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but how can I help it? If the heads of the church are at the head of the mob; if I find the best of men doing that which has in all times drawn upon the worst enemies of the human race the bitterest curses of history, am I to stop because the motives of these men are pure, and their lives blameless? I wish I could find a blot in their lives, or a vice in their motives. The whole power of the motion is in the character of the movers: feeble friends, false friends, and foolish friends, all cease to look upon the measure, and say, Would such a measure have been recommended by such men as the prelates of Canterbury and London, if it were not for the public advantage? And in this way, the great good of a religious establishment, now rendered moderate and compatible with all men's liberties and rights, is sacrificed to names; and the church destroyed from good breeding and etiquette! the real truth is, that Canterbury and London have been frightened—they have overlooked the effect of time and delay-they have been betrayed into a fearful and ruinous mistake. Painful as it is to teach men who ought to teach us, the legislature ought, while there is yet time, to awake and read them this lesson.

It is dangerous for a prelate to write; and whoever does it ought to be a very wise one. He has speculated why I was made a canon of St. Paul's. Suppose I were to follow his example, and, going through the bench of bishops, were to ask for what reason each man had been made a bishop; suppose I were to go into the county of Gloucester, &c. &c. &c.!!!!!

I was afraid the bishop would attribute my promotion to the Edinburgh Review; but upon the subject of promotion by reviews, he preserves an impenetrable silence. If my excellent patron Earl Grey had any reasons of this kind, he may at least be sure that the reviews commonly attributed to me were really written by me. I should have considered myself as the lowest of created beings to have disguised myself in another man's wit, and to have received a reward to which I was not entitled.*

I understand that the bishop bursts into tears every now and then, and says that I have set him the name of Simon, and that all the bishops now call him Simon. Simon of Gloucester, however, after all, is a real writer, and how could I know that Dr. Monk's name was Simon! When tutor in Lord Corrington's family, he was called by the endearing, though somewhat unmajestic name, of Dick; and if I had thought about his name at all, I should have called him Richard of Gloucester.

I presume that what has drawn upon me the indignation of this prelate, is the observations I have from time to time made on the conduct of the commissioners; of which he positively asserts himself to have been a member; but whether he was, or was not a member, I utterly acquit him of all possible blame, and of every species of imputation which may attach to the conduct of the commissioner. In using that word, I have always meant the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and Lord John Russell; and have, honestly speaking, given no more heed to the Bishop of Gloucester than if he had been sitting in a commission of Bonzes in the court of Pekin.

To read, however, his lordship a lesson of good manners, I had prepared for him a chastisement which would have been echoed from the Seagrave, who banqueteth in the castle, to the idiot who spitteth over the bridge at Gloucester; but the following appeal struck my eye, and stopped my pen :-" Since that time, my inadequate qualifications have sustained an appalling diminution, by the affection of my eyes, which have impaired my vision, and the progress of which threatens to consign me to darkness; I beg the benefit of your prayers to the Father of all mercies, that he will restore me to better use of the visual organs, to be employed on his service; or that he will inwardly illumine the intellectual vision, with a particle of that divine ray, which his Holy Spirit can alone impart."

It might have been better taste, perhaps, if a mitred invalid, in describing his bodily infirmities before a church full of clergymen, whose prayers he asked, had been a little more sparing in the abuse of his enemies; but a good deal must be forgiven to the sick. I wish that every Christian was as well aware as this poor bishop of what he needed from divine assistance; and in the supplication for the restoration of his sight and the improvement of his understanding, I must fervently and cordially join.

I was much amused with what old Hermann* says of the Bishop of London's Eschylus. "We find," he says, "a great arbitrariness of proceeding, and much boldness of innovation, guided by no sure principle;" here it is: qualis ab incepto. He begins with Eschylus, and ends with the Church

* Ueber die behandlung der Griechischen Dichter bei den Englandern Von Gottfried Hermann. Wiemar Jahrbucher, vol. liv. 1831.

of England; begins with profane, and ends with holy innovations-scratching out old readings which every commentator had sanctioned, abolishing ecclesiastical dignities which every reformer had spared; thrusting an anapest into a verse which will not bear it; and intruding a canon into a cathedral which does not want it; and this is the prelate by whom the proposed reform of the church has been principally planned, and to whose practical wisdom the legislature is called upon to defer. The Bishop of London is a man of very great ability, humane, placable, generous, munificent, very agreeable, but not to be trusted with great interests where calmness and judgment are required; unfortunately, my old and amiable school-fellow, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has melted away before him, and sacrificed that wisdom on which we all founded our security.

Much writing and much talking are very tiresome; and, above all, they are so to men who, living in the world, arrive at those rapid and just conclusions which are only to be made by living in the world. This bill passed, every man of sense, acquainted with human affairs must see, that as far as the church is concerned, the thing is at an end. From Lord John Russell, the present improver of the church, we shall descend to Hume, from Hume to Roebuck, and after Roebuck we shall receive our last improvements from Dr. Wade: plunder will follow after plunder, degradation after degradation. The church is gone, and what remains is not life, but sickness, spasm, and struggle.

Whatever happens, I am not to blame; I have fought my fight.-Farewell. SYDNEY SMITH.

LETTER

ON

THE CHARACTER OF

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH.

MY DEAR SIR,

You ask for some of your late father's letters: I am sorry to say I have none to send you. Upon principle, I keep no letters except those on business. I have not a single letter from him, nor from any human being, in my possession.

The impression which the great talents and amiable qualities of your father made upon me, will remain as long as I remain. When I turn from living spectacles of stupidity, ignorance, and malice, and wish to think better of the world-I remember my great and benevolent friend Mackintosh.

The first points of character which every body noticed in him were the total absence of envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. He could not hate-he did not know how to set about it. The gall-bladder was omitted in his composition, and if he could have been persuaded into any scheme of revenging himself upon an enemy, I am sure (unless he had been narrowly watched) it would have ended in proclaiming the good qualities, and promoting the interests of his adversary. Truth had so much more power over him than anger, that (whatever might be the provocation) he could not misrepresent, nor exaggerate. In questions of passion and party, he stated facts as they were, and reasoned fairly upon them, placing his happiness and pride in equitable discrimination. Very fond of talking, he heard patiently, and, not averse to intellectual display, did not forget that others might have the same inclination as himself.

Till subdued by age and illness, his conversation was more brilliant and instructive than that of any human being I ever had the good fortune to be acquainted with. His memory (vast and prodigious as it was) he so managed as to make it a source of pleasure and instruction, rather than that dreadful engine of colloquial oppression into which it is sometimes erected. He remembered things, words, thoughts, dates, and every thing that was wanted. His language was beautiful, and might have gone from the fireside to the press; but though his ideas were always clothed in beautiful language, the clothes were sometimes too big for the body, and common thoughts were dressed in better and larger apparel than they deserved. He certainly had this fault, but it was not one of frequent commission.

He had a method of putting things so mildly and interrogatively, that he always procured the readiest reception for his opinions. Addicted to reasoning in the company of able men, he had two valuable habits, which are rarely met with in great reasoners he never broke in upon his opponent, and always avoided strong and vehement assertions. His reasoning commonly carried conviction, for he was cautious in his positions, accurate in his deductions, aimed only at truth. The ingenious side was commonly taken by some one else; the interests of truth were protected by Mackintosh.

His good-nature and candour betrayed him into a morbid habit of eulogizing every body-a habit which destroyed the value of commendations, that might have been to the young (if more sparingly distributed) a reward of virtue and a motive to exertion. Occasionally he took fits of an opposite nature; and I have seen him abating and dissolving pompous gentlemen with the most successful ridicule. He certainly had a good deal of humour; and I remember, amongst many other examples of it, that he kept us for two or three hours in a roar of laughter, at a dinner-party at his own house, playing upon the simplicity of a Scotch cousin, who had mistaken me for my gallant synonym, the hero of Acre. I never saw a more perfect comedy, nor heard ridicule so long and so well sustained. Sir James had not only humour, but he had wit also; at least, new and sudden relations of ideas flashed across his mind in reasoning, and produced the same effect as wit, and would have been called wit, if a sense of their utility and importance had not often overpowered the admiration of novelty, and entitled them to the higher name of wisdom. Then the great thoughts VOL. III.-15

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