Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/14

 viii On the other hand patient study and the acquisition of knowledge were the keynotes of the life of Lord Webb Seymour, a well known figure in Edinburgh life during its palmy days in literature and science. Sydney Smith dedicated to him in terms of warm feeling the first editions of his sermons.

Lydia White was for many years the leading lady in London to entertain the "lions" of the day. She visited Walter Scott at Ashestiel, was remembered by Tom Moore when he was in Italy, and Sydney Smith drew from her the jest with which her name is still associated. Lord John Townshend desired no other epitaph than a record of his life-long friendship with Charles Fox. It was for that statesman's sake that he contested the representation of the university of Cambridge and the city of Westminster, and satirised Pitt and his followers in the Rolliad. I have now introduced the reader to the acquaintance of these eight persons. It rests with him to settle whether further knowledge of them shall draw him into friendship.

W. P. COURTNEY. November, 1909.