"I love liberty, but hope it can be so managed that I shall have soft beds, good dinners, fine linen, etc., for the rest of my life. I am too old to fight or to suffer." "I am tired of liberty and revolution! Where is it to end? Are all political agglutinations to be unglued? Are we prepared for a second Heptarchy, and to see the King of Sussex fighting with the Emperor of Essex, or marrying the Dowager Queen of Hampshire?"
Just before the first elections under the Reform Act, he wrote to a Scotch friend:--
"What oceans of absurdity and nonsense will the new liberties of Scotland disclose! Yet this is better than the old infamous jobbing, and the foolocracy under which you have so long laboured."
Sydney Smith's first term of official duty at St. Paul's began on the 1st of February 1832. On the eve of the new year he wrote to his married daughter:--
"We are debating how to come up to town, and how to make a Stage Coach compatible with Saba's aristocracy and dignity. The Coach sets off from Taunton at four o'clock. It is then dark. I recommend her hurrying in three minutes before the Coach departs with her face covered up. But there is a maiden lady who knows us and who lives opposite the Coach. I have promised to keep her in conversation whilst Saba steps in. Once in, all chance of detection is over.
"_PS._--We think Miss Y---- has discovered us, for, upon meeting her in Taunton, she spoke of the _Excellence of Public Conveyances_. I said it was a fine day, and, conscious of guilt, retired."
The removal to London was safely accomplished, and on the 29th of January he wrote:--
"I drove all this morning with Lady Holland. I had refused two or three times last week, but, as a good deal is due to old friendship, I wrote word that, if she would accept the company of a handsome young clergyman, I knew of one who was much at her service. She was very ill. I preached to her, not 'of Temperance and Righteousness and Judgement to come,' but said nothing of the two last and confined myself to the first topic. 'Lay aside pepper, and brandy and water, and _baume de vie_. Prevent the evil instead of curing it. A single mutton chop, a glass of toast and water'--here she cried and I stopped; but she began sobbing, and I was weak enough to allow two glasses of sherry--on which she recovered."