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A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Chapter X
Maria Edgeworth to Saba Holland, [1844]
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
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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
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“I have not the absurd presumption to think your father would leave London or Combe Florey, for Ireland, voluntarily; but I wish some Irish bishopric were forced upon him, and that his own sense of national charity and humanity would forbid him to refuse. Then, obliged to reside amongst us, he would see, in
310MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.
the twinkling of an eye (such an eye as his), all our manifold grievances up and down the country. One word, one bon mot of his, would do more for us, I guess, than Mr. ——’s four hundred pages, and all the like, with which we have been bored. One letter from Sydney Smith on the affairs of Ireland, with his name to it, and after having been there, would do more for us than his letters did for America and England;—a bold assertion, you will say, and so it is; but I calculate that Pat is a far better subject for wit than Jonathan; it only plays round Jonathan’s head, but it goes to Pat’s heart,—to the very bottom of his heart, where he loves it; and he don’t care whether it is for or against him, so that it is real wit and fun. Now Pat would doat upon your father, and kiss the rod with all his soul, he would,—the lash just lifted,—when he’d see the laugh on the face, the kind smile, that would tell him it was all for his good.

“Your father would lead Pat (for he’d never drive him) to the world’s end, and maybe to common sense at the end,—might open his eyes to the true state of things and persons, and cause him to ax himself how it comes that, if he be so distressed by the Sassenach landlords that he can’t keep soul and body together, nor one farthing for the wife and children, after paying the rint for the land, still and nevertheless he can pay King Dan’s rint, aisy,—thousands of pounds, not for lands or potatoes, but just for castles in the air. Methinks I hear Pat saying the words, and see him jump to the conclusion, that maybe the gintleman, his rever-
MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.311
ence, that ‘has the way with him,’* might be the man after all to do them all the good in life, and asking nothing at all from them. ‘Better, sure, than Dan, after all! and we will follow him through thick and thin. Why no? What though he is his reverence, the Church, that is, our cleargy, won’t object to him; for he was never an inimy any way, but always for paying them off handsome, and fools if they don’t take it now. So down with King Dan, for he’s no good! and up with Sydney—he’s the man, king of glory!’

“But, visions of glory, and of good better than glory, spare my longing sight! else I shall never come to an end of this note. Note indeed! I beg your pardon.

“Yours affectionately,
“Maria Edgeworth.”