A Select Committee of the House of Commons was appointed in 1841 to inquire into the condition of National Monuments. One fragment of Sydney Smith's evidence is quaint enough to be recalled.--
"I hope I leave the Committee with this very decided impression, that, in such an immense town as this, free admission into the Cathedral would very soon inflict upon that Cathedral the infamy of being a notorious resort for all bad characters; it would cease to be frequented as a place of worship, and the whole purpose for which it exists destroyed; and that to this the payment operates as a decided check."
When examined before the same Committee, the Surveyor to the Cathedral testified that there "had been no superintendence at all comparable to that of Mr. Sydney Smith"; that he had warmed the Library and rebound the books; that he had insured the fabric against fire; and had "brought the New River into the Cathedral by mains." The Verger testified that the monuments had fallen into a dreadful state of decay and disfigurement, and that there were "twenty thousand names scratched on the font"; but that now by Mr. Smith's orders everything had been repaired, cleaned, and set in order.
As regards Sydney Smith's preaching, testimony is equally explicit. He said of himself, in a letter stating his claims to ecclesiastical preferment, "I am distinguished as a preacher," and this seems to have been no more than the truth. George Ticknor, writing in 1835, said that he had heard from Sydney "by far the best sermon that I have heard in England." Charles Greville wrote;--"He is very good; manner impressive, voice sonorous and agreeable: rather familiar, but not offensively so." Mrs, Austin,[113] who afterwards edited his Letters, writes:--"The choir[114] was densely filled.... The moment he appeared in the pulpit, all the weight of his duty, all the authority of his office, were written on his countenance; and, without a particle of affectation, his whole demeanour bespoke the gravity of his purpose."
This exactly corresponds with the impression of a listener to his famous sermon on Toleration, in Bristol Cathedral. "Never did anybody to my mind look more like a High Churchman, as he walked up the aisle to the altar--there was an air of so much proud dignity in his appearance."