“The Board of Control (all Atheists, and disciples of Voltaire, of course) are so entirely of our way of thinking, that the most peremptory orders have been issued to send all the missionaries home upon the slightest appearance of disturbance.  Those who have sons and brothers in India may now sleep in peace.  Upon the transmission of this order, Mr. Styles is said to have destroyed himself with a kime.”

The same vigorous dislike to the Evangelical way of religion animates the article on Hannah More; and here again the criticized writer gave the critic just the handle which he required.

“We observe that Mrs. More, in one part of her work, falls into the common error about dress.  She first blames ladies for exposing their persons in the present style of dress, and then says, if they knew their own interest—­if they were aware how much more alluring they were to men when their charms are less displayed, they would make the desired alteration from motives merely selfish.

“’Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest, if they could guess with what a charm even the appearance of modesty invests its possessor, they would dress decorously from mere self-love, if not from principle.  The designing would assume modesty as an artifice; the coquette would adopt it as an allurement; the pure as her appropriate attraction; and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of seduction.’

    “If there is any truth in this passage, nudity becomes a virtue; and
    no decent woman, for the future, can be seen in garments.”

That is aptly said; but it is a relief to turn from Sydney Smith the Philistine—­the bigoted and rather brutal opponent of enthusiastic religion, to Sydney Smith the Philanthropist—­the passionate advocate of humanitarian reform born at least fifty years before his time.  Excellent illustrations of this aspect of his character are to be found in “Mad Quakers,” with its study of the improved methods of treating lunacy; “Chimney-Sweepers,” “Game-Laws,” “Spring-Guns,” “Prisons,” and “Counsel for Prisoners.”  Each of these essays shows a deliriously warm sympathy with the sufferings of the downtrodden and the friendless; and a curiously intimate knowledge of matters which lie quite outside the scope of a clergyman’s ordinary duties.  As an appreciation of character, friendly but not servile, nothing can be better than his paper on Sir James Mackintosh,[136] with the illustration from Curran, and the noble image (which the writer himself admired) of the man-of-war.  Writing to Sir James’s son, Sydney Smith says:—­