Daily American organ. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1856, 1855-08-14
NUMBER 231.
specimens Of sydney smith,s Table ram.

Specimens OF Sydney Smiths Table Talk.
Specimens Of Sydney Smiths table talk are Civ
| en- In bis life, though not so literally as might
have been expected. We give some extracts from
them, and from the most characteristic passag s.
OF his correspondence, as illustrative of his "owu
peculiar" wit and humor, his proper individuality
of thought and phrase.
Some one asking if the Bishop of --- Was
going to marry Perhaps he may" said the
| Canon "yet how can the Bishop marry How
can he tirtY, The most he can say is Il will sru
you in the vestry after service
1T is agreat proof Of shyness to crumble breau
at dinner" in his opinion. "Oh, | SEQ you are
afraid of me" said he to young lady who sat b.
him, r." you crumble your bread. | do IL when I
cit by the Bishop of London, and with both hand,
when sit by the Archbishop
or the unitarians in general, and one in ps-
ticular, he says:
That man is SO hard you might drive broad
wheeled wagon over him and it would produce lo
impression. If you were to bore holes In him
with gimlet l am convinced sawdust would
come out of him. That school treat mankind as
II they we're mere machines the feelings or A..
| fections never enter into their calculation s. If
everything is to be sacrificed to utility, why do
you bury your grandmother at all ? Why doat
you cut her into small pieces at once, and mahp
portable soup of her ?"
Dear Bobus," he writes to his brother IL 1917.
| pray take care Of yourself We shall both be u
brown infragrnnt powder in thirty or forty years
Let lis contrive to last out for the same or neat
| ly the same time"
To Lady Holland he writes, in 1910:
| "We liked Mrs. --. 1t was wrong, Mt her.
time Of life, to be circumvented by -----'s dia
grams I; but there is some excuse in the novelty OF
the attack, az l believe she is the first lady that
ever fell 4 victim to algebra, that was geomet.-
cally led from the paths of discretion"
| To Tnr IN,
| :" How little you understand young Wedyewood!
| Inventor of the Wedgewood ware. IF he ar-
pears to love waltzing, it is only to catch fresh
| figures for creamjugs! Depend upon it. he v III
have jeffrey, and you will enjoy an argillaceeus
Immortality"
| Arrived at Dover soon after the constraetio, or
| the shaft, he mentions it as " a staircase, by
which the top of the cliff is reached with great
ease or, at least what they call great ease, which
means the loss Of about pound of liquid sh,
and as much putting and blowing would grind
bushel Of wheat"
"Mr. Jeffrey" he writes to the Countess Grey,
wanted to persuade me that myrtles grew out of
doors in Scotland, as here. Upon cross-examne-
tion, it turned out they were prickly, and that
many had been destroyed by the family donkey"
"Luttrell," he writes in 1929, from the Combe
| Florey parsonage, " came over for day, frt n,
whence know not, but / thought not from good
pastures; at least he had not his usual soupal D.
patlie look. There was forced smile upon il
countenance, which seemed to indicate plain ROT st
and boiled and a sort Of applepudding depression,
Us if he had been staying with clergyman"
| Abiding to the tumult at Jeffrey'S cleo ,ion in
| 1880, he inquiries of Murray:
as Jeffrey much damaged? They Fay h.
| fought like lion, and would have been killed had
he been more visible but that several peot lie
struck at him who could see nothing, and 30 bat.
tered infinite space instead of the Advocate"
Jeffrey's size appears to have been an mex
haustble source of amusement to the round
fat, oily" Priest Of st. Paul Sydney tells Francis
4 Brougham OF having just returned from Portugal,
where the Inquisition, according to rumor, seized
and singed him with wax-tapers, an Edinburgh
reviewer:
"They were at first about to U.S. hamhesux,
conceiving him to be you; but upon recurring to
the notes they have made of your height, error
| was discovered Of two feet, and the less n fires
only administered" (ls06.)
Again:
Magnitude TO you, my dear jeffrey, NUT b.
such an intoxicating idea that have no doubt you
would rather be gigantic in your errors, than i'm
mense in respect, whatever" &c. Qs0s)
Elsewher
"My dear Jeffrey, are we to see you pa difficult
thing at all times to do, y &c. (lso9)
In 1929 he writes TO Murray:
Il cannot say the pleasure II gives me that my
old and dear friend jeffrey is in the road to pre-
ferrnent ! shall not be easy till he is fairly on
\ the bench His robes God, knows, will cost him
ttle-one buck rabbit will cothc him to the heels
Maximus was one OF the appellatiyes wherewith
Sydney loved to magnify the great little man.
| In the same letter.
"I think Lord Grey will give me some prefer
ment, II he stays in long enough; but the upper
parsons live vindctivey, and evnce their aversion
to Whig Ministry by an improved health. Tho
! Bishop Of - has the raucor TO recover after
three paralytic strokes, and the Dean Of -
\ TO be vigorous at eighty-two. And yet these arc
men who are Christians"
| To Lady Holland, and from Combe Florey
"Phl sophcr Maluhus came here last week.
got an agreeable party for him of unmarried peo
! pie. There was only one lady who had had
child but he Is a good natured man, and, If there
are appearances approaching fertility, Ia civil
to every lady"
To DIR. Holland, in 1885:
81 am suffering from my old complaint the liar
fever, las IL is called) Ny fear is perish " b,
deliquesence melt away in nasal and lach'y ymal
proauyia. My remedies are warm pediluyium,
cathartics &c, &c. The membrane is so irriiabl.
| that light dust, contradiction, an absurd remark,
the sight of a dssenter, anything, sets me snecz.
| ing: and IL | begin sneezing at IL, don't leave
| off till o'clock and an heard distinctly in Taun-
ton, when the wind sets that wpy-a distance Uf
| six miles.n
"Mr - he tells Lady Dsvy, "is going
gently down hill, trusting that the cookery in an
Other planet may be at least as good as in this; but
not without apprehensions that for misconduct
here he may be sentenced TO thousand years Of
tough mutton, or condemned TO little eternity OF
family dinners"
Here Il vet another heaven after another mans
ideal To Sir Rodcrick Murchson he writes
MAY there not be some ono among the iufuito
worlds where men and women are all made Of
stone' Perhaps cf Parian marbleg How infinite.
" superior TO flesh and blood What Paradise
for you TO pass eternity with a grey wsckc
womanl"
In his last illness he writes to the Countess Of
Carlisle:
al am in a regular train OF promotion nom
Cruel, verpicilli, and sage, was promoted to pa
| NADIA, from thence 10 mnce-neat and (such is the
effect Of good conduct) was elevated TO a mutton
chop Ny breathlessncss and gidincss are gone.