[143] He said afterwards that this Sermon on Peace was really Channing's. [144] Compare his letter on parting from his friends at Edinburgh, quoted by Lady Holland:--"All adieus are melancholy; and principally, I believe, because they put us in mind of the last of all adieus, when the apothecary, and the heir-apparent, and the nurse who weeps for pay, surround the bed; when the curate, engaged to dine three miles off, mumbles hasty prayers; when the dim eye closes for ever in the midst of empty pillboxes, gallipots, phials, and jugs of barley-water." CHAPTER VII CHARACTERISTICS--HUMOUR--POLITICS--CULTURE--THEORIES OF LIFE--RELIGION What Sydney Smith was to the outward eye we know from an admirable portrait by Eddis[145] belonging to his grand-daughter, Miss Caroline Holland. He had a long and slightly aquiline nose, of the type which gives a peculiar trenchancy to the countenance; a strongly developed chin, thick white hair,[146] and black eyebrows. His complexion was fresh, inclining to be florid. In figure he was, to use his own phrase, "of the family of Falstaff." Ticknor described him as "corpulent but not gross." Macaulay spoke of his "rector-like amplitude and rubicundity." He was of middle height, rather above it than below, and sturdily built. He used to quote a saying from one of his contemporaries at Oxford--"Sydney, your sense, wit, and clumsiness, always give me the idea of an _Athenian carter_." Except on ceremonious occasions, he was careless about his dress. His daughter says:--"His neckcloth always looked like a pudding tied round his throat, and the arrangement of his garments seemed more the result of accident than design." His manner in society was cordial, unrestrained, and even boisterous. "I live," he said in an admirable figure, "with open doors and windows." His poor parishioners regarded him with "a curious mixture of reverence and grin."[147] His daughter says that, "on entering the pulpit, the calm dignity of his eye, mien, and voice, made one feel that he was indeed, and felt himself to be, 'the pastor standing between our God and His people,' to teach His laws, to declare His judgments, and proclaim His mercies."