12 Advice to the Clergy by the Rev. Sydney Smith. [Jan. 



Gray, in his " Memoria Technica," has done much towards the con- 

 densation of matter ; and as Sir Isaac Newton agreed with our learned 

 departed brother Barrow, in saying, that " poetry was a kind of inge- 

 nious nonsense," his metrical lines contain all that is useful in that 

 art, without those conceits and verbal inversions of which the remainder 

 consists. But his lines are only useful in desperate emergencies. 



The next specimen I shall give of this happy art has been displayed 

 by that erratic genius, Byron. The world was agitated by " Malthus's 

 Dissertation on Population." Senates fearfully referred to the awful 

 subject. The wise began to devise methods for facilitating emigration. 

 The great critics discussed the subject with profound research, and 

 complicated calculation. The patriots and the benevolent were haunted 

 in their dreams by two dreadful hobgoblins : arithmetic ratio — a monster 

 with many heads and many limbs, from which grew others, that tripled 

 and quadrupled until it oppressed the land, and looked like a dread 

 chimera; the other was geometric ratio — a poor slow animal, that 

 vainly endeavoured to satisfy the appetite of the former by continual 

 offerings, but in vain. These terrible spectral dreams defied all medical 

 skill. Dr. Baillie himself declared, that until Malthus's book was burned, 

 refuted or explained, medicine could do no good. It is true he was 

 opposed by Mr. Abernethy, Avho pertinaciously affirmed, that the 

 stomach either was the seat of the disorder, or would become so, and 

 tlierefore ordered moderate doses of blue pill by anticipation. At 

 length, my beloved brethren, Byron claimed the gratitude of the 

 present, and of all future generations, by explaining the whole system 

 of the renowned Malthus, in the following lines : — 



" — his book's the eleventh conimandment, 



Which says, ' Thou shalt not marry,' unless well." 



This, my brethren, dispelled the gloom which had " gathered on the 

 faces of men," and proved Dr. Baillie's prognostic true, and stopped 

 the people from taking blue pill from Mr. Abernethy by anticipation. 



Very lately our learned brother Dr. Bloomfield was raised to epis- 

 copal rank, as Bishop of Chester. You all know that he is renowned for 

 his knowledge of Greek, for his having been a Whig, and for his gal- 

 lantry in drinking the Lady Mayoress's health soon after his accession 

 to the rank of a Spiritual Peer. According to the custom of our Church, 

 he soon published a long, elaborate, learned and profound charge to 

 his clergy, which embraced all that could be said in the way of admo- 

 nition, expostulation, advice and exhortation. This charge proved to 

 mankind his fitness for the high office to which he had been called. 

 Fearing, from its length and profundity, that many would not extract 

 its luscious treasures, I have followed the example of BjTon, and offer 

 you a condensed and genuine essential compound extract of the whole, 

 in such lines as are readily committed to memory, and which you will, 

 I am convinced, receive as an indisputable proof of my zeal and affec- 

 tion for your welfare. The whole substance oi' this celebrated charge 

 is thus: — 



" Hunt not, fish not, shoot not, 

 Dance not, fiddle not, flute not ; 

 Be sure you have nothing to do with the Whigs, 

 But stay at home and feed your pigs ; 

 And, above all, I make it my particular desire, 

 That at least once a week you dine with the 'kquirc." 



