I was very glad to receive your letter, and to find you were well and prosperous.
The articles written by me in the Edinburgh Review are, that upon Ireland, and that upon Oxley’s ‘Survey of Botany Bay.’
The Archbishop of York makes me a very good neighbour, and is always glad to see me.
I agree with you that there is an end for ever of the Whigs coming into power. The country belongs to the Duke of Rutland, Lord Lonsdale, the Duke of Newcastle, and about twenty other holders of boroughs. They are our masters! If any little opportunity presents itself, we will hang them, but most probably there will be no such opportunity; it always is twenty to one against the people. There is nothing (if you will believe the Opposition) so difficult as to bully a whole people; whereas, in fact, there is nothing so easy, as that great artist Lord Castlereagh so well knows.
Let me beg of you to take more care of those beautiful geraniums, and not let the pigs in upon them. Geranium-fed bacon is of a beautiful colour; but it takes so many plants to fatten one pig, that such a
216 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |