of friendship as I have done with you, and you know whom, at
Edinburgh."

On arriving in London, in the autumn of 1803, the Sydney Smiths lodged for
a while at 77 Upper Guilford Street, and soon afterwards established
themselves at 8 Doughty Street. Sydney's dearest friend, Francis
Horner,[23] had preceded him to London, and was already beginning to make
his mark at the Bar, without, apparently, abandoning his philosophical
pursuits. "He lives very high up in Garden Court, and thinks a good deal
about Mankind." But he could spare a thought for individuals as well as for
the race, and did a great deal towards securing his friend an introduction
into congenial society. Doughty Street was a legal quarter, and among those
with whom the Smiths soon made friends were Sir Samuel Romilly, James
Scarlett (afterwards Lord Abinger), and Sir James Mackintosh. To these were
added as time went on, Henry Grattan, Alexander Marcet, John William Ward
(afterwards Lord Dudley), Samuel Rogers, Henry Luttrell, "Conversation"
Sharp, and Lord Holland.

Sydney Smith's eldest brother Robert ("Bobus"[24]) had married Caroline
Vernon, Lord Holland's aunt. Sydney's politics were the politics of Holland
House. Lord Holland was always recruiting for the Liberal army, and an
Edinburgh Reviewer was a recruit worth capturing. So the hospitable doors
were soon thrown open to the young clergyman from Doughty Street, who
suddenly found himself a member of the most brilliant circle ever gathered
under an English roof. In old age he used to declare, to the amusement of
his friends, that as a young man he had been shy, but had wrestled with the
temptation and overcome it. As regards the master[25] of Holland House, it
was not easy to be shy in the presence of "that frank politeness which at
once relieved all the embarrassment of the youngest and most timid writer
or artist, who found himself for the first time among Ambassadors and