A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1819
Sydney Smith to Francis Jeffrey, 17 May 1819
Foston, May 17th, 1819.
My dear Jeffrey,
I wrote to you some time since, proposing for myself an
article upon Tithes, to which you immediately consented. I learn from Brougham (through Allen however) that he had, above a twelvemonth since, with
your consent, engaged this subject. Is this so? If it is, would it not be
better to keep some memorandum of these sort of engagements?—(excuse the
impertinence of the suggestion.) If it is not so, I will
proceed. In the meantime, I will proceed upon an article of Mr. Dennis and the Church, and I have finished
a short article of Heude’s ‘Travels across the Desert, from Bagdad to
Constantinople.’ I shall proceed with such sort of books till
some interesting subject occurs to me of greater importance. I have already
your consent to Mr. Dennis.
Poor Seymour!* Every
year thins the ranks of
178 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | |
our old friends. Those who remain must take closer order.
I have read no article but Ross, which I like, and Laney, which I do not dislike, though I think
it might have been more entertaining.
What a singular Parliament this is! It all proceeds from
paying when they are not frightened. The severe scrutiny into evaded taxes has
thickened the ranks of Opposition.
I long to see you, but locomotion becomes every year more
difficult, because I get poorer and poorer as my family grows up. God bless
you!
John Allen (1771-1843)
Scottish physician and intimate of Lord Holland; he contributed to the
Edinburgh Review and
Encyclopedia Britannica and published
Inquiry into the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in
England (1830). He was the avowed atheist of the Holland House set.
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).
Jonas Dennis (1775 c.-1846)
Of Polsloe Park near Exeter; educated at Exeter College, Oxford, he was prebendary of the
Royal Collegiate Church of Exeter Castle (1799-1842).
William Heude (1789-1825)
He was a military officer in the East India Company who in 1816-17 traveled in the Middle
East and left an account.
Edward Adolphus Seymour, eleventh duke of Somerset (1775-1855)
The son of the tenth duke (d. 1793), educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford he was an
accomplished scholar elected to the Royal Society in 1797, the Society of Antiquaries in
1816, and the Linnean Society in 1820. From 1801 to 1838 was president of the Royal
Literary Fund.
Lord Webb Seymour (1777-1819)
The son of the tenth duke of Somerset; he was a scientist and associate of Sydney Smith
and John Playfair.