Smith, Sydney (1771–1845)

English writer. He was one of the founders of the Edinburgh Review 1802, and contributed to it for 25 years. A popular and witty preacher, he became a canon of St Paul's Cathedral 1831.

Smith was ordained 1794. Although he preached to packed audiences, he had many enemies, because he attacked evangelists, Methodists, and followers of Edward Pusey, but supported Catholic emancipation. Smith moved in influential Whig circles and was a member of the Holland House group. In a speech on the rejection of the Reform Bill 1831 (see Reform Acts), he compared the House of Lords to Mrs Partington (a popular fictitious character) resisting the Atlantic Ocean with a mop.