I congratulate you very sincerely upon the safety of
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 81 |
I have just been reading Allen’s account of your Administration. Very well done, for the cautious and decorous style; but it is quite shameful that a good stout answer has not been written to your calumniators. The good points of that Administration were the Slave Trade, Newport’s Corn Bill, Romilly’s Bankrupt Bill, the attempt at Peace, and the efforts made for the Catholics. The disadvantages under which the Administration laboured were, the ruin of Europe—the distress of England—and the hatred of King and people. The faults they committed were, not coming to a thorough understanding with the King about the Catholics—making a treasurer an auditor, and a judge a politician—protecting the King’s money from decimation—and increasing the number of foreign troops.
Balancing the good and the evil, I am sure there has been no such honest and enlightened Administration since the time of Lord Chatham. God send it a speedy return!
Ever yours, my dear Lord, with most sincere respect and regard,
This comes to say that you must not be out of spirits on
account of Lord Grey’s going to town;
but
| 82 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
As I know what a pleasure it is to you to hear or read any good praise of Lord Grey, I send you an extract from Mr. Horner’s letter to me this day. “Lord Grey’s absence, though scarcely excusable, has done no harm. He is decidedly at the head of the great aristocracy, including not only Whigs, but a great many Tories. I wish he were * * * he wants only that, to give him the power of doing more good, and commanding greater influence, than any man has done since the time of Fox. He deserves all the praises bestowed upon him. A more upright, elevated, gallant mind there cannot be; but * * * and will not condescend to humour them, and pardon them for their natural infirmities; nor is aware that both people and Prince must be treated like children.”
You may fill up the blanks as you like; but if you valued Mr. Horner’s understanding and integrity one
* A room of Lady Grey’s, so called by Mr. Sydney Smith, exactly the size of the large bell at Moscow. |
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 83 |
A pheasant a day is very fattening diet: such has been my mode of living for these last few days. I was poetical enough, though, to think I had seen them out of my window, at Howick, whilst I was dressing, and to fancy that I liked eating them the less on that account.
Health and happiness, and every good wish, dear Lady Grey, to you and yours!
Thank you for your obliging and friendly letter. I believe every word you say as implicitly as I should if you had never stirred from Howick all your life. And this is much to say of any one who has lived as much in the high and gay world as you have done. I shall be glad to hear that you are safely landed in Portman-square, with all your young ones; but do not set off too soon, or you will be laid up at the Black Swan, Northallerton, or the Elephant and Castle, Boroughbridge, and your bill will come to a thousand pounds, besides the waiter, who will most probably apply for a place under Government.
We are all perfectly well, and panting to show you, in the
summer, ourselves and York Cathedral. I had occasion to write to ——, and gave her a lecture upon humility, and
against receiving me with pride and grandeur when I come to town; I give you no
such
| 84 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
Never was such a ferment as Pall Mall and Holland House are in! John Allen, wild and staring,—Antonio, and Thomas, the porter, worked off their legs,—Lord Lauderdale sleeping with his clothes on, and a pen full of ink close to his bedside, with a string tied on the wrist of his secretary in the next room! Expresses arriving at Pall Mall every ten minutes from the House of Commons, and the Whig nobility and commonalty dropping in at all hours to dinner or supper! Is not your Bell better than this? Nevertheless, get well, and quit it. There is great happiness in the country, but it requires a visit to London every year to reassure yourself of this truth.
You will read (perhaps not)—but there will be of mine—in the Edinburgh Review a short account of the Walcheren Expedition, observations upon Lord Sidmouth’s project against Dissenters, and Walton’s Spanish Colonies.
If there be a Regency, I guess the following
Administration:—Lord Grey, First Lord of
the Treasury;
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 85 |
The drawing-room in Pall Mall must have been an entertaining scene for some weeks past: the crowds below waiting upon Allen for facts, and acquaintances of 1806 calling above. Lord Lauderdale has, I hear, not had his clothes off for six weeks. Pray remember me very kindly to him: I cannot say how much I like him.
I hope to see your Ladyship early in April, by which time the tumult will be hushed, and you will be either in full power, or in perfect weakness.
I was terribly afraid at first that the Prince had gone over to the other party; but the
King’s improved condition leaves a
hope to me that his conduct has
| 86 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
I am exceedingly glad Lord Holland has taken up the business of libels; the punishment of late appears to me most atrocious. If libels against the public are very bad, they become sedition or treason; new crimes may be punished as such; but as long as they are only libels, such punishments as have been lately inflicted are preposterous; and seem to proceed from that hatred which feeble and decorous persons always feel against those who disturb the repose of their minds, call their opinions in question, and compel them to think and reason. There should be a maximum of imprisonment for libel. No man should be imprisoned for more than a year for any information filed by the Attorney-General. Libels are not so mischievous in a free country, as Mr. Justice Grose, in his very bad lectures, would make them out to be. Who would have mutinied for Cobbett’s libel? or who would have risen up against the German soldiers? And how easily might he have been answered! He deserved some punishment; but to shut a man up in gaol for two years for such an offence is most atrocious. Pray make Lord Holland speak well and eloquently on this subject.
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 87 |
It is long since I have written to you,—at least, I hope you think so. Where is the Review? We are come to the birth, and have not strength to bring forth. It is very possible that I have not done justice to your article upon the Catholics, but the subject is so worn out that I read it hastily; and though I like almost everything you like, I was not violently arrested by any passage. Their exclusion from office is, I perceive by the papers, rather strongly put in the last Catholic debate, by enumerating, not the classes of offices from which they are shut out, but the total number of individual offices—thirty-five or forty thousand. This is a striking and popular way of putting the fact.
Do you believe that the Prince made this last change with the consent of the Whigs? I
much doubt it; but if not, his information seems to have been better than
theirs; for, with such an immediate prospect of the king’s recovery, a change in the Administration would
have been quite ridiculous. I hope you will make some stay with us on your way
to town, that Mrs. Sydney may see
something of you. I know you are fond of riding, and I can offer you the use of
a dun pony, which Murray knows to be a
very safe and eligible conveyance. This revival of his Majesty has revived my
slumbering architecture, and I think I shall begin building this year; yet I
get heartily frightened when I think of it. Kirkpatrick’s ‘Embassy to Nepaul’ is not yet
published: so I cannot tell how much it will take up. Tell me some subjects for
the next
| 88 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
And yet what folly to talk in this manner! Are we not, like Brook Watson’s leg, in the jaws of the shark? Can any sensible man,—any human being but a little trumpery parson,—believe that we shall not be swallowed up? It is folly not to gather up a little, while it is yet possible, and to go to America. We are all very well, engaged in the mystery of gardening, and other species of rural idleness, for which my taste grows stronger and stronger.
How very odd, dear Lady Holland, to ask me to dine with you on Sunday, the 9th, when I am coming to stay with you from the 5th to the 12th! It is like giving a gentleman an assignation for Wednesday, when you are going to marry him on the preceding Sunday,—an attempt to combine the stimulus of gallantry with the security of connubial relations. I do not propose to be guilty of the slightest infidelity to you while I am at Holland House, except you dine in town; and then it will not be infidelity, but spirited recrimination.
Ever the sincere and affectionate friend of Lady Holland.
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 89 |
P.S.—I believe no two Dissenting ministers will rejoice at Lord Sidmouth’s defeat more than Lord Holland and myself.
Having quitted Capua, I must now to business.
I have received the Review, and am extremely pleased with the article upon the Liberty of the Press, and with the promise of its continuation. The review of Jacob’s Travels I do not like; it is full of old grudges.
You over-praise all Scotch books and writers. Alison’s is a pretty book, stringing a number of quotations upon a false theory, nearly true, and spun out to an unwarrantable size, merely for the sake of introducing the illustrations. I have not read your review, for I hate the subject; and you may conceive how much I hate it, when even your writing cannot reconcile me to it.
I am now hardening my heart, and correcting my idleness, as quickly as possible; I mean to be most penitently diligent.
I saw John Playfair in town—grown thinner and older by some years. Mrs. Apreece and the Miss Berrys say, that, on the whole, he is the only man who can be called irresistible.
| 90 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
We have had Dugald Stewart and his family here for three or four days. We spoke much of the weather and other harmless subjects. He became however once a little elevated; and, in the gaiety of his soul, let out some opinions which will doubtless make him writhe with remorse. He went so far as to say he considered the King’s recovery as very problematical.
The Archbishop says that Lord Ellenborough said to him, “Take care of Lord Holland, and I will take care of Romilly. The one wants to attack the Church, the other the Law.” I assured his Grace it was a calumny.
I cannot say how much mortified I am not to have reached Edinburgh; nothing should have prevented me but fraternity, and to that I was forced to yield.*
I went to Lord Grey’s with young Vernon, the Archbishop’s son, a very clever young man;—genus, Whig; species, Whigista Mitior; of which species I consider Lord Lansdowne to be at the head, as the Lords Holland and Grey are of the Whigista Truculentus Anactophonus. I heard no news at Howick. Lord Grey sincerely expects a change. I taxed him with saying
* Mr. Cecil Smith had lately returned from India. |
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 91 |
I am reading Locke in my old-age, never having read him thoroughly in my youth:—a fine, satisfactory sort of fellow, but very long-winded.
You do not know, perhaps, that among my thousand and one projects is to be numbered a new metaphysical language,—a bold fancy for any man not born in Scotland. Physics, metaphysics, gardening, and jobbing are the privileges of the North. By the bye, have you ever remarked that singular verse in the Psalms, “Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, neither from the south”?
I rather quarrel with you for not sending me some Edinburgh politics. I have a very sincere attachment to Scotland, and am very much interested by Scotch news. Five of the most agreeable years of my life were spent there. I have formed many friendships which I am sure will last as long as I live.
Adieu, dear Murray! Pray write to me.
I am very much flattered by your recollection of me, and by your obliging letter. I have been following the plough. My talk has been of oxen, and I have gloried in the goad.
|
* Afterwards Lady Davy. |
| 92 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
Your letter operated as a charm. I remembered that there were better things than these;—that there was a Metropolis; that there were wits, chemists, poets, splendid feasts, and captivating women. Why remind a Yorkshire resident clergyman of these things, and put him to recollect human beings at Rome, when he is fattening beasts at Ephesus?
The Edinburgh Review is just come out,—long and dull, as usual; to these bad results and effects I have contributed, in a review of Wyvill’s ‘Papers on Toleration.’
I shall be in London in March. Pray remain single, and marry nobody (let him be whom he may); you will be annihilated the moment you do, and, instead of an alkali or an acid, become a neutral salt. You may very likely be happier yourself, but you will be lost to your male friends.
My brother is a capital personage; full of sense, genius, dignity, virtue, and wit.
God bless you, dear Mrs. Apreece! Kind love from all here.
P.S.—That rogue Jeffrey will have the whip-hand of me for a month; but I will annihilate him when I come up, if he gives himself airs, and affects to patronize me. Mind and cultivate Whishaw, and Dumont, and Tennant.
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