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A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1821
Sydney Smith to Francis Jeffrey, 7 August 1821
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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Produced by CATH
 
Taunton, Aug. 7th, 1821.
My dear Jeffrey,

I have travelled all across the country with my family, to see my father, now eighty-two years of age. I wish, at such an age, you, and all like you, may have as much enjoyment of life; more, you can hardly have at any age. My father is one of the very few people I have ever seen improved by age. He is become careless, indulgent, and anacreontic.

I shall proceed to write a review of Scarlett’s Poor Bill, and of Keppel Craven’s Tour, according to the license you granted me; not for the number about to come, but for the number after that. The review of the first will be very short, and that of the second not long. Length, indeed, is not what you have to accuse me of. The above-mentioned articles, with perhaps Wilks’s Sufferings of the Protestants in the South of France, and the Life of Suard, will constitute my contribution for the number after the next (i.e. the 71st).

The wretchedness of the poor in this part of the country is very afflicting. The men are working for one shilling per day, all the year round; and if a man have only three children, he receives no relief from the parish, so that five human beings are supported for
218MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.
little more than tenpence a day. They are evidently a dwindling and decaying race; nor should I be the least surprised if a plague in the shape of typhus fever broke out here.

Do me the favour to remember me to all my friends, and to number amongst those who are sincerely and affectionately attached to you,

Sydney Smith.

I beg my kind regards to Mrs. Jeffrey, and to the little tyrant who rules the family.