A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1830
Sydney Smith to John Allen, November 1830
November, 1830.
Dear Allen,
Pray tell me how Lord
Holland is, as I do not at all like the accounts I have received
from Lord John.
I am frightened at the state of the world; I shall either
be burnt, or lose my tithes, or be forced to fight, or some harm will happen to
disturb the drowsy slumbers of my useless old-age.
—— talks of coming to see me; but I have
not the slightest belief. He will break down on the road, and return; or be
lost in the Capua of Bowood; or be alarmed by Surrey incendiaries, and sit up
all night surrounded by pails of water, squirts, and syringes. I have been
visited by an old enemy, the lumbago; equally severe, as it seems, upon priest
and anti-priests. I believe it comes from the stomach; at least it is to that
organ that all medical men direct their curative intentions.
Tell me what is going to happen. Ever yours,
Henry Richard Fox, third baron Holland (1773-1840)
Whig politician and literary patron; Holland House was for many years the meeting place
for reform-minded politicians and writers. He also published translations from the Spanish
and Italian;
Memoirs of the Whig Party was published in 1852.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855)
English poet, banker, and aesthete, author of the ever-popular
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Columbus (1810),
Jaqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28).
John Russell, first earl Russell (1792-1878)
English statesman, son of John Russell sixth duke of Bedford (1766-1839); he was author
of
Essay on the English Constitution (1821) and
Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe (1824) and was Prime Minister (1865-66).