Sydney Smith

What Sydney Smith was to the outward eye we know from an admirable portrait by Eddis[145] belonging to his grand-daughter, Miss Caroline Holland. He had a long and slightly aqui...

The first quarter of the nineteenth century was now nearing its close, and the most exciting topic in domestic politics was the emancipation of the Roman Catholics. The movement...

Judgement to come,' but said nothing of the two last and confined myself to the first topic. 'Lay aside pepper, and brandy and water, and _baume de vie_. Prevent the evil instea...

At the close of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, the most serious evil which beset the Church of England was the system of Pluralities and Non-Residen...

A worthy tradesman, who had accumulated a large fortune, married a lady of gentle birth and manners. In later years one of his daughters said to a friend of the family, "I dare...

We now approach what was perhaps the most important event in Sydney Smith's life, and this was the foundation of the _Edinburgh Review_. Writing in 1839, and looking back upon t...

submit to your common sense, if it is possible to explain to an Irish peasant upon what principle of justice he is to pay every tenth potato in his little garden to a clergyman...

"The whole sum now appropriated by Government to the religious education of four millions of Christians is £13,000--a sum about one hundred times as large being appropriated in...

that the Pope has landed on English soil, and has been housed by the Spencers or the Hollands or the Grenvilles. "The best-informed clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis...

"No Catholic can be chief Governor or Governor of this Kingdom, Chancellor or Keeper of the Great Seal, Lord High Treasurer, Chief of any of the Courts of Justice, Chancellor of...

Meanwhile the Reform Bill had passed the House of Commons and was sent up to the House of Lords. In the summer, Sydney Smith had written to Lord Grey--"You may be sure that any...

"To call him a legislator, a reasoner, and the conductor of the affairs of a great nation, seems to me as absurd as if a butterfly were to teach bees to make honey. That he is a...

Smith excelled. Abraham Plymley has been talking of the concessions which Roman Catholics hare already received, and their shameless ingratitude in asking for more. To the cry o...

trade, manufactures, exports and imports. "Ireland has the greatest possible facilities for carrying on commerce with the whole of Europe. It contains, within a circuit of 750 m...

uninterrupted progress. England is confronted by the most formidable adversary whom she has ever known, and her defence is entrusted to Canning and Perceval. Canning's armoury c...

_Peter Plymley's Letters_ are supposed to be written by a Londoner, who is in favour of removing the secular disabilities of Roman Catholics, to his brother Abraham, the parson...