“ Some surprise must be felt now that Sydney Smith’s reputation as a humorist and wit should have caused any hesitation about elevating him to an episcopal dignity, and perhaps he was right in thinking that the real obstacle lay in his being known as “a high-spirited, honest, uncompromising man, whom all the bench of bishops could not turn upon vital questions.” With characteristic philosophy, when he saw that the promotion was doubtful, he made his position certain by resolving not to be a bishop and definitely forbidding his friends to intercede for him. ”

“ His father, a man of restless ingenuity and activity, "very clever, odd by nature, but still more odd by design," who bought, altered, spoiled and sold about nineteen different estates in England, had talent and eccentricity enough to be the father of such a wit as Sydney Smith on the strictest principles of heredity ”

“ He was ordained priest at Oxford in 1796, and became a curate in the small village of Nether Avon, near Amesbury, in the midst of Salisbury Plain. The place was uncongenial enough, but Sydney Smith did much for the inhabitants, providing the means for the rudiments of education, and thus making better things possible. The squire of the parish, Michael Hicks-Beach, invited the new curate to dine, was astonished and charmed to find such a man in such a place, and engaged him after a time as tutor to his eldest son. ”