ers, Dr. and Mrs. Marcet, and Francis Jeffrey were among the
earliest guests. "Mrs. Sydney was dreadfully alarmed about her side-dishes
the first time Luttrell[73] paid us a visit, and grew pale as the covers
were lifted; but they stood the test. Luttrell tasted and praised."

The neighbours of whom the Smiths saw most were Lord and Lady Carlisle,[74]
who drove over from Castle Howard[75] in a coach-and-four with outriders,
and were upset in a ploughed field; their son and daughter-in-law, Lord and
Lady Georgiana Morpeth, who with their children made "no mean part of the
population of Yorkshire"; and the Archbishop of York, who became one of the
Smiths' kindest and most faithful friends. 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."

Writing from Philips's house in 1820 he says:--

"Philips doubles his capital twice a week. We talk much of cotton,
more of the fine arts, as he has lately returned from Italy, and
purchased some pictures which were sent out from Piccadilly on purpose
to intercept him."

His daughter tells us that, during these years of small i