CHAPTER VI

ST. PAUL'S-THE PARALLELOGRAM-ARCHDEACON

SINGLETON-COLLECTED WORKS

MEANWHILE the Reform Bill had passed the House of Commons and was sent up to the House of Lords. In the summer, Sydney Smith had written to Lord Grey-"You may be sure that any attempt of the Lords to throw out the Bill will be the signal for the most energetic resistance from one end of the kingdom to another." The Lords faced the risk, and threw out the Bill on the 8th of October 1831.

Sydney's prophecy was promptly justified, and the most threatening violence and disorder broke out in the great centres of industrial population. Whigs and Radicals alike rallied, as one man, to the cause of Reform. On the 11th of October a public meeting was held at Taunton to protest against the action of the Lords and express unabated confidence in the Government. It was on this occasion that Sydney Smith made the most famous of his political speeches. He deplored the collision between the two Houses of Parliament, but he was not the least alarmed about the fate of the Bill. The Lords were no match for the forces arrayed against them.—

"As for the possibility of the House of Lords preventing

for long a reform of Parliament, I hold it to be the most absurd notion that ever entered into the human imagination. I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of Reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm at Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town-the tide rose to an incredible height-the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop, or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease-be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington.”

Fifty years later, an eye-witness thus described the scene:- "The introduction of the Partington storm was startling and unexpected. As he recounted in felicitous terms the adventures of the excellent dame, suiting the action to the word with great dramatic skill, he commenced trundling his imaginary mop and sweeping back the intrusive waves of the Atlantic with an air of resolute determination and an appearance of increasing temper. The scene was realistic in the extreme, and was too much for the gravity of the most serious. The house rose, the people cheered, and tears of superabundant laughter trickled down the cheeks of fair women and veteran reformers." "1

This was his last public act in connexion with Parliamentary Reform; but the keenness of his interest

1 R, A. Kinglake, quoted by Mr. Stuart Reid.

remained unabated till the day was won. On the 12th of December 1831, the Reform Bill was brought in a third time. It again passed the House of Commons, and was again threatened with destruction in the Lords. Sydney Smith wrote thus to Lord Grey :

:

"I take it for granted you are prepared to make Peers, to force the measure if it fail again, and I would have this intention half-officially communicated in all the great towns before the Bill was brought in. If this is not done-I mean, if Peers are not made-there will be a general convulsion, ending in a complete revolution. . . . If you wish to be happy three months hence, create Peers. If you wish to avoid an old age of sorrow and reproach, create Peers."

Acting on this counsel, Lord Grey obtained the King's written consent to the creation of as many peers as were required to carry the Bill. "I am for forty," wrote Sydney, "to make things safe in Committee." But this extreme remedy was not required. When it became known that the King had given his consent, the opposition collapsed, and the Bill received the Royal Assent on the 7th of June 1832. It was, as the Duke of Wellington said, a revolution by due course of law.

Henceforward Sydney Smith appears rather as a supporter of things as they are, than as a promoter of political or ecclesiastical change. Indeed there are signs which seem to show that his stock of reforming zeal had already run low. "The New Beer Bill1 has begun its operations. Everybody is drunk. Those who are not singing are sprawling. The Sovereign People are in a beastly state." He was now past

1 The Beer-house Act, 1830, allowed any one to retail beer, on merely taking out an excise-licence.

sixty, and a spirit of amiable self-indulgence was creeping over him.—

"I love liberty, but hope it can be so managed that I shall have soft beds, good dinners, fine linen, etc., for the rest of my life. I am too old to fight or to suffer." "I am tired of liberty and revolution! Where is it to end? Are all political agglutinations to be unglued? Are we prepared for a second Heptarchy, and to see the King of Sussex fighting with the Emperor of Essex, or marrying the Dowager Queen of Hampshire?"

Just before the first elections under the Reform Act, he wrote to a Scotch friend ::

"What oceans of absurdity and nonsense will the new liberties of Scotland disclose! Yet this is better than the old infamous jobbing, and the foolocracy under which you have so long laboured."

Sydney Smith's first term of official duty at St. Paul's began on the 1st of February 1832. On the eve of the new year he wrote to his married daughter :

"We are debating how to come up to town, and how to make a Stage Coach compatible with Saba's aristocracy and dignity. The Coach sets off from Taunton at four o'clock. It is then dark. I recommend her hurrying in three minutes before the Coach departs with her face covered up. But there is a maiden lady who knows us and who lives opposite the Coach. I have promised to keep her in conversation whilst Saba steps in. Once in, all chance of detection is over.

PS.-We think Miss Y has discovered us, for, upon meeting her in Taunton, she spoke of the Excellence of Public Conveyances. I said it was a fine day, and, conscious of guilt, retired."

The removal to London was safely accomplished, and on the 29th of January he wrote:

"I drove all this morning with Lady Holland. I had refused two or three times last week, but, as a good deal is

due to old friendship, I wrote word that, if she would accept the company of a handsome young clergyman, I knew of one who was much at her service. She was very ill. I preached to her, not 'of Temperance and Righteousness and Judgement to come,' but said nothing of the two last and confined myself to the first topic. 'Lay aside pepper, and brandy and water, and baume de vie. Prevent the evil instead of curing it. A single mutton chop, a glass of toast and water'-here she cried and I stopped; but she began sobbing, and I was weak enough to allow two glasses of sherry-on which she recovered."

A few days later he wrote to his old friend Lady Morley 1 :

The house is

"I have taken possession of my preferment. in Amen Corner,-an awkward name on a card, and an awkward annunciation to the coachman on leaving any fashionable mansion. I find too (sweet discovery!) that I give a dinner every Sunday, for three months in the year, to six clergymen and six singing-men, at one o'clock. Do me the favour to drop in as Mrs. Morley."

3

It soon became evident that the Whig Government, flushed with its triumph over Toryism, intended to lay reforming hands upon the Church, and the newlyfledged dignitary was alarmed. On the 22nd of December 1832 he wrote

"I see Lord Grey, the Chancellor, and the Archbishop of Canterbury have had a meeting, which I suppose has decided the fate of the Church." "Do you want a butler or respectable-looking groom of the chambers? I shall be happy to

1 Frances Talbot, wife of John, 1st Earl of Morley.

2 As a matter of fact he lived at 33 Charles Street, and subsequently at 56 Green Street.

3 This intention gave rise to the "Oxford Movement." Keble thought that the time had come when "scoundrels must be called scoundrels.” His Sermon on "National Apostasy" was preached on the 14th of July 1833.