LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
Documents Biography Criticism
A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1815
Sydney Smith to Lady Holland, [1815?]
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
GO TO PAGE NUMBER:
Author's Preface
Contents
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Index
Editor’s Preface
Letters 1801
Letters 1802
Letters 1803
Letters 1804
Letters 1805
Letters 1806
Letters 1807
Letters 1808
Letters 1809
Letters 1810
Letters 1811
Letters 1812
Letters 1813
Letters 1814
Letters 1815
Letters 1816
Letters 1817
Letters 1818
Letters 1819
Letters 1820
Letters 1821
Letters 1822
Letters 1823
Letters 1824
Letters 1825
Letters 1826
Letters 1827
Letters 1828
Letters 1829
Letters 1830
Letters 1831
Letters 1832
Letters 1833
Letters 1834
Letters 1835
Letters 1836
Letters 1837
Letters 1838
Letters 1839
Letters 1840
Letters 1841
Letters 1842
Letters 1843
Letters 1844
Creative Commons License

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Produced by CATH
 
No date: about 1815.

I hope the Lady Holland finds herself well, and brings with her a gay and healthy train;—that all are well, from Cleopatra the queen to Antonio the page.

Though I have no great affection for poverty at any time, it is on such occasions as these that I owe it the greatest grudge. If I were a Dean, I certainly would congratulate you in person, and not by letter. I missed you all very much in my last visit to London, which in other respects was a very agreeable one.

I will not say a word about politics, or make the slightest allusion to a small rocky island in the middle of the Atlantic, the final cause of which now seems to be a little clearer; but I may say he gives up too soon,—his resistances are not sufficiently desperate. I may say also, that I admire him for not killing himself, which is, in a soldier, easy, vulgar, and commonly foolish; it shows that he has a strong tendency to hope, or that he has a confidence in his own versatility
124MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.
of character, and his means of making himself happy by trifling, or by intellectual exertion.

Now pray do settle in England, and remain quiet; depend upon it, it is the most agreeable place. I have heard five hundred travelled people assert that there is no such agreeable house in Europe as Holland House: why should you be the last person to be convinced of this, and the first to make it true?

Affectionately yours,
Sydney Smith.