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A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1820
Sydney Smith to Georgiana Meynell Ingram, [Summer] 1820
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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Foston, 1820.
Dear Mrs. Meynell,

It will give me great pleasure to hear of your health and continued well-doing. I suspect the little boy will be christened Hugo, that being an ancient name in the
MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.211
Meynell family; and the mention of the little boy is an additional reason why you should write to me before he comes. You will never write after, for the infant of landed estate is so precious, that he would exhaust the sympathies, and fill up the life, of seven or eight mothers. The usual establishment for an eldest landed baby is, two wet nurses, two ditto dry, two aunts, two physicians, two apothecaries; three female friends of the family, unmarried, advanced in life; and often, in the nursery, one clergyman, six flatterers, and a grandpapa! Less than this would not be decent.

We are all well, and keep large fires, as it behoveth those who pass their summers in England.

I have not seen a living soul out of my family since I left London. It is some consolation to think I have avoided the awkward dilemma about the Queen. I should have thought it base not to call, and yet

* * * * *

My conjecture is that there will be no compromise, and that the Queen will be beaten out of the field. The chances against this are that the King’s nerves will give way. You do not know that is in the Green Bag. You thought him full of poetry alone, but gallantry and treason are in his composition. The Queen and her handmaids have been much exposed to the shafts of calumny on account of that too amiable and seducing fellow, who is at once a Lovelace and a Pope. Write me a line to show we are friends, and I will announce the event.

Ever your sincere friend,
Sydney Smith.