The profits, arising from the sale of two volumes of sermons, carried Sydney Smith, his family, and his furniture, to Foston-le-Clay in the summer of 1809, and he took up his abode in a pleasant house about two miles from York, at Heslington.

Let us now, for a time, forget the wit, the editor of the 'Edinburgh Review,' the diner out, the evening preacher at the Foundling, and glance at the peaceful and useful life of a country clergyman. His spirits, his wit, all his social qualities, never deserted Sydney Smith, even in the retreat to which he was destined. Let us see him driving in his second-hand carriage, his horse, 'Peter the Cruel,' with Mrs. Smith by his side, summer and winter, from Heslington to Foston-le-Clay. Mrs. Smith, at first, trembled at the inexperience of her charioteer; but 'she soon,' said Sydney, 'raised my wages, and considered me an excellent Jehu.' 'Mr. Brown,' said Sydney to one of the tradesmen of York, through the streets of which he found it difficult to drive, 'your streets are the narrowest, in Europe,'—'Narrow, sir? there's plenty of room for two carriages to pass each other, and an inch and a half to spare!'

Let us see him in his busy peaceful life, digging an hour or two every day in his garden to avoid sudden death, by preventing corpulency; then galloping through a book, and when his family laughed at him for so soon dismissing a quarto, saying, 'Cross-examine me, then,' and going well through the ordeal. Hear him, after finishing his morning's writing, saying to his wife, 'There, Kate, it's done: do look over it; put the dots to the i's, and cross the t's:' and off he went to his walk, surrounded by his children, who were his companions and confidants. See him in the lane, talking to an old woman whom he had taken into his gig as she was returning from market, and picking up all sorts of knowledge from her; or administering medicine to the poor, or to his horses and animals, sometimes committing mistakes next to fatal. One day he declared he found all his pigs intoxicated, grunting 'God save the King' about the sty. He nearly poisoned his red cow by an over-dose of castor-oil; and Peter the Cruel, so called because the groom once said he had a cruel face, took two boxes of opium pills (boxes and all) in his mash, without ill consequences.

See him, too, rushing out after dinner—for he had a horror of long sittings after that meal—to look at his 'scratcher.'

He used to say, Lady Holland (his daughter) relates, 'I am all for cheap luxuries, even for animals; now all animals have a passion for scratching their backbones; they break down your gates and palings to effect this. Look! there is my universal scratcher, a sharp-edged pole, resting on a high and a low post, adapted to every height, from a horse to a lamb. Even the Edinburgh Reviewer can take his turn: you have no idea how popular it is; I have not had a gate broken since I put it up; I have it in all my fields.'

Then his experiments were numerous. Mutton fat was to be burned instead of candles; and working-people were brought in and fed with broth, or with rice, or with porridge, to see which was the most satisfying diet. Economy was made amusing, benevolence almost absurd, but the humorous man, the kind man, shone forth in all things. He was one of the first, if not the first, who introduced allotment-gardens for the poor: he was one who could truly say at the last, when he had lived sixty-six years, 'I have done but very little harm in the world, and I have brought up my family.'

We have taken a glimpse—and a glimpse merely—of the 'wise Wit' in London, among congenial society, where every intellectual power was daily called forth in combative force. See him now in the provincial circles of the remote county of York. 'Did you ever,' he once asked, 'dine out in the country? What misery do human beings inflict on each other under the name of pleasure!' Then he describes driving in a broiling sun through a dusty road, to eat a haunch of venison at the house of a neighbouring parson. Assembled in a small house, 'redolent of frying,' talked of roads, weather, and turnips; began, that done, to be hungry. A stripling, caught up for the occasion, calls the master of the house out of the room, and announces that the cook has mistaken the soup for dirty water, and has thrown it away. No help for it—agreed; they must do without it; perhaps as well they should. Dinner announced; they enter the dining-room: heavens! what a gale! the venison is high!

Various other adverse incidents occur, and the party return home, grateful to the post-boys for not being drunk, and thankful to Providence for not being thrown into a wet ditch.

In addition to these troubles and risks, there was an enemy at hand to apprehend—prejudice. The Squire of Heslington—'the last of the Squires'—regarded Mr. Smith as a Jacobin; and his lady, 'who looked as if she had walked straight out of the Ark, or had been the wife of Enoch,' used to turn aside as he passed. When, however, the squire found 'the peace of the village undisturbed, harvests as usual, his dogs uninjured, he first bowed, then called, and ended by a pitch of confidence;' actually discovered that Sydney Smith had made a joke; nearly went into convulsions of laughter, and finished by inviting the 'dangerous fellow,' as he had once thought him, to see his dogs.

In 1813 Sydney Smith removed, as he thought it his duty to do, to Foston-le-Clay, and, 'not knowing a turnip from a carrot,' began to farm three hundred acres, and not having any money, to build a parsonage-house.