That the change is of some antiquity, is evident by the following inscription upon a large gravestone among the pavement in the nave of the church of New Shoreham. It is an epitaph to the memory of Sir Sidney's grandfather, and runs thus: "Here lieth The Body of CORNELIUS SMITH, Faithful and honourable, he was an indulgent Husband, This Cornelius Smith was the father of Captain Edward Smith, of the Burford, who was mortally wounded at the attack of La Guira, Feb. 19th, 1743, and grandfather of General Edward Smith, colonel of the 43rd Regiment, and governor of Fort Charles, Jamaica. This gentleman served with the hero Wolfe at the reduction of Quebec, and died at Bath on the 19th of January 1809. Sir Sidney Smith is a nephew of this General Smith, and a son of this general's younger brother. Sir Sidney's father served in the early part of the war of 1756, as aide-de-camp to the Right Honourable Lord George Sackville, and afterwards held an office in the royal household. Sir Sidney's mother was a Miss Mary Wilkinson, daughter of Pinkney Wilkinson, Esq., a very opulent merchant. From the riches of his maternal grandfather Sir Sidney Smith derived but little benefit, as his father having married in opposition to the wishes of Mr. Wilkinson, and for other reasons that will be afterwards alluded to, the vast property left by that gentleman was devised to his other daughter, Lady Camelford. There seem to have been great causes of mutual dissatisfaction between Sir Sidney's father and maternal grandfather, as, the former having withdrawn his sons from the protection of the latter, the old gentleman, some little time previous to his death, cancelled a codicil to his will, by which, notwithstanding the little harmony that subsisted between him and his son-in-law, he had made some provision for his grandchildren. By this daughter of Mr. Wilkinson the father of Sir William Sidney Smith had three sons and no daughter whatever. The eldest of these sons, now Colonel Charles Douglas Smith, is still living, enjoying his well-earned honours and great affluence, acquired by long and meritorious services in the East Indies. Colonel Smith first entered the army in a regiment raised by Lord Suffield. This gentleman has a son in the Exchequer Office. The second son, William Sidney Smith, who was born in Park Lane, Westminster, we believe towards the close of the year 1764, is the subject of these Memoirs. John Spencer Smith, the third and youngest son, procured the appointment of page to Queen Charlotte, and so well recommended himself in that capacity, and so highly were his general talents appreciated, that he was sent on a mission of great importance to the court of Wurtemberg. He afterwards travelled to Constantinople, and it is confidently believed that he there converted to Christianity, and subsequently married, a Turkish lady of high rank and of great wealth. As will be seen in the course of these pages, he was ultimately of the greatest service to Sir Sidney Smith in all his operations in Egypt, and as our minister at the Ottoman court preserved and increased the good understanding that then subsisted between a government so fastidious and inconstant and ourselves. He is now in the enjoyment of a well-earned pension. We have already briefly adverted to the loss to William Sidney and his brothers of their fair proportion of the grandfather's vast fortune. That this loss has been to them a blessing rather than an injury, the success in life of them all, and the splendid career of one of them, most fully prove. It appears to us that Sir Sidney's father was treated rather harshly throughout the course of these unhappy disagreements. It is a most invidious task to attach anything approaching to censure on any of the progenitors of this distinguished family. We will hastily pass over these occurrences, as they do not appear to have greatly influenced the fortunes of Sir Sidney Smith. Let it be sufficient to mention, that the angry grandfather, owing to some representations made to him by his daughter, removed his three sons from under the care and fostering protection of the father, when they were receiving the first rudiments of their education under the celebrated Mr. Knox of Tunbridge, and caused them to be placed at a boarding-school in Bath, kept by a Mr. Morgan. That Mr. Wilkinson possessed the power thus cruelly to divide the sons from their father, arose out of the circumstances of his being able to withhold from his son-in-law a very great proportion of his not too abundant income. That he could do this neither justly nor legally, a verdict of an English jury subsequently determined :-that he did it with impunity, for some years, is certain. When William Sidney Smith was between the age of eleven and twelve, Captain Smith, no longer able to bear this unnatural separation, and his yearning to have them under his own care and protection, took away, clandestinely we believe, his three sons from the school at which they had been placed, to his house at Midgham. This commendable and parental act was visited upon him by an attempt to straiten him in his pecuniary resources. The indignant father appealed to the laws of his country, and his conduct was vindicated by obtaining the costs, and heavy damages against his persecutors. We do not lay much stress upon the opinion that the future man may be indicated by the predilections of the infant; indeed, experience, would rather teach us another doctrine; but as many very sensible persons like to reduce everything to a system, we will, for their satisfaction, and for the amusement of others, relate a puerile anecdote that strongly displayed young Smith's predilection for aquatic exploits; indeed, that at that unjudging age he loved them better than praying-a very singular depravity, but which, we trust, will be forgiven to him in consideration of his extreme youth. When William Sidney's father had abducted (for it was in reality an abduction) his children from their boarding-school at Bath, he removed |