450

THE PICTURE MANIA.

the party broke up, and Sir James carried the Highlander off, lest he should find out his mistake, and cut his throat from shame and vexation. One may readily conceive Sydney Smith's enjoying this joke, for his spirits were those of a boy: his gayety was irresistible; his ringing laugh, infectious; but it is difficult for those who knew Mackintosh in his later years-the quiet, almost pensive invalid-to realize in that remembrance any trace of the Mackintosh of Doughty Street and Orchard Street days. One day Sydney Smith came home with two hackney-coaches full of pictures, which he had picked up at an auction. His daughter thus tells the story: Another day he came home with two hackney-coach loads of pictures, which he had met with at an auction, having found it impossible to resist so many yards of brown-looking figures and faded landscapes going for absolutely nothing, unheard-of sacrifices.' 'Kate' hardly knew whether to laugh or cry when she saw these horribly dingylooking objects enter her pretty little drawing-room, and looked at him as if she thought him half mad; and half mad he was, but with delight at his purchase. He kept walking up and down the room, waving his arms, putting them in fresh lights, declaring they were exquisite specimens of art, and if not by the very best masters, merited to be so. He invited his friends, and displayed his pictures; discovered fresh beauties for each new comer; and for three or four days, under the magic influence of his wit and imagination, these gloomy old pictures were a perpetual source of amusement and fun."

At last, finding that he was considered no authority for the fine arts, off went the pictures to another auction, but all rechristened by himself with unheard-of names. "One, I remember," says Lady Holland, "was a beautiful landscape, by Nicholas de Falda, a pupil of Valdezzio, the only painting by that eminent artist. The pictures sold, I believe, for rather less than he gave for them under their original names, which were probably as real as their assumed ones."

Sydney Smith had long been styled by his friends the "Bishop of Mickleham," in allusion to his visits to, and influence in, the house of his friend, Richard Sharp, who had a cottage at that place. A piece of real preferment was now his. This was the living of Foston le Clay, in Yorkshire, given him by Lord Erskine, then Chancellor. Lady Holland never rested till she had prevailed on Erskine to give Sydney Smith a living. Smith, as Rogers relates, went to thank his lordship. "Oh," said Erskine, "don't thank me, Mr. Smith; I gave you the living because Lady Holland insisted on my doing so; and if she had desired me to give it to the devil, he must have had it.”

Notwithstanding the prediction of the saints, Sydney Smith

THE WIT'S MINISTRY.

451

proved an excellent parish priest. Even his most admiring friends did not expect this result. The general impression was, that he was infinitely better fitted for the bar than for the Church. "Ah! Mr. Smith," Lord Stowell used to say to him, "you would be in a far better situation, and a far richer man, had you belonged to us."

One jeu d'esprit more, and Smith hastened to take possession of his living, and to enter upon duties of which no one better knew the mighty importance than he did.

Among the Mackintosh set was Richard Sharp, to whom we have already referred, termed, from his great knowledge and ready memory, "Conversation Sharp." Many people may think that this did not imply an agreeable man, and they were, perhaps, right. Sharp was a plain, ungainly man. One evening, a literary lady, now living, was at Sir James Mackintosh's, in company with Sharp, Sismondi, and the late Lord Denman, then a man of middle age. Sir James was not only particularly partial to Denman, but admired him personally. "Do you not think Denman handsome ?" he inquired of the lady after the guests were gone. "No? Then you must think Mr. Sharp handsome," he rejoined; meaning that a taste so perverted as not to admire Denman must be smitten with Sharp. Sharp is said to have studied all the morning before he went out to dinner, to get up his wit and anecdote, as an actor does his part. Sydney Smith having one day received an invitation from him to dine at Fishmongers' Hall, sent the following reply:

"Much do I love

The monsters of the deep to eat ;
To see the rosy salmon lying,
By smelts encircled, born for frying;
And from the china boat to pour
On flaky cod the flavored shower.
Thee above all I much regard,
Flatter than Longman's flattest bard,
Much honor'd turbot! sore I grieve
Thee and thy dainty friends to leave.
Far from ye all, in snuggest corner,
I go to dine with little Horner;
He who with philosophic eye

Sat brooding o'er his Christmas pie;

Then firm resolved, with either thumb,

Tore forth the crust-enveloped plum;

And mad with youthful dreams of deathless fame,
Proclaimed the deathless glories of his name."

One word before we enter on the subject of Sydney Smith's ministry. In this biography of a great Wit, we touch but lightly upon the graver features of his character, yet they can not wholly be passed over. Stanch in his devotion to the

452

THE FIRST VISIT TO FOSTON LE CLAY.

Church of England, he was liberal to others. The world in the present day is afraid of liberality. Let it not be forgotten that it has been the fanatic and the intolerant, not the mild and practical among us who have gone from the Protestant to the Romish faith. Sydney Smith, in common with other great men, had no predilection for dealing damnation round the land. How noble, how true, are Mackintosh's reflections on religious sects! "It is impossible, I think, to look into the interior of any religious sect without thinking better of it. I ought, indeed, to confine myself to those of Christian Europe, but with that limitation it seems to me the remark is true, whether I look at the Jansenists of Port Royal, or the Quakers in Clarkson, or the Methodists in these journals. All these sects, which appear dangerous or ridiculous at a distance, assume a much more amicable character on nearer inspection. They all inculcate pure virtue, and practise mutual kindness; and they exert great force of reason in rescuing their doctrines from the absurd or pernicious consequences which naturally flow from them. Much of this arises from the general nature of religious principle-much also from the genius of the Gospel."

Nothing could present a greater contrast with the comforts of Orchard Street than the place on which Sydney Smith's "lines" had now "fallen." Owing to the non-residence of the clergy, one third of the parsonage-houses in England had fallen into decay, but that of Foston le Clay was pre-eminently wretched. A hovel represented what was still called the parsonage house: it stood on a glebe of three hundred acres of the stiffest clay in Yorkshire: a brick-floored kitchen, with a room above it, both in a ruinous condition, was the residence which, for a hundred and fifty years, had never been inhabited by an incumbent. It will not be a matter of surprise that for some time, until 1808, Sydney Smith, with the permission of the Archbishop of York, continued to reside in London, after having appointed a curate at Foston le Clay.

The first visit to his living was by no means promising. Picture to yourself, my reader, Sydney Smith, in a carriage, in his superfine black coat, driving into the remote village, and parleying with the old parish clerk, who, after some conversation, observed, emphatically, striking his stick on the ground, "Master Smith, it stroikes me that people as comes froe London is such fools." "I see you are no fool," was the prompt answer; and the parson and the clerk parted mutually satisfied.

The profits arising from the sale of two volumes of sermons carried Sydney Smith, his family, and his furniture to Foston

1