Chapter V: "catholic Emancipation"--Bristol--Combe Florey--Reform--Promotion (2)

"I visited Combe Florey, with camera and vasculum, in 1893. It is one
of the loveliest spots in that district of lovely villages, lying in
the Vale of Taunton on the southern slope of the Quantocks. The
parsonage is entirely unchanged: there is Sydney's study, a
low-ceilinged room supported partly by pillars, level with the garden
and opening into it. There is the old-fashioned fireplace by which he
and his wife sate opposite each other in his last illness. 'Mrs.
Sydney has eight distinct illnesses, and I have nine. We take
something every hour, and pass the mixture from one to the other.'
Outside still grow his Conifers, a large Atlantic Cedar and a Deodara;
unchanged too are the palings over which Jack and Jill[97] peered with
antlered heads. Old villagers still talk of his medical dispensary,
and of the care with which he drove round to collect and carry into
Taunton their monthly deposits for the Savings Bank."

Meanwhile, great events were transacting themselves in the political world, and they had an important bearing on the tranquil life of Combe Florey. On the 4th of May 1830, Sydney Smith wrote from London to his wife in the country:--

"The King is going downhill as before, but seems to be a long time in
the descent. All kinds of intrigues are going on about change of
Ministry, and all kinds of hopes and fears afloat. Nothing is more
improbable than that I should be made a Bishop, and, if I ever had the
opportunity, I am now, when far removed from it, decidedly of opinion
that it would be the greatest act of folly and absurdity to accept
it--to live with foolish people, to do foolish and formal things all
day, to hold my tongue, or to twist it into conversation unnatural
to me."

King George IV. died on the 26th of June. The accession of William IV., who was supposed to have some tendencies towards Whiggism, greatly stimulated the demand for Parliamentary Reform; and the revolution in France, which dethroned Charles X., gave a strong impetus to the democratic forces in England. Parliament was dissolved on the 24th of July. On the 14th of August Charles Greville wrote, "The elections are still going against the Government, and the signs of the times are all for reform and retrenchment, and against slavery." In writing to congratulate a young Roman Catholic who had been elected for Carlisle, Sydney Smith said--

"I rejoice in the temple which has been reared to Toleration; and I am
proud that I worked as a bricklayer's labourer at it--without pay, and
with the enmity and abuse of those who were unfavourable to its
construction."[98]

The new Parliament met on the 26th of October. On the 2nd of November, in the debate on the Address, the Duke of Wellington made a vehement declaration against Reform. This was the signal for an immense outcry. There were mobs and riots everywhere. The King's projected visit to the City on Lord Mayor's Day was abandoned. The Tory Government were beaten on a motion relating to the new Civil List. "Never was any Administration so completely and so suddenly destroyed; and, I believe, entirely by the Duke's declaration." Lord Grey[99] became Prime Minister, as the head of a Whig administration pledged to Reform. Soon afterwards Sydney Smith wrote to a friend--

"I think Lord Grey will give me some preferment if he stays in long
enough; but the upper parsons live vindictively, and evince their
aversion to a Whig Ministry by an improved health."

The Reform Bill was brought in on the 1st of March 1831. Sydney thought it "a magnificent measure, as wise as it is bold." Meetings of Reformers were held all over the country to support it. Such a meeting was held at Taunton on the 9th of March, and the Rector of Combe Florey attended and spoke.

"This," he said, "is the greatest measure which has ever been before
Parliament in my time, and the most pregnant with good or evil to the
country; and, though I seldom meddle with political meetings, I could
not reconcile it to my conscience to be absent from this. Every year
for this half century the question of Reform has been pressing upon
us, till it has swelled up at last into this great and awful
combination; so that almost every City and every Borough in England
are at this moment assembled for the same purpose and are doing the
same thing we are doing."

A great part of the controversy turned on the disfranchisement of the "Pocket Boroughs," and this was a subject which immediately suggested a happy apologue--

"These very same politicians are now looking in an agony of terror at
the disfranchisement of Corporations containing twenty or thirty
persons, sold to their representatives, who are themselves perhaps
sold to the Government: and to put an end to these enormous abuses is
called _Corporation robbery_, and there are some persons wild enough
to talk of compensation. This principle of compensation you will
consider perhaps, in the following instance, to have been carried as
far as sound discretion permits. When I was a young man, the place in
England I remember as most notorious for highwaymen and their exploits
was Finchley Common, near the metropolis; but Finchley Common, in the
progress of improvement, came to be enclosed, and the highwaymen lost
by these means the opportunity of exercising their gallant vocation. I
remember a friend of mine proposed to draw up for them a petition to
the House of Commons for compensation, which ran in this manner--'We,
your loyal highwaymen of Finchley Common and its neighbourhood having,
at great expense, laid in a stock of blunderbusses, pistols, and other
instruments for plundering the public, and finding ourselves impeded
in the exercise of our calling by the said enclosure of the said
Common of Finchley, humbly petition your Honourable House will be
pleased to assign to us such compensation as your Honourable House in
its wisdom and justice may think fit.'--Gentlemen, I must leave the
application to you....

"The greater part of human improvements, I am sorry to say, are made
after war, tumult, bloodshed, and civil commotion: mankind seem to
object to every species of gratuitous happiness, and to consider every
advantage as too cheap, which is not purchased by some calamity. I
shall esteem it as a singular act of God's providence, if this great
nation, guided by these warnings of history, not waiting till tumult
for Reform, nor trusting Reform to the rude hands of the lowest of the
people, shall amend their decayed institutions at a period when they
are ruled by a popular monarch, guided by an upright minister, and
blessed with profound peace."

On the 22nd of March the Second Reading was carried by a majority of one. But directly afterwards the Government was defeated on an amendment in Committee, and promptly appealed to the country. Parliament was dissolved on the 23rd of April. "Bold King! bold Ministers!" wrote Sydney on the 25th. Popular feeling was now really roused. "The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill" was the war-cry from Caithness to Cornwall. Lord John Russell, who had brought the Bill into Parliament, was the hero of the hour. He contested Devonshire at the General Election, and Sydney, who had a vote for the county, met him at Exeter.--

"The people along the road were very much disappointed by his
smallness. I told them he was much larger before the Bill was thrown
out, but was reduced by excessive anxiety about the people. This
brought tears into their eyes!"

At this juncture Sydney composed (and published in the name of an imaginary Mr. Dyson), a "Speech to the Freeholders on Reform"--

"Stick to the Bill--it is your Magna Charta, and your Runnymede. King
John made a present to the Barons. King William has made a similar
present to you. Never mind common qualities, good in common times. If
a man does not vote for the Bill, he is unclean--the plague-spot is
upon him--push him into the lazaretto of the last century, with
Wetherell[100] and Sadler[101]--purify the air before you approach
him--bathe your hands in Chloride of Lime, if you have been
contaminated by his touch....

"The thing I cannot, and will not bear, is this;--what right has
_this_ Lord, or _that_ Marquis, to buy ten seats in Parliament, in the
shape of Boroughs, and then to make laws to govern me? And how are
these masses of power re-distributed? The eldest son of my Lord is
just come from Eton--he knows a good deal about Æneas and Dido, Apollo
and Daphne--and that is all; and to this boy his father gives a
six-hundredth part of the power of making laws, as he would give him a
horse or a double-barrelled gun. Then Vellum, the steward, is put
in--an admirable man;--he has raised the estates--watched the progress
of the family Road-and-Canal Bills--and Vellum shall help to rule over
the people of England. A neighbouring country gentleman, Mr. Plumpkin,
hunts with my Lord--opens him a gate or two, while the hounds are
running--dines with my Lord--agrees with my Lord--wishes he could
rival the South-Down sheep of my Lord--and upon Plumpkin is conferred
a portion of the government. Then there is a distant relation of the
same name, in the County Militia, with white teeth, who calls up the
carriage at the Opera, and is always wishing O'Connell was hanged,
drawn, and quartered--then a barrister, who has written an article in
the _Quarterly_, and is very likely to speak, and refute M'Culloch;
and these five people, in whose nomination I have no more agency than
I have in the nomination of the toll-keepers of the Bosphorus, are to
make laws for me and my family--to put their hands in my purse, and to
sway the future destinies of this country; and when the neighbours
step in, and beg permission to say a few words before these persons
are chosen, there is an universal cry of rain, confusion, and
destruction--'We have become a great people under Vellum and
Plumpkin--under Vellum and Plumpkin our ships have covered the
ocean--under Vellum and Plumpkin our armies have secured the strength
of the Hills--to turn out Vellum and Plumpkin is not Reform, but
Revolution.'"

It was said by the opponents of the Bill that the existing system worked well.--

"Work well! How does it work well, when every human being in-doors and
out (with the exception of the Duke of Wellington) says it must be
made to work better, or it will soon cease to work at all? It is
little short of absolute nonsense to call a government good, which the
great mass of Englishmen would, before twenty years were elapsed, if
Reform were denied, rise up and destroy. Of what use have all the
cruel laws been of Perceval, Eldon, and Castlereagh, to extinguish
Reform? Lord John Russell, and his abettors, would have been committed
to gaol twenty years ago for half only of his present Reform; and now
relays of the people would drag them from London to Edinburgh; at
which latter city we are told, by Mr. Dundas, that there is no
eagerness for Reform. Five minutes before Moses struck the rock, this
gentleman would have said that there was no eagerness for water.

"There are two methods of making alterations: the one is to despise
the applicants, to begin with refusing every concession, then to relax
by making concessions which are always too late; by offering in 1831
what is then too late, but would have been cheerfully accepted in
1830--gradually to O'Connellize the country, till at last, after this
process has gone on for some time, the alarm becomes too great, and
every thing is conceded in hurry and confusion. In the mean time fresh
conspiracies have been hatched by the long delay, and no gratitude is
expressed for what has been extorted by fear. In this way peace was
concluded with America, and Emancipation granted to the Catholics; and
in this way the War of Complexions will be finished in the West
Indies. The other method us, to see at a distance that the thing must
be done, and to do it effectually, _and at once_; to take it out of
the hands of the common people, and to carry the measure in a manly
liberal manner, so as to satisfy the great majority. The merit of this
belongs to the administration of Lord Grey. He is the only Minister I
know of, who has begun a great measure in good time, conceded at the
beginning of twenty years what would have been extorted at the end of
it, and prevented that folly, violence, and ignorance, which emanate
from a long denial and extorted concession of justice to great masses
of human beings. I believe the question of Reform, or any dangerous
agitation of it, is set at rest for thirty or forty years; and this is
an eternity in politics.

* * * * *

"I am old and tired,--thank me for ending; but one word more before I
sit down. I am old, but I thank God I have lived to see more than my
observations on human nature taught me I had any right to expect. I
have lived to see an honest King, in whose word his ministers could
trust, I have lived to see a King with a good heart, who, surrounded
by nobles, thinks of common men; who loves the great mass of English
people, and wishes to be loved by them; and who, in spite of clamour,
interest, prejudice, and fear, has the manliness to carry these wise
changes into immediate execution. Gentlemen, farewell! Shout for the
King!"[102]

Having done his best for the good cause in the country, Sydney Smith returned to London to watch the results. On the 6th of June Macaulay met him at dinner, and writes thus next day:--

"Sydney Smith leaves London on the 20th--the day before Parliament
meets for business, I advised him to stay and see something of his
friends, who would be coming up to London. 'My flock!' said this good
shepherd, 'my dear sir, remember my flock!

"The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,"'

"...He begged me to come and see him at Combe Florey. 'There I am,
sir, in a delightful parsonage, about which I care a great deal, and a
delightful country, about which I do not care a straw.'"

When the new House of Commons assembled, it was found to contain a great majority of Reformers. A fresh Bill was introduced, and passed the Second Reading, by a majority of 136, on the 8th of July. While it was ploughing its way through Committee, the Coronation of William IV. took place on the 8th of September. The solemnity was made an occasion for public rejoicings in the country, and loyalty was judiciously reinforced by the suggestion that the King was, in this great controversy, on the same side as his people. At a meeting at Taunton, Sydney Smith spoke as follows:--

"I am particularly happy to assist on this occasion, because I think
that the accession of the present King is a marked and important era
in English history. Another coronation has taken place since I have
been in the world, but I never assisted at its celebration. I saw in
it a change of masters, not a change of system. I did not understand
the joy which it occasioned. I did not feel it, and I did not
counterfeit what I did not feel.

"I think very differently of the accession of his present Majesty. I
believe I see in that accession a great probability of serious
improvement, and a great increase of public happiness. The evils which
have been long complained of by bold and intelligent men are now
universally admitted. The public feeling, which has been so often
appealed to, is now intensely excited. The remedies which have so
often been called for are now, at last, vigorously, wisely, and
faithfully applied, I admire, gentlemen, in the present King, his love
of peace--I admire in him his disposition to economy, and I admire in
him, above all, his faithful and honourable conduct to those who
happen to be his ministers. He was, I believe, quite as faithful to
the Duke of Wellington as to Lord Grey, and would, I have no doubt, be
quite as faithful to the political enemies of Lord Grey (if he thought
fit to employ them) as he is to Lord Grey himself. There is in this
reign no secret influence, no double ministry--on whomsoever he
confers the office, to him he gives that confidence without which the
office cannot be holden with honour, nor executed with effect. He is
not only a peaceful King, and an economical King, but he is an honest
King. So far, I believe, every individual of this company will go with
me.

* * * * *

"There is an argument I have often heard, and that is this--Are we to
be afraid?--is this measure to be carried by intimidation?--is the
House of Lords to be overawed? But this style of argument proceeds
from confounding together two sets of feelings which are entirely
distinct--personal fear and political fear. If I am afraid of voting
against this bill, because a mob may gather about the House of
Lords--because stones may be flung at my head--because my house may be
attacked by a mob, I am a poltroon, and unfit to meddle with public
affairs. But I may rationally be afraid of producing great public
agitation; I may be honourably afraid of flinging people into secret
clubs and conspiracies--I may be wisely afraid of making the
aristocracy hateful to the great body of the people. This surely has
no more to do with fear than a loose identity of name; it is in fact
prudence of the highest order; the deliberate reflection of a wise
man, who does not like what he is going to do, but likes still less
the consequences of not doing it, and who of two evils chooses the
least.

"There are some men much afraid of what is to happen; my lively hope
of good is, I confess, mingled with very little apprehension; but of
one thing I must be candid enough to say that I am much afraid, and
that is of the opinion now increasing, that the people are become
indifferent to reform; and of that opinion I am afraid, because I
believe in an evil hour it may lead some misguided members of the
Upper House of Parliament to vote against the bill. As for the opinion
itself, I hold it in the utmost contempt. The people are waiting in
virtuous patience for the completion of the bill, because they know it
is in the hands of men who do not mean to deceive them. I do not
believe they have given up one atom of reform--I do not believe that a
great people were ever before so firmly bent upon any one measure. I
put it to any man of common sense, whether he believes it possible,
after the King and Parliament have acted as they have done, that the
people will ever be content with much less than the present bill
contains. If a contrary principle be acted upon, and the bill
attempted to be got rid of altogether, I confess I tremble for the
consequences, which I believe will be of the worst and most painful
description; and this I say deliberately, after the most diligent and
extensive enquiry. Upon that diligent enquiry I repeat again my firm
conviction, that the desire of reform has increased, not diminished;
that the present repose is not indifference, but the calmness of
victory, and the tranquillity of success. When I see all the wishes
and appetites of created beings changed,--when I see an eagle, that,
after long confinement, has escaped into the air, come back to his
cage and his chain,--when I see the emancipated negro asking again for
the hoe which has broken down his strength, and the lash which has
tortured his body--I will then, and not till then, believe that the
English people will return to their ancient degradation--that they
will hold out their repentant hands for those manacles which at this
moment lie broken into links at their feet."

This fine speech was delivered at a crucial moment of the speaker's personal fortunes. Whether he would or would not have made a good bishop, and whether the Whigs were or wore not justly chargeable with cowardice[103] in not having raised him to the Episcopal Bench, are disputable points. It seems certain, from his own declarations, that in later life he would have declined the honour; but there was a time when it might have been offered, and would probably have been accepted. When he feared that England might be dragged into war with France on behalf of Spain, he composed a skit purporting to be a Protest entered on the Journals of the Lords by the Bishop of Worcester, and signed it "Sydney Vigorn."[104] The Bishop of Worcester[105] died on the 5th of September 1831, and Lord Grey gave the vacant mitre to a Tory.[106] Sydney's emotions are not recorded; but on the 10th of September Lord Grey offered him a Residentiary Canonry of St. Paul's--"a snug thing, let me tell you, being worth full £2000 a year." It was not an overwhelming reward for such long and such brilliant service to the causes which Lord Grey represented, but it was a recognition--and it was enough. He was installed on the 27th of September, and on the day of his installation he wrote to a friend--"It puts me at my ease for life. I asked for nothing--never did anything shabby to procure preferment. These are pleasing recollections."

Soon afterwards, he was presented on his appointment, and met with a misadventure at the Palace.--

"I went to Court, and, horrible to relate, with strings to my shoes
instead of buckles--not from Jacobinism, but ignorance. I saw two or
three Tory lords looking at me with dismay, was informed by the Clerk
of the Closet of my sin, and, gathering my sacerdotal petticoats about
me (like a lady conscious of thick ankles) I escaped further
observation."

[83] Francis Wrangham (1769-1842), Archdeacon of Cleveland.

[84] William Vernon-Harcourt {1789-1871}, father of Sir William
Vernon-Harcourt, M.P.

[85] Patrick Duigenan (1735-1816), LL.D., M.P. for the City of Armagh, and
Protestant agitator.

[86] The _Yorkshire Gazette_ for April 12, 1823, contains a long
letter from "A North Riding Clergyman," protesting against the
language used by Sydney Smith. This clergyman states that the report
of the meeting at Thirsk, given by the _York Herald_ of March 29, was
"unquestionably by the Minority themselves." It "professes to be a
sketch of what was said and done at the meeting of the North Riding
Clergy. Then the public is favoured with three considerable speeches,
filling three close columns of a newspaper, on the one side; and not
with three lines, nay, not with one, of anything said on the other
side.... Surely the whole of the twenty-two clergyman who differed
from the ten were not so astounded by the eloquence and display of
their opponents as to remain absolutely speechless." It is further
said that "on the present occasion, and after assuring his learned
brethren that he was not going to inflict upon them a speech, and some
other remarks of similar accuracy, Mr. Smith immediately harangues
them in a vehement and long speech; during which, with firm resolve,
it may seem, not to possess either 'overheated mind' or body, he
nearly exhausted the 'Three Tuns' of water," For this quotation, and
for the date of the meeting, which had been erroneously stated by
previous writers, I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. J.S.R.
Phillips, editor of the _Yorkshire Post_.

[87] (1808-1889): became 8th Earl of Carlisle in 1864 The Rev. Richard
Wilton, Canon of York and Rector of Londesborough, wrote in 1895:--"My
former venerable friend, the oldest inhabitant, gave me some graphic
descriptions of Sydney Smith's visit to the parish once or twice a
year, and the interest which was felt in the village when he drove
over from Foston, his other living, to preach an occasional sermon at
Londesborough. His reading, and manner in the pulpit, were described
to me as having been 'bold and impressive.' As soon as the sermon was
over, he would hasten out of the church along with his hearers, and
chat with the farmers about their turnips, or cattle, or corn-crops,
being anxious to utilize his scant opportunities of conversing with
his parishioners.... There was until lately living in this parish an
old man aged eighty, who was proud of telling how he was invited over
to Foston to 'brew for Sydney,' as he affectionately called him."

[88] Mr. Stuart Reid gives to this curious name the more impressive form of
Mayelstone.

[89] As Earl Marshal.

[90] "Thurloe writes to Henry Cromwell to _catch_ up some thousand
Irish boys, to send to the colonies. Henry writes back he has done so;
and desires to know whether his Highness would choose as many girls to
be caught up: and he add, 'doubtless it is a business in which God
will appear.' Suppose _bloody Queen Mary_ had caught up and
transported three or four thousand Protestant boys and girls from the
three Ridings of Yorkshire!!!!!! S.S."

[91] John Singleton Copley (1772-1863).

[92] _Endymion_, vol. I. chapter vi.

[93] The special services for "Gunpowder Treason" and other State Holy Days
were discontinued by Royal Warrant in 1859.

[94] From Col. iii. 12, 13--"Put on, as the elect of God, kindness,
humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another,
and forgiving one another."

[95] This apologue (which, the preacher thought, "would make a charming and
useful placard against the bigoted") occurs in the _Liberty of
Prophesying_, and has been traced to Gentius, the Latin translator of
Saadi.

[96] "Having become a King's Scholar, the hardships and cruelties he
suffered, as a junior boy, from his fag-master, were such as at one
time very nearly forced us to remove him from the school. He was taken
home for a short period, to recover from his bruises, and restore his
eye. His first act, on becoming Captain himself, was to endeavour to
ameliorate the condition of the juniors, and to obtain additional
comforts for them from the Head Master."--_From Mrs, Sydney Smith's
Journal_.

[97] Two donkeys, which were disguised as deer for the astonishment of
visitors.

[98] The Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill had become law on the 13th of
April 1829.

[99] Charles, 2nd Earl Grey (1764-1846).

[100] Sir Charles Wetherell (1770-1846), Attorney-General, and Recorder of
Bristol.

[101] Michael Thomas Sadler (1780-1835), M.P. for Newark.

[102] This is the "Speech respecting the Reform Bill" in Sydney Smith's
Collected Works.

[103] Lord Houghton wrote in 1873--"I heard Lord Melbourne say, 'Sydney
Smith has done more for the Whigs than all the clergy put together,
and our not making him a bishop was mere cowardice."

[104] The archaic signature of the Bishops of Worcester. Mrs. Austin
transcribes it "Vigour," and puts the Protest among the letters of
1831. Sir Spencer Walpole points out that it probably belongs to the
year 1823, when Lord Ellenborough moved an Address to the Crown in
favour of intervention in Spain.

[105] Ffolliot H.-W. Cornewall (1754-1831).

[106] Robert James Carr (1774-1841). It was said that this appointment was
due to a promise made by George IV., whom Dr. Carr, formerly Vicar of
Brighton, had attended in his last illness.