Pray make Lord Grey read the enclosed copy of my letter to the Chancellor. There is nobody to take the part of the parish clergy; they are left to be tormented by laws and by bishops, as frogs and rabbits are given up to the experiments of natural philosophers. In a few years your clergy will become mean and fanatical.
The thought was sudden, so was the execution: I saw I was
making no progress in London, and I resolved to run the risk of the journey. I
performed it with pain, and found on my arrival at my own door my new carriage
completely disabled. I called on no one, but went away without beat of drum. I
know nothing of public affairs—I have no pleasure in think-
| 350 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
I am making a slow recovery; hardly yet able to walk across the room, nor to put on a christian shoe. On Monday I shall have been ill for a month. Perhaps it is a perquisite of my time of life, to have the gout or some formidable illness. We enter and quit the world in pain! but let us be just however; I find my eyesight much improved by gout, and I am not low-spirited.
Pray let me hear from you from time to time, as you shall from me. Remember me to the handsome widow with handsome daughters; and believe me, my dear G., yours affectionately,
I should be glad to hear a word about the dinner; you must have been in the seventh heaven. I am heartily rejoiced at the great honours Lord Grey has received, and which I am sure will give him great pleasure in retirement.
I have spent a summer of sickness, never having been ten days without some return of gout or ophthalmia; at present I am very well, and laying up the aliments and elements of future illnesses. I shall be in London the 1st of November with Mrs. Sydney, in Weymouth-street, where you paid me those charitable visits; for which, God’s blessing be upon you!
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 351 |
I think —— has damaged the Administration from ten to twenty per cent. I wish our friend —— would not speak so much. I really cannot agree with him about reform. I am for no more movements: they are not relished by Canons of St. Paul’s. When I say, “no more movements,” however, I except the case of the Universities; which, I think, ought to be immediately invaded with Inquirers and Commissioners. They are a crying evil.
I have had a great number of persons coming to Combe Florey. They all profess themselves converts to the beauty of the country.
Terrible work with the new Poor Law! Nobody knows what to do, or which way to go. How did Lord Grey stand all his fatigues? Has Rogers been with you? Who should pay me a visit but P—— B——! His very look turns country into Piccadilly.
I have a favour to ask: could you lend our side such a thing as a Chancellor of the Exchequer? Some of our people are too little,—some too much in love,—some too ill. We will take great care of him, and return him so improved you will hardly know him.
You will be glad to hear my eyes are better—nearly well. Ever sincerely yours,
P.S.—What is real piety? What is true attach-
| 352 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
L—— has just left us. We all think him a very excellent and agreeable man; but wholly ignorant, for the greatest part of the day, of our names and parish, and not very certain of his own.
See what you lose by being a Tory: your son might have been Bishop of Bristol; a very lean and ill-fed piece of preferment (it is true), but a passage to better things. Ever very sincerely yours,
Nothing can exceed the fury of the Whigs! They mean not
only to change everything upon the earth, but to alter the tides, to suspend
the principles of gravitation and vegetation, and to tear down the solar
system. The Duke’s success, as it
appears to me, will entirely depend on his imitation of the Whig measures. I am
heartily glad Lord Grey is in port. I am
(thanks to him) in port too, and have no intentions of resigning St.
Paul’s. I have not resigned. Still the King has used them ill. If he always intended
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 353 |
I am better in health, avoiding all fermented liquors, and drinking nothing but London water, with a million insects in every drop. He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women, and children on the face of the globe. London is very empty, but by no means disagreeable: I find plenty of friends. Pray be in London early in January. I shall practise as I preach, and be there from January till Easter.
It is supposed that the messenger who is gone to fetch Sir Robert Peel, will not catch him before he is at Pæstum; in the meantime, the Duke of Wellington holds all offices, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, and is to be Bishop of Ely (if Ely dies), till Peel arrives.
There departs from Taunton this day my annual quit-rent
cheese, and with it my hearty thanks and gratitude for the comfort and
independence I have derived from the kindness of Lord
Grey. We are all well, and mean to be in town by the 19th of
next month. There is a report that we are going to be married, but I know
nothing about it. If we are married, and the report proves to be true, I shall
ad-
| 354 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
They seem to have given up the idea of your resigning. When I came down here, I found everybody sure you were upon the eve of abdication. I wish the Cabinet would do something about the rain,—it is eternal; and as the road to Taunton is sometimes covered with floods, we are cut off from butchers, doctors, tailors, and all who supply the wants of life.
As I know you are a good scholar, you may say to Lord Grey, for me,—
Precor ut hic annus tibi lætis auspiciis Ineat, lætioribus procedat, lætissimis exeat, Et sæpius recurrat semper felicior. |
The blessing of God be upon you both, dear children; and be assured that it makes my old-age much happier to have placed my amiable daughter in the hands of so honourable and so amiable a son.
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