“Your lively letter (what else could it be?) was found by me here on my return from Bowood; and with it a shoal of other letters, which it has taken me almost ever since to answer. I began my answer to yours in rhyme, contrasting the recollections I had brought away from you, with the sort of treasures you had supposed me to have left behind. This is part of it:—
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“Rev. Sir, having duly received by the post
Your list of the articles missing and lost
By a certain small poet, well known on the road,
Who visited lately your flowery abode;
We have balanced what Hume calls
‘the tottle o’ the whole,’
Making all due allowance for what the bard stole;
And hoping th’ enclosed will be found quite correct,
Have the honour, Rev. Sir, to be yours with respect.
“Left behind a kid glove, once the half of a
pair,
An odd stocking, whose fellow is—Heaven knows where;
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| 288 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
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And (to match these odd fellows) a couplet sublime,
Wanting nought to complete it but reason and rhyme.
“Such, it seems, are the only small goods you can
find,
That this runaway bard in his flight left behind;
But in settling the account, just remember, I pray,
What rich recollections the rogue took away;
What visions for ever of sunny Combe Florey,
Its cradle of hills, where it slumbers in glory,
Its Sydney himself, and the
countless bright things
Which his tongue or his pen, from the deep shining springs
Of his wisdom and wit, ever flowingly brings.
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“I have not time to recollect any more; besides I was getting rather out of my depth in those deep shining springs, though not out of yours. Kindest regards to the ladies, not forgetting the pretty Hebe* of the breakfast-table the day I came away.
