particular Cathedral they were pulling down at each period; till one fine day the Home Secretary,[126] with a voice more bland, and a look more ardently affectionate, than that which the masculine mouse bestows on his nibbling female, informed them that the Government meant to take all the Church property into their own hands, to pay the rates out of it and deliver the residue to the rightful possessors.  Such an effect, they say, was never before produced by a coup de theatre.  The Commission was separated in an instant, London clenched his fist.  Canterbury was hurried out by his chaplains, and put into a warm bed.  A solemn vacancy spread itself over the face of Gloucester.  Lincoln was taken out in strong hysterics.  What a noble scene Serjeant Talfourd[127] would have made of all this?  Why are such talents wasted on Ion and The Athenian Captive?”

And then Sydney Smith went on to a stricture on his friend Lord John Russell, which has been quoted in a thousand forms from that day to this.  It is only fair both to the critic and to the criticized that this stricture should be read in connexion with its history.

When, in November 1834, Lord Althorp’s removal to the House of Lords vacated the Leadership of the House of Commons, Lord Melbourne and the rest of the Cabinet decided that Lord John must take it.  He doubted his fitness for the post, but said that even if he were called to take command of the Channel Fleet, he supposed he must obey the call and do his best, Sydney Smith heard of this modest and patriotic saying, and wove it into his most celebrated passage,—­

“There is not a better man in England than Lord John Russell; but his worst failure is that he is utterly ignorant of all moral fear; there is nothing he would not undertake, I believe he would perform the operation for the stone—­build St. Peter’s—­or assume (with or without ten minutes’ notice) the command of the Channel Fleet; and no one would discover by his manner that the patient had died—­the Church tumbled down—­and the Channel Fleet been knocked to atoms.  I believe his motives are always pure, and his measures often able; but they are endless, and never done with that pedetentous pace and pedetentous mind in which it behoves the wise and virtuous improver to walk.  He alarms the wise Liberals; and it is impossible to sleep soundly while he has the command of the watch.”

Once again, in 1839, Sydney Smith returned to the same subject through the same medium.  He rejoiced in great improvements which had been introduced into the measures of the Commissioners, claimed some credit for these improvements, and pointed out that they materially affected the well-being of the parochial clergy.  But, as regards the dealings of the Commission with Chapters and Cathedrals, he remains convinced that they were rash, foolish, and dangerous to the Church, “Milton asked where the nymphs were when Lycidas perished?  I ask where the Bishops are when the remorseless deep is closing over the head of their beloved Establishment.”