... Frequently did Lord John meet the
destroying Bishops; much did he commend their daily heap of ruins;
sweetly did they smile on each other, and much charming talk was there
of meteorology and catarrh, and the particular Cathedral they were
pulling down at each period; till one fine day the Home
Secretary,[126] with a voice more bland, and a look more ardently
affectionate, than that which the masculine mouse bestows on his
nibbling female, informed them that the Government meant to take all
the Church property into their own hands, to pay the rates out of it
and deliver the residue to the rightful possessors. Such an effect,
they say, was never before produced by a _coup de theatre_. The
Commission was separated in an instant, London clenched his fist.
Canterbury was hurried out by his chaplains, and put into a warm bed.
A solemn vacancy spread itself over the face of Gloucester. Lincoln
was taken out in strong hysterics. What a noble scene Serjeant
Talfourd[127] would have made of all this? Why are such talents wasted
on _Ion_ and _The Athenian Captive_?"
And then Sydney Smith went on to a stricture on his friend Lord John
Russell, which has been quoted in a thousand forms from that day to this.
It is only fair both to the critic and to the criticized that this
stricture should be read in connexion with its history.
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