Every year Sydney paid a visit
to London, receiving the warmest of welcomes from all his old associates.
In 1821 he revisited his friends at Edinburgh, and going or coming he
visited Lord Grey at Howick, Lord Tankerville at Chillingham, Lord
Lauderdale at Dunbar, and Mr. Lambton, afterwards Lord Durham, at Lambton.
At Chillingham he duly admired the beef supplied by the famous herd of wild
cattle, but he admired still more the magnificent novelty of gas at
Lambton.--
"What use of wealth so luxurious and delightful as to light your house
with gas? What folly to have a diamond necklace or a Correggio, and
not to light your house with gas! The splendour and glory of Lambton
Hall make all other houses mean. How pitiful to submit to a
farthing-candle existence, when science puts such intense
gratification within your reach! Dear lady, spend all your fortune in
a gas-apparatus. Better to eat dry bread by the splendour of gas, than
to dine on wild beef with wax candles!"
Another friend whom the Smiths visited regularly was Mr., afterwards Sir
George, Philips, an opulent cotton-spinner of Manchester. Once, when
staying with Philips, Sydney undertook to preach a Charity Sermon in
Prestwich Church, and with reference to this he wrote in the previous week;
"I desire to make three or four hundred weavers cry, which it is impossible
to do since the late rise in cottons.
Pages:
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118