Salisbury; accosted by few human beings; shunned by all who loved social
life. But the probation was not long; and after being nearly destroyed
by a thunder-storm in one of his rambles, he quitted Salisbury Plain,
after two years, for a more genial scene.

There was an hospitable squire, a Mr. Beach, living in Smith's parish;
the village of Netherhaven, near Amesbury. Mr. Beach had a son; the
quiet Sundays at the Hall were enlivened by the curate's company at
dinner, and Mr. Beach found his guest both amusing and sensible, and
begged him to become tutor to the young squire. Smith accepted; and went
away with his pupil, intending to visit Germany. The French Revolution
was, however, at its height. Germany was impracticable, and 'we were
driven,' Sydney wrote to his mother, 'by stress of politics, into
Edinburgh.'

This accident,--this seeming accident,--was the foundation of Sydney
Smith's opportunities; not of his success, for that his own merits
procured, but of the direction to which his efforts were applied. He
would have been eminent, wherever destiny had led him; but he was thus
made to be useful in one especial manner; 'his lines had, indeed, fallen
in pleasant places.'

Edinburgh, in 1797, was not, it is almost needless to say, the Edinburgh
of 1860. An ancient, picturesque, high-built looking city, with its
wynds and closes, it had far more the characteristics of an old French
_ville de province_ than of a northern capital. The foundation-stone of
the new College was laid in 1789, but the building was not finished
until more than forty years afterwards. The edifice then stood in the
midst of fields and gardens. 'Often.' writes Lord Cockburn, 'did we
stand to admire the blue and yellow crocuses rising through the clean