Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham on the subject of the Irish
Catholics.

These letters fell, we are told, like sparks on a heap of gunpowder.
All London, and soon all England, was alive to the sound reason
recommended by a lively wit. Sydney Smith lived to be recognised as
first among the social wits, and it was always the chief praise of
his wit that wisdom was the soul of it. Peter Plymley's letters,
and Sydney Smith's articles on the same subject in The Edinburgh
Review were the most powerful aids furnished by the pen to the
solution of the burning question of their time. Lord Murray called
the Plymley letters "after Pascal's letters the most instructive
piece of wisdom in the form of irony ever written." Worldly wealth
came later; but in wit, wisdom, and kindly helpful cheerfulness,
from youth to age, Sydney Smith's life was rich.

H. M.



LETTERS ON THE SUBJECT OF THE CATHOLICS.
TO MY BROTHER ABRAHAM,
WHO LIVES IN THE COUNTRY.
BY PETER PLYMLEY.



LETTER I.