A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1839
Sydney Smith to Georgiana Meynell Ingram, October 1839
Green-street, October, 1839.
Dear Mrs. Meynell,
I think the Whigs are certainly strengthened. Macaulay, if he speak as well as he did before
India,
426 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | |
must be considered an acquisition. Lord Clarendon, in all probability, a very
important one. On the other side, they have had a great loss in Howick and Wood, and they lose three votes by the death of the two Dukes.
They are in high spirits; and I have no doubt the Queen’s marriage will be the first thing notified to the
new Parliament. I have heard it from nobody, but I have no doubt of it.
I am quite delighted with my new house in Green-street. I
have one leg in it, and the other here; it is everything I want or wish.
I feel for —— about her son at
Oxford; knowing, as I do, that the only consequences of a University education
are, the growth of vice and the waste of money.
I am in town all November. God bless you, dear friend!
Henry George Grey, third earl Grey (1802-1894)
The son of the second earl; he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge and was a Whig
MP (1826-45) when he succeeded his father. He was secretary for the colonies
(1846-52).
Charles Wood, first viscount Halifax (1800-1885)
The son of Sir Francis Lindley Wood, baronet; educated at Eton and Oriel College, Oxford;
he was a Whig MP for Great Grimsby (1826-31), Warcham (1831-32), Halifax (1832-65) and
Ripon (1865-66). He was private secretary to Earl Gray and Secretary of state for India
(1858).