Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 87 SYDNEY SM1TH. Will the fame of Sydney Smith be as wide and enduring as it was promptly and pleasantly acquired t Will it be ever green and classic t We incline to think that it will. At all events, one who filled so large a space in the eyes of his contemporaries was entitled to his biography. If he has not, in any exalted sense, bequeathed us an opus magnum, the author of so many volumes of reviews, pamphlets, and sermons, full of condensed wit, and wisdom, and excellent purpose? the cherished associate of choice spirits?the most popular of Edinburgh critics?the most practical of its reformers?the liveliest of jesters with a serious intent ?of whom Macaulay writes the consolatory assurance to his widow that he was
a great reasoner and the greatest master of ridicule that has appeared among us since Swift ?to whom belongs the higher praise of a less ambitious eulogist, that, being such a wit,
he was more beloved than feared ?to whom, as sage, humorist, polemic, pulpiteer, men of various degreesof eminence hare borne an unvaried testimony, which the sensible public has creditably accepted and endorsed,?of such a man it was proper that a life should be written, and that all memorials worth preservation should be got together and published. A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith. By his Daughter, Ladt Holland. With a Selection from his Letters. Edited by Mrs. Acstin. Two vols. Longman, 1855. [Reviewed in The Times of August 10th and 14th, 1855.] But it was the penalty of a life prolonged beyond the ordinary span that those who could best have accomplished this duty were also removed from the scene, or otherwise disqualified for its performance. Macaulay was pre-occupied, Moore was not available, Lord Jeffrey was himself descending into the dark shadow. The Canon-mora…