A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith
Letters 1843
Sydney Smith to Harriet Grote, 18 December 1843
My dear Mrs. Grote,
I hope the Irish fossils have reached you by this time, and that they are
approved of.
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MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
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My bomb has fallen very successfully in America, and the
list of killed and wounded is extensive. I have several quires of paper sent me
every day, calling me monster, thief, atheist, deist, etc. Duff
Green sent me three pounds of cheese, and a Captain
Monigan a large barrel of American apples. The last news from
America will, I think, lower the Pennsylvanian funds.
I wonder how you are occupied. I am reading Montaigne. He thinks aloud, that is his great
merit, but does not think remarkably well; mankind have improved in thinking
and writing since that period. Have you read Senior’s article for the forthcoming Edinburgh Review? It is excellent, and does him
great credit.
I went, while in town, one night to the Sartoris’, where Mrs. Sartoris was singing divinely. Your
sincere friend,
Harriet Grote [née Lewin] (1792-1878)
The daughter of an India merchant, Thomas Lewin, she married the George Grote in 1820 and
with her husband was part of the Bentham-Mill circle of radicals. She published articles
and biographies and patronized Felix Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind.
Adelaide Kemble (1815-1879)
English soprano who studied music with John Braham; the daughter of Charles Kemble and
sister of Fanny Kemble, she retired following her marriage to Edward John Sartoris in
1842.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)
French writer and moralist, magistrate and mayor of Bordeaux (1581-85); he was the author
of
Essais (1580, 1595).
Edward John Sartoris (1814-1888)
The son of a French banker, he was the husband of the singer Adelaide Kemble whom he
married in 1842.
Nassau William Senior (1790-1864)
Professor of political economy at Oxford (1825-30) and author of
Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1836). He contributed to the
Quarterly Review and
Edinburgh Review.