a profound
metaphysician, and one of the most virtuous men that ever lived. As a
metaphysician, Dugald Stewart was a humbug to him. Brown had real
talents for the thing. You must recognize, in reading Brown, many of
those arguments with which I have so often reduced you to silence in
metaphysical discussions. Your discovery of Brown is amusing. Go on!
You will detect Dryden if you persevere; bring to light John Milton,
and drag William Shakspeare from his ill-deserved obscurity!"

[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 commonwealt