Sydney Smith
Besides his energetic parochial work, he was known for his writing and philosophy, founding the Edinburgh Review, lecturing at the Royal Institution and remembered for his rhyming recipe for salad dressing.
The squire of the parish, Michael Hicks-Beach, invited the new curate to dine and thrilled to find such a man there engaged him as tutor to his eldest son.
In 1800, Smith published his first book, Six Sermons, preached in Charlotte Street Chapel, Edinburgh, and in the same year married, against the wishes of her friends, Catharine Amelia Pybus.
He lectured on moral philosophy at the Royal Institution for three seasons, from 1804 to 1806; and treated his subject with such vigour and liveliness that the London world crowded to Albemarle Street to hear him.
His views were seen as radical but are now thought of as progressive and far-sighted, being in favour of the education of women, the abolition of slavery and the teaching of practical subjects rather than the classics.
At first he employed a curate; but Spencer Perceval's Residence Act was passed in 1808, and after trying in vain to negotiate an exchange, he left London in 1809 and moved his household to Yorkshire.
The "Ministry of All the Talents" was driven out of office in 1807 in favour of a "no popery" party, and in that year Smith published the first instalment of his most famous work, Peter Plymley's Letters, on the subject of Catholic emancipation, ridiculing the opposition of the country clergy.
The special and temporary nature of the topics advanced in these pamphlets has not prevented them from taking a permanent place in literature, secured for them by their vigorous, picturesque style, generous eloquence, and clearness of exposition.
[1] In his country parish, with no educated neighbour nearby, Smith settled down to his new circumstances, building Foston Rectory, and won the hearts of his parishioners.
"If the chances of life ever enable me to emerge," he wrote to Lady Holland, "I will show you I have not been wholly occupied by small and sordid pursuits".
His scorn for enthusiasts and dread of religious emotion were vented in his bitter attacks on Methodism as well as in ridiculing the followers of Edward Pusey.
One of the first things that Charles Grey said on entering Downing Street was, "Now I shall be able to do something for Sydney Smith"; but he was not able to do more than appoint him in 1831 to a residentiary canonry at St Paul's Cathedral in exchange for the prebendal stall he held at Bristol.
Lord Houghton recorded that he never, except once, knew Smith to make a jest of any religious subject, "and then he immediately withdrew his words, and seemed ashamed that he had uttered them".
[8] To be set against that encomium is one of Smith's best-known lines, to the effect that his friend Henry Luttrell's idea of heaven was eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets.
Long after his death, he was often quoted in English literary life and was remembered by homemakers in the United States through his rhyming recipe for salad dressing which starts:[13]Two boiled potatoes, strained through a kitchen sieve, Softness and smoothness to the salad give; Of mordant mustard take a single spoon— Distrust the condiment that bites too soon; Yet deem it not, thou man of taste, a fault, To add a double quantity of salt.
