A great object of her affections, is the preservation of peace; she regards a state of war as the greatest of all human evils; thinks that the lust of conquest is not a glory, but a bad crime; despises the folly and miscalculations of war, and is willing to sacrifice every thing to peace but the clear honour of her land.

“The patriot Queen, whom I am painting, reverences the National Church—­frequents its worship, and regulates her faith by its precepts; but she withstands the encroachments, and keeps down the ambition natural to establishments, and, by rendering the privileges of the Church compatible with the civil freedom of all sects, confers strength upon, and adds duration to, that wise and magnificent institution.  And then this youthful Monarch, profoundly but wisely religious, disdaining hypocrisy, and far above the childish follies of false piety, casts herself upon God, and seeks from the Gospel of His blessed Son a path for her steps, and a comfort for her soul.  Here is a picture which warms every English heart, and would bring all this congregation upon their bended knees before Almighty God to pray it may be realized.  What limits to the glory and happiness of our native land, if the Creator should in His mercy have placed in the heart of this Royal Woman the rudiments of wisdom and mercy; and if, giving them time to expand, and to bless our children’s children with her goodness, He should grant to her a long sojourning upon earth, and leave her to reign over us till she is well stricken in years?  What glory! what happiness! what joy! what bounty of God!  I of course can only expect to see the beginning of such a splendid period:  but, when I do see it, I shall exclaim with the pious Simeon, ’Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation.’”

We turn now from ecclesiastical to social life.  Though Sydney Smith still retained his beautiful Rectory of Combe Florey, and lived there a good deal in the summer, he spent more and more of his year in London, He held that the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Hyde Park, “enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a space before.”  He frankly admitted that the summer and the country had no charms for him.  His sentiments on this head found poetical expression in a parody of Paradise Lost.  He felt

      “As one who, long in rural hamlets pent,
      (Where squires and parsons deep potations make,
      With lengthen’d tale of fox, or timid hare,
      Or antler’d stag, sore vext by hound and horn),
      Forth issuing on a winter’s morn, to reach
      In chaise or coach the London Babylon
      Remote, from each thing met conceives delight;—­
      Or cab, or car, or evening muffin-bell,
      Or lamps—­each city-sight, each city-sound”