A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1841
Sydney Smith to Robert Monckton Milnes, 7 February 1841
Combe Florey, Feb. 14th,
1841.
My dear Sir,
I am very much obliged by your kindness in procuring for me
the papier chimique. Pray let me know
what I am in your debt: it is best to be scrupulous and punctilious in trifles.
I should be very unhappy about Macleod
and America, if I had not impressed upon myself, in the course of a long life,
that there is always some misery of this kind hanging over us, and that being
unhappy does no good. I console myself with Doddridge’s Exposition and ‘The Scholar Armed,’ to say nothing of a very popular book,
‘The Dissenter Tripped up.’
I remain, my dear Sir, yours faithfully,
Sydney Smith.
Philip Doddridge (1702-1751)
Educated at Kingston-upon-Thames and the dissenting academy at Kibworth, he was a
nonconformist minister, schoolmaster and hymn-writer.
Alexander McLeod (1796-1871)
A Canadian accused of murder in connection with the 1837 sinking of an American
steamboat; he was acquitted after a contentious diplomatic conflict.