wever, was prodigious; all Albemarle Street blocked with
carriages, and such an uproar as I never remembered to have been excited
by any other literary impostor."

Leonard Horner wrote: "Nobody else, to be sure, could have executed such
an undertaking. For who could make such a mixture of odd paradox, quaint
fun, manly sense, Liberal opinions, and striking language?"

He used, like Charles Lamb, to give weekly suppers. Sir James Mackintosh
brought to one of these parties "a raw Scotch cousin, an ensign in a
Highland regiment. On hearing the name of his host he . . . said in an
audible whisper, 'Is that the great Sir Sudney?'" Mackintosh gave a hint
to Sydney, who "performed the part of the hero of Acre to perfection," to
the "torture of the other guests, who were bursting with suppressed
laughter." A few days later Sydney and his wife met Mackintosh and the
wonderful cousin in the street, to whom Sydney introduced his wife. The
Scotch youth didna' ken the great Sir Sudney was married. "Why, no,"
said Sir James, ". . . not exactly married; only an Egyptian slave. . . .
Fatima--you know--you understand." Mrs Smith was long known as Fatima.

With regard to Sydney's talk, his daughter speaks of "the multitude of
unexpected images which sprang up in his mind, and succeeded each other
with a rapidity that hardly allowed his hearers to follow him, but left
them panting and exhausted with laughter, to cry out for mercy." When he
met Mrs Siddons for the first time she "seemed determined to resist him,
and preserve her tragic dignity," but finally she fell into such a
"paroxysm of laughter . . . that it made quite a scene, and all the
company were alarmed."

In 1807 Sydney's first _Letter from Peter Plymley to his brother Abraham_
appeared. It was on the Irish Catholic question, and made a great
sensation--Government trying to discover the author, etc. Lord Murray
said, "After _Pascal's Letters_, it is the most instructive piece of
wisdom in the form of irony ever written, and had the most important and
lasting effects."

About the year 1806 he was presented to the living of Foston le Clay in
Yorkshire through Lord Holland's interest. He had to build a parsonage
"without experience or money," and to make a journey with family and
furniture "into the heart of Yorkshire--a process, in the year 1808, as
difficult as a journey to the back settlements of America now." He had,
moreover, to turn farmer, since the living