Our first establishment at Heslington was a great source of enjoyment to the younger part of the family, glad to escape from the confinement of London; and our happiness contributed not a little to reconcile my father to the change.
He now began to arrange his mode of life and establishment. He bought a little second-hand carriage, and a horse, called Peter; and the groom once exclaiming he had a “cruel face,” he went ever after by the name of Peter the Cruel: in this little carriage he used to drive himself and my mother every Sunday, summer and winter (for she always accompanied him), to serve his church at Foston, and returned late in the evening.
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At first it was not without fear that she entrusted herself to so
inexperienced a coachman; “but she soon,” he said, “raised my
wages, and considered me an excellent Jehu.” The streets
of York required some skill in this art. My father once exclaiming to one of the principal
tradesmen there, “Why, Mr. Brown, your streets are the
narrowest in Europe; there is not actually room for two carriages to pass.”
“Not room!” said the indignant Yorkist, “there’s
plenty of room, Sir, and above an inch and a half to spare!” He used to dig
vigorously an hour or two each day in his garden, as he said, “to avoid sudden
death,” for he was even then inclined to embonpoint,
and perhaps, as a young man, may have been considered somewhat clumsy in figure (though I
never thought so), for I have often heard from my father that a college friend used to say
to him, “Sydney, your sense, wit, and
clumsiness, always give me the idea of an Athenian
carter.” He spent much time in reading and composition; his activity was
unceasing; I hardly remember seeing him unoccupied, but when engaged in conversation. He
never considered his education as finished; he had always some object in hand to
investigate. He read with great rapidity. I think it was said of Johnson, “Look at Johnson,
tearing out the bowels of his book.” It might be said of my father, that he
was running off with their contents, for he galloped through the pages so rapidly, that we
often laughed at him when he shut up a thick quarto as his morning’s work, and said
he meant he had
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He used frequently to lay out his plans of study for the year. I find the following have accidentally been preserved in one of his commonplace books, and shall give them, though not strictly belonging to this period:—
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“Translate every day ten lines of the ‘De Officiis,’ and re-translate into Latin. Five chapters of Greek Testament. Theological studies. Plato’s ‘Apology for Socrates,’ Horace’s Epodes, Epistles, Satires, and Ars Poetica.
“Write sermons and reviews, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Read, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Write ten lines of Latin on writing days. Read five chapters of Greek Testament on reading days. For morning reading, either Polybius, or Diodorus Siculus, or some tracts of Xenophon or Plato; and for Latin, Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius.
“Monday: write, morning; read Tasso, evening. Tuesday: Latin or Greek, morning; evening, theology. Wednesday, same as Monday. Friday, ditto. Thursday and Saturday, same as Tuesday. Read every day a chapter in Greek Testament, and translate ten lines of Latin. Good books to read:—Terrasson’s ‘History of Roman Jurisprudence;’ Bishop of Chester’s ‘Records of the Creation.’”
He was very fond of children,—liked to have them with him; indeed, in looking back, it often fills me with regret to think of the many advantages that ought to have been turned to better account, in passing a life with such a man.
He took a lively interest in all our pursuits and
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As we grew up we became his companions; we were called in to all family councils; his letters were common property; the tenderest mother could not have been more anxious and careful as to the religious tendency of any books we read, and often he has taken books out of my hands which I had ignorantly begun, with strict injunctions to consult him about my studies. He regarded it as the greatest of all evils to produce doubt or confusion in a youthful mind on such subjects; indeed he has said, in his sermons, that he “would a thousand times prefer that his child should die in the bloom of youth, rather than it should live to disbelieve.”
After his evening walk he would sit down to his singular writing
establishment, which I shall describe hereafter, placed by the servant always in the same
place; and here, after looking through business papers
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“A clergyman complaining of want of society in the country, saying, ‘They talk of runts’ (young cows), Johnson expressed himself much flattered by the reply of Mrs. Thrale’s mother: ‘Sir, Dr. Johnson would learn to talk of runts;’ meaning that I was a man that would make the most of my situation, whatever it was.”* This was most strikingly the case with my father; he always endeavoured to see the bright side of things, and to adapt himself to the circumstances in which he was placed, however uncongenial to his former tastes and habits. He could talk of runts with those who talked only of runts, and he not only talked, but entered so eagerly into the subject before him that he ended by generally finding sources of interest in them; affording, in this respect, a striking contrast to a brother clergyman, who about the same time (having been a popular preacher in London) received
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Talking of runts reminds me of a practice my father established as soon as he was settled at Foston, of inviting some of the most respectable farmers in his neighbourhood to dine with him once a year. On these occasions he did not make it a mere man’s dinner, but the ladies of his family were always present; and, without lowering his own dignity or appearing to descend to the level of his more humble guests, it was interesting to observe how he drew out the real sense and knowledge they possessed, how he discussed their opinions, and with what tact he gave a tone of general interest to the conversation. Trifling as this was, it was evidently of great utility: it gave him more knowledge of them and influence amongst them than he could otherwise have obtained; each man went away better pleased with himself and less of a grumbler than he came; and, I suspect, with a greater value for character, which was the only passport to his table.
My father employed himself much in acquiring a
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He began too on a small scale to exercise his skill in medicine, doing much good amongst his poor neighbours, though there were often ludicrous circumstances connected with his early medical career. On one occasion, wishing to administer a ball to Peter the Cruel, the groom, by mistake, gave him two boxes of opium pills in his bran mash, which Peter composedly munched, boxes and all. My father, in dismay, when he heard what had happened, went to look, as he thought, for the last time on his beloved Peter; but soon found, to his great relief, that neither boxes nor pills had produced any visible effects on him. Another time he found all his pigs intoxicated, and, as he declared, “grunting God save the King about the stye,” from having eaten some fermented grains which he had ordered for them. Once he administered castor-oil to the red cow, in quantities sufficient to have killed a regiment of Christians; but the red cow laughed alike at his skill and his oil, and went on her way rejoicing.
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He never sat a moment after dinner when alone with his family, having contracted a horror of it from the long sittings inflicted on him in early life by his father; who, dining at three, used to sit till dark, and expect his family to do the same. My father rushed into the opposite extreme; and the cloth was scarcely removed ere he called for his hat and stick, and sallied forth for his evening stroll, in which we always accompanied him. Each cow, and calf, and horse, and pig, were in turn visited, and fed and patted, and all seemed to welcome him: he cared for their comforts as he cared for the comforts of every living being around him. He used to say, “I am all for cheap luxuries, even for animals; now all animals have a passion for scratching their backbones; they break down your gates and palings to effect this. Look! There is my universal scratcher, a sharp-edged pole, resting on a high and a low post, adapted to every height, from a horse to a lamb. Even the Edinburgh Reviewer can take his turn; you have no idea how popular it is; I have not had a gate broken since I put it up; I have it in all my fields.”
He always had some experiment going on. At one time he was bent on inventing a method of burning the fat of his own sheep, instead of candles; and numerous were the little tin lamps, of various forms and sizes, produced; great the illuminations and greater the smells, the house being redolent of mutton-fat whilst this fancy lasted.
Then he took smoking chimneys in hand, and in-
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Immediately on coming to Foston, as early as the year 1809, he set on foot gardens for the poor; and subsequently, Dutch gardens for spade cultivation. The former were, I believe, among the first trials of an experiment which has been since so generally adopted, as one of the most beneficial charities amongst the country population; dividing several acres of the glebe into sixteenths, and letting them, at a low rent, to the villagers, to whom they were the greatest comfort. It became quite a pretty sight afterwards to see these small gardens (which were just enough to supply a cottager with potatoes, and sometimes enable him to keep a pig) filled at dawn with the women and children cultivating them before they went out to their day’s labour; and there was the greatest emulation amongst them whose garden should be most productive and obtain the prize.
Then the cheapest diet for the poor, and cooking for the poor, formed the subjects of his inquiry: and many a hungry labourer was brought in and stuffed with rice, or broth, or porridge, to test their relative effects on the appetite. In short, it would be endless to enumerate the variety of subjects and objects which the activity and energy of his mind suggested and found interest in.
In an evening, often with a child on each knee, he
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The following are extracts from such few portions of his diary as have been preserved, written at various times. These slight, unfinished fragments are not, of course, given as specimens of composition; but they are, I think, of great value, as indicating the occupation and direction of his thoughts, and the wholesome training of his mind, in his leisure hours, and in solitude, of which he seems to have felt the full value for the improvement of his character. In one of his letters to Jeffrey about this period, he says:—“Living a great deal alone (as I now do) will, I believe, correct me of my faults, for a man can do without his own approbation in much society, but he must make great exertions to gain it when he is alone; without it, I am convinced, solitude is not to be endured.”
“Remember that every person, however low, has rights and feelings. In all contentions, let peace be rather your object, than triumph: value triumph only as the means of peace.
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“Remember that your children, your wife, and your servants, have rights and feelings; treat them as you would treat persons who could turn again. Apply these doctrines to the administration of justice as a magistrate. Rank poisons make good medicines; error and misfortune may be turned into wisdom and improvement.
“Do not attempt to frighten children and inferiors by passion; it does more harm to your own character than it does good to them; the same thing is better done by firmness and persuasion.
“If you desire the common people to treat you as a gentleman, you must conduct yourself as a gentleman should do to them.
“When you meet with neglect, let it rouse you to exertion, instead of mortifying your pride. Set about lessening those defects which expose you to neglect, and improve those excellencies which command attention and respect.
“Against general fears, remember how very precarious life is, take what care you will; how short it is, last as long as it ever does.
“Rise early in the morning, not only to avoid self-reproach, but to make the most of the little life that remains; not only to save the hours lost in sleep, but to avoid that languor which is spread over mind and body for the whole of that day in which you have lain late in bed.
“Passion gets less and less powerful after every defeat. Husband energy for the real demand which the dangers of life make upon it.
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“Find fault, when you must find fault, in private, if possible; and some time after the offence, rather than at the time. The blamed are less inclined to resist, when they are blamed without witnesses; both parties are calmer, and the accused party is struck with the forbearance of the accuser, who has seen the fault, and watched for a private and proper time for mentioning it.”
“My son writes me word he is unhappy at school. This makes me unhappy; but, 1st. There is much unhappiness in human life: how can school be exempt? 2ndly. Boys are apt to take a particular moment of depression for a general feeling, and they are in fact rarely unhappy; at the moment I write, perhaps he is playing about in the highest spirits. 3rdly. When he comes to state his grievance, it will probably have vanished, or be so trifling, that it will yield to argument or expostulation. 4thly. At all events, if it is a real evil which makes him unhappy, I must find out what it is, and proceed to act upon it; but I must wait till I can, either in person or by letter, find out what it is.”
“Jan. 19th I passed very unhappily, from an unpleasant state of body produced by indolence.
“Feb. 15th. Lost two hours in bed, from dawdling and doubting.
Maxims to make one get up:—1st. Optimum eligite, et
consueludo faciet jucundissimum. 2nd. I must get up at last, it
will be as difficult then as
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“May 31st. The difficulty of getting up, and I parley with the fault; the only method is, to obey the rule instantly, and without a moment’s reflection.
“Nov. 3rd. Lost a day by indolence; the only method is to spring up at once.
“I am uneasy about the sort of answer which the editor of the —— has given to my letter; but as I cannot see his answer, the best way is to wait till I can see it; and after all, it is of very little consequence. Every man magnifies too much what belongs to himself; nobody does this more than I do.
“Another reason for benevolence is, that you forget your own joy from being so accustomed to it, but the joy of others seems something new.
“—— says, ‘my best patients are the poor, for God is the paymaster.’
“Death—it must come some time or other. It has come to all, greater, better, wiser, than I.
“I have lived sixty-six years.
“I have done but very little harm in the world, and I have brought up my family.
“I was seized with sudden giddiness, so as to fall, and for
twenty-two hours was affected by violent pain. I kept my bed that day, and was weak and
languid for some days after. Mr. Lyddon attributes it to
indigestion. If this is the way nature punishes us for the consumption of indigestible
food, I am sure it is worth while to be strictly temperate; I will therefore,
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“Not only is religion calm and tranquil, but it has an extensive atmosphere round it, whose calmness and tranquillity must be preserved, if you would avoid misrepresentation.
“Not only study that those with whom you live should habitually respect you, but cultivate such manners as will secure the respect of persons with whom you occasionally converse. Keep up the habit of being respected, and do not attempt to be more amusing and agreeable than is consistent with the preservation of respect.
“I am come to the age of seventy; have attained enough reputation to make me somebody: I should not like a vast reputation, it would plague me to death. I hope to care less for the outward world.
“Hope.
“Don’t be too severe upon yourself and your own failings; keep on, don’t faint, be energetic to the last.
“If you wish to keep mind clear and body healthy, abstain from all fermented liquors.
“Fight against sloth, and do all you can to make friends.
“If old-age is even a state of suffering, it is a state of superior wisdom, in which man avoids all the rash and foolish things he does in his youth, and which make life dangerous and painful.
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“Death must be distinguished from dying, with which it is often confounded.
“Reverence and stand in awe of yourself.
“How Nature delights and amuses us by varying even the character of insects: the ill-nature of the wasp, the sluggishness of the drone, the volatility of the butterfly, the slyness of the bug.
“Take short views, hope for the best, and trust in God.”
“Happiness is not impossible without health, but it is of very difficult attainment. I do not mean by health merely an absence of dangerous complaints, but that the body should be in perfect tune—full of vigour and alacrity.
“The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the apothecary is of more importance than Seneca; and that half the unhappiness in the world proceeds from little stoppages, from a duct choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place, from a vext duodenum, or an agitated pylorus.
“The deception, as practised upon human creatures, is curious and entertaining. My friend sups late; he eats some strong soup, then a lobster, then some tart, and he dilutes these esculent varieties with wine. The
* From his ‘Practical Essays.” |
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“In the same manner old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has led to suicide. Unpleasant feelings of the body produce correspondent sensations in the mind, and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel of indigestible and misguided food. Of such infinite consequence to happiness is it to study the body!
“I have nothing new to say upon the management which the body
requires. The common rules are the best:—exercise without fatigue; generous living
without excess; early rising, and moderation in sleeping. These are the apothegms of
old women; but if they are not attended to, happiness becomes so extremely difficult
that very few persons can attain to it. In this point of view, the care of the body
becomes a subject of elevation and importance. A walk in the fields, an hour’s
less sleep, may remove all those bodily vexations and disquietudes which are such
formidable enemies to virtue; and may enable the mind to pmsue its own resolves without
that constant train of temptations to resist, and obstacles to overcome, which
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“Get up in a morning, walk before breakfast, pass four or five hours of the day in some active employment; then eat and drink over-night, lie in bed till one or two o’clock, saunter away the rest of the day in doing nothing!—can any two human beings be more perfectly dissimilar than the same individual under these two different systems of corporeal management? and is it not of as great importance towards happiness to pay a minute attention to the body, as it is to study the wisdom of Chrysippus and Crantor?”
“A good stout bodily machine being provided, we must be actively occupied, or there can be little happiness.
“If a good useful occupation be not
provided, it is so ungenial to the human mind to do nothing, that men occupy themselves
perilously, as with gaming; or frivolously, as with walking up and down a street at a watering-place, and
looking at the passers-by; or
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“A stockbroker or a farmer have no leisure for imaginary wretchedness; their minds are usually hurried away by the necessity of noticing external objects, and they are guaranteed from that curse of idleness, the eternal disposition to think of themselves.
“If we have no necessary occupation, it becomes extremely difficult to make to ourselves occupations as entirely absorbing as those which necessity imposes.
“The profession which a man makes for himself is seldom more than a half profession, and often leaves the mind in a state of vacancy and inoccupation. We must lash ourselves up however, as well as we can, to a notion of its great importance; and as the dispensing power is in our own hands, we must be very jealous of remission and of idleness.
“It may seem absurd that a gentleman who does not live by the profits of farming should rise at six o’clock in the morning to look after his farm; or, if botany be his object, that he should voyage to Iceland in pursuit of it. He is the happier however for his eagerness; his mind is more fully employed, and he is much more effectually guaranteed from all the miseries of ennui.
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“It is asked, if the object can be of such great importance. Perhaps not; but the pursuit is. The fox, when caught, is worth nothing: he is followed for the pleasure of the following.
“What is a man to do with his life who has nothing which he must do? It is admitted he must find some employment, but does
it signify what that employment is? Is he employed as much for his own happiness in
cultivating a flower-garden as in philosophy, literature, or politics? This must depend
upon the individual himself, and the circumstances in which he is placed. As far as the
mere occupation or exclusion of ennui goes, this can be settled
only by the feelings of the person employed; and if the attention be equally absorbed,
in this point of view one occupation is as good as another; but a man who is conscious
he was capable of doing great things, and has occupied himself with trifles beneath the
level of his understanding, is apt to feel envy at the lot of those who have excelled
him, and remorse at the misapplication of his own powers; he has not added to the
pleasures of occupation the pleasures of benevolence, and so has not made his
occupation as agreeable as he might have done, and he has probably not gained as much
fame and wealth as he might have done if his pursuits had been of a higher nature. For
these reasons it seems right that a man should attend to the highest pursuits in which
he has any fair chance of excelling; he is as much occupied, gains more of what is
worth gaining, and excludes remorse more
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“When a very clever man, or a very great man, takes to cultivating turnips and retiring, it is generally an imposture. The moment men cease to talk of their turnips, they are wretched and full of self-reproach. Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best!”
“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence. If I lived under the burning sun of the equator, it would be a pleasure to me to think that there were many human beings on the other side of the world who regarded and respected me; I could and would not live if I were alone upon the earth, and cut off from the remembrance of my fellow-creatures. It is not that a man has occasion often to fall back upon the kindness of his friends; perhaps he may never experience the necessity of doing so; but we are governed by our imaginations, and they stand there as a solid and impregnable bulwark against all the evils of life.
“Friendships should be formed with persons of all ages and
conditions, and with both sexes. I have a friend who is a bookseller, to whom I have
been very civil, and who would do anything to serve me; and I
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“Very few friends will bear to be told of their faults; and if done at all, it must be done with infinite management and delicacy; for if you indulge often in this practice, men think you hate, and avoid you. If the evil is not very alarming, it is better indeed to let it alone, and not to turn friendship into a system of lawful and unpunishable impertinence. I am for frank explanations with friends in cases of affronts. They sometimes save a perishing friendship, and even place it on a firmer basis than at first; but secret discontent must always end badly.”
“Cheerfulness and good spirits depend in a great degree upon bodily
causes, but much may be done for the promotion of this turn of mind. Persons subject to
low spirits should make the rooms in which they live as cheerful as possible; taking
care that the paper with which the wall is covered should be of a brilliant,
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“Melancholy commonly flies to the future for its aliment, and must
be encountered in this sort of artifice, by diminishing the range of our views. I have
a large family coming on, my income is diminishing, and I shall fall into pecuniary
difficulties. Well! but you are not now in pecuniary difficulties. Your eldest child is
only seven years old; it must be two or three years before your family make any
additional demands upon your purse. Wait till the time comes. Much may happen in the
interval to better your situation; and if nothing does happen, at least enjoy the two
or three years of ease and uninterruption which are before you. You are uneasy about
your eldest son in India; but it is now June, and at the earliest the fleet will not
come in till September; it may bring accounts of his health and prosperity, but at all
events there are eight or nine weeks before you can hear news.
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“A firm confidence in an overruling Providence,—a remembrance of the shortness of human life, that it will soon be over and finished,—that we scarcely know, unless we could trace the remote consequences of every event, what would be good and what an evil;—these are very important topics in that melancholy which proceeds from grief.
“It is wise to state to friends that our spirits are low, to state the cause of the depression, and to hear all that argument or ridicule can suggest for the cure. Melancholy is always the worse for concealment, and many causes of depression are so frivolous, that we are shamed out of them by the mere statement of their existence.”
Scattered amongst his papers are a few fragments on metaphysical subjects, which always interested him.
“A child is born with the power of feeling bodily pleasure and
pain. The milk he receives from his nurse delights him. The appearance of the nurse is
always connected with that pleasure, and, by the laws
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“But whence comes it that a child travels from joy to benevolence, and wishes to do good to the person who excites in him pleasurable sensations? Why is he not benevolent towards the pap-boat, or the nurse’s gown, or any other inanimate object which his eye connects as frequently with his animal pleasures as the image of his nurse? The progress from joy to benevolence is, I believe, entirely the result of experience, and the latter is a passion of much later growth than the other. As a child grows older, he perceives that the person who ministers to his joy and sorrow has similar feelings with himself, and that it becomes his interest to attend to them. If he scratches, and kicks, and cries, and knocks down glasses and tea-cups, he is shaken or scolded, or sugar is refused; or he is put in the corner, or whipped. If he pleases his superior, come cakes, plums, toys, and amusing games.
“In the same manner, at school, he is every day receiving lessons
of the evils of malevolence and the
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“In order to make this more clear, let us suppose that a child was treated, to a late period, with the same uniform indulgence, however numerous his faults, and however untoward his disposition; that nurse, father, mother, schoolfellow, and schoolmaster, all studied his humours and ministered to his wants, without exacting from him in return the slightest attention to their own feelings. What motive could such a child have for benevolence? How would he learn to become benevolent? Why should he cultivate such passive human beings, more than the spoon, or the silver mug, which, tossed and tumbled about by his caprice today, are sure to appear at the dinner of tomorrow?
“In fact, such a blind submission to the will of any child would
infallibly make him a tyrant, and extinguish in his mind every spark of benevolence: but if
an exemption from the necessity of attending to the feelings of our fellow-creatures,
destroys benevolence, the necessity of doing so may be presumed to teach
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“The passion of benevolence, thus excited in our nature, receives the name of gratitude, when we desire to do good to those who have done good to us. From apparent gratitude, is to be deducted the hope of future favour from the object of our gratitude, and the dread of infamy for being ungrateful. The pure passion may be explained from the united effects of association and education. Sexual love is that benevolence to persons of the opposite sex, which proceeds from the beauty of their countenance or their form.
“Paternal love is the benevolence which a father feels towards his
child. This passion, like all others which
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“The mind is inhabited by ideas, by passions, and by desires. Passions are strong feelings or affections of the mind, not leading immediately to action. Desires are strong feelings of the mind, accompanied by a wish to act.
“In revenge, I can perceive that my mind is powerfully affected, and I have a wish to act, and to give pain to some person: this is a desire. When the possession of sudden wealth is announced to me, I feel transported with joy, but I have no immediate desire to act: here I only recognize the affection of my mind.
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“In avarice, there is the feeling and the wish to act,—this is a desire. In grief there is only the affection or perturbation of the mind,—this is a passion. Every desire is a passion: every passion is not a desire. Emotion is another name for passion.
“The mind is of course the seat of all pain and pleasure. The pain of the gout is not in my toe, but in my mind, and I refer it to the toe as the cause. If this were otherwise, I should have ten minds instead of one, and as many on my hands.
“The pains and pleasures of the body ought to be classed among the passions. They are passions to all intents and purposes. The pains of the body have all some affinity to each other, and in consequence of that affinity have received the common name of pain. They are not degrees of the same feeling, but are different feelings, though with some general resemblance. It is an abuse of terms to call the pain excited by gout, by a cut, by a contusion, and by the stomach-ache, degrees of the same feeling. In the same manner, the pleasure arising from sweetness, smoothness, or from savoury tastes, appear to be distinct feelings, with some common relation between them, and therefore denominated pleasures.
“What is true of pain and of pleasure referred to the body, and in popular estimation supposed to exist in the body, is true also of the pains and pleasures of the mind.
“Grief, hatred, and revenge, are not degrees of the same painful
feeling, but distinct feelings. So are
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I find among his papers various hints for history, such as the following, which are many of them very characteristic.
“In 1758, the Chevalier Barras was burnt to death at Amiens for singing a blasphemous song. Thirty-five years afterwards the Christian religion was abolished all over France, and the church property confiscated.
“Blackstone says that for the Bull Unigenitus alone fifty-four thousand lettres de cachet were issued. Seventy thousand persons executed in the reign of Henry VIII. (See Brodie, vol. i.)
“In 1782, Louis XVI., exercising the right of issuing lettres de cachet, and in possession of full and unrestrained power; ten years after, his head was cut off.
“In 1770, the English Legislature taxed the American colonies, and made laws for them; in twelve years afterwards the colonies were declared an independent State.
“In 1797, Ireland petitioned the English Parliament for some small indulgence to their commerce; the petition was unanimously ignored: in eight years afterwards, Ireland was unanimously declared by the same Parliament to be a separate and independent kingdom.
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“In America there is no waste of public money; all public matters are conducted with exemplary frugality. On days of ceremony, two constables walk before the President, and he sits down to a joint of meat and a pudding provided at the expense of twenty-two republics.
“The religious mistakes of mankind have been, that there are spirits mingling with mankind, hence demons, witchcraft; that God governs the world by present judgments, hence ordeals; that there is a connection between the fate of particular men and the heavenly bodies at the time of their birth, hence astrology; that God is to be worshiped by the misery and privations of the worshipers, hence monasteries and flagellations.
| 1066 £200,000 | 1566 £1,500,000 | |
| 1266 150,000 | 1666 1,800,000 | |
| 1366 130,000 | 1766 17,000,000 | |
| 1466 100,000 |
“Four years after the Scotch Union, Lord F—— moved its repeal in the House of Lords, 54 against 64; four proxies carried it against the motion.
“Fleury became minister at seventy-three years of age.
“Galileo was made to promise, on his knees, never to teach again the motion of the Earth and the Sun; as a part of his punishment, he was directed to write every week the seven Penitential Psalms.
“The infamous Judge Jeffreys would not give up his Protestantism, and lost the favour of James II.
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“At the Revolution, the debt was a million, the revenue two, i.e. we owed half a year’s income—at present about sixteen years’ income.
“Brahmins may eat beef, if killed for sacrifice,—and there are sacrifices every day.
“The Excise and Post Office began under the Commonwealth. Court of Wards abolished in the Commonwealth.
“Colbert never taxed imports as high as ten per cent, ad valorem; he had no prohibition.
“The Scotch members used to receive ten guineas per week, secret service money.
“Sir John Trevor, Speaker of the Lower House, was convicted of receiving a bribe of a thousand pounds from the City of London between 1700 and 1716.”
Amongst his manuscripts is a sketch he wrote at a later period, giving an account of English misrule of Ireland from the earliest period of our possession up to the present day, compiled from the best existing documents, and forming so fearful a picture that he hesitated to give it to the world when done. After his death, my mother, thinking the time perhaps come when it might be published without injury, referred to what she justly felt was one of the highest historical authorities of our day, and received from Mr. Macaulay the following answer:—
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“I am truly grateful to you for suffering me to see the sketch of Irish history, drawn up by my admirable and excellent friend. I perfectly understand the generous feeling with which it was written, and I also think that I see why it was never published. While the Catholic disabilities lasted, he whom we regret did all that he could to awaken the conscience of the oppressors and to find excuses for the faults of the oppressed. When these disabilities had been removed, and when designing men still attempted to inflame the Irish against England, by repeating tales of grievances which had passed away, he felt that this work would no longer do any good, and that it might be used by demagogues in such a way as to do positive harm. You will see, from what I have said, that though I think this piece honourable to his memory, I do not wish to see it published, nor do I think that, though it would raise the reputation of almost any other writer of our time, it would raise his; in truth, nothing that is not of very rare and striking merit ought now to be given to the world under his name. He is universally admitted to have been a great reasoner, and the greatest master of ridicule that has appeared among us since Swift.* Many things, there-
* I find my father here, and indeed in almost every sketch of him, compared to Swift in the character of his writings. It is for others to decide upon the justness of the comparison; but there is one difference I ought, and I am proud to point out, that there is not a single line in them that might not be placed before the purity |
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My father had not long been established in his house at Heslington before several of his old friends found him out; amongst the first of these were Mr. Horner, Mr. Murray, and Mr. Adams. In August Mr. Abercrombie and his family spent a few days with him, which gave him much pleasure; and he had also a visit from Lord Webb Seymour, one of the friends with whom he had lived most intimately at Edinburgh, and whose early death was a source of deep regret to him.
He made the resolution, when he settled in the country, never to shoot; “first,” he says, “because I found, on trying at Lord Grey’s, that the birds seemed to consider the muzzle of my gun as their safest position; secondly, because I never could help shutting
of youth, or that is unfit for the eye of a woman; that he has exercised his powers of wit and sarcasm to the utmost, without ever sullying his pages with impurities, or degrading his talents and profession by irreligion; and this, I believe, can in very few instances be asserted of any other eminently humorous writer, either French or English, who have used such powers to any great extent. Lord John Russell, in writing of my father, says on this subject:—“Too much indulgence has been shown to the extravagance, dishonesty, and domestic infidelity of men of wit, as if the ‘light that led astray was light from heaven.’ It is not light from heaven, but flashes from a volcano which has its seat in hell.” |
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In 1810 my father had the pleasure of receiving his old and valued friend, Sir Samuel Romilly, and his family; and so deep was his veneration for the unbending virtue of this great man, that it was one not easily forgotten. No two men were ever more unlike, or pursued the same ends by such different paths; yet they had many feelings in common, and a total absence of all those littlenesses which sometimes obscure and alienate even great men. I remember Sir Samuel went with my father to see Castle Howard, at which he gazed with great admiration, and after a long pause, standing on the steps of the portico and looking towards the mausoleum and at the lovely landscape around, he exclaimed, spreading out his arms, “These are indeed things that must make death terrible!”
Some years after, my father introduced the following passage, on the recent death of Sir Samuel Romilly, into a sermon on the subject of Meditation on Death, and as it has not been published, I shall insert it here, as a proof of his feelings towards that eminent man:—
“And let me ask you, my brethren, we who see the good and great
daily perishing before our eyes, what comfort have we but this hope in Christ that we
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“Can we say of any human being, as we may say of that great man
who was torn from us in the beginning of this winter, that he acted with vast capacity
upon all the great calamities of life; that he came with unblemished purity to restrain
iniquity; that, condemning injustice, he was just; that, restraining corruption, he was
pure; that those who were provoked to look into the life of a great statesman, found
him a good man also, and acknowledged he was sincere even when they did not believe he
was right? Can we say of such a man, with all the career of worldly ambition before
him, that he was the friend of the wretched and the poor; that in the midst of vast
occupation he remembered the debtor’s cell, the prisoner’s dungeon, the
last hour of the law’s victim; that he meditated day and night on wretchedness,
weakness, and want? Can we say all this of any human being, and then have him no more
in remembrance? When you ‘die daily,’ my brethren; when
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“Remember that God is to be worshiped, that death is to be met, by such a life as this; remember, in the last hour, that rank, that birth, that wealth, that all earthly things will vanish away, that you will then think only of the wretchedness you have lessened and the good you have done.”
I see, by letters in my possession, that on the publication of Sir Samuel’s Life by his sons, my father’s letter of warm admiration was the first received by the family; and the terms in which they speak of the value of my father’s praise is highly gratifying to those who love his memory.
My father had by this time made a considerable acquaintance in and round York. Dining out on one occasion, he happened to meet Mr. ——, whom he always met with pleasure, as he was a man of sense, simplicity, and learning; and with such a total absence, not only of humour in himself, but in his perception of it in others, as made him an amusing subject of speculation to my father.
The conversation at dinner took a liberal turn. My father, in the full career of his spirits, happened to say, “Though he was not generally considered an illiberal man, yet he must confess he had one little weakness, one secret wish,—he should like to roast a Quaker.”
“Good heavens, Mr.
Smith!” said Mr. ——, full
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Mr. ——’s honest simplicity could stand this no longer, and he seemed hardly able to sit at table with him. The whole company were in roars of laughter at the scene; but neither this, nor the mirth and mischief sparkling in my father’s eye, enlightened him in the least, for a joke was a thing of which he had no conception. At last my father, seeing that he was giving real pain, said, “Come, come, Mr. ——, since you think this so very illiberal, I must be wrong; and will give up my roasted Quaker rather than your esteem; let us drink wine together.” Peace was made, but I believe neither time nor explanation would have ever made him comprehend that it was a joke.
Though it was the general habit in Yorkshire to make visits of two or three days at the houses in the neighbourhood, yet not unfrequently invitations to dinner only came, and sometimes to a house at a considerable distance.
“Did you ever dine out in the country?” said my father;
“what misery human beings inflict on each
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“Dinner proceeded, but our spirits flagged under these accumulated
misfortunes: there was an ominous pause between the first and second course; we looked
each other in the face—what new disaster awaited us? the pause became fearful. At last
the door burst open, mid the boy rushed in, calling out aloud, ‘Please, Sir, has
Betty any right to leather I?’ What human gravity could
stand this? we roared with laughter; all took part against Betty,
obtained the second course
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This winter he had another visit from his friend Jeffrey, who came with an American gentleman, Mr. Simond, and his niece, Miss Wilkes. We little suspected then that this lady, great-niece to the agitator Wilkes, was so soon after to become Mrs. Jeffrey. We had also visits from Mr. Horner, Mr. Murray, and Lord Lauderdale. My father used to say of Mr. Horner that he had the Ten Commandments written on his face; in fact, that he looked so virtuous, that he might commit any crime, and no one would believe in the possibility of his guilt.
It was, I believe, in 1812 that my father’s eldest brother Robert, who had gone out to India, as Advocate-General of Bengal eight years before, returned with his wife and family to this country,—a return we had all been eagerly looking forward to. Before leaving India, my uncle had with great generosity offered to remain there another year, and to bestow the proceeds of his office on my father: but my father, poor as he was, fearing the effects of the climate on his brother, and knowing his ardent desire to return to England, with equal generosity refused, without a moment’s hesitation, to accept of such a sacrifice. We went to their house in town to meet them, and spent some weeks there.
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My father was received with open arms by all his old friends; and the pleasure and interest of this visit to his old haunts was much enhanced by the arrival of his friend Sir James Mackintosh, likewise from India, after an absence from England of about the same time. He had arrived on the eve of a general election, and during the excitement of political changes consequent upon the murder of Mr. Percival, and the attempt to form a Ministry under Lord Wellesley.
In the summer Sir James went with Lady Mackintosh to the Highlands, and on their return spent some days with my father at Heslington. In the autumn of the following year, Madame de Staël, driven from Copet by the persecutions of Napoleon, took refuge in England, and was the object of general interest and attention. She was constantly in the society of Sir James Mackintosh, and having heard much of my father, and of his powers of conversation and argument, she was eager to make his acquaintance, and try her eloquence upon him. She used frequently to say to Sir James, with the odd jumble she made of English titles and names, “Mais, votre ami Sydney Smith, ce Prètre-Amiral, pourquoi ne vient-il pas?”
The Prètre-Amiral was unable to leave his parish during her visit here, so
they never met; but she took her revenge some years after at Nice, where she made the
acquaintance of my father’s elder brother Robert, whose wonderful powers of argument and exquisite French she
revelled in through a whole win-
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Sir James Mackintosh, speaking of him in India, says, “I hear frequently of Bobus; his fame amongst the natives is greater than that of any pundit since the days of Menu.”
The following year my uncle came down with his family to visit us in Yorkshire, and remained a month with us. On his return to Northampton, a typhus fever attacked his family with most fearful and fatal results, then the nurse, and lastly himself. My aunt, in communicating these dreadful tidings, entreated my father to come to their aid, and, after taking medical advice as to the best precautions against infection, he set off, in spite of my mother’s earnest entreaties, without a moment’s hesitation.
An intimate friend, who was staying with us at the time, and present at
this scene, tells me, “Nothing in my long knowledge of him ever gave me a higher
idea of your father’s generosity of character and firmness of principle than this
act; for, in addition to his knowledge how dependent you all were upon him, and that
your mother was near her confinement, he
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He remained with my uncle some weeks, until he had the satisfaction of leaving him convalescent, and comfortably established in a house near Northampton, under the care of the most eminent physician there, Dr. Carr, uncle to Lady Davy; and of returning in safety to my poor mother, whose anxiety during this period may easily be imagined.
Amongst our rural delights at Heslington was the possession of a young donkey, which had been given up to our tender mercies from the time of its birth, and in whose education we employed a large portion of our spare time; and a most accomplished donkey it became under our tuition. It would walk up-stairs, pick pockets, follow us in our walks like a huge Newfoundland dog, and at the most distant sight of us in the field, with ears down and tail erect, it set off in full bray to meet us. These demonstrations on Bitty’s part were met with not less affection on ours, and Bitty was almost considered a member of the family.
One day, when my elder brother and myself were training our beloved Bitty, with a pocket-handkerchief for a bridle, and his head
crowned with flowers, to run
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“Witty as Horatius
Flaccus, As great a Jacobin as Gracchus; Short, though not as fat, as Bacchus, Riding on a little jackass.” |
These lines were afterwards repeated by some one to Mr. ——, at Holland House, just before he was introduced for the first time to Mr. Jeffrey, and they caught his fancy to such a degree that he could not get them out of his head, but kept repeating them in a low voice all the time Mr. Jeffrey was conversing with him.
I must end Bitty’s history, as he has been
introduced, by saying that he followed us to Foston; and, after serving us faithfully for
thirteen years, on our leaving Yorkshire was permitted by our kind friend
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My father meanwhile had entered into various negotiations with different clergymen to effect an exchange of livings, but the conditions imposed by Lord Eldon had hitherto prevented them from being carried into effect.
He continued, therefore, to drive over every week to do duty at his living.
One Sunday (to show the very primitive state of the villagers), just as he was about to
enter the church, there was a general rush of the clerk, the sexton, the churchwardens, and
principal farmers after him, who, with agitated countenances, exclaimed, “Please
your honour, a coach, a conch!” My father, with a calmness that filled them
with wonder, said, “Well, well, my good friends, stand firm, never mind; even
though there should be a conch, it will do us no harm; let us see.” And
certainly a carriage was seen approaching, such as rarely appeared in those parts; and as
it advanced rapidly towards the little miserable hovel which had once been the
parsonage-house, it was discovered to contain a very fashionable lady. The lady turned out
to be Mrs. Apreece, on her way from Scotland,
bringing letters of introduction to my father, whom she was anxious to hear preach; and
this was the beginning of an acquaintance which afterwards ripened into intimacy, and
several of the most amusing of his letters
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