220 THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



velvet ; but lie was made to observe that the cap was usually earned in tho 

 hand, and that it was rather the sign of a dignity than a covering for the head. 

 '^ These difliculties being overcome," continues Mr. Babbage, " the doctor came 

 one morning to breakfast with me. We were alone, and, after breakfast, I 

 recited the ordinary forms of a levee, and, placing some chairs to represent the 

 different officers of the reception room, I stationed the doctor in the midst of 

 the circle to represent the King. I then said to my friend that I would repre- 

 sent a greater man than the King; that I would personate Dr. Dalton ; tlx^t 

 I would enter at the farthest door, make the tour of the circle, and bow before 

 his ]\Iajesty; and that thus he would have an idea of the ceremony in which ho 

 was to take a part. In passing in front of the third chair, before aniving at 

 the King, I deposited my card on the chair, apprising the doctor that this was 

 the post of the lord in attendance who took the cards and handed them to the 

 succeeding officer, who announces them to the King. In passing before the 

 philosopher I kissed his hand, and, moving afterwards around the rest of the circle 

 of chairs, I thus gave him his first lesson as a courtier." A second rehearsal 

 having taken place, Dalton made his entrance at Saint James's in the midst of 

 an assembly in which figured several of the high dignitaries of the Anglican 

 church. "I intimated to the bishop of Gloucester," adds Mr. Babbage, "that 

 I had beside me a Quaker, but at the same time assured him that my peaceable 

 friend was far from meditating any attempt against the Church. The effect was 

 electric on tho whole party ; Episcopal eyes had never witnessed such a specta- 

 cle in such a society, and I am not without apprehension that, notwithstanding 

 my assurances, some of the prelates may have thought the Church seriously in 

 danger." As to Dalton, he came out of the affair very creditably. The King 

 addressed to him several questions, to which he replied without being at all 

 disconcerted. 



XII. — Course of moral philosophy by syd^tey smith. 



Sydney Smith, (born 1768, died February 22, 1845,) one of the founders of 

 the Edinburgh licview, whom we must not confound with the celebrated admiral 

 of the same name, arrived in London towards the close of 1803. He quickly 

 became noted as a preacher, and obtained great consideration in the highest soci- 

 ety. The directors of the Institution were at that time, as they have never 

 ceased to be, on the watch for all talents capable of reflecting lustre on their 

 establishment; they invited Smith to give a course of moral philosophy, embrac- 

 ing all the operations of the mind. " I did not know," said he,* forty years 

 afterwards, " the first words of moral philosophy, but I had need of 200 pounds 

 to furnish my house. The success was prodigious." Smith is pleased to exag- 

 gerate liis ignorance. He had passed five years at Edinburgh, and had enjoyed 

 opportunities of hearing Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown in their favorite 

 science. 



The first course commenced in November, in 1804, the second was delivered 

 in the spring of 1805, and the third the following year. Conversation, during 

 the winter of 1804-1805, turned scarcely on anything else but the young 

 Roscius and his lectures. He had from 600 to 800 auditors, [Quarterlij Heview, 

 No. xcvii.) Yet, if we are to believe the celebrated Review founded by Sydney 

 Smith, it would be impossible to conceive an assembly less prepared to compre- 

 hend the mysteries of the understanding than a metropolitan audience at that 

 epoch.t 



* Letter addressed to Dr. Whewell in 184.'?. Quarterly Reciete, No. xcvii. 



t Edinbiirgit Review, No. xci. The lectures of Sydney Smith have been published in 1849, 

 at Loudon, under tl;e title : EUmmtary Sketches of Mural Fkilosuphy, delicered at the Royal 

 Institution, in the years 1804, ]8U5, and 18Ut). 



