THE HEARTY CANON.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17661, 12 August 1929, Page 6

THE HEARTY CANON.

The Wit of Sydney Smith, iw He Replied to an Invitation to the Opera .

Sydney Smith was popular both as a parson'and a man. According to his lights, he Avas a good parson avlio had a genuine for, his Church and his people; he Avas also a lover of good living and the pleasant things of this Avorld. MoreoA’er, he Avas a Avit, though more jokes have been fathered on him than he CA r er made. Even at his most serious he avc.s never solemn, if he had not been so outspoken, he might have died a Bishop instead of a Canon. ‘ ‘ Catlioiic Nonsense. ’ ’

® The Curious Grouse. This volume also contains selections j' from Sydney Smith’s other Avritijigs —) all devoted to.the cause of humanity,/ and‘uevsonal freedom —two speeches, a,', eov.’t*e of sermons,'and a four pages of I “Miscellanea.” These pages give usj the more familiar aspect of his manner.; To Lady Holland he wrote: —' I take the liberty to send you two- - ■ brace of grouse—curious, because killed by a Scotch meta-physician; in other and better language they - are mere ideas, shot by other ideas, out of. a' pure intellectual notion, called a gun.

j This year Avas celebrated the centenary of the passing of the Catholic. Emancipation Act, for which Sydney Smith fought strenuous - ;/. It is therefore appropriate that avc should now have a neAV edition of “The Letters of Peter Plymlev, ” edited by. G. C. Heseltine. Prom a religious point of view Smith had no sympathy with Avliat he called “Catholic nonsense,” but he had CA'ery sympathy with their just demand for emancipation from political shackles. He attacked Perdval, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time the “Letters” were Avritten, tooth and nail; that place-hunter and sinecurist, though he had a thick skin, must have felt the lash. However, this is not the place to discuss the details of the controversy; wc. can scarcely do more than quote some of the good, incisive things that Smith said: — .

“I love liberty,” he said, “but I; 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 tight or to suffer.” To a ladyr avlio had invited him to the. opera, he j. Avrote:— |

Thy servant is threescore-and-ten/ years old; can he hear the sound ofi singing men and singing Avomen 1 A; Canon at the Opera ! Where have you lived ? In Avliat habitations of the . heathen I thank you, shuddering Mr Heseltine, in' his excellent introduction, says: “The Avit who./ can, always rise to the occasion is Avell eii-, ough and tolerable, in some exceptional f ear even to a facetious old age, but J Sydney Smith could keep his own p household in. roars of laughter to hisf dying day.” ®

I hear from some persons in Parliament, and from others in the sixpenny societies for debate, a great deal about unalterable laAvs passed at the Revolution. When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.

If England should perish at last, so let it be; that event is in the hands of God; Ave must dry up our tears and submit. But. that England should perish swindling and stealing; that it should perish Avaging war against lazar houses,

and hospitals; that it should perish per-1 secuting Avith monastic bigotry; that it ® should calmly give itself up to be ruined by the flashy arrogance of one man, and the narroAv fanaticism of an- , other; these events- are within the poAver of human beings, and I did not think that the magnanimity of English- " men Avoid'd' ever stoop to such degradations. 9