During this year a series of lectures was begun at the Institution by the Rev. Sydney Smith, which for fashionable attraction surpassed any courses that have ever been delivered there.
Mr. Horner thus wrote to Mr. J. A. Murray:
The Temple, November 15, 1804.
I suppose you know that Smith begins to lecture on Moral Philosophy next Saturday at the Royal Institution? You would be amused to hear the account he gives of his own qualifications for the task and his mode of manufacturing philosophy; he will do the thing very cleverly, I have little doubt, as to general manner, and he is sufficiently aware of all the forbearances to be observed. Profound lectures on metaphysics would be unsuitable to the place; he may do some good if he makes the subject amusing. He will contribute, like his other associates of the Institution, to make the real blue-stockings a little more disagreeable than ever and sensible women a little more sensible. It seems to me, for the interest of general conversation, that these subjects should not be quite so unknown to them as to be thought unintelligible pedantry if mentioned in their company; and the impertinence of those who set up as adepts is the price we must pay for this important acquisition. Your chemists and metaphysicians in petticoats are altogether out of nature—that is, when they make a trade or distinction of such pursuits—but when they take a little general learning as an accomplishment they keep it in very tolerable order. Tell me if I take this rightly. I know it is not well settled, and men of letters usually lean too much on one side. Good afternoon.
Mr. Horner wrote another letter to Mr. Thomas Thompson:
The Temple, November 21, 1804.
Our friend Sydney gave his first lecture on Saturday. I was not there, but all the accounts I have collected from different sorts of people agree in its favour, and that it took extremely well.
During the second course Mr. Horner wrote to Lady Mackintosh at Bombay:
The Temple, April 18, 1805.
We have all this winter had but two topics of conversation—Young Roscius and the lectures of the Right Reverend our Bishop of Mickleham.[27] His Lordship’s success has been beyond all possible conjecture—from six to eight hundred hearers; not a seat to be found, even if you go half-an-hour before the time. Nobody else, to be sure, could have executed such an undertaking with the least chance of this sort of success; for who else could make such a mixture of odd paradox, quaint fun, manly sense, liberal opinion, striking language? You must have had more than enough of the other great delight of the public—the Roscius. As it is the propensity of all superior minds to admire, I am sorry that this occasion has added another to my own proofs that I must place myself on a very low form; there never was such a rage except that for Sydney.
In the ‘Life of Sydney Smith’ Lady Holland mentions that Mr. Bernard obtained these lectures for the Institution. She says:
He obtained considerable increase of reputation by a course of lectures on Moral Philosophy, which Sir Thomas Bernard, who interested himself much about the Royal Institution, proposed to him to give. He continued to lecture for three successive years.