OF THE REVEREND SYDNEY SMITH. BY HIS DAUGHTER, LADY HOLLAND. WITH A SELECTION FROM HIS LETTERS, EDITED BY MRS. AUSTIN. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOLUME I. SECOND EDITION. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1855. 210. a. 195. [The Author reserves the right of translating this Work.] THIS MEMOIR OF MY FATHER, THE PREPARATION FOR WHICH WAS THE CONSTANT OCCUPATION OF MY MOTHER'S LIFE, AND THE COMPLETION OF WHICH WAS THE MOST EARNEST OBJECT OF HER DESIRE, BOTH IN HER LIFE AND AT HER DEATH, WHICH NOTHING BUT HER EARNEST DESIRE COULD HAVE GIVEN ME COURAGE TO ATTEMPT, I NOW DEDICATE TO HER MEMORY, BELIEVING IT TO BE THE MOST GRATEFUL TRIBUTE I CAN OFFER ON HER GRAVE. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. SYDNEY SMITH'S Life: he who opens this book under the expectation of reading in it curious adventures, important transactions, or public events, had better close the volume, for none of these things will he find therein. Nothing can be more thoroughly private and eventless than the narrative I am about to give; yet I feel myself, and I have reason to believe there are many who will feel with me, that this Life is not therefore uninteresting or unimportant: for, though circumstances over which my father had no control forbade his taking that active share in the affairs of his country, for which his talents and his character so eminently fitted him, yet neither circumstances nor power could suppress these talents, or subdue and enfeeble that cha |