At the same time he wrote as follows to a young friend—­Lord John Russell—­who had lost his seat and published a book:—­

“DEAR JOHN,—­I have read your book on the State of Europe since the Peace of Utrecht with much pleasure—­sensible, liberal, spirited, philosophical, well-written.  Go on writing History.  Write a History of Louis XIV., and put the world right about that old Beast.

    “I am sorry you are not in parliament.  You ought to be everywhere
    where honest and bold men can do good.  Health and respect.  Ever yours,

    “SYDNEY SMITH.”

The year 1827 opened dramatically.  On the 18th February Lord Liverpool, who had been Prime Minister since the assassination of Spencer Perceval in 1812, was suddenly stricken by fatal illness.  On the 10th of April King George IV. found himself, much against his will, constrained to entrust the formation of a Government to George Canning.  Canning was avowedly favourable to the Roman Catholic claims, and on that account some of the most important of his former colleagues declined to serve under him.  The Ministry was reconstructed with an infusion of Whigs; and the brilliant but unscrupulous Copley became Chancellor with the title of Lord Lyndhurst.[91]

A Ministry, containing Whigs as well as Tories and committed to the cause of Roman Catholic emancipation, seemed likely to open the way of preferment to Sydney Smith.  Knowing that his income would soon be materially reduced by the cessation of his tenure of Londesborough, he wrote to some of his friends among the new Ministers and boldly stated his claims.  One of these Ministers seems to have made a rather chilly response; and the applicant did not spare him.—­

“I am much obliged by your polite letter.  You appeal to my good-nature to prevent me from considering your letter as a decent method of putting me off.  Your appeal, I assure you, is not made in vain.  I do not think you mean to put me off; because I am the most prominent, and was for a long time the only, clerical advocate of that question, by the proper arrangement of which you believe the happiness and safety of the country would be materially improved.  I do not believe you mean to put me off; because, in giving me some promotion, you will teach the clergy, from whose timidity you have everything to apprehend, and whose influence upon the people you cannot doubt, that they may, under your Government, obey the dictates of their consciences without sacrificing the emoluments of their profession.  I do not think you mean to put me off; because, in the conscientious administration of that patronage with which you are entrusted, I think it will occur to you that something is due to a person who, instead of basely chiming in with the bad passions of the multitude, has dedicated some talent and some activity to soften religious hatreds, and to make men less violent and less foolish than he found them.”

In July he wrote to a friend:—­