Yorkshire Almanac Sydney Smith describes for Edward Davenport the view from his rectory at Foston (Ryedale)

10 February 1821: Sydney Smith describes for Edward Davenport the view from his rectory at Foston (Ryedale)

Saba Holland and Sydney Smith. 1855. A Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, Vol. 2. Ed. Sarah Austin. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

[Letter to Edward Davenport written from Foston] I have taken lodgings in York for myself and family during the Assizes, to enable them to stare out of the window, there being nothing visible where we live but crows.

Mrs. F___, the liberty woman, is in York. There are several Scotch families staying there. No bad place for change, cheapness, and comparative warmth.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Is Mrs. F Elizabeth Fry? If so, there are various other references, e.g. an undated letter to Lady Mary Bennett:

I am glad you liked what I said of Mrs. Fry. She is very unpopular with the clergy: examples of living, active virtue disturb our repose, and give birth to distressing comparisons: we long to burn her alive.

Then, perhaps she is Fanny Trollope, the subsequent anti-slavery campaigner.

To Lady Grey from Foston, 27 March 1821:

We have been at the Assizes at York for three weeks, where there is always a great deal of dancing and provincial joy.

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Comment

Is Mrs. F Elizabeth Fry? If so, there are various other references, e.g. an undated letter to Lady Mary Bennett:

I am glad you liked what I said of Mrs. Fry. She is very unpopular with the clergy: examples of living, active virtue disturb our repose, and give birth to distressing comparisons: we long to burn her alive.

Then, perhaps she is Fanny Trollope, the subsequent anti-slavery campaigner.

To Lady Grey from Foston, 27 March 1821:

We have been at the Assizes at York for three weeks, where there is always a great deal of dancing and provincial joy.

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13 August 1821: The laments of the adulterous poisoner Ann Barber on the scaffold at York

1 February 1829: Jonathan Martin’s attempt to burn down York Minster is frustrated by a frolicsome chorister

6 December 1811: Sydney Smith to John Murray on “the privileges of the North”

7 July 1819: The Rev. Sydney Smith complains from Foston to the historian John Allen of summer colds

3 January 1820: Following Peterloo, the Rev Sydney Smith (Foston, Ryedale) tell the Whig Edward Davenport that literacy and the populist press make parliamentary reform inevitable

16 September 1821: The Rev Sydney Smith tells Lady Grey how the harvest was saved at Foston (Ryedale)

2 October 1800: Part of an obituary to Harry Rowe, Punch and Judy man, trumpeter at the Battle of Culloden and the York assizes, who died today, old and ill, in the York poorhouse

18 October 1835: A Keighley churchwarden and constable drag one Mr Aken, a local bookseller and printer, into Sunday service

2 August 1680: William Dolben, perhaps reluctantly, condemns Thomas Thwing to death at York for his part, without co-conspirators, in a fictitious conspiracy – the Popish Plot

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Comment

This is a Jesuit hagiography, and I don’t know to what extent the source reflects the substance of Dolben’s remarks. Wikipedia takes a more benevolent view of him:

In the aftermath of the Popish Plot, Dolben tried many of the accused, including Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 2nd Baronet and Sir Miles Stapleton; due to his impartial trait of pointing out inconsistencies in the prosecution’s evidence, both were acquitted.[4] At the trial of Mary Pressicks, who was accused of saying that “We shall never be at peace until we are all of the Roman Catholic religion”, Dolben saved her life by ruling that the words, even if she did speak them, could not amount to treason.[5] As a result of this and his opposition to Charles II’s removal of the City Corporation’s writs, he was “according to the vicious practise of the time” dismissed on 18 April 1683. Again working as a barrister, Dolben prosecuted Algernon Sidney in November 1683 before being reinstated as a Justice of the King’s Bench on 18 March 1689. Records from 29 April show him “inveighing mightily against the corruption of juries [during the Glorious Revolution]”,[1] and he continued sitting as a Justice until his death from an apoplectic fit on 25 January 1694,[6] and was buried in Temple Church.

Vulgar almanacs glory in death sentences and executions, but I suppose one (1) is called for.

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