[31] See p. 185.

[32] See his Essay on “Toleration":—­“A chapel belonging to the
    Swedenborgians, or Methodists of the New Jerusalem, was offered, two
    or three years since, in London, to a clergyman of the Establishment. 
    The proprietor was tired of his irrational tenants, and wished for
    better doctrine.  The rector, with every possible compliment to the
    fitness of the person in question, positively refused the application;
    and the church remains in the hands of Methodists.”

[33] Sir David Wilkie (1785-1841) wrote in 1808:—­“To church, where I heard
    Sydney Smith preach a sermon, which, for its eloquence and power of
    reasoning, exceeded anything I had ever heard.  The subject was the
    Conversion of St. Paul, of which he proved the authenticity, in
    opposition to all the objections and doubts of infidelity.”

[34] William Wyndham Grenville (1759-1834), created Lord Grenville in 1790.

[35] Morton Eden (1751-1830), created Lord Henley in 1799.

[36] (1745-1836), created Lord Stowell in 1821.

[37] (1792-1878).

[38] A house which Lord Stowell acquired by his marriage with an heiress,
    Anna Maria Bagnall.

[39] James, 8th Earl of Lauderdale (1759-1839).

[40] Byron, in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, attributes the
    authorship of Peter Plymley to “Smug Sydney.”  See also his allusion to
    “Peter Pith” in Don Juan, canto xvi.

CHAPTER III

PETER PLYMLEY

Peter Plymley’s Letters are supposed to be written by a Londoner, who is in favour of removing the secular disabilities of Roman Catholics, to his brother Abraham, the parson of a rural parish.  They proceed throughout on the assumption that the parson is a kind-hearted, honest, and conscientious man; but rather stupid, grossly ignorant of public affairs, and frightened to death by a bogy of his own imagining.  That bogy is the idea of a Popish conspiracy against the crown, church, and commonwealth.  Abraham communicates his alarms to his brother Peter in London, and Peter’s Letters are replies to these outpourings.

Letter I. begins by assuring Abraham that there is no truth in the rumour that the Pope has landed on English soil, and has been housed by the Spencers or the Hollands or the Grenvilles.  “The best-informed clergy in the neighbourhood of the metropolis are convinced that the rumour is without foundation.”  Having set this fear at rest, Peter deals with Abraham’s argument.—­