A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1805
Sydney Smith to Francis Jeffrey, [12 June] 1805
Doughty-street, 1805.
My dear Jeffrey,
Many thanks to you for your goodness. My little
boy is, thank God, recovered. I sat up with him for two nights,
expecting every moment would be his last. My great effort was to keep up
Mrs. Sydney’s spirits, in
which I succeeded tolerably well. I will not exercise my profession of
preaching commonplaces to you; I acknowledge your loss was a heavy calamity,
for I can measure what you felt by what I felt for you.
You have raised up to yourself here, individually, a very high and solid reputation by your writings in
the Edinburgh Review. You are said
to be the ablest man in Scotland; and other dainty phrases are used about you,
which show the effect you have produced. Mackintosh, ever anxious to bring men of merit into notice, is
the loudest of your panegyrists, and the warmest of your admirers. I have now
had an opportunity of appreciating the manner in which the Review is felt, and
I do assure you it has acquired a most brilliant and extensive reputation.
Follow it up, by all means. On the first of every month,
Horner and I will meet together,
and. order books for Edinburgh: this we can do from the monthly lists. In
addition, we will scan the French booksellers’ shops, and send you
anything valuable, excepting a certain portion that we will reserve for
ourselves. We will, in this division, be just and candid as we can; if you do
not think us so, let us know. You will have the lists, and can order for
yourselves any books, not before ordered for you; many catalogue articles I
will take, to avoid the expense of sending them backwards
18 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | |
and forwards from Edinburgh to London: many I will send. The articles I shall
review from No. 6 are ‘Iceland,’ Goldbering’s ‘Travels into Africa,’ and Segur upon the ‘Influence of Women in Society.’ I
shall not lose sight of the probability of procuring assistance; some, I am
already asking for. You will not need from me more than two sheets, I presume.
Pray tell me the names of the writers of this number. Mackintosh says there has been no such book upon Political Economy as
Brougham’s since the days of
Adam Smith.
Henry Peter Brougham, first baron Brougham and Vaux (1778-1868)
Educated at Edinburgh University, he was a founder of the
Edinburgh
Review in which he chastised Byron's
Hours of Idleness; he
defended Queen Caroline in her trial for adultery (1820), established the London University
(1828), and was appointed lord chancellor (1830).
Francis Horner (1778-1817)
Scottish barrister and frequent contributor to the
Edinburgh
Review; he was a Whig MP and member of the Holland House circle.
Sir James Mackintosh (1765-1832)
Scottish philosopher and man of letters who defended the French Revolution in
Vindiciae Gallicae (1791); he was Recorder of Bombay (1803-1812) and
MP for Knaresborough (1819-32).
Adam Smith (1723-1790)
Friend of David Hume and professor of logic at Glasgow University (1751); he wrote
Theory of the Moral Sentiments (1759) and
The
Wealth of Nations (1776).
Catharine Amelia Smith [née Pybus] (1768-1852)
The daughter of John Pybus, English ambassador to Ceylon; in 1800 she married Sydney
Smith, wit and writer for the
Edinburgh Review.