Reading Experience Database
1450-1945

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Record 13237

Reading Experience:

Evidence:
'I have just read Dugald Stewart's "Preliminary Dissertations". In the first place, it is totally clear of all his defects. No insane dread of misrepresentation; no discussion put off until another time, just at the moment it was expected, and would have been interesting; no unmanly timidity; less formality of style and cathedral pomp of sentence. The good, it would be trite to enumerate: - the love of human happiness and virtue, the ardour for the extension of knowledge, the command of fine language, happiness of allusion, varied and pleasing literature, tact, wisdom and moderation! Without these high qualities, we all know Stewart cannot write. I suspect he has misrepresented Horne Took, and his silence regarding Hartley is very censurable. I was amazingly pleased with his comparison of the universities to enormous hulks confined with mooring chains, everything flowing and progressing around them. Nothing can be more happy'.
Century: 1800-1849
Date: Until: 31 Dec 1816
Country: England
Time: n/a
Place: county: Yorkshire
   
Type of Experience (Reader):
silent aloud unknown
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown
Type of Experience (Listener):
solitary in company unknown
single serial unknown

Reader/Listener/Reading Group:

Reader:Sydney Smith
Age Adult (18-100+)
Gender Male
Date of Birth 3 Jun 1771
Socio-economic group: Clergy (includes all denominations)
Occupation: Clergyman
Religion: Christian
Country of origin: England
Country of experience: England
Listeners present if any:
(e.g. family, servants, friends, workmates)
n/a
Additional comments: n/a

 

Text Being Read:

Author: Dugald Stewart
Title: [Dissertation printed in the Encyclopaedia Britannica]
Genre: Philosophy
Form of Text: Print: Book
Publication details: n/a
Provenance: unknown

 

Source Information:

Record ID: 13237  
Source - Print  
  Author: n/a
  Editor: Nowell C. Smith
  Title: The Letters of Sydney Smith
  Place of Publication: Oxford
  Date of Publication: 1953
  Vol: I
  Page: 272
  Additional comments: n/a

Citation: Nowell C. Smith (ed.), The Letters of Sydney Smith (Oxford, 1953), I, p. 272, http://can-red-lec.library.dal.ca/Arts/reading/recorddetails2.php?id=13237, accessed: 29 March 2024

Additional comments:

Letter to Francis Horner

 

 

Reading Experience Database version 2.0.  Page updated: 27th Apr 2016  3:15pm (GMT)