will an accumulation of oak sprigs afford an adequate notion of the majestic growth of a hundred years. There is, however, some demand for this specimen brick or oak sprig literature ; and the present compact and well-printed volume is a very creditable example of the corresponding supply. Not strictly observing the chronological order of the series, the editor has arranged his golden sentences under separate headings, chiefly gathering the first part of his collection from articles con-

tributed to the Edinburgh .Review; the second from pamphlets, sermons, and the Lectures on Moral Philosophy ; the third from

Memoirs and Correspondence. The source from which each ex- tract is derived, is briefly indicated, and the reference usually includes the date of publication. Following the order of subject rather than that of time, these passages of wit and wisdom range over more than thirty years. The genius of Sydney Smith has long since been fairly appre- ciated. Born in an age of intolerance, prejudice, and cant, lie was one of the boldest and shrewdest of their assailants. For simple, homely, common-sense philosophy, he is almost unrivalled in his generation. He contrives to get at the heart of a difficulty, with a wonderful precision, directness, and dexterity. His wisdom is sometimes itself a serious wit. It kindles up a sort of electric light, and shows you the truth, by its searching brilliance. For speculative inquiry, Sydney Smith was apparently quite unfitted. He does not seem to us to have been very well qualified to write on moral philosophy. He tells us that Socrates was "the great father and inventor of common sense, as Ceres was of the plough

and Bacchus of intoxication ; " he informs us that he has dis- covered a very strong analogy between the precepts of Pythagoras

and Mrs. Trimmer ; " and the brief notices of Plato and Aristotle contained in this volume of extracts, show no profound apprecia- tion of the distinctive merits of either of these great potentates of thought.

There is an enviable ease in Sydney Smith's writing. It is genuinely English, without any affectation of exclusive Anglo- Seam:ism. Sometimes, you will find in it a crystalline beauty and purity ; and occasionally an earnest classical eloquence, which at- test the Wit's possession of a really noble wisdom. His perora- tion on the love of knowledge will prove that this praise is not undeserved.

"1 solemnly declare that, but for the love of knowledge, I should consider the life of the meanest hedger and ditcher, as preferable to that .of the greatest and richest man here present ; for the tire of our minds is like the tire which the Persians burn in the mountains—it dames night and day and is immortal, and not to be quenched ! Upon something it must act and feed, upon tlle pure spirit of knowledge, or upon the foul dregs of polluting • The Wit and Wisdom of the Recerend Sydney Smith. A Selection of the most Memorable Co. moa r ble Passages in his Writings and Conversation. Published by Longman

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passions..- Therefore, when I say, in conducting your understanding, love knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a love coeval with life ; what (MI say, but-love innocence—love virtue—love purityof clouded —love that which if you are rich and great, will sanctify the blind fortune which has made you so, and make men call it justice,—love that which, if you are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your fortunes,—love that which will comfort yew adorn you; and 'never quit yoe,.-.-;Which will open to you the kingdom of thought, and all the boundless regions of conception, as an asylum against the cruelty, the injustice, and the pain that may be your lot in the outer world,—that which will make your motives habitually great and honourable, and light up in an instant a thousand noble disdains at the very thought of meanness and of fraud! Therefore, if any young man here have embarked his life in pursuit of knowledge, let him go on without doubting or fearing the event ; let him not bo intimidated by the cheerless beginnings of knowledge, by. the darkness from which she springs, by the difficulties which hover around her, by the wretched habitations in which -she dwells, by the want and scirrow which sometimes journey in her train ; but let him ever follow her as the angel that guards Intn, and as the genius of his life:- She will bring him out at last into the light of day, and exhibit .him to the world comprehensive in acquirements, fertile in resouraes, rich . in imagination, strong in. reasoning, prudeut and powerful above his fel- lows', in all the relations and in all the offices of life.'

This high estimation of knowledge was no insincere or fugitive estimation. Disliking the pedantry, which would teach us not "to reason, imagine, or invent, but to conjugate, decline, and derive," Sydney Smith never fails, on proper occasion, to touch on the value, the beauty, the dignity of mental culture. He advocates the enlargement of woman's education. He protests against the error which would "bind her apprentice to some accomplishment, and if she cannot succeed in oil or water-colours, would prefer gild- ing, varnishing, burnishing, box-making, to real and solid im- provement in taste, knowledge, and understanding ;" he declares that women cannot always be occupied in works of good-will, charity, and angelic ministration, wittily saying- " Nothing, certainly, is so ornamental and delightful in women as the benevolent affections ; but time cannot be filled up and life employed, with high and compassionate virtues. We know women are to be compassionate; but they cannot be cempassionate from eight o'clock in the morning till twelve at night; and what are they to do in the interval?" Valuing the two ancient languages "as pieces of mechanism incomparably more beautiful than any of the modern languages of Europe, Sydney Smith satirizes the narrow-mindedness which would bring up the first young men of the country as if they were all to keep grammar schools in little country towns." Of Latin verses, he says- " There are few boys who remain to the age of eighteen or nineteen at a public school, without making above ten thousand Latin verses ; a greater number than is contained in the " 2Eneid ;" and after he has made this quantity of verses in a dead language, unless the poet should happen to be a very weak man indeed, he never makes another as long as he lives."

Sydney Smith's wisdom is well matched by his wit. There is the same sort of promptitude, precision, and raciness about his laughable, as-about his grave sayings. His fun and drollery, his irony and banter, come at his call. Such a plain unpretending, natural air have they, that one is half-persuaded for the moment, one could have said the same amusing things oneself, if one had but tried. He is neither a Swift nor a Sterne; but, though he has not the invention of the great Curate of Menden, he at least re- minds us of a Rabelais laughing in his easy chair. Take the following instances of this ready, lounging, after-dinner sort of wit and humour--

BEEF FOR HINDOOS.

I have always compared the Protestant, Church in Ireland (and I believe my friend Thomas Moore stole the simile from me) to the institution of butchers' shops in all the villages of our Indian Empire. "We will have a butcher's shop in every village, and you Hindoos shall pay for it. We know that many of you do not eat meat at all, and that the sight of beef- steaks is particularly offensive to you : but still, a stray European may pass through your village, and want a steak or a chop : the shop shall be esta-

blished, and you shall pay for it." This is English legislation for Ireland !

MRS. PARTINOTON.

• I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reformr remindsme very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town, the tide rose to an incredible h6ght, the waves rushed in upon the houses, and every- thing was threatened with destruction! In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused; Mrs. Partmgton's spirit was up ; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Parting- ton. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she shouldn't have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease; be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington.

Objecting to the system of Bishop Marsh,—.a system which, we presume, required eighty-seven questions to be answered categorically according to episcopal notions of orthodoxy,—Sydney Smith complains that, by this new system of interrogation, "a man may be admitted into orders at Barnet, rejected at Steven- age, readmitted at Brogden, kicked out as a Calvinist at Witham Common, and hailed as an ardent Arminian on his arrival at York," -

"It is inconceivable (he resumes) how such a prelate shakes all the upper works of the Church, and ripens it for dissolution and decay. Six such bishops, multiplied by eighty-seven, and working with five hundred and twenty-two questions, would fetch everything to the ground in less than six Months. But 'what if it pleased Divine Providence to allot every prelate with the spirit of putting eighty-seven queries, and the two Archbishops with-the spirit-of putting, twice as many, and the Bishop of Sodor and Man with the spirit of Fitting only forty-three queries ?—There would then be a grand total of two thousand three hundred and thirty-five interrogations flying about the English Church ; and sorely vexed would the land be with Question and Answer."

Our clerical Wit makes very merry with the system of Bishop Marsh, summoning the ingenious, savant who had-made a map cf England according to its geological varieties,—blue for the chalk, green for the clay, red for the sand and so-forth—to assist in the fabrication of an ecclesiastical map,—all the Arminian districts to be purple ; green for one theological extremity, skyblue for another, as many colours as there are bishop, and as many shades of these colours as there are archdeacons! Nor is it only on the diversities of theological belief that he expends his wit ; but the episcopal arbitrariness in proportioning the standard of faith is Joshed by the facetious whip of the late irreverend gentleman. For, continues he-

" The bishop not only puts the questions, but he actually assigns the limits within which they are to be answered.t.-paces are left in the paper of interrogations, to which limits the answer is to be confined—two inches to original sin ; an inch and a half tojustification ; and to free-will only a quarter of an inch. But if his lordship gives there an inch they will take an ell."

Many of Sydney Smith's humourous conversational remarks are reported in this volume. Some facethe which we have heard at- tributed to him are wanting. One of the least haekneyed in the selection is, perhaps—

THE BISHOP OF

" Some one asked if the Bishop of— was going to marry? Perhaps he may,' said Sydney Smith, 'yet bow can a bishop marry ? How can he flirt ? The most he can i

say, is, I will see you n the vestry after ser-

vice.'" We will conclude with an "Impromptu on Mr. Jefliey riding on a Donkey "—

" Witty as 1Iotatius Flaccus,

As great a Jacobin as Grouches, Short, though not as fat as Bacchus, Biding on a little Jackass,"