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A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1840
Sydney Smith to Roderick Impey Murchison, [September] 1840
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
Creative Commons License

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Produced by CATH
 
Combe Florey, 1840.
Dear Murchison,

Many thanks for your kind recollections of me in sending me your pamphlet, which I shall read with all attention and care. My observation has been necessarily so much fixed on missions of another description, that I am hardly reconciled to zealots going out with voltaic batteries and crucibles, for the conversion of mankind, and baptizing their fellow-creatures with the mineral acids; but I will endeavour to admire,
436MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH.
and believe in you. My real alarm for you is, that by some late decisions of the magistrates, you come under the legal definition of strollers; and nothing would give me more pain than to see any of the Sections upon the mill, calculating the resistance of the air, and showing the additional quantity of flour which might be ground in vacuo,—each man in the meantime imagining himself a Galileo.

Mrs. Sydney has eight distinct illnesses, and I have nine. We take something every hour, and pass the mixture from one to the other.

About forty years ago, I stopped an infant in Lord Breadalbane’s grounds, and patted his face. The nurse said, “Hold up your head, Lord Glenorchy.” This was the President of your society.* He seems to be acting an honourable and enlightened part in life. Pray present my respects to him and his beautiful marchioness.

Sydney Smith.

Since writing this I have read your Memoir,—a little too flowery, but very sensible and good.