The fleeting nature of fame

Miss Williams Wynn, having surveyed the theatre of her day, is now turning her attention to reviewing religion with much the same approach. She's writing about the celebrated preacher of her day, the Scottish Rev Edward Irvine, who attracted crowds of the great and good to his church in Hatton Garden.

She speaks on the first visit, after hearing him speak for 20 minutes ...

Then he told us that the intention of the following discourse would be to show from the page of history what man had been through all ages, in all countries, without the light of revealed religion. My brother whispered me, 'We have been twenty-three minutes at it, and now the sermon is to begin.' I felt exactly with him, and yet after this expression, I can" fairly and truly say that the hour which followed appeared to me very short, though my attention was on the full stretch during the whole time.

But such is the nature of fame - I haven't been able to find one reference to the reverend on the web.