160 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



endeavored to adopt the very course which he had pre- 

 sented, and which I should endeavor still to follow. I 

 thought I perceived that something in his manner indicated 

 that he would have been quite as well pleased if I had not 

 in some measure anticipated his experience. He proved 

 himself a model professor, and fully entitled to act as a 

 mentor. 



The professorship of chemistry was, at the time of my 

 Edinburgh residence, very lucrative. The chair was so 

 ably filled, and the science so fully illustrated by experi- 

 ments, that the course drew a large audience, which, at 

 three guineas a ticket, probably gave him an income of 

 four thousand dollars or more, some said, five thousand. 

 He, with his brother, kept bachelor's hall in a handsome 

 house on Princes Street, in the New Town. In this house 

 I was received with hospitality, being one of a party of in- 

 vited guests, I believe students of the University, and 

 others, older gentlemen. Dr. Hope dressed and appeared 

 like other gentlemen, and bis conversation was easy and 

 polite. No lady appeared in the parlor or at the table ; it 

 was exclusively a party of men, and such parties are 

 never equally agreeable with those of which ladies form a 

 part. The famous Dr. Black, the predecessor of Dr. Hope, 

 was also a bachelor, and there was unfortunately among 

 gentlemen in this country too great a tendency towards 

 celibacy. An establishment must of course be maintained 

 at an expense approaching that demanded by a family, but 

 without its solaces and hoine-felt joys. At Dr. Hope's, this 

 evening, (Dec. 18th), I met a son of the celebrated Dr. Dar- 

 win, and a brother of the no less celebrated Maria Edge- 

 worth. As neither of the gentlemen conversed at all, I 

 had no opportunity to judge of their talents and attainments. 

 Mr. (or Dr.) Darwin was a man of large and massy frame. 

 At Dr. Hope's I was somewhat annoyed by the frequent 

 mention of my title. I should much rather have preferred 

 to pass simply as Mr., being sufficiently conscious that my 



