657 



SMITH, ROBERT, D.D. 



SMITH, SIR THOMAS. 



63 



of the chief of his followers. But the doctrine in its present form is 

 one of the ' developments ' of the system, which will be referred to 

 more properly in our notice of Brigham Young. 



SMITH, ROBERT, D.D., an English mathematician, who was born 

 in the year 1689 : the place of his birth and the manner in which he 

 was educated are not known ; but it appears that from his youth he 

 applied himself diligently to the study both of pure mathematics and 

 of the physical sciences. In the early part of his life he was appointed 

 tutor to the Duke of Cumberland, and he subsequently received the 

 title of master of mechanics to the king. He was a cousin by his 

 mother's side of the celebrated Roger Cotes, and the two young men 

 were intimately connected by friendship as well as by blood ; they 

 pursued their studies in each other's society, and their united labours 

 were directed to the advancement of the Newtonian philosophy in 

 this country. Mr. Cotes, who was Plumian professor of astronomy 

 at Cambridge, dying in 1716, Mr. Smith, then M.A., was immediately 

 afterwards appointed to succeed him : in 1723 he was made LL.D. ; 

 and in 1742, on the death of Dr. Bentley, he was appointed master of 

 Trinity College. In 1722 he published, under the title of ' Harmonia 

 Mensurarum,' and with a valuable commentary, several tracts on 

 philosophical subjects which had been written by his relative and 

 friend ; and in 1738 he brought out, in 2 vols. 4to, his great work, 

 entitled ' A Complete System of Optics,' which he dedicated to the 

 Right Hon. Ed. Walpole. Such a work was then much wanted : it 

 contains, besides a full development of the several different branches 

 of the science, a considerable number of applications of the subjects 

 to astronomy and navigation ; but it is considered as rather deficient in 

 perspicuity and arrangement. It was translated into French in 1767. 

 Dr. Smith undertook to correct and publish Cotes's 'Lectures on 

 Hydrostatics and Pneumatics ; ' and this work which came out in the 

 year 1737, was enriched with a great number of notes, explanatory 

 and illustrative of the subjects. A second edition of it was published 

 in 1747. In the following year he published in one volume, 8vo, a 

 treatise called ' Harmonics, or the Philosophy of Musical Sounds ; ' 

 and of this work a second edition appeared in 1758. This learned 

 man, of whose life so little is known, was in 1718 admitted a fellow 

 of the Royal Society, and was intimately acquainted with most of 

 the scientific men of his time. He died at Cambridge in 1768, in 

 the seventy-ninth year of his age, having been a liberal benefactor 

 both to the University and to Trinity College ; and having bequeathed 

 two annual prize's, each of [25Z., for students who, being bachelors of 

 arts, should have made the greatest progress in mathematics and 

 natural philosophy. The two bachelors who gain these prizes are 

 designated by the name of Smith's prizemen. 



SMITH, SYDNEY, Reverend, was born in 1771, at the village of 

 Woodford, in Essex. His father, a gentleman of peculiar habits, 

 resided at Lydiard, near Taunton, in Somersetshire ; his mother was 

 of French extraction. Sydney Smith was educated at the collegiate 

 school of Winchester, on William of Wykeham's foundation, rose to 

 be captain of the school, and was elected in 1780 a scholar of New 

 College, Oxford, of which college he was elected a fellow in 1790. He 

 afterwards went for some six months into Normandy, where he 

 acquired a complete mastery of the French language. In 1796 he took 

 the degree of M.A., and soon afterwards obtained the curacy of 

 Nether-Avon, near Amesbury, in Wiltshire, where he remained about 

 two years, and then accepted the office of tutor to the son of Mr. 

 Hicks Beach, a gentleman who resided in the neighbourhood, and who 

 was member of parliament for Cirenccster. Sydney Smith was to have 

 gone with his pupil to reside at the University of Weimar ; but 

 Germany having just then become the seat of war, he proceeded to 

 Edinburgh, where he remained about five years. Among the first 

 persons with whom he formed an acquaintance in that city were Henry 

 Brougham, now Lord Brougham, Francis Jeffrey, afterwards Lord 

 Jeffrey, and others of similar opinions in politics. This acquaintance 

 led to the establishment of the ' Edinburgh Review,' the origin of which 

 is thus related by Sydney Smith himself : " One day we happened to 

 meet in the eighth or ninth story or flat in Buccleuch Place, the 

 elevated residence of the then Mr. Jeffrey. I proposed that we should 

 set up a Review ; this was acceded to with acclamation. I was 

 appointed editor, and remained long enough in Edinburgh to edit the 

 first number of the 'Edinburgh Review."' The first number was 

 published in October 1802. Sydney Smith while in Edinburgh 

 officiated at the Episcopal chapel there. In 1804 he removed to 

 London, where some two or three years before he had married the 

 daughter of Mr. Pybus, the banker, and where he now fixed his 

 residence. He became popular as a preacher at the chapel of the 

 Foundling Hospital, and at other places. He also delivered lectures 

 on polite literature with much applause at the Royal Institution in 

 Albemarle Street, became famous as a wit, and still more widely 

 known as a regular contributor to the ' Edinburgh Review.' 



Lord Erskine, when Lord Chancellor, gave him in 1806, the rectory 

 of Foston-le-Clay, in Yorkshire. In 1808 he published anonymously 

 ' Letters on the Subject of the Catholics to my brother Abraham who 

 lives in the Country, by Peter Plymley.' In 1828 Lord Lyndhurst 

 presented him a stall in Bristol Cathedral, and a year or two later 

 he was enabled to exchange Foston for the rectory of Combe-Florey, 

 in Somersetshire. In 1831 he was appointed by Earl Grey one of 

 the canona residentiary of St. Paul's Cathedral. Except a few years 



when he resided at his rectory of Foston, during which ho was 

 the indefatigable friend of his poorer parishioners, and occasional 

 residence at Combe-Florey, his place of residence was London, where 

 he associated with literary men and politicians of Whig principles, 

 distinguished for his almost unrivalled wit, and his conversational 

 powers, and consequently a frequent " diner out." He died at his 

 house in Green Street, Mayfair, London, February 22nd, 1845, and was 

 buried in the Kensall Green Cemetery. He left the bulk of hie pro- 

 perty, which was large, to his widow and his son Wyndham Smith. 



The Rev. Sydney Smith published ' Six Sermons,' Edinb., 12mo. 

 1800 ; 'Sermons,' 2 vols. 8vo., Lond., 1809 ; several occasional sermons 

 and political pamphlets ; and contributions to the ' Edinburgh 

 Review.' In 1839 he published what he himself probably regarded 

 as the best of his literary compositions, ' The Works of the Rev. 

 Sydney Smith,' 3 vols. 8vo., with a preface by the author and a 

 portrait. The collection consists of his contributions to the ' Edin- 

 burgh Review,' ' Peter Plymley's Letters/ and various occasional tracts. 

 With respect to his contributions, he observes, " I see very little in 

 my reviews to alter or repent of. I always endeavoured to fight 

 against evil, and what I thought evil then I think evil now. I am 

 heartily glad that all our disqualifying laws for religious opinions are 

 abolished, and I see nothing in such measures but unmixed good and 

 real increase of strength to our establishment." Two volumes of his 

 lectures have been published since his death, under the title of 

 ' Sketches of Moral Philosophy.' 



Sydney Smith is a very effective writer ; he has very considerable 

 argumentative power, united with unflagging wit, humour, and poig- 

 nant satire. His style is clear and forcible, without any apparent aim 

 at elaboration or polish. Two or three letters which he published 

 in the newspapers shortly before his death, against the repudiation of 

 their debts by certain States of North America, are as strong in argu- 

 ment, as pungent in satire, and as effective in style as anything which 

 he wrote in less advanced age. 



( A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith, by his Daughter, Lady Holland, 

 with a Selection from his Letters. Edited by Mrs. Austin, 2 vols. 

 8vo. 1855.) 



SMITH, SIR THOMAS, was the eldest of the three sons of John 

 Smith, of Saffron- Walden, who appears to have been a gentleman of 

 some distinction in the county, since he served the office of high- 

 sheriff for Essex and Hertford in 1538. His son Thomas was born at 

 Saffron- Walden, on the 28th of March, 1514, or 1515, most probably 

 in the latter year. 



In 1526 he was entered of Queen's College, Cambridge, of which he 

 became a fellow in 1531. It is said to have been after this that, incited 

 by the example of Dr. John Redman, who had just returned from the 

 Continent an accomplished Greek scholar, he made himself master of 

 that language in about two years ; and the story is commonly told so 

 as to imply that the study of Greek was till now unknown at Cam- 

 bridge. But this is incredible; and indeed Smith's own relation of 

 the methods he took to reform the prevalent mode of reading Greek at 

 the university shows that some acquaintance with the language, though 

 perhaps not a very exact or profound acquaintance, was previously 

 general among the students. In 1535 he was appointed to read the 

 public Greek lecture ; and it was while holding this officfe that, in con 

 junction with his friend Cheke, he introduced the improved mode of 

 pronouncing the Greek letters, of which he has given an account and 

 defence in his tract entitled ' De Recta et Emendata Linguae Graeca) 

 Pronuntiatione,' first printed in 4to, at Paris, in 1568, and afterwards, 

 along with the ' Disputationes ' of Cheke, the ' VII. Epistolse ' of 

 Bishop Gardener (who espoused the cause of the old pronunciation), 

 and other writings on the same subject, in Henry Stephen's collection 

 entitled ' De Linguae Grsecae ac Latinae Vera Pronuutiatione Commen- 

 tarii Doctissimorum Virorum,' 8vo, 1587. 



In 1536 Smith, now one of the most distinguished members of the 

 university, was chosen public orator, and for some years he discharged 

 the duties of that office with great applause. But in 1539 he left 

 England, and remained abroad for two or three years, during which 

 time he visited France and Italy, and took his degree of doctor of the 

 civil law at Padua. After his return home, having taken the same 

 degree at Cambridge in 1542, he was appointed king's professor of law 

 in that university, and he seems to have continued to reside at Cam- 

 bridge during the remainder of the reign of Henry VIII., although he 

 is stated to have taken at least deacon's orders, and to have held in 

 the church both the rectory of Leverington in Cambridgeshire and 

 the deanery of Carlisle. His father had been long attached to the 

 new doctrines in religion, and he had himself been brought up in the 

 reformed faith from his childhood. 



The accession of Edward VI. however was the great turning point 

 in the history of this learned and able man. He was immediately 

 taken into the family of the lord-protector Somerset; and, besides 

 being made one of his masters of requests, was appointed to the two 

 lucrative places of Provost of Eton aud Steward of the Stannaries. 

 In addition to his classical erudition, Smith had distinguished himself 

 by his acquirements both in the pure mathematics and in such 

 physical and experimental philosophy as was then known. We have 

 already seen him figuring as a professor of law and as a clergyman : in 

 1548 he appears in a new professional character, having been that year 

 made secretary of state and knighted. The same year he was sent to 



