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A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1816
Sydney Smith to Lady Holland, 8 November 1816
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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Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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November 8th, 1816.
My dear Lady Holland,

I found and left Lord Grey in very good health. He is extremely pleased with the match, and most probably rightly pleased. We had, at Howick, Sir —— ——, with whom I was much taken; quick, shrewd, original, well-informed, eccentric, paradoxical, and contradictory.

It is not possible to speak of Horner! I have a most sincere affection for him.

I found everywhere in Northumberland and Scotland wretched crops, failing tenants, and distressed landlords (unlike Atlas), bending down with the weight of land suddenly flung upon their shoulders.

MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 131

Lord Morpeth called here the other day. I esteem myself most fortunate in being near so excellent and enlightened a man, and will cultivate him as much as he will let me. I am concerned to hear of Lord Holland’s gout. I observe that gout loves ancestors and genealogy; it needs five or six generations of gentlemen or noblemen to give it its full vigour. Allen deserves the gout more than Lord Holland. I have seen the latter personage resorting occasionally to plain dishes, but Allen passionately loves complexity and artifice in his food.

I suppose Samuel Rogers is mortgaged to your Ladyship for the autumn and the early part of the winter. Perhaps you would have the goodness to say, that Miss —— thinks him charming! Next to the Congreve rocket, he is the most mischievous and powerful of modern inventions.

I have now read three volumes of Madame de Sévigné, with a conviction that her letters are very much over-praised. Mr. Thomas Grenville says he has made seven vigorous attacks upon Madame de Sévigné, and has been as often repulsed. I presume you have read ‘Rhoda;’ if not, read it, at my peril. I was pestered into reading it, and felt myself very much obliged to my persecutors.

I think of my visit to Holland House last summer with the greatest pleasure, and hope to renew it again this year, if I am rich enough. I promise to be agreeable.

Always your grateful and affectionate friend,
Sydney Smith.