My lectures are gone to the dogs, and are utterly forgotten. I knew nothing of moral philosophy, but I was thoroughly aware that I wanted £200 to furnish my house. The success, however, was prodigious; all Albemarle-street blocked up with carriages, and such an uproar as I never remember to have been excited by any other literary imposture. Every week I had a new theory about conception and perception; and supported by a natural manner, a torrent of words, and an impudence scarcely credible in this prudent age. Still, in justice to myself, I must say there were some good things in them. But good and bad are all gone. By ‘moral philosophy’ you mean, as they mean at Edinburgh, mental philosophy; i.e. the faculties of the mind, and the effects which our reasoning powers and our passions produce upon the actions of our lives.
I think the University uses you and us very ill, in keeping you so strictly at Cambridge. If Jupiter could desert Olympus for twelve days to feast with the harmless Ethiopians, why may not the Vice-Chancellor commit the graduating, matriculating world for a little time to the inferior deities, and thunder and lighten at the tables of the Metropolis?
I hope you like Horner’s ‘Life.’ It succeeds extremely well here. It is full of all the exorbitant and impracticable views so natural to very young men at Edinburgh; but there is great order, great love of knowledge, high principle and feelings, which ought to grow and thrive in superior minds.
| 488 | MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. |
Our kind regards to Mrs. Whewell. Ever, my dear Sir, sincerely yours,
