“I mix’d 4 of Holland gin with 8 of olive oil, and stirr’d them well together.  I then added 4 of nitric acid.  A violent ebullition ensued.  Nitrous oether, as I suppos’d, was generated, and in about four hours the oil became perfectly concrete, white and hard as tallow.”

To these scientific pastimes were soon added some more professional activities.  The Episcopalians of Edinburgh at this time worshipped in Charlotte Chapel, Rose Street, which was sold in 1818 to the Baptists.  The incumbent was the Rev. Archibald Alison,[16] who wrote a treatise on “Taste” and ministered in one of the ugliest buildings in the world.  The arrival in Edinburgh of a clever young man in English Orders was an opportunity not to be neglected, and Sydney Smith was often invited to preach in Charlotte Chapel.  Writing to Mr. Hicks-Beach, he says:—­

    “I have the pleasure of seeing my audience nod approbation while they
    sleep.”

And again:—­

    “The people of Edinburgh gape at my sermons.  In the middle of an
    exquisite address to Virtue, beginning ‘O Virtue!’ I saw a rascal
    gaping as if his jaws were torn asunder.”

But this, though perhaps it may have perplexed the worthy squire to whom it was addressed, is mere self-banter.  Sydney’s preaching attracted some of the keenest minds in Edinburgh.  It was fresh, practical, pungent; and, though rich in a vigorous and resounding eloquence, was poles asunder from the rhetoric of which “O Virtue!” is a typical instance.

So popular were these sermons at Charlotte Chapel that in 1800 the preacher ventured to publish a small volume of them, which was soon followed by a second and enlarged edition.  This book of sermons is dedicated to Lord Webb Seymour[17]—­“because I know no man who, in spite of the disadvantages of high birth, lives to more honourable and commendable purposes than yourself.”

The preface to the book is a vigorous plea for greater animation in preaching, a wider variety of topics, and a more direct bearing on practical life, than were then usual in the pulpits of the Church of England.

“Is it wonder,” he asks, “that every semi-delirious sectary, who pours forth his animated nonsense with the genuine look and voice of passion, should gesticulate away the congregation of the most profound and learned divine of the Established Church, and in two Sundays preach him bare to the very sexton?  Why are we natural everywhere but in the pulpit?  No man expresses warm and animated feelings anywhere else, with his mouth alone, but with his whole body; he articulates with every limb, and talks from head to foot with a thousand voices.  Why this holoplexia on sacred occasions alone?  Why call in the aid of paralysis to piety?  Is it a rule of oratory to balance the style against the subject, and to handle the most sublime truths in the dullest language and the driest manner?  Is sin to be taken from men, as Eve was from Adam,