making Latin verses, learns that the _Crum_ in Crumpet is long and the
_pet_ short, goes to the University, gets a prize for an essay on the
Dispersion of the Jews, takes Orders, becomes a Bishop's chaplain, has a
young nobleman for his pupil, publishes a useless classic and a Serious
Call to the Unconverted, and then goes through the Elysian transitions of
Prebendary, Dean, Prelate, and the long train of purple, profit, and
power."

In this vivacious passage, Sydney Smith caricatures his own career; which,
though it neither began in a baker's shop nor ended in an episcopal palace,
followed pretty closely the line of development here indicated. At
Winchester he "took to his books" with such goodwill that, in spite of all
hindrances, he became an excellent scholar, and laid the strong foundations
for a wide and generous culture. His family indeed propagated some pleasing
traditions about his schooldays--one of a benevolent stranger who found him
reading Virgil when other boys were playing cricket, patted his head, and
foretold his future greatness; another of a round-robin from his
schoolfellows, declining to compete against him for prizes, "because he
always gained them." But this is not history.

From Winchester Sydney Smith passed in natural course to the other of "the
two colleges of St. Mary Winton"; and, in the interval between Winchester
and Oxford, his father sent him for six months to Normandy, with a view to
improving his French. Revolution was in the air, and it was thought a
salutary precaution that he should join one of the Jacobin clubs in the
town where he boarded, and he was duly entered as "Le Citoyen Smit, Membre
Affilié au Club des Jacobins de Mont Villiers."

But he was soon recalled to more tranquil scenes. He was elected Scholar of
New College, Oxford, on the 5th of January 1789, and at the end of his