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^TON AK.T) D<.tUGLA8. 88, FHINOES ST1IE15T.
• AND AfACMTLLAN ANU t'^.,

5oS

MEMOIR

GEORGE WILSON

M.D. F,R.S.E.

REOIim PKOFESSOR UF TCCHNULOOY IN THE VNIVEHSITY OF EblNBUHOH,
AND OtRECTOR OF THF. INDUSTRIAL Ml'SEl'M i.ir dCOTI.ANIi.

BY HIS 8IHTER,

JESSIE AITKEN WILSON.

EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS, 88, PRINCES STREET.

AND MACMILLAN AND CO.,
Honbon anD €amlir(tigr.

MDCCCLX.

200

C0 mfi ISot^tr,

THESE MEMORIALS OP THE PAST

ARE

AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.

' BLESSED ARE THEY WHO ARB CALLED TO THE MARRIAGE SUPPER

OK THE LAMB.'

PREFACE.

The following Memoir has been undertaken at the urgent
solicitation of friends. Dreading the temptations to partial —
and therefore untruthful — representation, to which relatives are
exposed in attempting to portray the character of the objects
of their love, I at first resolutely declined to be the Biographer
of my brother. It was only when one to whom the public
instinctively looked with hope, the Eev. Dr. Cairns, expressed
reluctantly, but decisively, his inability to undertake the sacred
task, that my scruples were overcome; and the result is now
before the reader.

While an honest and earnest attempt has been made through-
out after truthful simplicity of narration, all expression of
personal opinion has been as far as possible avoided. In fact,
the mass of letters at my disposal has made the Life in great
part an autobiography.

I have to acknowledge, with much gratitude, assistance re-
ceived from the scientific friends whose names appear as contri-
butors to the volume, and also the great kindness with which
they and others have placed letters and private papei-s freely at
my service.

To my brother. Dr. Daniel Wilson, I am indebted for hearty
co-operation and assistance. The proof-sheets have been sub-

Vlll

PREFACE.

mitted to him, and to others fully competent to judge of the
representation given, and now go forth with their sanction and
approval.

May He who has given strength to complete a record, written
under the shadow of heavy grief, be pleased to add His abun-
dant blessing, and to illustrate afresh one of the laws of His
kingdom : " That which thou sowest is not quickened except it

die."

J. A. W.

Elm Cottage,
Edinbvbob, December 1860.

■Jr.-

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER L

Homo and Family Influences — Death of Brothers and Sisters— Early Love
for Books and Animals— Beminiscences by his brother Daniel— Holiday
Excursions— Orphan Cousins join the Family Circle — Juvenile Society —
Recollections by School Companicns— No Coward— A General Favourite
— Impressions on Friends — Leaves the High School,

PAon

1-31

CHAPTER IL

Chooses Medicine as a Profession — Enters on Apprenticeship in Laboratory
of Royal Infirmary — Impressions of Hospital Life — First Surgical Opera-
tion — Kindness to Patients — Attends Medical Classes — Member of Zeta-
lethic Society— Dr. Hope, Professor of Chemistry— British Association
holds its first meeting in Edinburgh — L-jtters to Mr. Nelson — Death of
Twin-Brother — Begins to keep a Diary — Sacredness of the Body — Power
of Coaxing — Bulwer's ' Last Days of Pompeii ' — Thoughts on the Resurrec-
tion—Professor Graham— Hopes of a Gold Medal disappointed — Autumn
Excursion — Last year of Medical Study — Diagnostic Society — Paper on
Iodine— Obtains Degree as Surgeon — Feelings of the Dying — Deficiencies
in Ladies' Education 32-91

CHAPTER IIL

His brother Daniel goes to London— Holiday— Walks twenty-eight miles —
Enters Professor Christison's Laboratory as Assistant — Laboratory Tales
—Medical Pun — Illness of a Sister and a Friend — Private Lectures on
Chemistry — Story of a Hat — Advantage of being able to speak Scotch —
Snow-ball Riot of 1888 — Contributions to the ' Maga' — Enthusiasm for
Chemistry — Correspondence with absent Brother— Devout Aspirations-
Contributions to Ladies' Albums — Disinclination to Medical Practice —
Little Encouragement to Prosecute Chemistry— Passes First Examination
for Drgree of M.D. — Lines to a Soap-Bubblc — Dispensary Practice —
Private Laboratory — A Troubled Night— Goes to London by Sea, . 92-160

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER IV.

I'Aae

Becomes Laboratory Assistant to Professor Graham, London — David Living-
stone a Class-mate — Want of Locality — Home Correspondence — Shak-
spere — Steam Balloon — Chemical Pun — Ladies' Dress — Origin of the
Snowdrop — Bottle Imp — Mermaids' Tears — Thesis — Temporary Loss of
Soul — Death of his cousin Catherine— Return Home — Harvey's ' Cast-
away,' Scott's ' Alchemist,' and Allan's 'Slave Market' — Supplement to
Thesis — Lines to a Polyanthus — Adventures of a Hat — A Shirtless Doctor
— Fancies of a Monomaniac — Obtains Degree of M.D. — Congratulatory
Letter from his cousin James — Capping — Thesis commended, . 161-211

CHAPTER V.

Tries to get something to do — Dream of Rowland Hill's — Attends Meet-
ing of British Association in Birmingham— thence to London — Pleasant
Journey Home — A Week at Penicuik — About to abandon the Rhyming
Business — Becomes a Member of the Brotherhood of Tnith — John M'Lure
— Sketch of the Oineromathic Brotherhood — its Distinguished Members —
Makes New Friends — Presidentship of the Physical Society — Thinks of
commencing as Teacher of Chemistry in Edinburgh— Whence came the
Ball? — Edward Forbes— Rhymes for Mrs. Lillie — Prefers Edinburgh to
London — Pedestrian Tour in Prospect, 212-247

CHAPTER VI.

Stirling Head-Quarters — Twenty Miles' Walk — Attends Meeting of British
Association in Glasgow — Returns Home seriously ill — First Course of
Lectures begun while scarcely Convalescent— At once a Favourite Lec-
turer — Opinion of Edward Forbes — Dr. Guthrie and the Slide — Transmi-
gration of Souls — Permission to select a Wife — Visits London in 1840 —
Severe Inflammation in One Eye — Returns Home — Second Attack of
Inflamed Eye— Session of 1840-41 — Opens in weakened Health — Delights
of a Concert — Suffers from Rheumatism — Illness of his sister Mary —
Lectures on Animal Chemistry— Unable to Walk — Sir Charles Bell's
Death — Compelled to relinquish Classes from Bad Health — Unable to
relish Poetry — A Disembodied Soul — Ordered to the Seaside — Finds
Affliction beneficial, though terrible in its nature — Letters from Seafield
—Health not improved— A foolish Tale, 248-292

CHAPTER VII.

Amputation of Foot — Religious Experience — The Peace that passeth under-
standing — Suspense — Rcf every — Gaiety of Hearl, — Sitnilia similibiis
curaniwr— His Father's Sudden Death — Removal to Brown Square — Pul-
monary Disease begins — Resumes Professional Duties — School of Arts'

Class — A Spi
raents — First
James Rassell
with Indepenc

i Systematic and (

; Lectures of liti

of a Candle — <

Chemistry — L

; Electricity anc

The Grievance

Love of Pupils —
of the Hyacint!
tages of not be
— Death of his
Christ more fi
Advantage of
chemy — Trave
— What makes
his cousin John
Hand — Camera
Thoughts in Sii
Lectures — A T
room — Removei

Health Feeble— I
Stories — Hugh '.
tor of Scottish
Melrose — Profei
Argyle's Satisfa
Cushion — Inauf
— Works harde
Wanted a Monli
Bridge of Allan-
as inferred from
A Private and C
Cap — Various I
Dublin in 1857
The " Graphic :

CONTENTS.

fAQU

Class — A Sprained Knee — Daily Life — Repeats Transmutation Experi-
ments — First Visit to Church — Able to walk alone — Illness of his cousin
James Russell — His Last Days and Death — Pet Terrier — Baptism — Union
with Independent Church—' Sleepy Hollow,' . . . 293-322

CHAFfER VIII.

Systematic and Occasional Lectures — The Philosophical Institution — Single
Lectures of little use — Helps Ragged Schools, etc., willingly — Chemistry
of a Candle — Contributions to Science— Colour-Blindness — Text-Book of
Chemistry — Lives of Cavendish and Reid — Lines to Dr. John Reid —
Electricity and the Electric Telegraph ; and the Chemistry of the Stars —
The Grievance of the University Tests, 323-349

CHAPTER IX.

Love of Pupils — Presentation of Balance — Lines to the Stethoscope— Sleep
of the Hyacinth — Wings of the Dove and the Eagle — One of the Advan-
tages of not being able to Write your Name — Friendship of Lord Jeffrey
— Death of his sister Mary — Lines to a deceased Terrier — Desire to serve
Christ more fully — Letters to Invalids — Lecture to Medical Students —
Advantage of a Creed — ' Athanasius Contra Mundum' — Spiritual Al-
chemy — Travelled little — Prostration in Spring — ' George's Nonsense'
— WhatmakesPatriots— Holiday Times — Crystal Palace, 1851 — Death of
his cousin John Russell — Illness — Broken arm — Letters written with left
Hand — Camera Obscura — Juvenile Wives — Bearing in general Society —
Thoughts in Sickness — Life between Seventeen and Thirty-two — Curtain
Lectures — A Troublesome Tenant — Letters to Invalids — Hymn for Sick-
room—Removes to Elm Cottage — How to help Absent Ones, . , 350-399

CHAPTER X.

Health Feeble — Death of Edward Forbes — Lines to his Memory — Jacobite
Stories — Hugh Miller — Alarming Illness — An Epitaph — Appointed Direc-
tor of Scottish Industrial Museum — More Sure Hope in Christ — Visit to
Melrose — Professor of Technology — Definition of Technology— Duke of
Argyle's Satisfaction with the New Chair — Petition for a Gown — A Fairy
Cushion — Inaugural Lecture, ' What is Technology ?' — Syllabus of Course
— Works harder than ever — Lectures and Addresses to various Bodies —
Wanted a Monkey — Nearer to Christ ! — Practises saying No — Changes at
Bridge of Allan — General Knowledge — Lecture ' On the Character of God
as inferred from Human Anatomy' — The Five Gateways of Knowledge —
A Private and Confidential Letter— To be Hanged in Red Tape — Begging
Cap — Various Lectures and Addresses — Visits London, Manchester, and
Dublin in 1857 — Attack of Splenitis — Lecture to Merchant Compmy —
The " Graphic Industrial Arts"— Finds himself Forty, . . . 400-451

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER XI.

PAGE

Proposed as Candidate for the Chemistry Chair in the University of Edin-
burgh — Withdraws from the Arena — Increase of Salary — Visits St.
Andrews — Holidays at Innerleithen — Introductory Lecture ' On the
Progress of the Telegraph' — Threatened Attack of Erysipelas — Profit from
hearing detached Lectures — Four Days at Bridge of Allan — TubalCain
— -A Sabbatic Letter— Presides at Burns' Centenary Meeting— Beginning
and ending in Christ— Eighth Course of Lectures to the Philosophical
Institution — Pleasant to do the most Humble Service for God — Visits
London professionally — A Fortnight in the Country — Holidays at Burnt-
island — British Association Meeting at Aberdeen — Removes to Laboratory
and Lecture Room within the University Walls — Crowded Audiences at
Opening Lectures — Severe Cold — Pleurisy and Inflammation — After Four
Days' Illness, falls " asleep in Jesua" — A Song of the Night, . 452-491

CHAPTER XII.

Universal Mourning — Love of Dependants — ' Paper, Pen, and Ink' — Bi-igra-
phical Notices — Public Funeral — Monumental Cross — Funeral Sermon —

Farewell,

492-506

APPENDICES.

Appendix A. — Estimate of Literary Character, by Dr. Gladstone, 509-522

Appendix B. — The Old Calton Burial Ground, by Professor Daniel

Wilson, ....... 523,624

Appendix C. — List of Published Works, .... 525-529

INDEX.

CHAPTEE I.

HOME AND FAMILY INFLUENCES.

" Household treaHures 1 household treasures !

Are they jewels rich and rare ;
Or gems of rarest workmanship ;

Or gold and silver ware ?
Ask the mother as she gazes

On her little ones at play :
Household treasures 1 household treasures !

Happy children — ye are they."

" They grew in beauty side by side ;
They filled one home with glee."

In the year 1812, on the 2d of June, a new household was
formed in the city of Edinburgh. The small group of friends
assembled at the wedding little thought that any beyond them-
selves would look back on that day with interest. So it ever is :
we take part in what seems an every-day occurrence, and find
afterwards, that, like the prophets of old, we have been by
word and act heralding wondrous things, sowing seed that
shall never cease to grow and propagate itself ; uttering words
whose echoes shall resound throughout the eternal ages.

The bride, Janet Aitken, the youngest of a large family, was
a native of Greenock, where her father lived and carried on
business as land-surveyor. So fragile was Janet as a child,
that it was not expected she could reach maturity, and her
mother tried to prepare her for early death. But the race is
not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong ; and the tender
mother was the first to go, leaving her desolate little girl to

MKMOIU OF GKORGE WIIiSON.

CHAP. I.

the chill of an unsympathizing world, and disposed to envy
every one who had a mother. Janet, at the time of her mar-
riage, of which we now speak, had passed through years of grief
and change, and only a sister and a brother remained of her
family circle. Both w^ere married, and home had long been to
her a word of little meaning.

The bridegroom, Archibald Wilson, had, a few years before,
come from Argylesljire to settle in business in Edinburgh, and
thus, to each, "oui* own romantic town" had few personal
associations. Yet at this, their wedding-time, how fresh and
beautiful it looked ! In the clear mornings and long evenings
to watch the Firth and the distant hills peeping in and out in
the varying lights ; to feast the eye on the crags and battle-
ments of the dear old castle in its nest of green, with pictures
of living beauty to refresh the eye at every turn ! Did it not
say to their young hearts, " Forget also thine own people, and
thy father's house," an, ' in me thou shalt have a home dearer
than those of the past ?

The first pledge of this unspoken promise was given in the
birth of a daughter in the spring of the following year. When
Mary was a year old, there came a fair little brother again to
open the fountains of love ; and, when John was nearly two
years of age, the group received a fresh addition in the arrival of
a second boy, who was named Daniel, and is the only son who
has survived till now.*

The year 1817 opened in sorrow, for it found the heavy hand
of sickness on this little band ; and before its first month closed,
Johnny had ceased his sweet prattle, and had gone to learn the
angels* songs. The first deposit of the family treasures was thus
placed beyond reach of the spoiler, and since then, from time
to time, the store has been added to. Like the dreamer's ladder,
a pathway was formed, by which the yearning hearts left behind
have paid many a visit to the happy circle above, and been re-
freshed by the assurance from the Saviour's lips, " I will come
again and receive you unto myself."

About a year after this, on the 21st of February 1818, twin

» Dr. Daniel Wilson, Professor of History and English Literature, University Col-
lege, Toronto, Canada.

1817-32.

BIKTH 0? TWIN BOYS.

boys were born. It seemed to the mother, that God, having
seen the desolation of her heart in the dreary months gone by,
had, in His compassionate love, sent not only a son to increase
the little flock, but also one to take the place of his brother in
heaven. So while a new name, George, was given to the elder
of the two, the other received the name of John.

From the first the boys were unlike each other, — John dark,
with black eyes; George fair. George was so small a baby,
that tiny garments had to be made expressly for him, and for
many years after they were kept as cu.iosities, from their
miniature dimensions.

A proof of this may be Vv'orth noting. When he was five
months old, a lady, walking with her husband on the street,
stopped him to look at this baby in his nurse's arms. "Did
you ever," she asked, " see a child of two months with so intel-
ligent a face ? " His energy and vivacity surpassed his brother's,
who manifested a delicacy of constitution. George's Highland
nurse decided he showed more "spirit" than any of the chil-
dren, and she was very proud and fond of him in consequence.
His paternal grandmother was one of the Auchinellan Camp-
bells, of Argyleshire, and to the Highland blood Jean attributed
her nursling's liveliness.

When the twins were two years old, a little brother joined
them, but only to secure his heavenly inheritance. Two days
were all he spent on earth. Over the next five years the sha-
dows gathered. Two sisters and a brother were born. Of these,
Jeanie died when four years old, Margaret lived three months,
and Peter, the second of the name, one year.

' My Lord hath need of these flowerets gay,'

The Reaper said and smiled ;
' Dear tokens of the earth are they, , , , ,

Where He was once a child.'

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers slie most did love !

She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above."

What influence these sad events had on George we cannot

MEMOIR OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

tell, but, undoubtedly, impressions for life were made during
those years. At five be perhaps learned the first lesson of death
and immortality when his baby sister slept her last sleep ; and
as he had attained the age of seven when the sister of four
years, and the brother of one, were taken away within two
months of each other, he was capable of realizing much that our
Heavenly Father only teaches in those hours of darkness. In
manhood and later years, he occasionally alluded to them in
such a thrilling way, as made one feel that through all his life
they had been present with him ; but, evidently, the topic was
one not to be dwelt upon. " I saw," he wrote in the last year
of his life, "in early childhood or boyhood, so many little
brothers and sisters die, that the darkness of those scenes, and
the anguish of father and mother, made an indelible impression
upon me." It was his belief that the human mind loses no
impression ever made on it, and that the events of infancy,
though they cannot be recalled, are not effaced, and will pro-
bably, like wonders revealed in a palimpsest, come up for review
in the future life. His friends will remember many a pleasant
wish for the autobiography of a baby, expressed both in public
and private.^ It may be that the distress he ever felt, on hear-
ing of or witnessing suffering in young children, originated in
those early experiences.

But though so soon reaping the benefits of a yoke borne in
youth, let it not be supposed that his was a gloomy childhood.
Far otherwise ; his keen susceptibilities were open to joy as fully
as to sorrow. His active, healthy frame, in boyish pursuits and
games with his brothers, made life itself a pleasure ; warm affec-
tions bound him closely to each one in the home circle ; his
mother's face was in his eyes the most sweet and beautiful the

1 " I have always thought and eveu declared in my lectures, tliat the most won-
derful of all books would be the Autobiography of a Baby ; but since, I fear, that
you will not be able to coax either Freddy or Malcolm to make your fortune by writ-
ing it, I go on to suggest that in the life that is to come, our memory of the past will
go back over all our earthly reminiscences, not merely over all that we grown folks
recall, but over all that we have forgotten, which is at present most vivid to your
dear bairns. We shall mount to the origin of our individual lives, and trace to their
dim beginnings our first conceptions of space and time, of our own individuality,
and of other existences ; of an inner consciousness and an outer univeise."

1817 .12.

MATERNAL INFLUENCE.

earth contained ; and the peculiar love of twins for each other
was felt by him in aii its force. To this has been attributed
" something of that wonderful power of attaching himself, and
being personally loved, which waK "o of his strongest, as it was
one of his most winning powers."

His mother is " regarded by all who knew her as a woman of
rare natural gifts, who zealously fostered in her children the
love of knowledge which they inherited." ' " Any one who has
had the privilege to know him, and to enjoy his bright and
rich and beautiful mind, will not need to go far to learn where
it was that her son George got all of that genius and worth and
delightfulness which is transmissible. She verifies what is so
often and so truly said of the mothers of remarkable men.
She was his first and best alma mater, and iii many senses his
last, for her influence over him continued through life." ^

It was a custom of his mother's to pay each night a visit to
the little cot of her twin boys, and repeat over them Jacob's
blessing, " The God which fed me all my life long, unto this
day, the Angel that redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads I "
So fascinating was this to George, that in mature years he
has told a friend how he used to lie awake watching for it,
pretending to be asleep that he might enjoy it to the
full. In the family, this blessing seemed in consequence set
apart, as it were, to the twin" and inseparably associated with
them.

Realizing that education is the developing and training of
every faculty of mind and body, the children were encouraged
in all pursuits likely to further this. A healthy moral and reli-
gious atmosphere surrounded them ; their individual tastes and
powers were carefully watched and elicited, and a kindly confi-
dence encouraged. About the age of four, each one was sent to
an elementary school, and the boys afterwards to that of Mr.
Knight, a teacher well known for his care in laying the solid
substratum so often neglected in schools of greater pretension.

' 'Iloric Subsecivte,' Second Series. Article, "Dr. George Wiljon."

* * North British Review ' for February 186C. Article, " Colour Blindness."

» ' HoRB SubaeciviB,' p. 104.

MEMOIR OF OEOROR WILSON.

f'lTAP. r.

On his first appearance at tlie annual public school examination,
Geoi-ge recited the ' Newcastle Apothecaiy ,' receiving at its close
the encomium, " Well done, Polus I " Hence the name we find
him appropriating in the following letter, believed to be the
first he penned ; and in which it will be seen he already parodies
an early and lasting favourite, " John Gilpin." It was written
while from home, during the vacation immediately following his
recitation, when he was not above seven, and is addressed,
" My mother, Edinburgh."

" My dear Mother, — We left Edinburgh on a very disagree-
able day ; we arrived safe and well. I take a bowl of whey
porridge every morning. Bolus takes a drink of milk every
morning and evening. You will receive six peas-bannocks on
Saturday with the box. Janet Brown is going to make you a
sweet-milk cheese.

" Now let us sing, long
Live tliti King, and
Bolus, long live he ;
And when he next
Does say this piece, may
I be there to see.

— " Your affectionate son.

George Wilson."

As a specimen of progress, a letter may be given of a later
year, while at a farmhouse in Peeblesshire, where he saw much
that excited wonder in a town-bred boy. The wide kitchen-
chimney, where, sitting on the seats in its sides, he could look
up and see the stars, was one of the novelties never forgotten.
The letter is partly to his sister Mary, and partly to his mother.
Mary, it will be remembered, was five years his senior, and was,
like himself^ a child of unusual promise.

" ROMANNO Mains, September 15th.

"Cara Maria, — Tua epistola venit mihi sex-dies. Vides
scripsi te secundum oras. Scribam te major epistola post. Epis-
tola abs Matre venit ad Nancy. Spero ut Mater et mea parva
Soror sunt melior. — Ab tuo Frater, Georgius Wilson."

Send roe two or three old pill-boxes to put the insects in.

1817 38.

EAKLY LOVE FOR HOOKS.

I have got a grasshopper with a red head, but it had the nns-

fortune to lose one of its lugs, which are red also.

,, " George Wilson."

" Dear Mother, — Little Robert is now well again, and enjoys
the country very much. Grandfather is very grateful for what
you sent him ; tell Mary to address the letters Romanno Mains,
Noblehouse, and not Peebles, as the last one was addressed. —
From your little Dosy,* 1828."

The sister alluded to in the Latin epistle had been born two
months previously. Coming as she did after the death of four,
her welcome was a warm one, and children and parents looked
on her as a precious gift. She and a sister two years younger
still survive, and reference will occasionally be made to them.
The elder one received her mother's name, Janet or Jessie, and
the younger that of the dearly loved Jeanie, who had " fallen
asleep" three years before.

Even at this early age, George's love for books was manifest.
Jessie's nurse, in speaking of the family at that time, has often
summed up his pursuits in the following words : — " Oh, as for
George, he was aye to be seen in a corner, wi' a book as big's
himsel* ;" probably a volume of the first edition of the ' Encyclo-
paedia Britannica,' a great favourite in those days. She does
acknowledge, however, that he took a daily walk with her and
the baby, when telling stories and listening to them was the
favourite occupation. He has often told with glee how his
mother, remarking his diligent study of Brown's ' Dictionary of
the Bible,' at last, after silent rejoicings, expressed to him her
satisfaction at his choice. " Oh, mother," was the reply, looking
up with a bright face, " I am making a list of the precious
stones !"

His first attempt at rhyme gave her pleasure from the feel-
ings that prompted it. A friend sharing a love for natural
histoiy in common with him and his brothers, had instructed
them in the art of impaling live insects as specimens. It
much grieved her that boys should learn cruelty so early, and

' A pet imnip, u><ed tliiough lifi- in writing to liit voung t sisters.

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

she spoke earnestly to them of the sacredness of life, how easy
it was to take it away, but how far beyond the power of any
created being to restore it. George showed the fruit of this
lesson, by coming joyously one day to tell of a butterfly he had
saved from drowning in a pool of water. One life saved seemed
in the child's estimation to atone in part for those taken away.
On going to bed his mother found a scrap of paper under her
pillow, containing in verse the butterfly's thanks to its preserver,
" The tender heart which was afterwards to plead so earnestly
with medical students against the cruelty of reckless vivisection,
was here revealed !"^

More pleasantly was humanity cultivated by the encourage-
ment of pets of all kinds. Hedgehogs reposed in undiscover-
able corners in the daytime, and appeared at twilight to be fed.
Tortoises made the recesses of the old-fashioned grates their
bed-chambers, coming out to be regaled with grapes and dande-
lion leaves. In short, it was an understood fact, that no pet
could come amiss to the household, so strongly did a love for
animals pervade the family. One favourite, at the time we now
speak of, was a large rough bull-terrier, of no great beauty.
Duff had been intended to act as watch- dog, but he soon came
to the conclusion that watching his master's children was the
duty nearest his heart, if not his conscience, and he was skilful
in evading all other demands on his talents. Jessie, when able
to walk alone, liked nothing better than to go to sleep with her
little arms round his soft fat neck. One day an alarm was
raised that baby was missing. In vain every room was seai^hed,
till by chance some one looked underneath a table, where she
lay sleeping in the favourite fashion. Duff waiting in motionless
patience till it should please his little mistress to release him.
By the death of a maternal aunt, four cousins were about this
time left orphans, and became domesticated with the Wilsons.

1 'Maomillan's Magazine/ January 18C0.

In a letter, dated Feb. 22, 1855, the following sentence occurs:— "I had the
happiness, when a boy, to have a mother who sedulously encouraged her children
to be naturalists, and made me when at school the passionate lover of God's
works, whicii in maturer years I have learned still more to be."

And to Mrs. Day, St. Andrews, he says, in lL-50 :— " Much of my delight as a child
arose out of natural history. It gives food to the imagination, and tempers the fairy
books, of which too many cannot be given to children."

1817 32

SYMPATHY WITH SCHOOLMATE.

Their ages vaiied from four to twelve. Duff could not be re-
conciled to these strangers, and considered his responsibilities
largely increased. When a game at tig or blindman's buff was
in prospect, the first step necessary was to turn Duff out of the
room, so strongly did he resent any of the cousins touching his
children.

Before leaving those early days, an instance of Gt, rge's good
feeling may be alluded to, in which is seen the genu of the
imselfish consideration for others, so manifest throughdt his
life. While at Mr. Knight's he was enjoined to return home
immediately after school hours. As this injunction was un-
heeded day after day, an explanation of his conduct was at last
insisted on. With great reluctance he told that a little boy,
blind of one eye, was much persecuted by his school-fellows on
account of his infirmity, and not permitted to join in any of
their games. Sympathy with him overmastered the fear of
parental displeasure, and George had remained each day to play
with him, thus hoping to dispel the painful impressions made
by the tyranny of the other boys.

Memoranda by his brother Daniel help to complete the picture
of the juvenile life, which left its strong impress on later years.
He says, " George was my junior by fully two years, an in-
terval sufficient to constitute an important difference in boy-
hood, though it becomes insignificant enough in later life.
Nevertheless, he and I were, from my earliest recollections,
conjoined alike in our sports and boyish studies, notwithstand-
ing that his twin-brother John survived till his eighteenth year.
In truth, no two brothers were perhaps ever less alike than
these twins. Those who only knew George in later life, when
disease, sore suffering, and the mutilation of surgeons, had
done their work on his wasted frame, could little conceive of
the joyous, healthful, and vigorous boy. Tliroughout his whole
boyhood and youth he enjoyed uninterrupted health, while
John early betrayed symptoms of physical weakness, and a
tendency to the pulmonary disease, which at length terminated
his life. My recollections, wandering back into old boyish
memories, call up dim visions of little sisters and brothers, whose
cradles I rocked, and by whose sick beds I watched, as they

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAl'. I.

faded away in their early years, and the dark shadow was again
and again thrown across our diminished circle. Hence, birth-
days, those fond anniversaries of the home-fireside in many a
happy family, were never named amongst us ; but we learned
to note certain seasons that brought their sad memories and
silent tears to our dear mother ; and mingled grave and earnest
thoughts with our light-hearted mirthfulntss. In later days,
when the return of the 21st of February reminded George of the
completion of another year, it used to bring with it strange, sad
fancies, on which he would sometimes dwell, awakened by the
thoughts, that the brother to whom, as to himself, it was the
anniversary of life's gift, slumbered in his last long sleep among
the kindred dust, where both are now laid at rest. But while
such incidents as these, which marked life's early experience,
helped to develop thoughtful earnestness, and to awaken tender
sympathies, which bore fruit in riper years, our boyhood was a
very happy one, in spite of some stern but healthful lessons of
self- denial

" Edinburgh, our native city, was the scene of all our youth-
ful years ; and that itself was no unimportant element in life's
training. Among my earliest recollections are our rambles and
scramblings among the rocks and declivities of the Calton Hill ;
which, as we grew from childhood to youth, were exchanged for
the wider scope that Arthur's Seat afforded. There we knew
every accessible cleft and gully of the rocks, delighted in climb-
ing the famous Cat-nick on Salisbury Crags, and preferred find-
ing our way down from the top of the hill, as a goat might
scramble down the cliffs, to taking the more leisurely and safer
slope of the grass. Then the sea, with its inexhaustible charms,
lay within easy distance. Leith sands, and the pools of the
Black- rocks at low water, with their crabs and whelks, and
marine life of all sorts ; and the delights of the shipping and
building-yards, awoke all the Eobinson Crusoe longings and
dreams of boyhood; or a Saturday's ramble carried us to Granton,
and away beyond it to old Eoman Cramond, where the sculp-
tured eagle of the legionaries of the second century, still visible
on the rocks, was a source of never-failing wonder to us.

" Edinburgh boys are generally great walkers, and George

18l7-n2.

HOLIDAY EXCURSIONS.

was a match for any pedestrian of his years. Many a long
Saturday's excursion has accordingly left pleasant memories be-
hind, when, added to the mere physical enjoyment of a holiday
walk among novel scenes, there were the fresh sources of pleasure
of botanizing or geological gatherings, and the tin botanical- box
became the unfailing companion of our walka. A certain amount
of pleasurable sympathy in the associations with ancient scenes
and picturesque ruins is also a common feeling with boys ; and
frequently a Saturday's ramble had for its special goal. Old
Woodhouselee, Roslin Chapel, Niddry Castle, Preston Tower,
or some other of the storied ruins around Edinburgh, associated
with the names of "Wallace, Bothwell, Queen Mary, etc. One
of our boyish wonders was to watch, from Arthur's Seat,
the slow progress of the railway tunnel, which at length
forced its way through the solid trap rock, and admitted
of Edinburgh's first railway entering the town. It is only the
juniors among Edinburgh citizens who need to be told of the
marvels of the Dalkeith railway. The triumphs of the steam-
horse had nothing to do with it. A good, honest quadruped,
fed on oats and hay — not on coke and coal, — drew the rude
railway carriage at an exceedingly safe and moderate pace ; and
it was no uncommon occurrence, after the train had started, for
a Musselburgh fishwife to hail the driver, who would put down
his brakes, and puU up in response to her sturdy shouts, and
wait till she leisurely disposed of her baskets, before the cars
were once more in motion. Not only men, however, but even
boys were less impatient in those old times than in these days
of flashing telegraphs and express trains ; and if the rate of
progress on the old Dalkeith railway was moderate, its charges
corresponded thereto. Hence it helped to extend greatly the
range of our Saturday's wanderings. A few pence secured our
transport, by its means, away beyond the North Esk, and so
brought within our reach the old ruins of Bothwell and Crichton
Castles, of Seton and Temple Churches, besides Roman camps
and historical scenes, already possessing an interest for us : such
as Lasswade, Prestonpans, Carbeny hill, and Pinkey clench, all
readily accessible to the healthy young pedestrians. One such
holiday ramble, for instance, I vividly recall to mind, when

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

George was probably not more than eleven years of age. By
help of the railway we had got a fair and early start, and made
our way to the grand old ruin of Crichton, where

' That castle rises on the steep

Of the green vale of Tyne ;
And, far beneath, where slow they creep
From pool to eddy, dark and deep,
Where alders moist, and willows weep.

Yon hear her streams repine.'

Our purpose was to catch the railway car on our return, and so
diminish the journey homeward by some seven miles ; but the
day was bright and the attractions manifold, and when we
reached Dalkeith on our homeward way, laden with a large
Sigillaria which we had secured as a coveted prize, the cars were
gone, and we had to make our way home as best we could. I
well remember still the debate as to whether our prized sigil-
laria — which the alternate carrying for some miles had already
proved to be no light weight — could possibly be transported
home. The result was the determination not to abandon it ;
but many a time was the coveted burden passed from one to the
other, as the lively chat and merry sallies with which George
ever beguiled such a ramble grew less and less frequent, until
at length after trudging over the last miles, with only a rare
monosyllable, wc reached home, wearied and footsore, to be re-
freshed with our ever- welcome cup of tea, and then to

' Lay onr head
Upon our own delightful bed.'

But when it is considered that we had probably walked not less
than fifteen or sixteen miles, and that such were common holi-
day and Saturday rambles, it suffices to show the vigorous energy
and robust health that characterized the happy little fellow in
those early years. No pleasanter companion could have been.
The lively fancy which sparkles in his writings, and the genial
humour so familiar to all who knew him in later years, already
marked the boy, and there grew up between us then a common
bond of sympathy and lasting friendship, such as by no means
invariably knits brothers together, and which years only served
to strengthen and mature. As for the dear-bought and far-
brought sigillaria, it was safely housed, and prized accordingly ;

1817-32.

BOOKS AT COMMAND.

and occupied a prominent place in the little museum which we
were already forming. Tlie gathering of fossils, minerals, shells,
insects, gall-nuts, skeleton-leaves, and miscellaneous relics of
all sorts, for our collection, as well as the commencement of a
herbarium, gave new interest to our holiday rambles ; and a
folio copy of the Journal of George Fox, the founder of Quaker-
ism, which was converted to our use as blotter and press for
the botanical specimens, suffered wofuUy in the service of our
hortus siccus.

" The library at our command was, for the most part, little
suited to juvenile students. The death of an uncle, the Eev.
John Kussell, of Muthil, and soon after of his widow, led to the
addition to our family circle, in 1827, of four cousins, John,
Catharine, James, and Alexander, who grew up with us thence-
forth as brothers and sister. But time has wrought with them,
as with our earlier fireside companions, and only one now sur -
vives, the Eev. Alexander Eussell, of Adelaide, South Australia.
We have both thought in later years of Mrs. Hemans' ' Graves
of a Household,' as the old playmates have scattered to England,
Canada, and Australia ; never, alas ! to gather together again.
The addition of our orphan cousins to our number was accom-
panied by that of their father's library, an imposing collection
of ponderous old folios, and little dumpy vellum-boTind quartos
of sound divinity, the very outsides of which had a learned,
orthodox look about them. They were little likely to furnish
the favourite reading of boys. Nevertheless, they were occa-
sionally dipped into, and even the mere handling of such vener-
able tomes, and familiarity with their old type, quaint title-
pages, or more curious colophons, were not without influence in
the forming of tastes, and the impressions survived till the time
when the rich stores of the University and Advocates' Libraries
came to be within our reach, and even the reading-room of the
British Museum was not unfamiliar to us.

" Certain books of our own smaller library, however, were
greatly more influential in giving a bias to youthful tastes and
studies. A copy of Goldsmith's 'Animated Nature,* ^n four
octavo volumes, I specially remember. At a somewhat later
date the * Library of Entertaining Knowledge' opened up to us

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

a whole fairy-land of wonders in its ' Insect Architecture ;' its
'Habits and Architecture of Birds;' and its 'Menageries;'
besides that grand boys' book, which has since been the model
for so many others, ' The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficul-
ties.' The ' Penny Magazine' was also an exhaustless treasurj'.
But, besides those, I must not forget three well-thumbed quar-
tos : the first edition of the ' Encyclopsedia Britannica,' which,
with its plates on all subjects, gradually passed from being for
us a mere child's picture-book, to its better purpose of an un-
failing book of reference. But it must not be supposed that the
old favourites of the nursery library were forgotten. ' Jack the
Giant-Killer,' ' Cinderella,' ' Blue Beard,' and ' Beauty and the
Beast,' were never conned more lovingly than by ourselves, with
the aid of our eldest sister Mary, whose story-telling powers
were sometimes called into requisition to eke out our scanty
stores.

" A small poorly printed copy of the ' Arabian Nights' Enter-
tainments' was also most diligently and repeatedly perused.
To these must be added Bunyan's ' Pilgrim,' and an illustrated
copy of his * Mansoul,' in which Diabolus figured in scaly
dragon-like amplitude of forked tail and fiery jaws, wonderful
to behold. Traces of this juvenile library may be seen in
George's maturest writings. He delighted to draw some of his
liveliest sportive and quaint illustrations from his old nursery
favourites.

" One other class of reading remains to be noted. Our dear
mother was not only fond of the poets, but was herself a writer
of verse. She read us into an admiration of Cowper at an early
age, and so delighted us with some of the anti-slavery passages
in his ' Task,* as well as his minor poems, that both George and
T, in a fit of youthful enthusiasm, renounced sugar in our tea,
as a practical protest against the slave-labour to which it was
due. An acquired taste soon rendered the sugarless tea prefer-
able ; but we were not sufficiently logical enthusiasts to feel at
all aggrieved in conscience by the bargain we made that we
were still to be allowed sugar with apple-dumplings !^ Besides

> In a letter to Mr. Godfrey Wedg^vood, Etniria, Staffordshire, allusion is made to
tills. "By the way, are the moulds or dies of the famous anti-slavery medallion

1817 22.

LOVE FOR POETRY.

and

tea,

was

efer-

iel at

sides

ade to
lallioii

Cowper, Heniy Kirke White became an early favourite ; and by
and by, Felicia Hemans' ' Records of Woman' was added to our
library, and read aloud amongst us ; and even select passages
from Milton's ' Paradise Lost' were rendered pleasant to very
youthful ears by our mother's feeling and expressive mode of
reading and commenting on them. Thus a taste was formed at
an unusually early age for poetry, which by and by, when faci-
lities for reading increased, made us familiar with Moore, B3TX)n,
Southey, Coleridge, Shelley, and Scott ; and then, in preference
to all of them, with Shakspere : from which it followed that
there was pretty soon writing as well as reading of verse, and
sundry juvenile poems, long since burnt and forgotten, were
produced, though I shall by and by refer to others, preserved in
later years. The tueme of one ambitious effusion, extending to
some hundreds of heroic couplets, was, I remember, ' Woman !'
and doubtless embodied some very fresh and original views on
the subject.

" At Mr. Knight's school some of the most lasting of George's
early friendships were formed. Dr, Philip W. Maclagan, RN.,
now of Berwick ; Dr. John Alexander Smith, of Edinburgh ;
Mr. Philip Dassauville ; Dr. John Knight, and others who
passed with us to the High School, were already favourite
companions ; and it was from among these, with the addition
of Mr. William Nelson, the Rev. James Huie, now minister
at AVooler, Northumberland, Messrs. Alexander and James
Sprunt, with one or two othei's, that, in 1828-29, a 'Juvenile
Society for the Advancement of Knowledge ' was formed. The
Society met weekly at our father's house, where already we had
a room of our own, with our books and natural history speci-
mens, out of which was now formed the museum of the Society.
A glazed book-case, provided with the requisite shelving, held
the accumulating stores ; and as everything had to be done with
as solemn dignity as the Royal Society itself possibly could as-
sume, we, amongst other becoming proceedings, adopted a coat

witli the motto, 'Am I not a man and a brother?' still in existence? If so, and a
medallion is procurable, please remember a man who dropped taking s\igar in his
tea wlieu seven years old, as a protest against slavery, and has never tiiken it since
in tea, though I am sorry to say the inconsistent philosopher never abandoned its use
in puddings and other viands." -May 19, 1857. .,

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

of aims, which was duly coloured and put up prominently in
the museum. The blazoniy I have forgot, but the motto was
this bit of juvenile Latinity : ' Iniens cetas est tempus.' A weekly
journal was also established, of which I was constituted editor ;
and in it were not only recorded selections from the weekly
papers on Natural History, etc., but also choice extracts and
pen-and-ink illustrations. I have not seen it for more than
twenty years ; but I believe it is still in existence. It was
written in double columns on a folded half-sheet of foolscap,
and I think I could recognise still certain fossils drawn in its
pages ; and also some amusingly crude discussions on palaeo-
graphy, with illustrations, executed in China ink, the materials
for which were chiefly derived from the old folios and dumpy
quartos already referred to in our uncle's libraiy ; for there was
a good deal of antiquarianism mingled with our natural history,
mechanics, astronomy, etc., and John Alexander Smith and my
seK, who have each sincie filled the office of Secretary to the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, were already embryo numis-
matists, and knew a Roman denarius from a bodle as well as
Edie Ochiltree himself Our musoum accordingly had its little
collection of coins, penny-tokens, Chinese cash, a shilling of
Edward i., and two or three dearly-prized Roman brass."

Dr. Philip Maclagan has kindly supplied the following re-
miniscences of his friendship with George Wilson in boyhood,
in a letter addressed to his sister : —

" We entered Mr. Mackay's class together, and speedily be-
came very intimate, from the similarity of our tastes in the
matter of amusements ; and I was one of the original members
of the 'Juvenile Society for the Advancement of Knowledge'
which met in your house, and of which your brothers were the
founders. The Society met on Friday evening, papers were
read by the members in rotation, ar _ questions previously
started were debated. I remember some of them — Whether
the whale or the herring afforded the more useful and profitable
employment to manJcind? Whether the camel was more useful
to the Arab, or the reindeer to the Laplander? and similar
puzzles for youthful ingenuity. We had a museum, too, kept

1817-32,

' JUVENILE SOCIETY.'

in a cabinet with glass doors, which your mother kindly gave
up to us, and a scientific newspaper in MS. was written by, and
circulated amongst, the members. I remember that Daniel con-
trived and executed an allegorical heading for this paper which
was much thought of ; and many items of news which found a
place in its columns, I can recall as if I had read it yesterday.
In it, also, we recorded the results of our Saturday excursions
into the country, the plants and animals noticed, with any facts
as to their habits and peculiarities,

" I do not think that at this time George had any fancy for
chemical research. Chemistry was becoming popularized then,
long before either Botany or Zoology, but it was to these latter
branches, so far as I know, that his taste for inquiry was first
directed. I owe him a debt of obligation for firat affording me
the pleasure of reading the ' Pilgrim's Progress,' though at that
period neither of us thought of anything but the story : I re-
member quite well the look of the copy which he lent me ; a
rather thin old-fashioned octavo in calf. As years wore on, I
became rather an ardent collector of plants and insects, for
which George did not care much, so that our paths diverged a
little, and we v^ere not so often together on Saturdays. But
until we left the High School, our friendship remained un-
broken, and I can testify to George having been a very general
favourite."

edge'

Mr. Alexander Sprunt, of Wilmington, North Carolina, an-
other school-fellow, speaks of contemporaneous events : —

"During the period of our High School curriculum great
questions were occupying the public mind, and startling events
taking place in Europe, — the final struggle of the Poles, the
French three days of July, the Keform movement, etc. On all
such questions George Wilson took the extreme liberal side.
The subject of the immediate or gradual emancipation of the
negro slaves in the colonies was keenly discussed about that
time. Some of us being related to families of the colonists,
were familiar with the arguments for a gradual abolition of
slavery. George was an unremitting advocate of immediate
emancipation."

MEMOIR OP GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. T.

" After we entered the High School," his brother proceeds,
" our long vacation holidays were spent, on several occasions, at
the manse of Cumbernauld,' in Dumbartonshire, where the Rev.
John Watson, wlio had been our father's tutor in liis youth,
made us hospitably welcome, and introduced us to all the no-
velties which country life presents in so charming an aspect to
the town-bred boy. The hay-making was over before our holi-
days arrived ; but the reaping, the carting and stacking, and
the harvest-home, were all within our happy holiday weeks ;
diversified by an occasional ramble when the minister's paro-
chial duties called him off to visit some outlying farm or cot-
tage, and by visits to Cumbernauld House, where Mrs. Aitken,
the old housekeeper of Admiral Fleming, made us welcome,
and we occasionally enjoyed the luxury of a ride through the
park on a frisky little Shetland pony which was at our service
— when we could catch it. It would seem, however, that in
1830, John and I alone went to Cumbernauld, and to this,
accordingly, is due the earliest fragment of George's corre-
spondence which I have preserved. Here are some of the con-
tents of it, suggestive of many other pleasant memories : ' John
mentioned in his letter that Mr. Watson had promised him a
cat in place of the grey one. But I am sure you will be glad
when I tell you, your old friend, Mr. Grey Cat, came back on
Sabbath morning.' Then, after news of other kinds, occurs this
important passage relative to some coveted treasure for the
museum : ' Mother would have bought the sturgeon's head, but
they asked half a guinea for it I have had several de-
lightful walks since we parted. The mice are lively, and get
a run on the table every night. They are very impudent, and
bite whoever touches them. The cat gives several side looks at
them, but never dares to touch them.'

" Tlie concluding reference here is to one great triumph
achieved in the course of our Natural History pursuits. Our do-
mestic menagerie never wanted some favourite pet, though these

» In tlie quiet little village of Cumbernauld, a sensation seems to have been pro-
duced by the appearance of the boys. John writes to his twin-brother in 1830,
" All the people in the village know us, but when we go through it, we generally
get a good stare, and a good many boys and girls run after \i8 crying, ' Look, there's
the braw callants.'"

1817 32.

ENUMERATION OF PETS.

were of the most varied description. We rejoiced successively
in a tame owl, a sparrow-hawk, hedgehog, tortoise, guinea-pig,
rabbits, etc. The hedgehog was long a favourite. It used to
sleep all day coiled up by the fire ; and towards dusk it began
to move, and would run about, with its grunting cry ; coming,
when called on, for a bit of apple, or a cockroach — one of its
favourite delicacies. But it chanced on one occasion that a
poor, barefooted Italian boy, with his hurdy-gurdy and white
mice, became an object of compassion to us ; mother was readily
induced to provide him with stockings and an old pair of
shoes, and in gratitude for these and other services, he pre-
sented us with a pair of white mice. A cage was made, which
by and by expanded into a sort of mouse-palace of two storeys,
with parlour, breeding- cage, etc. A part of it was apportioned
to a pair of black and white mice procured by some means or
other ; and as they multiplied on our hands, our great ambition
was to teach a rough little Scotch terrier that we had — famous
for rat- hunting, — to lie and let our tame mice run about his
shaggy coat. The mice were entirely devoid of fear, but Coxy
used occasionally to show his teeth in a way that did not
promise very weU for his discrimination between white and
ordinaiy mice had he been left with them alone. From
George's letter, however, it would seem he had been trying
the same experiment with Mr. Grey Cat, and, though the
case was a harder one to deal with, apparently with equal
success.^

" Meanwhile, the museum was receiving his special care. In
a letter from mother to me, of date 24tli August 1830, she says,
' George has just come in from seeing Maclagan. On his way
home, lie saw a shop full of curiosities. If I can find time, I

* Letters of this date, of the brothers to each other, give amusing evidence of the
deep affection entertained for the mice. In one, the following passage occurs :
"Tliere was no mention made of the mice in any of the letters, Lut from that, I
suppose they are quite well, for if anything had been wrong with them, it would
have been mentioned in every one of the letters." Parallel instances to this, of late
date, might be found in George's more than once rescuing mice about to be made
the subjects of experiments in his laboratory. No such things, he said, should be
done there. Any talk of poisoning mice always seemed to distress him ; and when
such death was unavoidable for them, he endeavoured to insure that the poison used
should be that most speedy in its effect.

tlEMOIR OF OEOROE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

shall pay it a visit ; but you must not fonn any expectations, as
I am not disposed to part with much money in that way.' In
spite of the prudent warning, expectations were, no doubt,
formed and realized also. One of these ' curiosity shops' was
Mrs. Somerville's, in East Register Street ; where many a gather-
ing of pocket-money was expended on minerals and shells ; the
arrangement and naming of which were unfailing sources of
pleasure. But the tastes and habits that were then being de-
veloped, will be better illustrated by the following letter of the
same period : —

< Tuesday, 24th Auffusl 1830.

* Dear Daniel, — I was very happy to hear you had begun
Botany. I forgot to mention in the letter I sent you that I got
the present of Bingley's Introduction to Botany, with coloured
engravings of trees, shrubs, flowers, leaves, roots, stems, and all
the other component parts of flowers. From it I learn the parts
of plants. On Thursday, Philip Kobert Maclagan and I went
out to Duddingston. We saw some beautiful dragon-flies. We
went on to Craigmillar, where we saw some pretty young foals
in a park. We returned home by Liberton, with our boxes
filled with plants. On Friday, we set off for Corstorphine ; but
falling in with some empty carts at the three-mile stone, we got
in, and rode past Corstorphine to a place called " Four Mile
Hill" (though it was six miles from Edinburgh). Returning,
we found a great many small frogs, some h<w. an-inch long,
others less ; we took them to a neighbouring ditch. They swam
very nimbly.- -I remain, your affectionate brother,

' George Wilson.'

" A letter of the same holiday time, addressed to his twin-
brother, John, records the marvel of ' a heifer exhibiting at
Calder, with two heads ; one the shape of a bvdl's, the other of
a cow's. The cow's head was liveliest, but it could eat hay with
both mouths. I have read of a sheep with two heads ; and, in-
deed, Mr. A. Maclagan saw it at Ayr.' Tlien follows an account
of an elephant which he had missed seeing, though his cousin
Catherine had been more fortunate in witnessing it perambulate
the streets, ou its way to Leith, to take its passage to Newcastle ;

1817 38.

VISIT TO THE TR08ACH8.

and from her, accordingly, he derived the materials for his
interesting narrative. The next letter is addressed jointly to
' Messre. D. and J. Wilson,' and tells how the latter part of the
holidays had been spent by him while his brothers were enjoy-
ing themselves at the Dumbartonshire Manse.

' Thursday, 7th September 1830.

' Dear Brothers,- -I have had a delightful jaunt, since I last
wrote you, to Callander, akng with Catherine and Maiy. "We
left Newhaven at half one o'clock for Stirling, in the " Stirling
Castle" steamboat. We reached Stirling at about half-past
seven. We stayed that night and the next day with Mr. and
Mrs. M'Ewan. On Friday, we went to Callander by the coach
at five o'clock, and reached it at half-past seven. We saw the
Pass of Leny, Bracklin Bridge, the Trosachs, Loch Katrine,
Helen's Isle, Pass of Glenfinlas, etc. ; as Mary has written an
account I shall not say any more about them, but when you
come home you will hear all about them. We returned to Stir-
ling on Thursday morning, where we had left Catherine till we
should return, and left it for Edinburgh on Friday at half-past
three. I saw Richard Alexander in Stirling. He gave me a
piece of the stone in which Bruce erected his standard at the
battle of Bannockburn. As I was walking out with Mr.
M'Millan (when I met Alexander) we fell in with an old blind
man, blind from his birth, who can tell the colour of your coat
by feeling it, and he knows eveiy verse in the Bible. If you
mention a proper name that occurs in the Bible, he will tell
you where it is, and repeat the verse. I brought home some
sea-urchins and sea-eggs brought from Milport in the Cum-
braes ; one of them with spines, the other two not. On Monday
a balloon went off at Leith. I went up the Calton HilL It
was crowded with people ; as I could not wait, it being past
the time, I came away ; however, I saw it from York Place
and the North Bridge. It is Mr. Green's eighty- seventh time.
Mr. C. Bass, of the Caledonian Theatre, went up. It descended
near Corstorphine. Mr. Bass gave an account in the theatre of
his voyage, and the feelings incidental to the aeronaut. John
Rutherford, the British sailor captured by the New Zealanders

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

and tatooed, is now in Edinburgh, selling his narrative for a
penny. I saw him standing at the door. The lines are filled
with charcoal. — I remain your very affectionate brother,

' George Wilson.'

"The date of this letter indicates that the holidays were
drawing to a close. Within a week or so thereafter our daily
sports were in the High School Yards, and our busy duties in its
halls, but soon we bade forewell to the old High School, occu-
pying the site of the ancient Monastery of Black Friars, of the
Order of St. Dominic, founded by Alexander n. in 1230, and
transferred to the use of the City Grammar School at the Eefor-
mation. The migration from the time-hallowed site at the head
of the old High School Wynd to the splendid edifice erected on
the southern slope of the Caltor Hill, was an important change
in other ways besides the mere removal to a more commodious
and magnificent building. It put an abrupt close to a host of
old school customs and traditions ; and, among the rest, to the
hereditary bickers and strife between ' the puppies and black-
guards,' as the High School boys and the natives of the neigh-
bouring Cowgate and its purlieus respectively designated each
other. Without being at all quarrelsome, George and I did not
pass through our school days, among some five or six hundred
boys, and with our hereditary Cowgate foes outside the play-
ground walls, without a battle or two ; and when it fairly came
to a state of things which left no honourable alternative, George
was as little of a coward in that as he proved in other duties in
later life. The only real fear," indeed, was that of carrying home
the tell-tale traces of a bloody nose ; for mother was as little
disposed to look with favour on such relics of stdfe — however
unavoidable — as good mothers usually are. Such chances, how-
ever, which were always rare, were nearly brought to a close
with the grand ceremonial which transferred the school to its
new domicile. On the 23d June 1829, we walked in procession,
each bearing our white osier wand, with music and military
guards, and all the civic glories that the Lord Provost and
Magistrates could muster to do honour to the occasion. Tlie
upper rooms of the east wing in the new building were occupied

1317-32.

HOLIDAY PLEASURES.

by the class under Mr. Benjamin Mackay's care ; and there, and
subsequently in the Eector's class-rooms, George maintained his
place among the rivals of the first form ; while at leap-frog,
foot-and-a-half, trap-bat and ball, or other sports in the yards,
or at a snow-ball bicker, or a Duddingston Loch skating-match,
he was quite as ready as for the quieter pleasures of a botanical
holiday ramble.

"The vacation of 1831 was long remembered by us for its
holiday pleasures. In company with our father we extended
our wanderings into the Highlands of Argyleshire, spent a couple
of days at Strachur, on the banks of Loch Fine, in the house where
he was born, and looked with wonder and delight on a well-
grown rowan tree, or mountain ash, which he had planted when
a boy.

" Strachur and its parental associations had a thousand charms
for us. Loch and mountain filled us with delight ; and in ferry-
ing over to Inverary, and the wonders of the Duke's castle there,
it was long remembered by us with pleasure, that a whale
abruptly rose to the surface, so near us as to occasion our High-
land boatmen no little apprehension. The following letter was
written then : —

' Dear Mother, — We are .ow safe at Cumbernauld. After
arriving at Glasgow, we sailed down the Clyde on Tuesday, and
saw, besides many other things, Dumbarton Castle, and at
four o'clock we reached Holy Loch. When we came on shore,
we went into a sociable or car, which carried us to Loch Eck.
We crossed Loch Eck in a little steamboat ; the engineers were
young boys. After landing on the other side of Loch Eck, we
walked to Strachur, where, on the road, we saw little boys with
kilts, and a little pig came runuing to us. When we arrived at
Strachur, John and I slept in the bed where father was born. I
liked Strachur very much. When crossing Loch Fine we saw
a whale rise and turn himself over, and we saw his bacl^ fin ;
the ferryman said he often saw them, and if they came near, the
least motion of the oar frightened them away ; he also added,
that when they are frightened, they squeak like a pig. We saw
many other animals : in the canal, a water-rat and hedgehog

MEMOIR OF GEOKGE WILSON.

GHAP. I,

swimming ; a solan goose near Eothesay ; a hare and short-
tailed field-mouse. In the steamboat returning from Inverary,
I met an English gentleman, Mr. Smith, and two acquaintances.
One of them was very poorly, and had travelled for the last year
and a half for the sake of her health ; she was very kind to me,
and told me the name of the plants I had at that time in my
box ; she also invited me to come to the place where she was
staying in Glasgow, and showed me some plants. Perhaps you
are not aware that yon red and white flower Daniel brought
from the Calton Hill is Foxglove.

'P.S. — Excuse all faults and the bad writing, as my mind is
too full of C . — From your affectionate son, G. Wilson.'

" A remark in a letter addressed to me by my father, in the
following year, reminds me that it was on this occasion a friend-
ship was begun, memorable in after years to both of us. In
passing through Glasgow on our return home, we visited Mr.
Hugh Mackay, a generous friend of our deceased aunt, who had
taken a lively interest in our orphan cousins, and so become
known to us all His two daughters were nearly of the same
age as ourselves; and George — whose conversational powers,
and singularly frank and engaging manners, were scarcely less
remarkable as a boy than they proved to be in riper years —
soon ingratiated himseK thoroughly with the younger of the two
daughters. Both fathers looked on, enjoying the sallies of
humour, and the graver avowals of youthful confidence and
kindly feeling; and the pleasant impressions then produced
experienced no diminution on a subsequent visit, which Miss
Margaret Mackay paid to our sister Mary. An allusion in a
letter to me recalls that, even at this date, George had, with rare
ambition for a boy, set before his mind's eye the goal of an
Edinburgh Professor's chair, and annoimced purposes to be ful-
filled on the accomplishment of this desire. In later years.
Miss Margaret Mackay became my affianced wife, and letters
from George to her, resulting from the friendly relation of the
families, illustrate, in reference to those early times, the singu-
larly attractive manner which always marked his intercourse
with ladies, and the pleasui-e he manifested, alike in boyhood

1S17 32.

ATTRACTIVE MANNER.

and at a later period, iu female society. The frankness of his
manner, and the total absence of any shyness or awkward
reserve in such intercourse, was certainly a very noticeable
characteristic in a boy ; for the very opposite is almost in-
variably manifested in those days of peg-tops, marbles, and
leap-frog, whatever be the change that a few years produce.

" Great changes have meanwhile transpired. Among others
not to be overlooked, our father had purchased a shaie in the
Edinburgh Select Subscription Library — one of those admirable
proprietary lending libraries with which Edinburgh is peculiarly
favoured — and there we were turned loose, like colts in a rich
field of clover, to revel as we pleased in the wide i-ange of
English literature. I doubt if such unrestrained literary license
is conducive to accurate scholarship, in that sense on which
English University men plume themselves, not altogether
without reason, on their superiority ; but it was invaluable for
the healthful development of the innate intellectual powers of
the eager youth, and for evoking whatever was original in his
mind, by leaving him to follow out the bent of his tastes. A
reference to the books of the library would show a singularly
varied reading, embracing a very wide range for a boy; and
well calculated to bring out all the individuality of his in-
quiring mind. It is the grave fault of some of our school
and still more of our college systems of education, that a boy
passes through them as if he had been put into a mould, and
comes out with the mere impress of the routine system and
imvarying standard of its tests, instead of having his own intel-
lectual powers quickened into healthful development."

A striking feature of George's later life was manifested in
those journey ings, namely, the power he had of gaining friends
and acquiring information. One of his fellow-travellers to
Glasgow, by the canal boat, gives the following account of him
when eleven years old : — " George placed himself side by side
with the greatest person on board (the captain) and plied him
with question after question till the moment he left the boat.
Before leaving, he very politely went up to the captain and
mate, and thanked them heartily for their attention and infor-

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

mation. They both said, they had never seen such a boy. Be-
sides the captain, he met on board a Miss Peacock, a most
intelligent lady who had been in Ireland, England, etc. George
did question her, and got quite in love with her, saying, ' she
could speak about everything, just like his mother.' Before
parting, he gave her a cordial kiss."

Ere we pass beyond early boyhood, one or two friends may
be allowed to give their impressions. The following is kindly
contributed by an accomplished lady, an intimate and frequent
visitor, in whom interest was awakened by the unusual intelli-
gence of several of the children : —

" I remember well the time when my dear friend Mrs. Wilson
introduced me to her then numerous young family, consisting of
her own six children, and four children of her deceased sister,
Mrs. Russell. I, from the first, admired the perfect subordina-
tion maintained among them, and also observed that their
obedience did not appear to proceed from fear but from love.
Among the group, George and John, the twins, were very in-
teresting. They did not resemble each other ; George was more
active, perhaps both in mind and body, but they were like in
having a loving nature. I never saw them differ for a moment.
They were always together, and always busy, the one assisting
the other in some mutual plan of operations, each taking the
part that best suited his genius. John was a dear gentle boy.
I grieved much when he was taken ill, and, after severe suffer-
ing, died. Mrs. Wilson's household was, indeed, an edifying
sight. All the young people were employed, attending to their
respective duties ; no frivolous excuse being allowed to prevent
the performance of the allotted lesson. When it was duly ac-
complished, then the expected pleasure awaited them of joining
in the conversation, with their mother, and any guest who might
be present. The subjects discussed were generally such as inter-
ested and instructed their young minds, and I remember George
standing, looking at his mother with his observant eye, drinking
in her remarks, or modestly making an observation of his own.
I always, from the first, thought him a very clever boy. He
might not be constantly at the top of his class in the High

1S17-33.

SCHOOL REMINrSCENCES.

School, that proceeded more from a certain volatility or thought-
lessness, which often accompanies genius, than from ignorance
of the prescribed lesson. He was always very much alive to
any ludicrous incident that occurred in the class, and I remem-
ber seeing a little book, in which he had set down a number of
odd remarks made by the master, and strange mistakes made
by the boys. The book was embellished by pen-and-ink
sketches, made, I believe, by his brother Daniel. This book of
scenes in the High School was very droll. On one page there
was a likeness of the master, standing in his kind of pulpit
holding out a ruler ; a heavy-looking boy was rehearsing his
lesson from Virgil. He had made some stupid mistake in quan-
tity, which had excited the master's ire to the utmost, and the
contrast between the grand classic Latin, and the terms of dis-
approbation used by the master, in very undignified English,
was ludicrous in the extreme. On another page, a whole day's
lessons were given, with the remarks and interjections of the
master and boys, and the hearty laugh of the boys occasionally
at some classic wit of the master, which George greatly enjoyed.
I remember also, one fine frosty winter, such as we used to have
long ago, George's relating, with gTeat glee, that the master
(I cannot recall his name), to the great surprise of the class,
after hurrying over the Latin lesson, said, ' Now, boys, as you
have done very well, I think it would do you all good to go out
for the remaining time, and have a hearty slide,' and, what
George thought added much to the amusement, the master him-
self stood outside enjoying the scene.

" One other anecdote I recollect his telling : The mathe-
matical master, a short-sighted man, and enthusiastically at-
tached to the science he taught, was one day demonstrating a
difficult problem, with his eyes close to his paper ; the boys in
the meantime were wistfully eyeing, through the half-open door,
the group outside sliding and snowballing. At length, the
temptation to join in the sport became too strong for them to
withstand, and one after the other departed. George happened
to look in at the window just as the master, having finished his
demonstration, lifted his head. The description given by
George of his confounded look when he saw nothing but empty

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

benches, was irresistibly ludicrous. At a veiy early age, he
and his brothers were in the custom of noting down anything
remarkable they observed in the heavens, or in the animal
creation. I remember seeing a small book of these notanda,
and very numerous and interesting were the topics introduced.
One, I remember, was on some phenomenon observed in the
sky, with conjectures as to the cause. I showed this book to a
literary man, who would scarcely believe that it was the com-
position of mere boys. No doubt their abilities were beyond
those of most youths, but they owed the cultivation of them to
their mother (their father being constantly engaged in business).
She directed their yoimg minds first to God, and their duty to
Him, then she steadily encouraged inquiry and investigation,
first into outward objects, and, as they advanced in years,
into scientific pursuits. When very young they had a museimi
of their own collecting, with many really beautiful specimens.
I remember most particularly several beautifully prepared
skeletons of small animals, such as mice, sparrows, etc. George
used to visit me occasionally, when he never failed to impress
any scientific visitor who might be present with his talent and
eager pursuit after knowledge. Many were the predictions
uttered that he would be an eminent man.

" I believe the key to Mrs. Wilson's success in the education
of her family, was the love that she fostered among them, and
the free discussion that she encouraged, she herself taking a part
in all their pursuits, and becoming young again for their sakes."

A friend, and occasional guest of the family, Mr. Maxwell
Dick, of Irvine, greatly increased the interest of the boys in
mechanical pursuits, by familiarizing them with his own nume-
rous and ingenious inventions. He was zealous on behalf of
their Society, kindly contributing from time to time to its stores,
and in various ways so winning their regard, that a vigorous
correspondence was kept up with him. Of this a specimen is
givea Mr. Dick in after days has often spoken with enthu-
siasm of the extraordinary character of George, whose individu-
iviity stood out clearly even then. The special subject of interest
to him seemed to Mr. Dick to be Comparative Anatomy, for

1817 32.

FOND OF MECHANICS.

every spare hour, and the Saturdays, he devoted to searching for
bones of every kind of animal, all of which he brought home,
and had carefully cleaned and classified. One day he brought
the entire skeleton of an infant, which he had got from some
surgeon. He was determined to be a doctor ; but considering
that in a large city the study and profession of a single organ
was as much as one man could undertake, his aim was to re-
strict himself to the study of the eye or the ear. That of the
eye had special charms. These facts Mr. Dick vividly recalls
as connected with his visits to Edinburgh. The letter is not
dated, but it is probably of 1830.

" Deak Sir, — Since we parted, I have been very busy with
French, Greek, and Latin, but the vacation has freed me from
these. The Society has been recommenced, and we have very
warm debates on various subjects. Daniel still conducts the
Journal, which has had its pages filled with original communi-
cations on various subjects. A communication of any kind
would greatly enrich the Journal If you would send us an
account of ^he power you had saved in a threshing-mill. The
ground^ railway between Edinburgh and Dalkeith is now com-
pleted, and coal is sold from the depot. I visited it a few weeks
ago. The carts are drawn by horses all the road, except a space
something more than a mile up an inclined plane through the
tunnel, up which they are dragged by a fixed steam-engine.
The piston puts in motion two drum cylinders, on which the
ropes are coiled. The ropes rest on large cast-iron wheels or
pulleys. The tunnel is about three-quarters of a mile in length.
There is another large steamboat, called the ' Koyal William'
(in honour of our king), of 200 horse-power, going between
Leith and London. There is a curious property relative to in-
clined planes, i.e., of bodies which of their own accord ascend
i::iclined planes, and, contrary to the laws of gravitation, will
not descend, but, though forced down, will ascend, and remain
at the top. The figure of this body is two equal cones, joined

' Mr. Dick was at this time zealously occupied with an ingenious invention of his
own, a system of suspension railways, which he had patented, and of which his young
friends were zealous partisans. Hence the term "ground railway."

MEMOIR OP GEOROE WILSON.

CHAP. I.

at their bases. If this is laid on an inclined plane (not solid,
but such as a pair of compasses), narrow at the foot, and
growing as it ascends, it will ascend and remain at the top.
This is, however, really descending ; a thing which might
perhaps be of use for waggons ascending inclined planes. An-
other plan is to put a piece of lead in one side of a cylinder
or ball : this will roll up a slight inclination, till the lead comes
round again, and is level with the plane. Mr. Thiodon (of the
Theatre of Arts) lately advertised that in addition to the usual
performance, he would exhibit tricks mechanical and mathe-
matical. They were mere tricks of deception ; but at the end
he showed us a small gilt lion of wood, similar to the one you
told us of The head was cut off and sprang on again. One
gentleman cried it was magnetism, but the steel knife with
which it was cut refuted that. Another agreed with you it was
a spring, but Mr. Thiodon explained it to be a wheel on a pivot,
which turned away, and allowed the knife to pass through.
Since writing this, I received your kind letter and presents. I
cannot express too much gratitude for your present to the
museum, but more especially for your kind present of an eye-
glass, which aids my bad sight very much. You have apolo-
gized for not writing oftener and before ; but I ought rather than
you to apologize for my procrastinating negligence, which I
must promise to rectify by a steady correspondence with you.
There is a large menagerie and museum come to town, contain-
ing both live and dead animals, quadrupeds, birds, insects,
shells, fossils, and curiosities from all quarters of the globe. . . .
Father and mother send with me their love to you. — Yours
most respectfully, George Wilson."

" P.S. — I find I have written on the wrong page,
this blunder, and the veiy bad writing."

Excuse

It is needless ii dwell longer on this busy, happy boyhood.
Various juvenile literary efforts in prose and verse . remain to
attest the diligence of his habits and the wide range of his
sjonpathies. But enough has been said to testify to the abound-
ing life and energy of both body and mind. The little rill,

1817-32.

LEAVES THE HIGH SCHOOL.

bright and sparkling, whicii we have seen emerge threadlike
from its source, and gleefully pursue its way through sunshine
and shade, has now widened its banks, and we. begin to realize
that one day it may bear on its bosom the hopes and fears of
thousands, ere it pass into the boundless ocean, and be lost to
view in its expanse.

In autumn 1832, he quitted the High School with a fair share
of prizes. Languages never proved his favourite study, and he
did not devote himself to them with the hearty zeal which
marked him in his earliest scientific acquirements. While
occasionally at the head of a class of one hundred and fifty
boys, he never passed below the first five, and enjoyed the ease
and freedom from care unattainable by the always envied dux.

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

1838 »7.

CHAPTEE II.

YOUTH AND STUDENT LIFE,

" Shades of the prison-house begin to close

Upon the growing boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flowH,

He sees it in his joy ;
The youth, who daily farther from the east

Must travel, still is nature's priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way att jnded ;
At length the man perceives it die away.
And fade into the light of common day." '

The holidays after release from school were spent at the
manse of Cumbernauld, where, with his twin-brother, George
enjoyed some happy weeks. George, however, seems to have
been a little impatient to enter upon the duties of his profession.
Having no fortune to give their children, his parents thought it
only fair that the toils before them should be lightened by
willing heai-ts ready to brave any storms, if only the desired
haven might at last be reached. The choice of a profession was,
therefore, left very much to themselves, and that of a physician
had been George's selection. Whether even then he contem-
plated engaging in practice is very doubtful, but the curriculum
of study it insured seemed attainable in no other way. On
September 1st, 1832, he added the following boyish postscript
to a letter of John's to the household at home : —

" Dear Daniel, — . . . When I first came to Mr. Wat-
son's the windows were covered with flies, and for several days
I caught the largest, and away with them through the house to
give them to the white mice, but soon I learned my mistake ;
and recollect, the next letter must tell about the health of all at

lSS8-3r.

LABORATORY OF ROYAL INFIRMARY.

Wat-
11 days
luse to
Intake ;

all at

)jome, and the wliite and black mice. I am glad at the subject
of your P.S. l*eii)etual Motion was too delightful an idea for even
Mr. Dick to put an end to. I have got a new way of applying
steam to the piston, and to raise a steam balloon. I hope next
letter may contain something about the Infirmary. Is there any
mention of when we are to return ? W(i have been here a fortnight.
Ask Mary to write a few lines in Greek, Ljitin, or French, but not
make the Latin too difficult. You did quite right about Samuel
Brown. Kind love to all. — Your affectionate brother, George."
The reference to the Infinnary was in consequence of a medi-
cal friend, Dr. M'Culloch, House- Surgeon to the Hospital, having
recommended as the best training for the boy, an apprenticeship
in the Laboratoiy of the lloyal Infirmaiy. This well-meant but
injudicious counsel was followed, and in a few weeks more
George was bound for four years, as apprentice. His friend Dr.
M'Culloch died almost immediately after, and the drudgery of
each day, so far from being lessened by pleasant companionship,
brought him in contact with evil and profanity altogether new
and hateful to him. Looking back on this period of his life, he
says, in his opening address as President of the Society of Arts
in 1857, "How a youth is taught is as momentous a matter for
him and for the world as what he is taught. It has been most
justly declared by a grateful man that the daily society of a
good and noble woman is in itself an education : such also, in its
degree, is the society of a good and noble man ; and the fellow-
ship of the base and foolish is the heaviest curse which can
fall upon the yoiiag. All our skill is acquired by imitation
and practice, so that instinctive mimicry and unconscious habit
make us in manners and acts what we are. It is no small
matter, then, side by side with whom the boy- pprentice works.
Ah me ! When I recall some of the enforced companions of my
apprentice days, I feel that I would make the greatest sacri-
fices rather than permit a youth dear to me to encounter similar
temptations." His fii-st impressions of the new scenes presented
daily to his view, are graphically described in an Address he
gave to students in 1855. The portion we extract may justly
be reckoned autobiographical.

" AMien the yoimg student firt visits the hospital, his faith in

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAT. II.

God as the wise and merciful designer of man's body, must, in
sympathizing natures, undergo a painful shock.

" He goes round the wards, we will suppose, with an intelli-
gent senior, who describes to him the more important cases.
There is one patient propped up with pillows, and panting for
breath ; ho has not lain down for weeks, and the dread of suffo-
cation which looks out from his strangely anxious and imploring
eye, compels him to snatch what repose he can in his uneasy
posture. He has, as the senior explains, ' disease of the heart ;'
certain of its valves are not fulfilling the purpose they were
designed to fulfil, and hence his sufferings, which death only
will terminate.

" Here is a second, trembling lest you touch his bed-clothes,
and quivering from time to time with scarcely endurable agony.
He has disease of the knee-joint, and the senior whispers, will
have his leg taken off to-moiTOw. And so that articulation on
v/liich the professor of Anatomy expatiated in special lectures,
as abounding in the most skilful arrangements for combining
strength, flexibility, and rapidity of easy motion, has suffered
such destruction, that it is not only useless, but so injurious, by
neutralizing or deranging all the otherwise healthful, life-
sustaining arrangements of the body, that it must be removed,
however harsh and perilous the process be.

" Here is a third, haggard and wan, beseeching the doctor for
more laudanum, as he has no rest night or day. He has cancer
of the stomach, and will linger long before death release him
from his sufferings.

" Here is a fourth, a virtuous and once a beautiful woman, but
lupus has eaten away half her face, and the disease is still
spreading.

"We will look at but one case more. It is a relief to the
student to turn to it, for the patient has a bright eye, and says
with a smile, though his breath catches a little, ' that he is better,
and feels he needs only the air of his native hills, to which he
is presently going, to make him all well again.' He is far gone

in Consumption, and has not many days to live

" The facts I have mentioned are unquestionably startling and
sad. They drive some altogether from medicine as a profession ;

1832-37.

FIKST 8UHCJICAL Ol'EHATION WITNESSED.

3ff

they tempt such as prosecute its practice to abandon it. For-
tunately for those who continue in its ranks, tlie first painful
impression wliich tlie spectacle of great suffering occasions, be-
comes, like other first impressions, deadened hy repetition.
Other impressions, also, come in to lessen their effect. The
selfish and unreasonable complaints which sufferers too often
make, produce a diversion in favour of the spectator's feelings.
Among the daily incidents of even the saddest sick ward,
amusing events occur to lighten the tragic darkness which
otherwise prevails. The convalescents are ready to cheer and
assist the distressed. The medical attendant has the unspeak-
able comfort of knowing, that however mysterious may be the
origin of the anguish around him, he can generally do something
to lessen it, and often can entirely remove it. And the patient
is not seldom ready to declare, that the moral gain to him from
his sufferings has been such, that lie counts them a small price
to have paid for such a reward.

" The first surgical operation which I saw perfonned in the
Edinburgh Infinnary, soon after becoming an apprentice there,
was the amputation of a sailor's leg above the knee. The
spectacle, for which I was quite unprepared, sufficiently horrified
a boy fresh from school, especially as the patient underwent the
operation without the assistance of anesthetics, which were not
introduced into surgical practice till many years later. Some
days after the operation, when the horror of the first shock had
passed away, I resolved to visit the poor fellow, who happened
to be a namesake, and see if I could render him any little ser-
vice. I went, however, with no little hesitation, expecting to
find him in the same state of suffering and prostration as I had
seen him in before, and fearing that I should only distress my-
self, without doing him any good. I was agreeably surprised,
however, and indeed amused, to find the invalid half propp ^
up in bed, and intently occupied with a blacking-brush, bor-
rowed from the nurse, polishing the single shoe which in six
weeks, or a month at soonest, he might hope to wear. I coidd
not help smiling in his face, and wishing him a speedy return
to his shoe, which at once became the text of a cheerful con-
versation. The ludicrous inappropriateness, as it then seemed

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

riFAP. ir.

to me, of the patient's occupation relieved my feelings ; and its
perfect appropriateness, as it seemed to himself, relieved liis ;
for, as I learned more fully in subsequent conversations, his
great concern was to count the hours till he should reach a
fishing village in the South of England, where his mother and
sister longed for his return. He made an excellent recovery,
and reached his home in safety. After this experience I be-
came a constant visitor on my own account to all the wards,
and in the course of four years made many a strange acquaint-
ance. I refer herp to the circumstance, that it may become the
ground of recommendation to the young student, who is dis-
tressed by the spectacle of suffering, to interest himself in the
welfare of the sufferers. A feeling which may otherwise readily
grow morbid, is turned into a wholesome and profitable moral
exercise. The text scidptured on the front of the Edinburgh
Infinnaiy, ' I was sick, and ye visited me,' has a blessing in it
for the visitors as well as the visited, as our Saviour emphati-
cally teaches, and as all who have obeyed its implicit command
have realized."^

This Wilson, the sailor, became the object of many kind
attentions from his young namesake. For some time sailor-
friends visited him, bringing tobacco wherewith to while away
the weaiy hours. Wlien they left for another port, George so
fully sympathized with the sailor without tobacco, coffee, or
friends, that money given to purchase a much coveted copy of
Colpi'idge's ' Aids to Eeflection,' was cheerfully sacrificed to
supply lacking comfoits. Nor were books, newspapers, or deli-
cacies forgotten in the frequent visits, till the time . of release
drew nigh. Then it transpired that so far from possessing the
means to reach home, his very clothes were detained for arrears
of lodging. This difficulty was speedily surmounted by a sub-
scription raised by George, and with the aid of the Strangers'
Friend Society, and private help, thirty shillings and a free
passage to London were obtained. To crown all, as it happened
that the vessel did not sail till the day beyond that of his exit

1 ' 0). tlie Character of God, as inferred from tlie Study of Human Anatomy.' Ad-
dresses to Medical Students, liy request of the Medical Missionary Society in 1855-5(i,
pp. 43-49. A. & 0. Black, Edinburgli.

1832 37.

KINDNESS TO PATIENTS.

from the hfcpital, he was brought home triumphantly as a guest
for the night, and next day left with the good wishes of the
household. In token of gratitude came a letter from the sailor's
sister, in Christ Church, Isle of Wight, addressing the boy in
jacket as " Honoured Sir," much to his amusement. A beau-
tiful letter it was. The wanderer had been followed everywhere
by the prayers of his mother and sister, and now he was restored
to them in peace and safety.

Like trees which yield an acrid poison when slightly pierced,
but contain for those who penetrate to their core a sweet and ^
refreshing juice, so must suffering be met without shrinking,
and its inner chambers entered for the relief of the sufferer, if
we are to obtain the blessing of the merciful, as did this
" Honoured Sir," by the instincts of a kindly heart and healthy
moral nature. The shock, however, of his first experience of
the operating theatre was sufficient to make him shrink from a
speedy repetition of such scenes. In a joint family epistle of
October 20th, 1832, Daniel says : — " Two other operations have
been performed at the Infirmary, but George did not see either ;"
while Mary remarks, " sometimes wh(in George comes in and
tells me that he has been preparing 12lbs. senna, etc., I ask him
if he never feels sick. On the contrary, he says ' he is hungrier
than before.' " Thus did the brave little heart bear its first hand -
to-hand fight with the foes of this sin-cursed world.

His kindness to the sailor may be taken as a specimen of the
liberality that constantly emptied his own purse and lightened
those of his friends. An outer coat with large pockets caused
much anmsemeut to all who knew the varied nature of its con
tents from day to day, while it made them wonder little that
the nurses, with whom he was a favourite, declared " they never
saw sic a laddie." His brother Daniel recalls an incident of
those days thus : " I specially remember one poor I'ole, lan-
koski, an old lancer of Napoleon's Ilussian Legion, who could
not speak a word of English. George cheered his slow conva-
lescence by talking to him in French ; and at length, when the
gaunt fever- stricken patient was sufficiently recovered to move
about a little, the delightful news was brought to him that a
Tolish countryman lay in one of the beds of a neighbouring

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

ward. Off the two set, to enjoy the meeting, and Creorge used
to tell with mirth of the shock he received, when his protegf,
almost before three words had passed between the invalids,
exclaimed, scornfully hissing it through his teeth, ' Un Juif !'
and, turning on his heel, no persuasion would induce him to
hold further intercourse with the despised Polish Jew. The
old soldier recovered, and occasionally smoked a cigar with us
in our room. He learned a little English, and we improved
somewhat our French, and greatly enjoyed setting him to fight
his battles o'er again, or detail to us in his cool, soldier-like
fashion, the horrors of the Eussian retreat of 18 12."

Shortly after entering on his duties in the Infirmary, George
began the student-life which his long hours of work made so
burdensome, for not till nine each evening was he free to study,
and we can imagine how weary and jaded the labours of the
day often left the boy. During the Session of 1832-33, he
attended the lectures, on Natural Philosophy, of Mr. John Scott
Russell, then one of the lecturers of the Extra- Academical
Medical School ;^ and a class for Mathematics in the University
under Professor Wallace.

In the following summer, attendance on Mr. Lizars' Anato-
mical Demonstrations introduced George more specially to
medical study. Notwithstanding these new objects of pursuit,
former projects were not abandoned.

" The Juvenile Society," says his brother, " had fulfilled its
functions, and was being superseded by others suited to the
change of tastes and requirements of advancing years. By the
minute-book of the Edinburgh Zetalethic Society, which has
remained in my possession by right of my fulfilment of the
duties of Secretary during the two years that it lasted, I find
George engaged with our cousin John, and a few other asso-
ciates, on the 4th of April 1833, in organizing this Society for
the reading of essays and discussion. It differed in no very
special degree from the ordinary run of students' debating clubs.
The subjects of discussion were sufficiently miscellaneous ; but
their main use was in exercising tlie reasoning faculties, and
developiUj^' such facility of speaking in public, as was sufti-

' See ' LiCc of Eilwfivd Forbes,' elmii. iv.

1832 37.

STUDIES CHEMISTRY AND ANATOMY.

ciently manifest in George's later public career, whatever such
Societies may have contributed to it, I find the following among
the questions discussed at this period : The relative advantages
of public and private education ; The claims of the West -India
planters to compensation on the emancipation of the slaves ;
The morality of duelling ; The right and duty of resistance to
tyrants, as exemplified by the Scottish Covenanters of the seven-
teenth century; The right of the American colonists to renounce
their allegiance ; The moral influence of the Drama ; and last,
but not least, ' Is the married or the single life the happier ?
on which George, jvith characteristic chivalry, stood up for the
married life, and carried the majority of youthful bachelors
along with him."

The autumn of 1833 brought a few weeks of relaxation; and a
letter to his mother, of September 10th, says : " Our voyage and
land travels have been very fortunate, and this is more to be
wondered at from the ominous circumstance of two hares cross-
ing our path ! I have derived great pleasure and profit from
my jaunt. Our voyage up the Forth was very agreeable ; it
was not new to me, but I enjoyed it very much. It was a fine
day, and, consistently with my profession, although those around
me were getting squeamish, I was quite free from nausea, and
able to prescribe." The voyage was only to Stirling after all,
followed by a visit to Mutliil, and home by Dundee.

In November he entered Professor Hope's class for chemistry,
and two anatomical classes. Professor Monro's within the
University, and Mr. Lizars' without its walls. This was a
busy winter, but doubtless a happy one. The interest previ-
ously felt in anatomy was deepened, while chemistry began to
imfold her wonders to his admiring contemplatiou. According
to the laws that regulate the restless nature of boys, George
had not failed to prosecute juvenile researches in chemistry and
physical science while at the High School. One experiment is
borne in mind where the object aimed at was to produce an
earthqiiake. For this purpose a paste was made of steel-filings,
sulphur, and other forgotten ingredients, and this was buried in
a box of earth. The earthquake, however, was disobliging, and
slept quietly in its box, much to the disappointment of the

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

ClIAP. II.

embryo philosophers. Having attended a course of lectures on
chemistry in the School of Arts, to his intense delight, he was in
some slight measure prepared to enter on the systematic study
of this favourite science with eyes that had power to see, as
Carlyle says. In his ' Life of Edward Forbes,' after depicting
the great change wrought by the passing of the Anatomy Bill
in 1832, giving greatly increased facilities to the study of that
science, he goes on thus to speak of chemistiy and its profes-
sors at that time : " Chemistry, not less than anatomy, though
for other reasons, was also during Edward Forbes's novitiate in
the throes of a great change. A corner of the mantle of Joseph
Black had fallen, late in the preceding century, on Charles
Hope, a lesser but still a considerable prophet. In his hands
the Edinburgh Chair of Chemistry had become the most famous
in Great Britain ; and, except in Paris, it had been imsurpassed
in one particular for a quarter of a century in Europe. It owed
this pre-eminence to the grace and skill with which the Pro-
fessor illustrated his daily winter lectures by an ample exhibi-
tion of happily- devised and dexterously-executed experiments.
Dr. Hope had nothing of the fascinative eloquence or genius of
Davy, or of the inventive manipulative skill of WoUaston, or of
the penetrating insight of Dalton. His elocution was slow and
pompous ; his manner cold and ungenial ; but he was an admir-
able expositor, and a most successful public experimenter. Had
his love of science or his ambition been greater, he had capacity
sufficient to have made himself distinguished as a discoverer.
But he was satisfied with the reputation and the wealth which
his University lectures brought him, and he fairly earned and
deserved both. Experimental illustration of public prelections
was not a novelty of his introducing. But no one before him,
in this country at least, had ventured to give a series of strictly
scientific lectures, extending for five days weekly over nearly
six months, and each illustrated to the full by experiments. To
his honour be it said, he simplified and legitimately popularized
chemistry without vulgarizing it. There were no needless blaz-
ings of phosphorus, or showy exhibitions of blue lights. A
conjuror might have envied his dexterity of hand, but he would
have despised the total absence of theatrical display, and have

1832 37.

MEETING OF BRITISH ASSOCIATION.

smiled at the serious gravity with which the Professor poured an
acid on a himp of chalk, and solemnly expounded why the latter
effervesced. He was little loved but greatly respected by the
students ; who complained of his chilling, unsympathizing man
ner, but at the same time acknowledged their obligations to
him as a teacher.

" Like all other good teachers of a rapidly advancing science,
he unavoidably, and to a great extent unintentionally, made his
pupils eager for more than even he could give them."

The reader is referred to the remainder of the chapter from
which this quotation is made, for a graphic accoimt of the ad-
vancement of chemistry and the sister sciences during a quarter
of a century.^ The period of which it treats, from 1830 to
1855, has a peculiar personal interest, as well for the subject of
this Memoir as for Edward Forbes, bridging over, as it does,
the time from their entrance into the University as students, to
that of their return as teachers within its walls.

His brother, Dr. Daniel Wilson, recalls that in 1834, "when
George was sixteen years of age, the British Association held its
first meeting in Edinburgh, and was an object of great interest to
liim, giving shape and consistency to many vague longings after
scientific occupation and successes in what so soon became the
favourite pursuits of his life. An ingenious mechanical inventor,
Mr. Maxwell Dick of Irvine, who had invented and exhibited
in Edinbux'gh, some two years before, his ' Suspension Kailway,'
was now our father's guest, and a member of the Association.
He had some subjects he wished to lay before one of the Sec
tions ; and so, through his intervention, we were both able to
obtain access to chemical and other Sections, and still more to
enjoy the invaluable treat of admission to the great evening
meeting in the Assembly llooms, at which Dr. Buckland de-
livered one of his fascinating and piquant popularizations of
geological science. I well remember the delight with which
we both returned from listening to the humorous and attrac-
tive lecture, and seeing for ourselves, amid the gaily dressed
evening Assembly, some of the scientific and literary notabili-
ties already becoming objects of the liveliest interest. George

' See ' Life ol' Edward Forces,' chap. iv. ' ,

MEMOIR OF GEOUGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

frequently alluded in after life to the influence this meeting had
on him."

The Session of the succeeding winter, 1834-35, besides con-
tinued study of anatomy under Mr. Lizars, brought Surgery and
Materia Medica into the field. Two years previously. Dr.
Christison, the present accomplished Professor of Materia
Medica, had been transferred from the Chair of Medical Juris-
prudence to that which he still holds. "In his hands the
subject soon became one of the most attractive to the students.
A museum, still in many respects unrivalled, was, by indefatig-
able exertions, furnished step by step with illustrative specimens.
Many of these were botanical, a few mineral, gathered from all
quarters of the globe. A large number were chemical, and
were chiefly prepared in the laboratory attached to the lecture-
room, where, assisted by some of the more zealous lovers of
chemistry among the students, the Professor spent many hours
each day in chemical research."^ Of this laboratory we shall
hear again. Mr. Turner, the Professor of Surgery, " was a most
uninteresting lecturer ; a timid, shy man, who could not look
his class in the face, and seemed fitted by nature for anything
rather than the duties and responsibilities of an operating

surgeon.

The following letters to Mr. William Nelson, then in Glasgow,
speak for themselves. It will be remembered that Mr. Nelson
was a school companion, and the friendship then formed con-

tinued through life.

" Edinburgh, Qth Deceirihcr 1834.
" My dear William,— Convinced that had you had any infor-
mation of interest to impai-t, I would have received a letter from
you, and feeling assured that any information from Edinburgh
will be acceptable, I take the pen to comnnmicate to you all
that I conceive will prove interesting. My time at present is
fully occupied in the active acquirement of my profession ; from
nine in the morning to nine in the evening, the Infirmary and
classes leave me scarcely a moment to call my own, and it takes

' ' Life of Edwiird Forbes,' chap. iv.
• " Ibid., chap. v. .

]832-:]7.

principal's introductory address.

con-

1834.

infor-
r from
nburgh
you all
sent is

from
,ry and

takes

me from nine to two or three in the morning to study the sub-
jects of lecture. With anatomy, surgery, and materia medica,
I find my time fully taken up through the whole week. They
are glorious studies : the first I have long admired ; the two
latter are almost wholly new to me ; not that I have not been
more or less for the last two years of my life occupied in the
minor duties of both, but I never conceived that the laws of
either were so curious and interesting. I find my mental facul-
ties most agreeably and usefully employed in the study and
observation of the singular phenomena of both. Forgive me, if,
in the above lines, I appear to be too egotistical, but I believe
that in corresponding with an intimate friend it can scarcely be
avoided ; and an account of your own feelings, and pursuits, or
productions, will be far more interesting to me than the most
detailed accounts of all that takes place at the Broomielaw.
But I have no fear of being troubled with news of the latter
description ; and no professional duties will prevent me from
enjoying and answering your letters, for though my time is well
employed during most part of the week, yet I have Saturday
evening to myself, and therefore no excuse for neglecting you.

" On the last Saturday of November, the College was officially
opened by the Eight Reverend Principal, a practice always fol-
lowed in the English Universities, and which would have been
adopted in the Scotch metropolitan University also, had there
been a room large enough to contain the whole number of stu-
dents. The students assembled in the hall of the library, and
listened to a wonderfully erudite discourse from his reverence.
I quote to you a passage from it, not pledging myself that the
words I employ were those used by the Principal, but that the
sentiments are faithfully preserved.

" * Young gentlemen, there is one practice which I feel it is
my duty to check — a practice which is veiy improper in itself,
and which I am convinced you only practise because too little
attention is paid to it in preparatory schools : it is that of making
halls of snow! The students had all been listening with deep
attention to the sage admonitory preface ; but when, instead of
animadverting on any flagitious practice, or blaming swearing,
etc., the Principal's only intention was found to be to correct the

MEMOlli OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

heinous offence of making ' balls of snow,' the effect was instan-
taneous, and for two or three minutes the laughter and ruffing
that succeeded drowned the conclusion of the dire anathema."

"Edinbukgu, 50tk January 18i'5.
" I daresay by this time you are beginning to think I
have quite forgotten you, or had too much of your company
lately to care about writing you speedily. It is want of time
alone that has prevented me this week ; the lectures have
been on particularly difficult subjects, their study ha3 been
more so, find I nave been kept later at the Infirmary too.
This may account for this week's dilatoriness ; and for my
remissness in the last week, let me tell you I fairly intended to
write you last Friday or Saturday, when a train of circumstances
occurred to prevent me fulfilling my intentions. I was sitting
on Friday in my stuf^ lo, my brother had just gone to bed (it was
about one o'clock), and, thinking what I should say to you, I
had shut my medical books, and was looking over a volume of
Wordsworth, when niy cousin came to tell me that the Eegister
Office was on fire. I soon reached a room commanding a view
of ihis house, which appeared in full relief against the bright
and lurid sky. I roused my brother, and ' in slippers' we de-
parted to ascertain the truth of the report. It was not the
Eegister Office, but the New Buildings, North Bridge. It was
a glorious scene ; but the cold weather forced us home again for
more substantial clothing, and we returned prepared for passing
the night on the crowded street. I had never seen a large fire
before, and I gazed on the sublime aixd awful scene w.'th feelings
I never experienced befo/e. My first feelings were those of
great mental agitation. I quivered like an aspen leaf, nor could
I raise the glass to my eye. Theso feelings were wholly invc-
luntaiy. It was not fear. I was determined tu wait tlir^ whole
night if the fire continued, and ready to run almost any risk to
see its progress and conclusion. These feelings gradually les -
sened, and were succeeded by sensations of ii; tense horror for five ;
every other accident v^e are liable to shrank in my estimation,
and a vivid picture of all the horrible attendants on this dread-
ful and devastating element passed in quick succession before

T'na 37.

SEXSATIONS ON WITNESSING HOUSE ON FIRE.

my anxious mind ; nay, so intense were my feelings, that I won-
dered the very fear of such a disaster did not prevent the duties
of life being performed. These painful feelings passed away, and
were succeeded by a powerful excitement ; my eye passed from the
horrors of the fire to the strenuous exeitions of the firemen, and
I felt I could have rushed at one of the ladders, and stood among
the ruins of the burning mass. It is with no feelings of egotism
I narrate those feelings. I believe, to you the actions of the
mind under extraordinary circumstances will be interesting, and
for that reason solely do I trouble you with my feelings on this
occasion.

" It was a glorious spectacle ; the whole tenement of three
houses, from the highest flat to the lowest, was enveloped in
flames ; from every window, sheets, or rather waves, billows of
flame were whirling, throwing a vivid light on all the surroimd-
ing buildings, and from the combustible nature of the goods, the
fire burned furiously ; in less than half an hour everything but
the bare stones had disappeared from the inner walls. The fire-
men acted most fearlessly, and with great presence of mind.
Three of them posted themselves on the stone ledge over the
window of the adjoining shop, and within a very few feet
of the flames, directed the water on the most necessary points.
One of them got up on the top of the house, and stood giving
signals to his comrades ; liis stout, stalwart figure, his crested
helmet, and his short jacket, made him look like some old Koman
gazing on his favourite city amidst flames and desolation. Long
ere the fire had perceptibly receded, those bold men were on the
ledge of the blazing windows, and breathing an atmosphere ar a
great distance disagreeable, and confronting a heat as powerful
as that of a furnace, directed the jets on the most needful points.
I saw three of them stand in the midst of the burning mass, their
red helmets conspicuous above the redness of the flames, and the
brass on their fronts flashing above all, as if they, the privileged
children of fire, were permitted to stand unscathed, with the
fearful flames rolling around them. It was horrible to look on
them, and the sight was more horrible when, with a crash, they
were precipitated through the floors to the lowest apartments.
Poor fellows ! they were all more or l(?ss severely burnt or in-

MEMOIR OF GEOUGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

jured ; one, after enduiiug great pain, died next day in the
Infirmary ; the other is slowly recovering ; the third was re-
moved to his own house, where he lies at ])resent sufl'ering under
his injuries. The fire became much less at about half-past two,
and at three o'clock, as all the burning was within, and all eft'ect
gone, we returned home, but not to sleep for some hours. The
following day the houses appeared as if they had been some of
the exhumed mansions of Pompeii, that had stood for seventeen
centuries the ravcgr's i^i time and decay, and their tottering con-
dition rendered their immediate demolition necessary. Excuse
this fiery letter ; my mind was too full of the subject to permit
me writing otherwise. I have now disburdened myself, and
promise you a calmer, more peaceable letter next time ; till
which time believe me your most affectionate friend.

" George Wilson."

" Edinburgh, 6th February 1835.
" Hoping with parental solicitude that the Inst offspring
of my pen has safely reached, and found you in your usual
health and spirits, and unwilling to trouble you by post,
unless when peculiar circumstances interfere, and anxious to
unburden my heart to my dearest friend, I take the opportunity
of my cousin's return to Glasgow, and sit down to pen you a
few lines, at least showing you are not forgotten. Forgotten,
no ! I have lost all the friends of my younger days except you,
and have no heart or opportunity to make new ones ; but no
one has many real friends, and I have plenty in you and my
own nearest relations. I have got on since you left me in the
old way ; the reality of life through the day, and its pleasure
and comforts at night. I am not well at all at present, how-
ever. Bilious — you can sympathize — no distinct illness, but
melancholy and sad, and a mournful despondency so affect-
ingly described by Byron, on waking in the middle of the night,
a feeling I am a stranger to generally, for I love to lie awake in
darkness — all the M'orse feelings of my heart leave me then, and
in calmness and quietness I ponder over happy ideas and fond
associations. 'Tis a strange thing (I am superstitious you will
say), that for years I have always been unhappy in Felivuary ;

1832 37

MELANCHOLY IN SPRING.

not during the whole month, but only a portion of it. Now
February is the month in which I was born. I can look back
to my schoolboy clays, and recollect perfectly those times as
being miserable from coincident saddening events, generally
those causing remorse for improper conduct. An awakened
conscience is a fearful depressor of happiness. Now you will
say, perhaps, that the circumstance of the time being about my
birthday, that was an epoch, or an ' Olympiad,' to which the
mind would retrospectively look, and the attendant circum-
stances of which would be more deeply impressed on my mind.
I have endeavoured to account for it in this manner, but cannot
satisfy myself that that will suffice to explain the facts, for 1
never paid any attention to my birthday ; indeed, I never knew
it, or if I did once hear it, certainly forgot it ; nor did I look
fonvard to next February as a time when I should bo sad. It
was long after several birthdays had rolled over me that the
circumstance attracted my attention. Last February was the
most sad and melancholy period of my life, and I can look back
on many mournful birthdays. Perhaps I shall die in this
month, but that will sadden me least, for I will have no recur-
rence of mournful seasons to vex me, and if I only understood
religion, my wish for death I am sure would increase. I don't
think I will live long ; my mind will, must, work itself out, and
the body will soon follow it. But God has ordained all for the
best, and I do not repine, and I have great reason to be thank
ful that though in minor points of everyday duties, I am very
undecided and many strange fancies pass through my brain,
infidelity has not, and I have never been undecided about reli-
gion. I have troubled you with enough of my sorrows, and I
am always the happier of losing them, but I shall keep a diary,
or rather write my past life. It will be interesting to watch
metaphysically the changes brought about in my own mind,
though the causes are far less apparent than the effects. I
have done ; as my last letter was from my heart, so is this ; but
recollect the circumstances attending its production, and
perhaps you will forget its strangeness.

" Nor, my dear William, imagine that I am not happy gene-
rally. I am sincerely happy, for instance, in reading your kind

MEMOIR OI-' OEOllOE WILSON.

I'll A I*. II.

lottcrs ; happy in writing to you. I enjoy reading and the
company of those I love ; and vvlicn night and quietness come,
I am almost always perfectly happy. It is only at pai-ticular
times 1 become unhappy, and at present 1 cannot write you a
more cheerful letter, but 1 shall tak(! ])lenty of exercise, etc.,
and recover my usual health, and you shall receive a more gay
and meny epistle than this present one. The very thought
invigorates me, and the strength of my mind will return with
returning health.

" I may take this opportunity of telling you that the Eev.
Mr. Alexander, of College Church, was ordained yesterday.
Dr. Wardlaw, of Glasgow, presided, and preached on Sabbath
evening; 1 intend to hear him. And mentioning ministers
reminds me of a plan I propose pursuing with reference to
Sabbath-evening discourses, viz., to take notes of the more
Btriking passages, and send them to yon, hoping to be repaid in
the same coin. I believe you are in the habit of taking notes ;
I mean to suggest favouring me with the beautiful ideas you
may hear from the pulpit. I propose principally to attend
Mr. Alexander and Mr. Anderson, and trust my labour will
obtain for ns something worth having. In addition, you will
confer a great favour on me by recommending to my notice
those books you find instructive, etc. It is near two o'clock
A.M., so I conclude. — Yours most alfectionately, G. W."

" Febnianj 28, 1835.

" Really, what with lufirmaiy classes, and preparation for
them, I have had little time left me for perusing works of
general literature ; and I have only been twice a church, and
neither of the sermons contained much very interesting. How-
ever, I don't lose time, and contrive to get some moments for
reading interesting books, not strictly medical. At present I
have got hold of one that has interested me exceedingly, and
which, if you have not read, I would recommend to your per-
usal, viz., ' The Confessions of an English Opium Eatei !' a veiy
singular book, written by a most talented, unfortunate philoso-
pher, containing a narrative of circumstances of rare occurrence,
and full of descriptions of mental emotions, interesting to all

lS3i 37.

' CONFESSIONS OF AN Ol'lUM EATKK.'

wlio love tho study of metuphysics. 1 have never studied ineta -
])liy8ic's ; I Buppose my hntred of inatheinatics will be no help hi
.study. But, at an) rate [ love to mark the workings of the
human mind under various circumstances ; but thougli it is a
favourite ])ursuit of mine to watch the feelinj,'s and actions of
others, and mark the working.s of the mind within, yet it is dith
cult to ascertain the actions and impulses to such in others,
and thou<^h nnich may be observed, yet of course the mind of
the observer is the great field of ol)servation. To no breast but
his own has he always access ; no bo.som but his own is laid
open to him with all its joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, and.
their causes and effects. But this book is an exception. This
talented writer has laid before his reader a narrative of a singu-
lar life, and depicted in most beautiful and poetical terms, the
])leasures and pains of opium ; and as the first are of a most
delightful description, the latter are of a most horrid (descrip-
tion). There is one singular thing he takes notice of, the peculiar
state of the eye (or rather the mental eye) in children. I don't
know if ever in your younger days you used to shut your eyes,
and laying your head on the pillow, conjure up phantoms. It
used to be a favourite employment of my brother and me,
and the phantoms were of a pleasing description generally,
but often commonplace. Thus, I recollect seeing a regiment
of soldiers pass before me l)y shutting my eyes in bed, and as
soon as they were opened all had disappeared, to reappear on
closing the eyes. I'his mode of producing images, I was very
fond of; and even in the course of the day it would take place
by producing artificial darkness. This singular faculty (which
1 believe many children possess), totally left me as life advanced,
so gradually, that I had almost forgot I ever possessed it, till
seeing the fact noticed in the Opium-Eater, in whom this
faculty was awakened to a most insufferable degree. I can yet
occasionally produce a phantom, but generally the only thing I
obseiTc on closing my eyes, is a spot as of bright light.

" Now my reason for asking you if you ever experienced this,
is twofold ; "'n tli*? first place, I never recollect noticing it to
you, and won' lei if it is new to you ; and secondly, it seems to
me a singxdar jn-oof of how poetical an infancy many children

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IL

pass. lu fact, the appearance of a child sleeping, the lovely
smiles on the lips, show the presence of happy dreams : and,
oh ! what can be the subject of the dreams of an infant a few
days old ? They cannot be dreams like ours, for all ours are
tinctured by surrounding circumstances, which have affected us,
or are mere versionn of commonplace occurrences, rendered
ludicrous (when thought over), by those anomalies that take
place in dreams only ; or they are horrible imaginings of fearful
circumstances, or dreaded events, aggravated to so intense a
degree as to make awaking from them positive pleasure. But
the visions of infants cannot be tinctured by surroimding objects,
or be the exaggerated depictings of every- day occurrences, and
the smiles show they must be beautiful, supremely beautiful.
Oh! what can be their subject, what their cause, or what
delightful emotions do they feel, ere they seemingly have asso-
ciated with aught that could afford subject for thought, or have
obtained the power of thinking at all ? But thought is not
necessary for dreams, except those of association, and this is
proved by the fact of the lower animals dreaming — the dog, the
elephant, and, I believe, some others. All these circumstances,
my dear "V\^illiam, seem to show, that in spite of all that educa-
tion produces and experience adds to our knowledge, in spite of
all that critics have said and may say, our infancy and childliood
is the season of poetry. I think it was so in my own life, and I
believe it is the case with all who possess any share of talent at
all. I do not need to tell you that by poetry, I mean not writing
verse, for who has not felt the most glorious thoughts impossible
to express? and the great and ecstatic pleasure of writing or
explaining fully an idea, I believe, is always accompanied with
the consciousness that more glorious and beautiful ideas can be
felt than expressed. Thus childhood may be the most poetical
stage though no expressions show it, and though the child is
imconscious itself. Now that I have thought over this subject,
some reveries and strange recollections, like dreams that have
long pleasurably haunted me, seem the relics of those poetical
days, and I am sure at times I remember some of them. There
is a strange fact, viz., that on the point of sudden drowning, or
the like, the whole life of the individual, from his youngest days.

1832 37.

DEATH OF TWIN-BROTHERS.

has passed before him, accompanied by an aptitude to com-
prehend the whole ; and a writer has most beautifully imagined
that the Book of Account of the Bible will be our own mind
endowed with a power of contemplating all its past conduct and
judging of its propriety. I fear this writing will be illegible.

" Now, how delightful it would be to have an aptitude to
understand all, given with a remembrance of the past ! I be-
lieve the vision would be more beautiful than aught of the con-
ceptions of maturer years. Do write me your opinion about
all these points, and excusing the strangeness and illegibility
of this letter (I intend to mend the last),- -Believe me, yours
most affectionately, " George Wilson."

The few religious allusions contained in those letters are
interesting as the only guide by which we may trace his feelings
on such subjects ; and they are the more so when we remember
how strongly materialistic was the tendency of the Medical
School at that time. One of his dearest early friends says — " I
have a vivid remembrance of a long talk with him one day
while he was in the Infirmary Laboratory, in the course of
which he lamented the Sabbath service required of him there.
This remark impressed me much, for at that time I fear I should
have been glad of any seeming work of necessity which broke
in upon the Sabbath rest."

Once again was the household darkened by the shadow of
sickness unto death. John, the gentle, loving twin-brother of
George, had never been robust, and pulmonary symptoms had
caused anxiety for some years past. Those now became so
marked as to leave little ground for hope, and sonfe months of
lingering illness brought him to his heavenly home. Blessed
months they were to him, for in them he learned the wonderful
secret how God can be just, yet the justifier of the. ungodly.
Instead of murmuring at the wearisome days and nights ap-
pointed him, he rather most gratefully rejoiced that time had
thus been given to work out his salvation with fear and trem-
bling. A friend already mentioned^ says of him, " He was a
sincere and lowly Christian, and died in perfect peace, leaning

' Ante,-p. 20.

MEMOIR OF (JEORGE WILSON.

CIIIAP. IT.

upon his Saviour. I saw him the day before his death ; I shall
never forget his look, it was full of joy and hope. Mrs. Wilson
was in truth ' a mother in Israel/ for notwithstanding the bit-
terness of her sorrow, she it was who directed his mind to the
Cross, and supported and comforted him during the languor of
disease by her presence and Christian conversation, never
allowing her feelings to overpower her judgment, but always
appearing composed and even cheerful." The contrast to his
brother in personal appearance became more striking as his life
approached its close. He had attained nearly six feet in height,
and when, with his lustrous black eyes and raven hair, he was
seen beside George's slender little figure and fair complexion,
none could have guessed how close the tie was that united them.

But two months before, John had entered liis eighteenth year.
No record of George's sorrow at this mournful separation exists :
it was a grief too deep for much expression. His friend, Wil-
liam Nelson, remembers a walk they had together in this time
of sadness, and George with great earnestness ^elling him there
was no text in the Bible he thought so beautiful as this, " God
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." As a child this had
been a favourite, and was to have been the text of his first
sermon had he ever mounted a pulpit, but now new beauty was
seen in it. No wonder that in later years he writes, — " The
other world and the shadow of death have been in my thoughts
ever since I remember." To one or two intimate friends he
frequently spoke tenderly of John ; and the only wish he was
known to express regarding his burial was in conversation with
a friend, " I should like to be laid beside my twin-brother."
This desire has been fulfilled ; side by side they lie as in the
happy dreams of childhood, safer now and happier than then ;
for them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him, and they
shall be satisfied when they awake in His likeness. How truly
does the wise Jeremy Taylor tell us, that " the sadnesses of this
life help to sweeten the bitter cu j of death."

The winter Session of 1835-36 found George steadily at work.
The lectures of Professoi-s Alison, Syme, and Home, were at
tended, together with Anatomy in Mr. Lizars' class-rooms, and
the Hospital wards. The determination to keep a diary, an-

1 1

l«32-37.

BEGINS TO KEEP A DIARY.

iiounced in one of his letters to Mr, Nelson, was fulfilled so far.
The first entry was made before the year closed : it forms a
preface to the volume, but, unfortunately, only an eighth part
of the book is filled, the rest being blank paper. The entries
are irregular, ten occurring in 1836, one in 1837, three in 1838,
and the last one in 1839.

" December 2Sd, 1835. — I have sat down this evening to com-
mence what I have long thought of doing, the record of some
of the curious thoughts and wild imaginings that pass through
my mind during the course of the day. It is not to be a diary
either of events or feelings ; that is to say, I have not the inten-
tion of chronicling every circumstance that happens to me ; but
I intend putting down in this book such of my thoughts as
appear to myself worthy of preservation, either on account of
their singularity or beauty. And the end I hope to gain by so
doing is twofold : 1 hope to create for myself a store of images,
and thoughts, etc., which have been the product of my own
meditations, and which will form (independently of their pos-
sessing no other claim to attention but the circumstance of
having once been my own thoughts) a summary and conclusion
of all courses of reasoning which have busied me ; and in this
light will occasionally be of service, by affording the necessary
conclusions, without the labour of going through the necessary
preliminary steps. But the main object of my commencing is
the wish to treasure up the prominent features of my mind as it
acts at present, both to watch its progress, and to afford a fund
of pleasing delight afterwards, in musing over the thoughts of
my young days ; and it may appear strange to thee, reader,
whoever thou art, that I should put any preface to a collection
of my own meditations ! But though destined to be a book
read by none but myself at most times, yet there are some who
love me, and take a kind interest in me, to whom this shall not
1)6 denied, and there is one to whom it will be freely given ; but
besides all this, it is possible and by no means improbable that
no one will see it during my own life, but to whom it will be
ot great interest when I am dead ; and though I might wait to
see who shall be my survivors, and address them particularly,

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

yet the possibility of my death being a violent and sudden one,
preventing the arrangement of such things as this, has induced
me to preface this book, that those into whose possession it may
designedly or accidentally come, may perfectly understand the
cause of its being written.

" Several evenings ago I had a curious dream, different from
any preceding one, both as to kind and degree. I awoke in the
middle of the night surrounded by deep darkness and utter
stillness. I had the most distinct sensation of having been
dreaming, although the precise nature of the dream I could not
recollect, I felt a strange indescribable sensation of great hap-
piness, evidently a continuation of the feelings which had pos-
sessed me immediately before awaking, and there was no evident
cause to excite such lively feelings of delight. I had the sen-
sation of being alone in some great hall or boundless valley, in
a state of the utmost loneliness and stillness imaginable, yet
pervaded with a feeling of intense happiness, and that happiness
calm and deep, in no way partaking of the character of idle
mirth or careless levity, but accompanied with a feeling of the
deepest solemnity and reverential awe felt for some invisible
being of great power, to whom I had some obscure idea I was
indebted for the feelings of pleasure ; but my thoughts were so
intent on reflecting on the curious condition of happiness, that
I turned my attention very slightly to the cause of their occur-
rence. I awoke, but this feeling of deep happiness did not
immediately disappear, not indeed till it had been much the
subject of reflection and analysis.

" I have no remembrance of having such a dream before.
My dreams are for the most part, in health, ludicrous, in dis-
ease, frightful ; but in no way resembling the dream in question.
It may be plausibly accounted for. On the preceding evening
I had been reading, with feelings of great admiration, the
' Confessions of an Opium-Eater,' and in addition enjoying the
conversation of a highly intellectual and imaginative friend, and
retired to bed under feelings of great excitement, more especially
my imagination called into play ; and it may be supposed that
such a state of mind easily produced the effects in question, i.e.,
the dream. This would go to prove the truth of Dr. Macnish's

1832 -37.

SACREDNES8 OF THE DEAD.

theory regarding dreams, that we dream all the night long, and
that the reason we do not recollect them is because memory is
not called into action. If that theory is correct, and I think it
is, what glorious visions I must have lost ! what entrancing
pictures of seraphic beauty and unimaginable glory !"

On the next page is a morsel of Infirmary life, in writing
which he seems to have been interrupted, for it closes abruptly
in the middle of a sentence. Two pages have been left blank
for its continuation, but the story was nevf r resumed.

"January 5th, 1836. — I have this day had to perform one of
the most melancholy duties which it has fallen to my lot, for
some time, to perform, the burying of a stranger in a foreign
land, in the cold grave, 'Tis about two months since I was
struck, in going round one of the wards of the Infirmary, by
the handsome contour of one of the patients, and the exceedingly
beautiful forehead towering over a Grecian nose and well-formed
features. I learned he was a German, a valet de place, who had
been travelling from Aberdeen to Edinburgh, but in getting off
the coach had had the misfortune to twist his leg at the hip.
The pain and inconvenience were slight at first, so as not to
prevent him travelling on ; but on reaching Edinburgh he be-
gan to suffer more and more, and at last the pain and inability
to move the limb which he experienced, increased so as to pre-
vent walking, and he came into the Hospital. For some days
the injury appeared a trivial one; he was cheerful, in good
health generally speaking"

At the death of this man, no friends were found to claim his
body ; and the thought that his " beautiful forehead" should be
touched by the dissecting- knife, George felt to be unbearable.
He could not, however, undertake to be responsible for the ne-
cessary expenses, so many demands did the patients make on
his slender stock of pocket- money. The result of anxious pon-
dering how his object might be accomplished was, that he
searched out some Germans, waiters in one of the clubs in town,
and telling them of their coimtryman's death, he assured them
that, if they claimed the body, his stock of clothes would amply

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IT.

HI.

i
i

refund all outlay. Their acquiescence was readily gained to
this plan, and he and they were the mourners at the funeral.

The gratitude of the men for this act of kindness was great.
Not content with thanks, they said, " Oh, sir ! is there nothing
we could do for you? would you like to see the club-room?"
He did pay it a visit to satisfy them that it was in their power
to give him pleasure. One memorial of the patient he retained,
a German prayer-book, hoping at some future day to visit his
native place, and communicate with his friends.

This unprofessional cheating the dissecting-room of lawful
subjects was not a solitary case. Where his love or interest
was excited in patients, their bodies had a sacredness in his
eyes, and at almost any sacrifice he would save them from what
he deemed desecration. It may be supposed how much more
strongly such feelings influenced him in reference to relations
and friends, for whom his affection was so strong, and almost
passionate in degree, as to surprise those who casually became
aware of its nature.

He was, in the days we now speak of, an impetuous, ardent,
and often impatient youth, capable of any act of unselfish devo-
tion to those dear to him, but abounding in strong and some-
times unreasonable aversions ; yet, with a certain waywardness,
there was mingled such a winning grace that it was a notorious
fact that when he chose, consciously or unconsciously, to exert
the power, no one could refuse him aught he asked. Indeed,
throughout life his powers of " coaxing" were often called into
requisition in cases where others had failed. Thus, while a
student, he was applied to by ladies whom he knew, to try what
could be done with an old woman in PortobeUo, a sea-bathing
resort a few miles from Edinburgh. She was aided by a charit-
able society, but for her own sake it was most desirable she
should become an inmate of the hospital. All persuasions or
entreaties to this effect, however, were in vain ; and so week
after week had passed, till George went down, and to the un-
bounded astonishment of the ladies, brought her triumpliantly
to town in a cab, and deposited her, a subdued and willing cap -
tive, in one of the wards. From this digression, we return to
the private journal, as the best source of information in regard

1832 37.

SPECULATES ON THE EMOTIONS.

to the inner life. The entries are more full in the first month
of its existence than at any future period, though some of them
are too sacred and personal to be made public.

" January Wth. — Logicians have given much attention to the
study of the emotions likely to be legitimately excited by certain
occurrencQs, and on this point Dr. Abercrombie has most parti-
cularly dwelt, and yet I cannot perceive the possibility of ever
ascertaining or fixing what emotions should originate from known
causes ; for in every individual these emotions must differ as
well in kind as in degree, and there appears to me no subject
better fitted than this to show, to prove, how much mind differs
in different individuals, and how essentially it is the reflection
of the raind on objects and events which is the greatest cause of
joy and sadness, and delight and horror, and not those occurrences
themselves, so much so that we often find that the contemplation of
such objects awakes startling, striking, and vivid feelings, which
these objects themselves did not excite, though apparently cal-
culated to do so. There is a curious case illustrative of this in
the life of the celebrated physiologist, John Hunter. This gen-
tleman had among a collection of animals two leopards, which
by some accident escaped one day. Hunter was aroused from
his studies by their noise in endeavouring to get away ; and on
running down, found them attempting to scale the walls of the
court -yard. He courageously sprang forwards, grasped each by
the neck, dragged them back to their den, and secured them ;
but on retiring again to his study, he was so struck with the
risk he had run, and the extreme hazard of the attempt, that
the thought almost maddened him. The longer he thought, the
more forcibly was he struck with the thought of what danger he
had been exposed to. To adduce another case, in one of the
autumnal months a summer or two ago, walking along one of
the tributary streams of the Tweed, I was struck with the ap-
pearance of an old castle near the river. This castle (the Drochill)
being in excellent preseivation, I walked up to it, and after
viewing its external excellences, began to examine the internal
accommodation of the donjon-keeps. Looking into one, I saw it
had a hard, firm floor, and jumped down through the window

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

to examine it. Unfortunately I had made a very great mistake
as to the consistence, and instead of landing on solid ground, T
descended to my knee in t mass of mud and green weeds and
water. Immediately on feeling myself sinking, I made a con-
vulsive spring at the window, and grasping the stone lintel with
supernatural enr -ry, ra'Pf.\I cyselfwith the utmost e.v3e from
this quii'^truie, altiiougli uiiasjissed by the despiiration of the mo-
ment, I believe I could i)ut lave made iny way as I did. My first
feeling on reacuing ,1 grn?: d was amazement, succeeded by
involuntary laughter at the al;;ju 'd mistake of thinking a ditch
of water terra jirma. With the utmost alacrity I immediately
proceeded to remove the mud from my nether limbs, and an
adjournment to the neighbouring river soon removed all the
adventitious stuff I had acquired in my luckless leap. I
laughed a good deal on thinking of it, and soon banished it from
my mind, nor the whole of that day did I think of it. But at
night while lying alone on my bed in utter darkness, when the
circumstance came back on me, it awakened thoughts of a fear-
ful description ; for the keep might have been fourteen feet
deep, as well as three or four, and I might have sunk and died
a most horrible death, and my mysterious disappearance must
have been a source of great sorrow to my friends ; and when I
thought of all these things, I was so horrified that I eagerly
courted sleep to banish thoughts of so terrible a description ;
and even yet, after the lapse of many a month, my heart throbs
with unusual emotions, and the thoughts excited are still pain-
ful and horrible.

" The two preceding cases are curious in showing how false
the common idea is, that when causes of joy or grief are over,
the effects will cease ; but in all minds of any power, both will
be immeasurably increased by reflection deepening their hues
and heightening their effects, and producing deep and inefface-
able impressions on the heart of the thinker.

" There is another curious thing with reference to mental phe-
nomena, which I note down here as very curious and interesting,
that in poets and men of fervid, gorgeous imaginations, whose
minds are essentially non-mathematical, and who do not parti-
cularly care for sciences or mere matters of fact, their most

i'l

1832-37.

' THE '^ST DAYS OF POMPEII.'

lal phe-
[resting,
whose
It parti"
lir most

■tplenclid and st'-'king productions have often been, not the
result of thinking over the subject >> find what could be made
of it, but from the subject, or some part of it, as in some way
connected with it, striking their mind as being particularly
curious or novel , ad the perception of that unique beauty has
stimulated their mental powers, and led to their brightest effects.
To take an instance, the talented and imaginative author of the
' Last Days of Pompeii,' has mentioned in the preface, that the
idea of introducing a blind girl into that delightful book, was
d'^rived from a remark of a friend that the blind would be the
most advantageously situated of all when the pitchy darkne '»
covered the devoted city, for to them it would make no differ-
ence, and they could easily make their escape, when f. eji>
gifted with sight would be confounded wiMi the unusual dark-
ness. This remark, one of sterling beauty and origin^' ^v,
seems to have struck the mind of Mi", Bulwer, and sciik
deeply into his thoughts, and from the revolving in his mind
of this simple remark, has given rise to a beautiful creation,
the blind Thessalian flower-gatherer, Nydia, one of the most
exquisite characters of the work ; and I please myself with
imagining what delight Bulwer must have felt, when the idea
shot into his mind, and he saw what a rich and beautiful chain
of incidents he could elicit from the remark of his friend ; for
whatever were his intentions in resolving to write The Last
Days,' the introduction of the blind girl into his work has evi-
dently had a great influence on the whole plot and characters of
the book. And the above might easily be shown to be the case
with all poets in whom the feelings of delight from such slight
remarks as that alluded to, are among the most signal proofs
of the intensity of their genius, and the excellency of their
powers of creation, as well as palpably demonstrating how much
their minds must differ from those of other men."

" Jamiary 12th — "What a great and wondrous change comes
over the mind emerging from boyhood to youth, at sixteen or
seventeen. What a change spreads itself over every thought
and feeling, and how does it deepen and render more intense
every emotion. When I was a boy at school, my thoughts were
brilliant, my wishes ardent, and my cares few ; and, lo ! now

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

If.

what an altemtion, that which was liked is now beloved, ami
that which was disliked is now abhorred. The pleasure of
school-boy life was in a great measure the result of a conscious-
ness of animal life ; the feeling of being a living creature, as
Moore has beautifully expressed it in ' Lalla Rookh,' is sufficient
to give happiness ; but when sixteen or seventeen has arrived,
along with the striking and rapid development of the body, the
mind also increases in all its capabilities. With what different
feelings do I now look on objects calculated to excite strong
emotions. What rapturous feelings of delight are excited in
my heart by the contemplation of the ' Beautiful,' whether it be
the beautiful in physical or mental conformation, or in com-
position, elocution, poetry, or means to an end. Whatever can
claim title to the tenn beautiful in my estimation, awakens in
my heart feelings of uncontrollable emotion. How delightedly
do I gaze on works of art or design, such as Martin's or
Turner's, or the sculpture of the renowned masters, the Medicean
Venus, or the Graces of Canova. How rapturously and passion-
ately do I dwell on beautiful poetry, or the wild imagina-
tive works of rare genius ; and how pleasing it is to contemplate
God's provision in this world ! So great an ecstasy of happiness
have I felt from the above-mentioned causes, that it seemed that
death could be the only termination of feelings which were
utterly opposed to the daily occurrences of the world. But in
sad subjects as much are my feelings deepened in intensity :
the cries of distress, the moanings of anguish, break on my
heart far more acutely, and sink into my heart far deeper, than
they ever did heretofore ; and the prospect of evil and misery,
and sin and woe, affects me much more powerfully than it did
"f old. In shoit, now my mind is much more developed than
two years ago, and can ascend and descend much more widely
than it could at that time, and my joy or sorrow is much more
the result of legitimate causes than it was then."

" JanvAiry litJi. — Wliat a horrible thing remorse is ! how fear
fill in its influence over the soul ; clouding all the gay prospects
that have been opened to its view ; throwing a black and gloomy
shroud over the fair and beautiful, and tinging everj"- emotion of

1W2~37.

* SONG OP THE BUND FLOWER GTRT..'

«T

the same ghastly hue, whether the mind may liave been turned
to really proper or merely frivolous pursuits ; and how balefully
and abhorredly gleams back on my own mind the recollection
of the multitude of accursed sins I daily commit ; — my exceed-
ing and ungrateful unkindness ; my wayward temper, and my
excessive instability so much increased lately, that even the
slightest noises are sufficient to enrage me. Would that I could,
with Divine assistance, overcome, banish them, and turn the
mental activity to more useful purposes."

" July 2d. — Bulwer's ' Nydia.' — Every time I read the songs(
in Bulwer'« ' Last Days of Pompeii,' I see something new to
admire, and of these I would take for subject of notice at present
'The Song of the Blind Flower- Girl.' Beautiful creation! I
have formerly referred to it while speculating on the causes
which gave rise to the idea of its mention in his wildly beautiful
book. This song, like the whole of the poeti;^^ in the volume,
has evidently been the production of elaborate revision, added
to a highly- cultivated imagination ; and it has that character of
true poetry deeply impressed on it, that each repeated perusal
brings to light new beauties and rarer excellences, and, as one
has justly remarked, that idea must have something new, or
striking, or beautiful which comes unbidden to the heart, and,
beckoned by no effort of the will, presents itself to the mind
when not wholly engrossed with some other subject. And often
have the ideas of that song come t- my recollection, with their
rare beauty and most affecting comparisons, almost making the
tears fall in sympathy with that which, though in the present
case the imagined declaration of a fictitious being, is so similar
\o what many a one may or might have said with all justness
and truth, that it must awaken as much compassion for the
mournful state of the blind as could have been excited by that
which was known to be the faithful record of a real occurrence.
There is great art displayed in making Nydia, after referring
to the Earth as the mother of the flowers, ask- as if in a lower
voice, in parenthesis,-—

' Do they her beauty keep ? '

And \\ovi beautifully is the allusion to the Earth, as their parent,

MEMOIR OF OEOROE WILSON.

CHAP, II.

kept upl How much is the unity of subject preserved; how true
to nature is the whole picture ! The fond mother represented
sitting with her young children fast asleep in her lap, bending

' With her soft and delicata breath, over them murmuring low,'

and kissing them so often, that, when taken from her,

' On their lipH lier Hweet kins lingorH ; "

while yet, with that strange, curious paradox of the mind,

' She weeps, to Hee tl'.e yuung things grow so fair.'

How exceedingly natural the last idea is ! how cons onant with
the experience of mothers — of all mothers, I firmly llfTOve, who
have ever fondly loved their offspring ! Yet it is a strange and
most curious phenomenon of the mind, that the seeing beloved
objects growing more endearing should make the heart over-
flow with tears. It is too curious a subject not to have received
the notice of those who are fond of metaphysical inquiries.
Isaac Taylor, refemng to the subject, says : ' No position of the
mind is more peculiar than the one it occupies when, at the
same moment, the reasons of hope are irrefragable, and the
motives of despondency are overwhelming.' {Saturday Even-
ing). — And I recollect to have read, in 'The Confessions of
an Opium-Eater,' a reference to this, in which De Quincey
gives the only attempt at explanation of this phenomenon
which I have seen. That writer mentions, that he could never
walk out in a beautiful summer day, an(' see all nature pro-
lific in life; the air, and earth, and watt'i'S teeming with
myriads of animate beings; the hills crowned with forests,
clothed with full foliage, and the vaUeys rich with the freshest
verdure, — he could not look on all this without a deep feeling
of moumfulness coming on him, which he conceives most truly
to depend upon the antithesis between summer and the pro-
lusion of life, and winter and the silence of death. And follow-
ing out the subject, he conceives it a fixed law of the human
mind, that if two objects stand in relation to each other, as
things utterly different, the one will suggest the other. Thus
does the wild profusion of life suggest the solitary silent loneli-
ness of death ; and thus to the mother will the sight of her
young babes, day after day growing fairer, awaken in her mind

I8M-37.

THOUGHTS ON THE RESURRECTION.

the dread of pain, and disease, and death ; and the fond, loving,
hoping, and fearing heart will find relief only in the overflowing
of the ' well of a mother's love,' which has so often dropped its
scalding tears on the face of the fair young babe that reposed in
quiet rest on its parent's knee."

"July 10/A, Sabbath Evening. — I have opened the Bible this
evening to read one of its most beautiful and striking passages,
the 1 5th chapter of First Corinthians, containing the full de -
scription of the resurrection of the dead, one of the most solemn
and seriously interesting subjects that can occupy the mind.
Solemn it is and must be to all, the idea that the period of our
existence in this world is but a minute fraction of the period
during which we are to exist as immortal souls. I have often
thought with sadness on the dim, dark vista, down which the
Ancients must have looked when they contemplated death.
How must the mind have recoiled from the idea of annihilation !
A Catiline might deem such an ending no undesirable thing ;
but would not the thought of it throw a cloud over the musings
of Cicero or Plato ? How must the man of the world, the Epi-
curean, have seen the locks clustering over his forehead becom-
ing grey and lustreless, his eye becoming dimmer and duller,
the smooth cheek becoming invaded by wrinkles, and care
stamping his im-age on the furrowed brow ! Mournful must
have been the spectacle, each new wrinkle, each additional grey
hair adding to the despondency that already was invading the
mind : the wine-cup and the evening libation might bring hope
and joy to the soul, but the morrow would bring the aching
head and the desponding heart, and bid all the woes stand forth
in a more soiTowfui irray. This is no vain conjecture of mine :
doth not Horace abound in multiplied reflections on the ' Inex-
orabile Fatum ?' and i/i vain for him were woman's blandish-
ments, and ' the spiced Falernian wine.' He tells in sorrowful
strains of the inevitable end, and the visit that all must make
to the black Cocytus. Sorrowful picture of this world's joys
ceasing to delight the heart of one who knew no more enduring
pleasures, whose most joyous prospect beyond this planet was
extinction and annihilation.

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

" A curious task it would be, a pleasing and not unprofitable
employment, as I have long thought, to see in what manner the
old Eoman and Grecian philosophers looked forward to death,
and met him ; how all the varieties of sects, both of the old times
and the more modern ones, resigned the joys of this earth, and
grappled with that invisible but terrible foe ; but it will require
much reading in many languages, and the reflection of maturer
years, before this can be attempted.

" I turn, then, to the solemn description of St. Paul (passing
over some symbolical tokens, which do exist in nature, till an-
other time). In a strain of the most beautiful and impressive
reasoning, the Apostle proceeds, step by step, to show that the
resurrection of Christ from the dead was at least undoubted, and
combating the doubts of those who questioned the reality of
Jesus' rising from the dead, and yet preached eternal life, by
showing that if Christ have not risen from the dead, then the
resurrection of men cannot take place. If God did not, or could
not raise to life his Son Jesus, he would not resuscitate human
beings ; but, on the other hand, the evidence being complete
that Christ was raised from the dead, becomes a point whence the
necessity of our resurrection may be shown ; and he continues
to describe the glories of Christ, summing them up by stating,
that ' he shall reign till death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed.'
He continues to show that the question is vain, ' How are the
dead raised up ?' For the peculiar manner in which the dissi-
pated elements of the human frame shall again form the perfect
whole, we cannot explain or understand, nor is it of importance
we should. We are told that the body ' is sown in corruption, it
is raised in incorruption ;' and that the change will be of a most
important kind is shown by the 50th verse, ' Flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption in-
herit incorruption ;' and this mystery the Apostle, eagerly enter
ing into his subject, dwells more pointedly upon in the succeed-
ing verse. Tor this corruptible must put on iiK raption, and
this mortal must put on immortality ;' and finalij-, he concludes
the course of reasoning by exhorting the brethren to be stead -
fast, 'forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in
the Lord.'"

1832-37.

CLASSES ATTENDED.

This is the last entry for the year 1835, The quotations are
given, not for their intrinsic merit, but chiefly as showing the
metaphysical bent of his mind at that age. Like the glass win-
dow of a bee-hive, the journal reveals the workings that produce
the beautiful results, permitting us to hear him thinking, as it
were. The comments on 1 Cor. xv. derive interest from their
being the first evidence of his pondering the subject of the
Resurrection, which in after life was so reverently and earnestly
studied. In some points regarding the resurrection-body, his
views were different from any he met with, and he frequently
expressed, up to within a few weeks of his death, a purpose of
extending those of them already committed to writing, and em-
bodied in an Address to Medical Students. The reading aloud
of this chapter at his own funeral service had a touching signi-
ficance for those of his friends present who knew his special love
for it, and to whom it seemed inseparably associated with him.^

The Session of 1835-36 found him attending the lectures of
Professors Alison, Home, and Syme, on the Institutes of Medi-
cine, the Practice of Medicine, and Clinical Surgery, with those
of Mr. Lizars on Anatomy. Attendance on the hospital wards
was also continued as before.

In May, the pleasures of botany were renewed under Profes-
sor Graham. As a boy we have seen the attractions this science
had for him, but many occupations had placed it beyond his
reach for years. The blank page of a note- book for botanical
extracts gives this entry : —

"May \Mh, 1836, Sunday. — An annular eclipse of the sun
took plac J this day : the next day I commenced my botanical
studies seriously. G. Wilson, Monday, 16th."

/^ain in

• The following fragments of cr.nversaticju are pieseived on this subject. They
are written in pencil, as, owing to his mother's inability to hear his voice unless
raised to a high pitch, it was often his custom thus to converse with her :— " I have
thought a good deal about the resurrection- body. It is every way a great mystery.
Our bodies will not be like that of Lazarus, the old body over again ; nor like that
after Christ's resurrection, but rather Ml rfejc/ce like his after his ascension. . . . The
Saviour said he was not a spirit, but bad Itesh and bones, and he ate before his dis-
ciples after his resurrection ; yet the hands were still pierced, and the spear-wound
leading to the heart remained."

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

The " prelections were delivered in a pleasant lecture-room
in the Gardens, where the foliage of the luxuriant trees, which
peeped in at its windows, served as window-blinds, and singing-
birds took the place of the College bell."i The lectures are
given at 8 A.M., and most students, ; ,ccustomed to late hours of
retiring, find an effort required to accomplish the necessary feat
of early rising ; but how pleasant are the remembrances of the
return of George and a friend, as daily guest — Mr. Williamson,
a fellow- apprentice and clerk in the Infirmary—to a late break-
fast, very hungry, and full of fun, with flowers in their hands
which had been used as specimens in the course of the lecture.
They never could agree as to which of two routes was the
shorter way home, and each holding to his own opinion, they
parted at one point, and met in time to arrive together. The
sight of a magnolia never fails to recall those merry breakfasts,
from an image stamped ou the memory of a morning when that
flower had been used for illustration at lecture. " To an extent
unknown elsewhere in Great Britain, least of all, perhaps, in
London, the energetic and genial Professor led his students,
each summer's Saturday, on a botanizing march in some direc-
tion across the countiy within a few miles of Edinburgh. In
the autumn he headed a smaller party on a continuous excur-
sion of a week or more, to more distant districts, such as Clova
in Forfar, Sutherland, the Welsh Hills, or the Lakes of Kil-
larney. The field-botanists who made those campaigns acquired
a knowledge of plants, such as the closet study and the finger-
ing of herbarium- mummies cannot give. They gained health
to the bargain, and enjoyed not a little fun ; whilst now and
then, like other campaigners foraging in lands not their own, a
ciisus belli would occur, and the invaders be accused of for-
getting that the fields in which they were reaping what they
had not sowed, were the property of neutrals, who could forbid
their presence if they pleased. The more thoughtless students
alone gave occasion to complaints, which were rare. Genial
and hearty though the Professor of the day— Dr. Graham- was,
he could become the stern provost- marshal if occasion de
maudod. liut the hearty welcome shown year after year to the

'' 1 ' Life of Edward Forbes,' chap. iv.

1S32-3T.

BOTANICAL CLASa

University botanizing parties, by those who have long received
their visits, is the best proof that the landed proprietors and
farmers, whose grounds were traversed, were willing to excuse
a little youthful foUy, for the sake of the good which so largely
preponderated."^

The advantages to the students were, however, very inferior
to those offered now by the liberality an^l -nthusiasm of the
present accomplished Professor, Dr. Ball*. . Instead of the
hundreds of beautiful diagrams, the profusion of specimens, the
carefully arranged microscopes, and the richly stored museum,
" it was a dispute among the students whether Professor Graham,
an accomplished botanist of his day, had six or seven diagrams
to illustrate the structure of plants. A microscope was never
seen in the class-room, and the majority of students coidd not
have told with confidence what end of the tube should be put
to the eye. No instruction was given in dissecting or examin-
ing plants, further than by pulling them to pieces with the
fingers, and examining them with a pocket lens. There was no
subdivision of the class into sections, who, in convenient small
groups, could be tutorially taught from the systematic arrange-
ments of plants in the garden, or the rare exotics ia the green-
houses. Finally, though every student was laudably encouraged
by precept, prize, and example, to collect a herbarium, and
preserve, a hortus siccus of the smaller plants, a mausoleum of
the giants was unknown, and a museimi for them would have
seemed to most like a sepulchre in the midst of a garden of

roses,

»2

George Wilson's hours this summer were very fully occupied ;
but while it was his custom to enliven the family circle with
details of each day's doings, humorously told, it was evident
that some mysterious work was going on, to which no clue was
given. At the close of the session, revelation was made in the
following manly record of hopes disappointed. The letter is to
his elder sister, then in broken health, and a guest at the
Cumbernauld manse ; though without date or postmark, internal
evidence loaves no doubt that it was written in 1836.

' ' Life uf Eilwiird Forbes," elinp. iv. a Jhi:i.

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

"Edinburgh, August 2</.

"My dear Mary, — The mystery of tho essay shall be made
known to you, and that which cost me so much trouble to con-
ceal, and so many equivocations to keep secret, shall now be
fully made apparent to you.

" The essay was written to compete for a medal given by Dr.
Graham, but I have been unsuccessful, and the unwv'^aried
labours of nearly two months, and the fond anticipations of
three, have been disappointed. Seven essays, a much larger
number than usual, were given in, and two students unknown
to mo obtained both prizes. The morning on which they were
decided was excessively stormy ; but, nothing daunted, I trudged
on to the garden. As the period which was to decide the matter
drew near, I became, of course, very anxious ; but when Dr.
Graham read out the motto, and I saw that all hope was over,
my heart, which had been throbbing violently, became as calm
as that of a young babe. I quietly listened to all he said in
praise of the successful competitor, and when the ceremony was
over, I arose, habited myself with firm, stoical apathy, and
trudged home, * chewing the cud of bitter fancy,' and all that
day I dedicated to calm, sober, thoughtful meditation on the
decision of the morning. 1 was cast down, but not despairing ;
distressed, but not hopeless ; and in vain did I look back on it
as a reality. It appeared but as some horrible dream which has
scared away the quiet slumbers of midnight, leaves behind it no
forcible recollection of what was the cause of horror, but a dim,
confused spectre-like remembrance of some unusual occurrence,
which excited feelings of no pleasant description. It is now,
then, decided ; and the gold medal which in imagination hung
before me, for which I deprived myself of rest, and leisure,
and summer walks, and the company of those I loved, has passed
away to reward the labours and talents of another aspirant for
fame.

" I:nt although thus far I have been disappointed, there is
rn ich to mitigate regret ; the successful candidate is a much
olv'ler student than I a) i. I gainsay not his talents, and do not
know him m the lea;^t ; but from anything J have heard, he is
ti talented, clever young fellow ; and what is of far more im-

1832-37.

UNSUCCESSFUL COMPETITION.

portance than the latter cause, I have the inward delight of
knowing that I have acquired an immense mass of knowledge
on an important but very little understood subject. And be-
sides, there is no goad so piercing as that of disappointed but
honourable ambition. I have lingered not, nor wasted time, nor
spent any period in vain and needless regrets. I commenced
the following day several important works on other subjects,
which demand much attention. I have too much to occupy me,
too much to do, too much expected from me, too many wild
aspiring dreams, to dedicate time to unavailing regrets on a
subject which is fixed, which has taught its bitter lesson, and
must now go by and give place to higher subjects. So the
mystery is explained, though not in the way I hoped to have
done. You will pardon, then, all the seeming unkindnesses
which that essay made me guilty of, and deem me not acting
unbrotherly again if I should work away in quiet solitude at
my studies. All students love peace and solitude ; the nurs-
lings of hope must be long cherishea in secret before they can
be given forth full fledged to the eyes of all ; the busy work-
ings of the mind, the knotty points, the puzzled understanding,
the tortured, racked, mental attention, the new and delightful
idea, the original thought, the logical sentence, and the flowing
line, are the sorrow and joy sacred to the breast of the student ;
the finished work, the wound-up labours, the polished sentencf
and the clearly expressed thought, are the property of all whi
care to regard them. If, then, my dear Mary, I should keep t
myself, not from perversity or any wicked cause, but solely fro
necessity and mental constitution, the thoughts and studies .
am busy in pursuing, do not consider me unkind. The en of
the working, the consiunmatiou of the labours, the ended du .es
and concluded studies, if they produce anything worthy of at-
tention, anything important enough to justify its being sent
beyond the studio, to whom shall it more readily and eagerly be
given than to you, for I know affection will magnify its beauties,
and love pass over its faults. Should you wish to see tliis essay
at Cumbernauld, I shall at once send it, premising that it is a
copy in my own handwriting, in a great hurry, through which
you will have to wade to find out the drift of the production."

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

Along with botany there had been pleasantly associated this
summer the pursuit of chemistry, imder Professor Christison.
On June 2d, he writes to Miss Mackay, Glasgow, — " I am now
with Christison, labouring away under his superintendence at
all sorts of chemical operations, analysis, synthesis, etc. etc. I
have got a comer to myself, and the whole laboratory, with all
its contents, at my disposal, and depend on it I'll make good use
of them. I have had many a project, which the limited and
fragile nature of my chemical apparatus, consisting of a few
tubes and vials, prevented me ever putting to the test of experi-
ment, but now I shall stick at nothing, and be sure I'll always
be busy with something of my own." His small sleeping
apartment at home was fitted up in every available comer with
bottles, flasks, retorts, and such paraphernalia. His younger sister
Jessie was his assistant, and had the vials handed over to her
for washing. She was led to form an alarming opinion of Dr.
Christison, from being so frequently told, on presenting what
seemed to her a vial made clean and pure by much trouble,
"Ah ! if we had offered that to Dr. Christison !" But notwith-
standing the difficulties of her post, the child enjoyed much her
office, and did her best for t] ^ bottles. Some small portion of
his enthusiasm made her at least respect what was evidently so
important and interesting. In the fourth chapter of Professor
E. Forbes' 'Life,' already so frequently alluded to, the marvel-
lous changes in pharmacy, of which the dawn now appeared, are
dilated on at length. jVIucIi of it possesses biogi-aphical interest,
and, for the sequence of our stoiy, we shall again dip into it : —
" As one of these [Professor Christison's] assistants, I speak from
peraonal experience to the profound impression of a mighty
change passing over medicine as an administratrix of substances,
which in one sentence are food, in anotlier medicine, in another
poison, which my daily lal .oratory work made upon me; and
together with a gifted fellow-student and fellow- chemist, the
late Samuel Brown, I often, as we watched a process, wondered
at the changes which ourselves had witnessed, and, with the
hopefulness and confidence of youth, echoed the prediction tliPt
these were but the first-fruits of a far more wondrous harvest
which should yet be gathered. . . . The spirit of tlie alch'-mists

1832-37.

ANTICIPATION OF HOLIDAY PLEASURES.

was in us, but we had realized that it was not an elixir of life,
but an elixir of health, that we had to seek."^

The much-needed relaxation of autumn came at last. To his
sister he announces its approach : —

i; ^ " Edinbuhoh, Sept. 3d.

" My dear Mary, — If it will be in any way interesting to you,
I may let you know that I hope to be in Glasgow on the second
Monday of September. I shall be at Dunoon on Tuesday, and
then I shall be able to consult and determine with you as to the
propriety of returning home or prolonging your stay. Perhaps
you will be persuaded to wait a few days longer, to be my cice-
rone over all the beauties of your present habitation ; nor can I
exclude from my mind the hope that I shall obtain an introduc-
tion to my brother-practitioner the medico of Dunoon, from
whom I expect much pleasure and profit, in consequ nro if all
the information Daniel has given me on the subject. I tjink I
shaU have no difficulty now in getting away from the Infirmary.
We have got two new apprentices to lighten our labours, and
give me an additional right to claim three weeks of absence. I
have been sleeping in the Infirmary for the last month, to let
C. away, whom I intend paying in his own coin, to teach him
the propriety of keeping good faith with people. I cannot say I
have been about anything particular since I last wrote. The
translation of a French work on the Natural History of the Ibis
of the Ancient Egyptians, and a few verses written on the same
subject, are the sum of my literary labours. The shifting to the
comfortless room in the Infirmary has prevented me following
the strict course of study I had laid down for myself, and the
closing of the library for three weeks prevents me reading new
books. I am diligently engaged at present studying the history,
geogi-aphy, and political constitution of Egypt, and its talented
governor, Mehamet Ali, who raised himself from poverty to sit
upon the throne, and whose treacherous murder of the Mame-
luke Beys, I have no doubt you are well acquj^inted with. In
spite, however, of this sanguinary deed, and many other despotic

I ' Life of Edward Forbes,' chap. iv.

■\^U:'

MEMOIR OF GKORGE WILSON.

lAp. n.

acts, he promises, from hi& powerful, energetic conduct, his well-
disciplined armies, and his just views of civilisation, to raise the
abject inhabitants of the Fair Valley of the Nile to some consi-
derable eminence even among civilized nations. And though tlie
last three weeks have been less profitabl}' employed than they
would have been if I had been staying at home, yet I have not
been altogether idle, and I think 1 shall be able to enliven your
walks a little, and add some more pleasure to your sojourn in
Dunoon, by some of the many subjects, grave or gay (which of
the g's will you have), which afforded us food and merriment in
this our native city ; and I shall be sure to hasten down the
Clyde as fast as I can to see again my two dear sisters. Mean-
while, I have ceased to count the period of my stay in the hospi-
tal by years, or months, or weeks. Every morning of the last
week, in arising from bed, I have said, ' Here beginneth the
tenth day,' and so on. Now it is the eighth day, and one week
sets me free, and I shall study no more till I return from the
west. What with packing and scraping things together, and
seeing grandmother and aunt, and every other friend, and gather-
ing letters, I shall feel very little inclination to sit down to pon-
der ovv" any grave abstract, or wear out brains and eyes in
endeavc aring to master the mystery of the Atomic Theoiy. All
these wise doctrines will have to lie by on the shelf, like many
better things, till I have snuffed the air of the west, and floated
down the Clyde ; and then, refreshed and recruited, I shall re-
turn, I trust, to laugh at every difficulty, and distance every op-
posing restraint. Hem ! the less said of that matter the better ;
however, the week that remains I shall dedicate to ' Egypt and
its Gods,' the ' Life of Baron Cuvier,' and some light works, that
there may be no dull days to embarrass my mind in my wander-
ings, or any stiff restraints to damp my energies. All the little
pieces of news shall be carefully hoarded up for a personal in-
terview." i
The two following letters were written during this holiday
time. His host in Eothesay, and companion to Arran, Mr.
Campbell, had been a fellow-student, whose acquaintance had
been made at the defunct Zetalethic Society.

i li

1W2-37.

AURORA BOKKALIS.

7.1

" R0THK8AT, Saturday, September 1836.

" My dearly beloved Brother,— -As the weather up to the
Thursday of the week has been delightful, I have seen the
country under its most beautiful aspect, and the rain and clouds
which now overspread the sky give rise to scenes which could
n3ver have been presented to the eye in sunlight. Before I say
anything of my own views or actions, allow me to tell you one
thing which I gathered from my companion on the coach to
Glasgow. He had resided for a winter in Banffshire, and often
saw the Aurora Borealis, in beauty far excelling its appearance
in our more southerly locality. One appearance which occa-
sionally presented itself was that of a great sheet of light waving
back and forwards in the sky. You know to what delightful
ideas such a descripti(m gives rise. In pleasing meditation I
laid myself back, in imagination beholding this gi"ea.t curtain
of green and silver light waved to and fro in the heavens by the
hands of archangels, the drop-scene as it were of heaven, which,
rolled back as a scroll, would show tiie cherubim and seraphim
hymning to their lyres ; and often last winter Avhen walking out
late in the evening, when the aurora was flickering in the sky,
I have watched with delight a dark mass of cloud seemingly
rent asunder to show a scene of dazzling unearthly brilliancy,
from which I have hoped with a fond credulity to see an angel's
face look down. ; but why need I have recounted the ideas given
rise to by the stories of other men and other days ? have I not with
mine own eyes seen enough to delight and amuse without at all
referring to extrinsic things ? I was exceedingly delighted with
the view from Dunoon, as I saw it on a day the most beautiful ;
the still, calm, mirror sea, now calm and tranquil, bearing on its
bosom tiny barks and great vessels, slowly sailing with eveiy
sail unfurled to the low breeze, and again its depths foaming
behind the gallant steam-vessel. On the later class of vessels
I am disposed to look with feelings of greater admiration than
men will generally concede to them ; and a Liverpool steamer,
as I saw it yesterday — alone, in a wide expanse of the deep,
moving close to the land, so as to have both the shadow of the
mountains and the black clouds thrown over its pathway —
appeared so solenmly without a single sail, stalking as it were

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

through tho dark, gloomy waters, that I felt more and more
convinced of the propriety of Turner introducing such vessels
into his pictures, for, when giving out only a small quantity of
smoke, they are truly highly interesting.

" Mr. Campbell's house, situated on a point of the island of
Bute, opposite the mouth of the Clyde, has this great advantage,
that I can see three lighthouses from the window ; and I think
I could almost never tire of watching tlie Toward Point light re-
volving, now like a dim and distant glimmer, and in a few moments
like a star of the first magnitude, again to dwindle down and be
almost invisible. There was another reason made me love to sit
and watch the Cloch Lighthouse, far up the Firth : you know
the practice that has been adopted by two lovers far away from
each other, to agree to gaze at night on one beautiful star, so
that, as it were, the ray of love passing from the one eye might
ascend to the glorious heavenly body, and then, darting down
like a sunbeam, enter the watchful eye of the other, and thus
pass to che temple of soul ; so have I sat looking at the light-
house, knowing that for a large portion of the day it was before
the eyes of two dear sistera at Dunoon, who must often have
been gazing on it at the same time it riveted my attention ; but
I have ceased latterly to watch it, for I suppose you have Mary
and Jeanie home.

" This island contains a far greater number of architec-
tural remains than I ever expected to see. The Castle of
Eothesay is a large ruin in a fine state of preservation. The
great central hall must have been very large, and several of the
donjon-keeps are still very perfect. In the churchyard are the
remains of a very old chapel ; I in vain made inquiries con-
cerning its date or history. It has been built, if I mistake not,
in the Gothic style, though not very pure or much enriched
with ornament A very fine recumbent statue of a mailed
knight reposes on a tomb, his feet resting on some animal, as I
believe is often the case in such statues ; one old woman pointed
to a grave near this effigy as the burial-place of the ' Big
Stewart.' This is all I have been able to leavn of his history.
In the graveyard itself there is the usual utter want of taste
which characterizes country burial-places. The church is a

1832- 37.

DRUIDIC REMAINS.

Mary

is con-
ce not,
iriclied
mailed
al, as I

ointed
'Big
listory.,

■ taste
is a

perfect bam, although they liad the old church as a model
before them, and the tombstones, covered with absurd inscrip-
tions, are painted white, yellow, or black, according to the taste
of relatives ; and to croun all, a cenotaph, the property of the
Marquis of Bute, is built in rude courses of rough stone, plas-
tered, ' harled,' painted white, and slated on the top. I wonder
any one's bones, far less those of one of the aristocracy, could
repose in peace under so abominable an erection. Were 1 pos-
sessed of one tithe of the Marquis's property, I should level it
to thb ground as fast as possible. In the east end of the island,
as probably you have learned from mother's letters, there are
the remains of an old Catholic chapel. There is nothing very
particular about this ruin ; it has the Saxon circular arch, and
in one case the zig- zag arch ; it is not, however, very large. In
a wood near, a circle of stones is mentioned as the remains of a
Druid temple, and from the immense Cyclopean stones which
have been employed in the erection, it is highly probable it was
so built. It was certainly with very curious feelings of mingled
fear and awe I stood within the circle where centuries ago the
unhallowed rites of the Druids were carried on in the deep
shadow of close woods ; where often the sacred mistletoe bough
must have been carried in solemn procession, and the reeking
blade sheathed in the quivering heart of the human victim.
How true is the sacred declaration, that ' the dark places of the
earth are full of cruelty.* Egypt, a countiy situated under a
tropical sun, a fair valley where rain never fell, a region of
strange customs and mental habits, and Scotland, in the same
era, a wild and imcivilized remote region of the eartli, ' where
savage men more savage beasts pursued,' however different in
other respects, were assimilated in this, that the great prominent
features of their religion were the same, ' lust and blood ;' in
both licentiousness rioted over mankind, and in both the human
victim was slaughtered to appease the avenging gods.

" In the long nights when sitting within doors, we have not
been idle. We have conjointly edited an ' Agricultural Repoit
for Bute,' in which we are very eloquent on drains ; ' An Essay
on Mental Haziness ;' ' A Love Letter from a Rothesay Gaelic
Minister to his Chfere Amie ;' and finally, I have, at Mr. C.'s

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23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 873-4503

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MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. ir.

request, indited two love ditties for his boors, and a few verses
for Miss C.'s album ; so that, recoiling from the charge of idle-
ness, I remain your most affectionate brother,

" George Wilson."

" Ib TifE, Tuesday/, Septetnber 1836.

"My dear Mother, — Time hath brought the changes of
place which I anticipated, and you will see from the date of
this epistle I have arrived at Irvine. The three last days of the
week before this were so miserably bad that they were utterly
useless in the country — ^the whole land and sea overspread with
mist ; not a point of land, not a lighthouse to be seen ; nothing
but the sea lashed by the angry wind, and the gale not suf-
ficiently strong to give sublimity to the scene. I sat within
doors, talking, laughing, joking with Mr. Campbell and his
sister, and a fortunate discovery of the * Essay on Taste,' by the
Eev. Mr. Alison, father of the professor, was hailed with great
delight, and served to amuse me for a long time.

" On Saturday evening, at six o'clock, Mr. Campbell and I set
off in the steamboat for Arran. It rained, till within a very short
time of our embarking, very furiously, and under most dispirit-
ing weather we set off. The evening was cold and occasionally
wet, tin we roimded the headland of Bute. The gale then fresh-
ened considerably ; the wind blowing on the side of the vessel
made it reel and toss very wildly, and the spray was swept over
us by the rude gust. I could not go below ; I should at once
have become sick ; so I sat it out on deck. There was some-
thing very wild in the night, quite dark, the vessel pitching very
much, and the billows breaking in foam upon her ; still there
was a peculiar beauty in the sky, which could never have been
8:en in the effulgence of sunlight. Long, long after the sun had
set, he sent up a dim flood of light on the edge of a cloud which
overshadowed the west, and the appearance of the one still sub-
dued line of light mirrored in the wave was peculiarly beautiful
and wholly new to me ; and the time passed rapidly on in
watching the moon labouring in the sky, in fitful gleams, now
shining out, and now behind a dense cloud which she fringed
with her light. We amved at Brodick, the most easterly of the

1832-37.

A SUNDAY IN AKKAN.

once
ome-
;very
there
been
a had
which
I 3ub-
utiful
on in
, now
ringed
3f the

two villages of Arran, at nine, and immediately disembarked.
We were landed on the beach, and set out for the village at a
little distance ; but soon we were brought to a stand by a great
stream which ran right across our path. The army of some
great conqueror could not be more astonished at a river like the
Amazon or Orinoco, than were we at this impassable barrier. I
was just about to walk straight through it, when a stout hand-
some Highlander came wading through, and carried us across,
one by one, upon his broad shoulders. "When Mr. Campbell and
I had been ferried over, we stood laughing at the strange per-
plexed look of those whose turn had not yet arrived. I was
strongly reminded of the description given by the classical poets
of the grim disappointed look of the ghosts who could not afford
to pay Charon the small coin he charged for ferrying them over
the Styx. Rain and hunger soon drove us away from our bene-
volent spectacle, and we were speedily ensconced in a far more
comfortable room than I had ever dared to anticipate in so out-
of-the-way an island. We had tea, looked about us, tumbled
into a very comfortable bed, and were soon asleep.

" The Sabbath, though at first wet, turned out a most beau-
tiful day, and we set off for Lamlash Church, a distance of six
miles ; the walk was very delightful, for a long way through
that most beautiful heath coimtry where the heather and bracken
are the only plants growing, and for a while we walked by the
sea-shore. A splendid rainbow, the most vivid and beautiful I
ever saw, spanned the sky, its apex passing over the peak of
Goat Fell, the famous and highest hill of Arran. I have seldom
seen a more beautiful sight ; and after crossing a hill, the bay at
the western end of the island burst into our view. I have never
seen so fine a bay, so admirably scooped out as it were, and a
large island which occupies the mouth of the bay protects it
from the violence of the winds. It is confessedly one of the
safest anchorages in Scotland, and is accordingly greatly resorted
to by shipping ; in a gale they come crowding in, one after an-
other, till often, I am told, 150 large vessels will in one night
assemble. We entered church ; one of the detestable country
kirks, white-washed walls, unpainted decaying wooden seats,
and earthen floors ; the sermon was much better than I ex-

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

pected, and I got one new idea from it. We put a halfpenny
each into fine teaselled black velvet bags, which supply the place
of ladles, and came away.

" I had reserved all my energies for the Gaelic sermon in the
afternoon, although I could not get the stupid people to under-
stand how I, who could not understand Gaelic in conversation,
could comprehend it preached. I did not think it worth while
to enlighten them. As, in consequence of the lateness of the
day when the Gaelic sermon commenced, had we stayed we
shoiild have had a very disagreeable walk back in the evening,
I did not go, and so missed all the edification which should have
ensued from the Highland discourse. I had, however, a very
edifying conversation in the evening with one of the Arran
women concerning adders, to see one of which alive was a most
eager wish of mine. The principal facts concerning their natu-
ral history were that they could draw birds out of the air ; that
if they tasted bread they grew to an enormous size ; and she
assured me that when the people were eating bread out of doors,
they were very careful to allow none of the crumbs to fall, for
fear the adders should eat them, and be converted into boa con-
strictors. If one of the said adders bites any person, it imme-
diately runs to the nearest water, and the person bitten must
immediately run also ; if he gets first, the wound will not be
dangerous, but if the adder reaches the water before him, he
must make up his mind for a great deal of suffering. A silken
bandage tied round the bitten limb cures it, but cotton or linen
is useless. I questioned this in the woman'r ii'esence, telling
her I had no doubt a ligature tightly tied would be very useful
in preventing the poison passing into the blood, but that it would
be exceedingly foolish to allo\^ a sufferer to wait till silk had
been got when a common garter would suffice. She got very
angry, and my crime was consummated when I asked her what
they were fed upon ; she asked me if I read the Bible, and told
me I would find it there. I in vain tried to recollect any pas-
sage telling the food of adders, till one of the bystanders sug-
gested the curse put on the serpent, that he should ' lick the
dust.' On attempting to question that way of reading the pas-
sage, so great grew her ire that I was fain to decamp from the
anathemas which were unsparingly hurled at me.

1832-37.

LAST YEAK OF MEDICAL STUDY.

must
not be
lim, he
silken
linen
telling
useful
would
Ik had
)t very
T what
id told
y pas-
's sug-
k the
e paa-
Im the

" Mr. Campbell departed for Ex)thesay at five o'clock, by the
steamboat. I hoped to have compassed the great object of all
visitors to Arran, the ascent of Goat Fell ; and a young, pretty,
gazelle-eyed invalid, whose acquaintance I had made, was to
have accompanied me on Monday forenoon; but her ruthless
relatives unexpectedly demanded her return home on Monday,
and I was left at six o'clock A.M., utterly alone. I was kept a
prisoner all day, the rain falling in torrents. I earnestly
requested something to read; they gave me two old news-
papers. One of them was an ' Edinburgh Advertiser ; ' I read it
through, every notice from beginning to end. T then took the
other, a ' Glasgow Herald,' and quickly devoured it, and then
my breakfast. For the rest of the day I walked about the room
with my hands in my pockets, repeating all the scraps of poetry
I could think of. Most gladly did I hail the arrival of the
Ardrossan steamboat ; and who do you think I met in it, fortu-
nate that I am ? I by the merest accident found myself in the
company of the celebrated traveller in Palestine, Kae Wilson.
We had a long conversation. He gave me several tracts on
cruelty to animals, and the like, and I got a scrap of his writing
too. I was very much amused to see him * licking,' as he called
it, some noisy pigs in the vessel who disturbed us. This is my
last letter. In two days I shall be in Greenock, and in two
days more you shall see your affectionate son, George."

Eeturning to work, he entered on the last year of his medical
studies in November. His apprenticeship in the Infirmary
having now ended, much to the regret of nurses and patients,
the needful time for study was more attainable, but many of the
classes and duties were iminteresting to him. "I can testiiy
from experience," he says, referring to Edward Forbes' disincli-
nation to go up for examination, " they form an irksome burden
to such as only desire to make medicine a door of entrance to
the prosecution of the physical sciences." ^

The classes of this closing session were, Professors Jameson
on Natural History ; Alison on Clinical Medicine ; Hamilton
on Midwifery ; and Mr. Kenneth Kemp's Practical Chemistry ;

* ' Life of Edward Forbes,' chap. v.

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

besides attendance in the Hospital wards. The first, but espe-
cially the last named of these classes, would go far to make the
rest palatable. In his Life of Dr. Reid, Mr. Kemp is gratefully
mentioned. " I cannot name Mr. Kemp without a passing
tribute to the memory of that highly-gifted chemist, who, like
his friend, to whom this volume is specially devoted, was too
soon cut off by a lingering and painful illness. Mr. Kemp, who
was almost entirely self-taught, imited, in a rare degree, origi-
nality, ingenuity, and inventiveness, with constructive skill and
manipulative dexterity. Had his erudition been equal to his
qualifications in these respects, or hdd he prosecuted to a close
the many novel trains of research which he opened up, or had
he only published the many remarkable discoveries which he
made, he would have occupied the highest place among our
electricians and chemists. He could scarcely, however, be per-
suaded to use the pen, so that not a tithe of what he observed
was put on permanent record, and his name in consequence ' is
writ in water.' He did much, however— much more, indeed,
than I believe is generally suspected — to foster the study of
chemistry in Edinburgh ; and many of his pupils retain, like
myself, a very grateful remembrance of their obligations to him
as a teacher."^

Among the many societies connected with the University of
which George Wilson was a member, was the Diagnostic,
though in its proceedings he never took an active share.
Allusion to it is made by him in the account of academic stu-
dent life in the Memoir of Edward Forbes. " It fell to my own
lot about this time, as the solitary medical student in the Uni-
versity Diagnostic Society, to defend the Anatomy Bill at one
of its meetings ; but I cannot remember whether the Ayes or
N'oes had it. Nor was it matter of half so much concern to the
combatants which e",de was victorious by number, as which was
most skilful in fence. He would have been counted a very
unworthy member who could not, on due notice, take either side
on this or any other topic ; and it must not be held as implying
indifference to truth, that to make a good speech was considered
much more important than to win a verdict. The debates were

> ' Life of Dr. John Reid,' p. 47.

1832 -37.

PAPER ON IODINE.

gymnastic exercises. The members were training themselves
for the bar, the pulpit, or the academic chair, if haply they
might reach one or other of these high places, and could not
always be discussing, 'Was Charles i. a martyr?' A novel
topic was welcome to all classes of students, and it was dis-
cussed by them in a novel fashion," ^

In summer the botanical class was resumed, but no special
record of the earlier months of the session remains. In July,
he says in a letter to his sister Mary, " My iodine inquiry is
finished, although not half so satisfactory as I hoped or expected
it to have been, and indeed so unsatisfactory that I declined
g'ving Dr. Cogswell any report on the subject : he however in-
sisted, and I have given him a paper which will be printed in a
day or two.^ Meanwhile, till I am surgeon, I have forsworn
chemistry, got my window and drawers'-head purified, which
they will remain till some new project enters or rather leaves
my head ; for there are plenty in it waiting only for time to
develop themselves, and I hope with more success than the
iodine." In the following month the journal once more tells a
little, though only one extract will be made.

"August 25th, 1837. — I have not written anything in this
tome for a very long time ; in truth, I have been far too busy
thinking and working to have time to record either my thoughts
or my works ; and it is only because this evening I feel too
much exhausted from bodily fatigue for anything else, that I
have taken up this, and it is but to record feelings already suf-
ficiently imprinted in this book. Since I poured out my feel-
ings on this subject, my faculties have acquired a firmer and
healthier tone, my energies have been directed to the zealous
study of the physical sciences, and, above all, chemistry, in
which I hope to distinguish myself, and my harassing connexion
with the Infirmary has long since ceased. I have enlarged the
circle of my acquaintance, and made some kind new friends, the
Misses S— - — , kind, simple, artless, obliging. I hope for much
pleasure from this society." Allusions to other ladies follow.

» ' Life of Edward Forbes,' chap. iv.

' See * Prize Essay on Iodine,' by Dr. Cogswell, in the Appendix of which the paper
referred to appears with the title, ' On the Decomposition of Water by Iodine.'

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. II.

whose accomplishments added much to the enjoyments ox his
leisure hours. His passionate love of music made it a delight
to see the exquisite pleasure their performances gave to him.
His manner to ladies whom he respected was peculiarly fasci-
nating, and he was a very general favourite with them. Music
seemed a necessity of his life ; even the acquirements of his
younger sister, then a school-girl, were daily called into requi-
sition, and the interval between dinner and tea thus filled up.
He expresses the influence it exercised over him to his sister
Mary in a letter : — " I know this, that I cannot by any word I
eould learn from others, or by one of my own coining, or by any
form or number of words, tell of the passionate love for music I
have."

In the autumn of this year the family circle lost two of its
members b} his cousin John Eussell's marriage, and subsequent
departure for Australia, and his brother Daniel's settlement in
London. The loss of the brother who had been his daily com-
panion for so long a time, was keenly felt by George. Their
intercourse had been more like that of lovers than, any other.
Commimity alike ^^ g'^ods f'ud thoughts had been theirs, and
henceforward George, witn his usual self-forgetfulness, tried to
contribute to the happiness of the absent one, in making letters
do their best to compensate for the pleasures of confidential con-
verse. To this we owe an abundant store of letters, not such as
the penny-postage has introduced, but long, well-filled sheets
of foolscap, written within and without.

Before this parting occurred, the examination for the College
of Surgeons* Degree was passed. Here is its announcement to
Daniel, who was then from home on a visit : —

'■n

" 6th September 1837.

" Mine good Brother and Friend, — Give me hold of your
right hand ; there, shake it right stoutly, and congratulate me
on having passed Surgeons' HalL Ah ! ha ! ha ! it is but two
hours since the memorable metamorphosis took place, and here
I am ready not merely to perform all kinds of bloody opera-
tions, which is small matter, seeing diplomaless folks can haggle
wonderfully well, but ready, prepared, and resolved to take fees,

1832-37.

OBTAINS surgeon's DEGREE.

1837.

your
lite me
it two

here
jpera-
laggle
te fees,

and be independent of the subsidies of any one. I took good
care none of the good folks at home should know aught about
it. I completely blinded them, and the more so, that in a Walk
last night with Catherine and Mary, I took care to talk as much
nonsense as possible, imagining that such a careless, thought-
less-like piece of policy would completely mislead them as to
my intentions. To atone for it, however, I had to sit up till
one, spelling over all the mysteries of bones, muscles, nerves,
etc. ; and all next (that is, this) day, I have been busy reading
over half a book of chemistry, and the whole anatomy of the
Teg and arm, from the shoulder and haunch to the fingers and
toes ; and well it was I did so, seeing I was examined on the
arm, and I was all the more expert at answers from having
looked over it. At the eventful hour of haK-past one, having
slipped out in my best coat and waistcoat, and taken your cane,
that I might delude any of my friends with the idea I was about
to wander out on a walk, carelessly looking into the jewellers'
or toy shops when any one passed even on the other side,
who I thought might recognise by my dress my intentions,
all the while swinging your wonderful stick with as much
composure as possible, though I believe it kept pretty good
time with my heart thumping on my ribs, so much indeed,
that * thinks I to myself,' I'm in love — with what, I leave you
to guess, being one of those courteous writers who don't insult
their readers by explaining everything, as if they were address-
ing children.

"I was ushered into the waiting-i-oom, a little plain room,
which contained two fellows sitting in the window, and putting
on a very big magnanimous look, I strolled down to a seat, on
which planting myself, I kept stedfastly looking at them, that
they might not look at me, a plan which succeeds as well with
men as lions (see African travels). At last, however, tiring of
staring, I fumbled in my pocket to see if I had any sort of book
to while away the time. I dragged out of the recesses of my
pocket Mr. Williamson's French Prayer-book, and for want of
better, fell to reading Epistles, Collects, Prayers, and Psalms, all
very much to my edification no doubt. At last, saturated with
theology, the clock having struck two, I returned the book to

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. 11.

its cell, and pulling off my gloves, laid them, hat and cane, aside.
I now learned that one of the gentlemen at the window had
passed the day before, and that one (comforting thought) had
been rejected ; and I was awaked out of a chirurgical reverie
by the other fellow singing out, ' Have you any tremors ?' 'No,'
said I, and thrust my head up against the wr 11, and planted my
feet firmly on the floor, that the said tremors might not appear.
They were two good-natured fellows, and were busy telling me
to answer as quickly as possible, lest they shoiild hear too dis-
tinctly. Hem ! thought I, and the bell rang, and in I was
vhered to the grandees, whole four inquisitors. There they fell
to , shoved me Gregory, made me translate, twice write a pre-
scription, tell them as much about drugs and cliemistry as
would fill a pharmacopoeia, and so much about the anatomy of
the arm, skull, neck, etc., the surgery of the same part, and the
philosophy of broken skulls, and the method of coopering such
casks, that I might rival Syme, Liston. or Lizars. ' You may
depart, sir,' said the President. I was kept for a moment in a
small side-room, and then pulled in to be told, ' that my exami-
nation was highly creditable to me, and that they were very
much pleased.' — Rejoiced in heart, here I am, your affectionate
brother, George."

To his cousin James, also from home at that time, he gives
the same news, with some interesting additions. James Eussell,
four years his junior, had distinguished himself at the High
School, and given proofs of the genius which was afterwards
developed with great promise. The brotherly love and compa-
nionship between him and George, so tender and true through
many years, was now beginning to be established.

" September 9, 1837.

" My dear Cousin, — I am breaking through the acknowledged
rules of epistolary correspondence in writing, for all learned
judges of such matters teach, that he who departeth from home
to sojourn in a foreign laud oweth the first letter to those at
home ; for the most cogent of all reasoning, that he who is left
at home has but the accustomed round of everyday duties,

1832 37.

EXAMINERS HIGHLY PLEASED.

High

1837.

irledged
learned

home
lose at

is left
I duties,

amusements, and pleasures to discourse upon , whereas ho, the
vagabond, has travelled by land and sea, has voyaged on the
great deep, and been a peripatetic on the solid earth, and visited
a strange town, and seen many new sights, and made new com-
panions, and, in short, Ima entered into a new circle of folks,
things, and circumstances, which should yield to an inquiring
mind, a watchful eye, an eager attention, and a prying spirit,
the elen. its of many a joke, and many a story and circum-
stance ; so that I shall hold you in the highest degree culpable,
if you do not afford me a rich, well seasoned dish, compounded
' de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis.'

'* Yet although I plead the excuse of travelling in the same
home circle, like the mill- horse, and therefore in sight of a
horizon whose every prominent object has already been often
scanned, yet, in truth, one little change has passed over my out-
ward circumstances and inward feelings, sufticiently important
to deserve a short notice in this my epistle. On the 8tli day of
September, which was last Wednesday, I, your most worthy
cousin, appeared before that dreadful, inquisitorial tribunal, the
College of Surgeons, and having been duly examined, sounded,
and tried as to my proficiency in the arts of medicament-com-
pounding, limb-dissecting, and wound-curing, was duly declared,-
pronounced, and registered ns one in every respect fitted to bear
the honourable title of Chirurgeon, commonly called Surgeon.
I found the tribunal of a far less terrible cast and character than
I at all anticipated ; in truth, I should have liaced it long, long
ago had I dreamed it could have been half as easy. A little bit
of Latin to read, which was soon despatched ; a cough-mixture
to prescribe, which was equally soon got over; and a volley of
questions on all sorts of pharmaceutioal and chemical subjects,
followed up by a round of subtle interrogations on the mysteries
of anatomy and the grave matters of surgery, and I was thrust
into a little closet, to be immediately dmwn out again, and told
that my examinators were highly pleased with my appearance,
and that my examination was highly creditable to me. And I,
most highly pleased, scampered home to give the welcome and
most unexpected news ; for I had taken great care they should
not have the dimmest notion of my intentions, and I had been

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILBON.

CHAP. n.

quite successful in the means I adopted for blinding them as to
my real projects. I have, of course, tossed away to the furthest
and most dusty comer of my room those grim and unwelcome
volumes, which I had too long been under the necessity of
brooding over, till I could have found in the dark the passages
referring to the various unwelcome topics.

" Now that I am released, I shall turn to more congenial
topics, more especially to my beloved chemistry, in which I hope
and trust to make a figure ; and I have some leeway to make up
in literature, both ancient and modern, which I trust I shall be
able to compass.

" I have heard with pleasure of your having taken with you
your classic works. They cannot fail often greatly to interest
at times, when weather and other contingencies prevent you en-
joying those delights which are more properly rural ; for in spite
of all poets, novelists, and romancers delight to sing of concerning
the pure, holy, delightful, and inspiriting beauties and pleasures
of the country; and though most merchants, tied down from day
to day to their mercantile pursuits, love to ' babble about green
fields,' and to sigh for running brooks, and secluded glens, and ro-
mantic dells, and cloud-capt mountains, and clear pellucid lakes,
and frowning cliffs, and gloomy precipices, and all the other
romantic, picturesque, and exquisite pleasures of the country, —
yet it is very possible, as I believe must be the confession of
every one who has often spent a week or two in the country, to
spend a most stale, flat, and unprofitable day, in spite of all the
elements of the sublime being within sight and easily accessible.

" In truth, we are a most discontented race of shuttle-cocks,
who are unhappy with staying here or there, mountain or val-
ley, hill or dale, river or lake, town or country, but must be
driven about, now east, now west, now north, now south, in a
restless, wandering mood, which is ever thirsting after some un-
attainable good, some unrealizable project. The temple of Alad-
din was bereft of all pleasure in his eyes, although built of the
most gorgeous materials, gold, silver, and precious stones, ivory,
ebony, and scented woods (for the full inventory of which see
the 'Arabian Nights Entertainments') because it lacked the
roc's egg, which it was thought would be the crowning pinnacle

mi 37.

EDWARD FORBES AND HE TWIN- STARS.

of glory and perfection ; and Hainan thought hia pleasure in-
complete because Mordecai hung not on gallows thirty feet
high, and Alexander found this round, spacious globe far too
little for him. That was Alexander the Great : what says
Alexander the Little ? I daresay he finds room enough to move
about in Stirling. Give my be it wishes and hopes for his
happiness, comfort, and renown, and for youi-self, be sure you
read your classic books. I left the liigh School just when I
was becoming alive to the beauties of what had formerly been
looked cii merely as tasks. You have been more fortunate, and
you ought not to lose your opportunity. As it is, I find much
delight in Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca, and in a modern writer, Sir
T. Browne ; but you are a far better classic than I am, and must
find far greater delight in having a more extensive and varied
round of pleasures than I can at all command.

"Although I have been gravely proving the cc'mtry not
Paradise itself, yet I may be soon there myself. Perhaps you
shall see me at Stirling in a week or so, on my way to Callan-^
der. I am not sure, however. Write soon ; see you address
to G. Wilson, Esq., Surgeon, or the other George Wilson will
get the letter. — And believe me, your affectionate cousin."

un-
dad-
If the
Ivory,
[h see
the
Inaele

The journal will be allowed to speak for itself before we pass
to a new epoch of life, bidding farewell to scenes wherein the
nucleus of all future greatness has been year by year forming
itself. "The tastes of most men can be traced back to the
habits of their youth, and their habits are, in a great measure,
moulded by the circumstances, physical as well as intellectual,
in which that youth has been passed. . . . The youth whose
hours of relaxation are spent in the presence of those magnifi-
cent prospects so rife and many around us, carries with him in
after -life the memory of their beauty and grandeur." So said
Edward Forbes, in his Inaugural Lecture on entering his Pro-
fessorship in the Edinburgh University ; and as twin-stars
revolving around each other, alternately coming forth in bright-
ness, he and George Wilson have in this chapter thrown light
on each other. Once more we boiTow words that are wonder-
fully appropriate to both of them : " The dew of his youth was

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP, 11.

still upon him. The corrupting breath of the world had not
tainted his freshness, or its cold touch chiUed him. His eager
eyes looked forth on a rich and boundless future. Young men
of genius and tastes like his own had become his attached
friends. Seniors of the highest repute welcomed him as a
pupil. Libraries and museums of the greatest value were open
to him daily. His shortest walks were through the streets of a
city which delighted his artist-eye, and had a strange fascina-
tion for him."^

"September 19th, 1837. — I have entered on the third week
since I passed the portal of Surg'^ons' Hall, and am long tired
of my dignity, if, in truth, I ever esteemed it one, which I never
much did. In my sight it was rather an ordeal to be imder-
gone than a triumph to be achieved, and I looked forward to it
for a long time with a feeling of carelessness, which prevented
me from seriously preparing for it ; and in addition, through
the bygone summer, I was so thorougLIy occupied with chemical
speculations, that anything in the shape of anatomy or surgery
filled me with disgust. If anybody gave the degree of chemist
I would not mind how stiff an examination I got, and proud I
certainly should be of such a title. As it was, I had resolved,
if rejected, for ever to give up the notion of Surgeons' Hall, and
I believe my friends would have striven in vain to have induced
a second trial, although by such refusal I should certainly have
dcpii.<.J myself of a very beautiful patent lever, jewelled and
caped silver watch, which my good, kind uncle Peter had in
reserve for me. Fortunately I passed without any difficulty, in
truth I may say with flying coloui-s, for I only missed a few
trivial questions, and they made me a flattering speech, when I
was dubbed surgeon. In short, I found it a great deal easier
than I at all anticipated ; yet I never felt more distrust in my
own powers, more want of confidence in my abilities, than just
before I stepped into the examining chambers. I felt a strong
wish to walk home and give up the idea of confronting them,
and the great probability of rejection for a thousand reasons
arose before my anxious and troubled mind. The inordinate

* ' Life of Edward Forbes,' chap. iv.

HAP-II.

llQS-37.

TEEUNGS OF THE . TING.

ad not
a eager
ig men
btached
a as a
re open
ets of a
•ascina-

d week
flg tired
I never
under-
ird to it
evented
through
ihemical
surgery
chemist
proud I
esolved,
all, and
linduced
ly have
lied and
had in
sulty, in
a few
when I
1 easier
in my
lan just
strong
them,
ireasons
irdinate

palpitation of my heart, which up to the moment of my enter-
ing the room had troubled me exceedingly, ceased as soon as
the first question was asked, and I was calm and collected
throughout the whole scene ; so let it pass. It has at least, I
think, given me a clearer view of the sad state of feelings which
a dying man may be believed to have, especially one who has
to prepare for eternity. The fond hope, the eagerly entertained
expectation, the gloomy doubt, the oppressive despondence,
commingling in the mind, and shifting its purposes in the most
fantastic, lawless, and painful fashion, were, I doubt not, the
very same in kind as those which the anticipation of immediate
dissolution must produce, though, of course, greatly different in
degree. I felt that abandoning of the mind to one subject, that
thorough occupation of it by the one engrossing idea, which has
been so beautifully described by J. B. Patterson as the charac-
teristic of the dying, even when they appear most delighted
with the attention of their friendly ministrants. I wish to ex-
press what I am afraid I have not done sufficiently, that I con-
ceive the doubts of fitness to undergo an examination are
exactly of a kind with the dread of an insufficiency of prepara-
tion for the tribunal of the Almighty, which haunts the mind
of the most holy and Christian saint."

" September 20th. — I am not in a scribbling humour to-night
at all, but anxious to write down a thought or two before going
off to the country, so as to leave a clear way for marking down
whatsoever of interest may happen thero. . . . Monday, saw
some good ladies at tea with us, and, fortunately, thanks to a
long post-prandial walk, I was merry and frolicsome. I greatly
edified Miss B. by proving how many quaint and passed-over
virtues repose in the folds of a brown coat. She answered me
gravely in my own fashion, but soon gave in, in a fit of glee-
some laughter. What I said of the coat I cannot now remem-
ber. I never can remember what I have said when I ruminate
over a night of fun and folly, and as for sitting to coin, or
gravely to rehearse -a joke, I never dreamed of it. .Anything of
that kind is with me the unbidden impulse of the moment.
Yet I feel the love of the thing, and the power of excelling daily
increasing, and I don't see any good reason for nipping it in the

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. JL

bud, SO I'll let it blow and become a full-blown flower, if it will
However, I contrived to say a great deal of apposite nonsense
concerning the said brown coat, and sundry other things, and
we laughed right merrily ; but the great happiness of the even-
ing to me was K/s most beautiful music. I really never heard
any one sing with so much taste and expression, or seem so
thoroughly to enter into the spirit of the songs. There is some-
thing especially thrilling, and, to my ear, most beautiful, in the
full roimd tone in which she pronounces the ' again,' in the
concluding line of Mrs. Hemans' affecting duet, 'The Child's
First Grief,' which, sung by two sisters whose voices most sweetly
harmonize, affects me more than anything else I have heard
this long time. ' The Last Links are Broken,' has gotten hold
of my inmost soul, prompting me to give utterance to the beau-
tiful sounds and beautiful words which compose it, as yet in-
effectually, for though the whole is present to my inmost ear, I
cannot speak it with my tongue. . . . Although I do think
the forte of the female mind is moral greatness and purity, in
which, in spite of the silly, base, and groundless hints of liber-
tines, they very far excel the rougher sex, and for the possession
of which I venerate the sex in general, and many individuals
in particular, yet I meet with scarcely one lady in ten or fifty
who has suificiently cultivated her natural intellectual powers.
Excuses and explanations may be given, which I most willingly
admit. Ladies moving in the highest and least embarrassed
circles have so many domestic duties for papa, mamma, old and
young brothers and sisters, that they never can steal time
enough to study. Some good ladies admit the intellectuality of
their own sweet selves, but waive apologies for its non-advance-
ment as absurd, because unnecessary ; while some of them, and
these often the most amiable and clever, disbelieve the excuses,
because they deny the intellectual power. I know many young
ladies who honestly and modestly shrink from the study of a
science, which yet they confess to be inviting and interesting,
which I am sure they could completely master. Far be it from
me to imagine that there is not a cardinal difference between
the male and female mind ; equally distant from my thoughts
be that fantastic foolery, the modem ' march of intellect' system.

1833 37.

LADIES NEGLECT MENTAL CULTIVATION.

ngiy

assed
and
time
tyof
fence -
and
uses,
oung
of a
ting,
from

I do not wish to see young ladies blue -stockings, t.e., female
pedants, or to see one grain of their high-toned morality and
purity lost, to give place to literature or science ; yet I believe
they would add to their own happiness by affording the mind a
more extensive and interesting circle of subjects for thought,
did they study, with some little care, our litterateurs and scien-
tific men. But mothers wiU keep their daughters scouring and
dusting, and sewing and mending, and darning stocking-heels,
to teach 'five hundred points' of housewifery; and to that
every moment of time and study is given, because, forsooth,
mamma read no books when a Miss (except stolen novels) but
on a Sunday, and cannot see why the daughters should need
what the mothers had not ; and this absurd ' stocking-darning
system' is pursued by women of strong, active, intellectual
minds, of which mismanagement I have seen too many
examples. But this winter shall see me do my utmost to sug-
gest an improvement among my own small circle. I must not
forget, when talking of ladies, to make honourable mention of

Miss , a pretty young coquette, who promises to have

beauty, handsomeness, and nonchalance, in equal doses. She is
a happy young girl of some fourteen or so, already bent on
making conquests, and resolved to lead a whole host of discom-
fited suitors at her chariot. ' May I be there to see ! ' but only
to see, and not to feel her coquettishness."

«>

QfMl.. '

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IJI.

CHAPTER III.

A YEAR OF STUDENT LIFE IN EDINBURGH.

" The pleasure and delight of knowledge and learning, it far surpasseth "•
all other in nature."— Bacon's ' Advancement of Learning.'

A LETTER to Dr. Niven, his friend and companion alike in
school and college life, gives particulars as to the purposed re-
laxation from labour mentioned in the close of last chapter. Ten
days only were available, as his connexion with Dr. Christison's
laboratory, as assistant, was about to begin. That the most was
made of those few holidays, will be evident from the notice of
the excursion in letters which follow, and speak for them-
selves : —

To John Niven, Esq., Willow Grove.

;j^

"September 20, 18ZS.^

" My dear Friend, — I very much regretted my being out on
the evening you called before you went to the Highlands. In
truth, I am so seldom out at untimeous hours, that I do feel
annoyed when a chance call finds me out wandering ; and I
should have called the next day to testify my anxiety to wish
you well in your northern journey, had not all my doubts, and
dreads, and fears, been occupied with the approaching horrors
of Chirurgeons' Hall. In truth, I made no visits anywhere,
dreading to be asked anything about the unwelcome subject.
Now, however, I am relieved from all apprehension, ' from the
consummation so devoutly to be wished' having left me learned

» The date of tb's letter ought to he 1837, as the facts it contains shoAs-. Mistakes
as to the year are of very frequent occurrence in early letters, characteristic of the
inaptness for numbers in George Wilson. When there is no doubt as to the correct
date, it will henceforth be altered without referring to the blunder.

1M8.

AN EXCURSION IN PROSPECT.

and gifted in diplomacy (forgive the pun) ; and I should have
been delighted to have accepted your kind 'nvitation to Peni-
cuik, where I know I should have been very happy. A splendid
equestrian I doubt not I should have become, undor the foster-
ing care of you for my Ducrow, and though I might not have
learned to stand on my head on the saddle, or play a somersault
over a horse's back, or drive four horses in hand d> la courier, yet
I think you might have turned me out, albeit little versed in
the mysteries of horse-flesh or the delights of the saddle, at least
fitted to trot gaily, perhaps to canter, assuredly to gallop ; and
your uncle, too, I am sure, w^ould have been kind and obliging,
and I should have relished the place, society, and country
abundantly, had it been in my power to accept your kind in-
vitation. I have been most earnestly invited, however, by
friends in Stirling, Callander, and Glasgow, to visit them, and
I propose setting off to-morrow for Stirling, then to Callander,
Loch Katrine, Loch Lomond, etc. I am fortunate in having
friends in all these places, and I am the more anxious to set ofif
immediately, as I must be home by the first of October to begin
with Christison at his laboratory ; and I have, in addition, some
most important projects of my own, which in truth cannot well
stand over longer, for I must look forward to the next winter as
a Tory busy one. I had hoped to have had Mr. Williamson with
me, but being now completely enrolled as clerk in the Infirmary,
Mr. Lizars won't let him go, at least he strongly advises him to
stay at home ; for it would appear that he got his situation with
some difficulty, and had better not be very ready making
requests till he has been longer in office. So I shall be deprived
of his most pleasant society, and shall not enjoy my journey
half so much as I should do had I the company of my ci-devant
fellow-apprentice, whose merry, happy joyousness would much
have beguiled the weary minutes, which more or less beset even
the most delightful journey, and which I cannot expect any
more than most other folks to avoid. . . . Now, though I
cannot have the pleasure of accompanying you this autumn,
I may perhaps find you disengaged, and as willing to put
yourself about for me next season. Honestly, nothing could
delight me more, and nothing would delight my friends, espcr

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

cially my mother and sister, than my going Penicuik-ward
and becoming a bit of a cavalier dragoon ; and I shall feel
sincerely glad of your company and friendship this winter,
for I have just parted with my brother, who, having gone away
to London to push his fortune as well as he can, has left us
melancholy and disheartened, and me especially, who never
loved any one so fondly as my brother, and will with difficulty
find any one to supply his place or cheer my solitude. I pro-
pose, and I hope you will assist me in what I imagine will excite
in you as much mirth, though not perhaps as much indignation,
as it did among my good sisters and mother, viz., to get a dog
to be my companion, and in some degree break up the tiresome
solitude of a study. It won't be to your liking, but I'm going
to tax your friendship to get me none of your great, big, black-
and-white Newfoundland dogs. My room is too small, and my
tastes too domestic. What I should like to get hold of is a
wiry, fierce, little terrier. I think I've got something of the
terrier in my own perverse disposition, and I could love one and
get on very nicely with it. I had the company of one for two
years ; a handsome, rough, little, rat and cat hating fellow, who
showed great affection for me, which I did my best to recipro-
cate, till some wretched scoundrels about Silver Mills poisoned
the poor animal, and ' I was left lamenting.* I can't get on
studying alone ; I must have some one beside me. Now, my
sister can't come, for my cousin would be left companionless,
and my two young sisters are inseparable, and a great old skull
on my mantelpiece is not the most engaging of companions ;
and I think I should be greatly the better of Phantom, for such
shall be his name, with whom I could amuse myself in my
idle moments."

" Glasgow, Tuesday, Sept. 26.

" My dear Mother, — I sit dowu in a great hurry to write you
a few lines before leaving Glasgow, although I trust the arrival
of Mrs. Thomson has abundantly informed you of the manner
in which I spent my time in Callander, so that I. shall say
nothing, as I might merely recount to you things already suffi-
ciently well known. I started from Callander at five o'clock

1837 3&

WALKS TWENTY-EIGHT MILES.

1 26.

lyou

rival

mer

say

iffi-

lock

on Monday morning, and, with the crescent moon for my only
light, journeyed along, singing and musing and meditating. In
an hour the first slant rays of the sun began to peep above the
horizon, and I had the pleasure of seeing his illustrious majesty
the sun rise in all his glory, — no small pleasure to me, who can-
not recollect to have ever seen him before in similar circum-
stances. I arrived, after a most delightful walk, at the head of
Loch Katrine, nothing doubting that I should find a boat ready
to receive me, and waft me along the lake, but although boats
and oars lay about in abundance, there was no appearance of
rowers. Imagining that the boat had already gone, although I
was quite in time, I walked along the banks of the lake, hoping
to make up to them if passed, and to be taken up if they came
after. As it afterwards appeared, they sailed after me, and I
saw them slowly sailing up the loch, but though I halloed and
shouted, and waved my handkerchief, they either would not or
could not hear me, and I had to tramp on along the sides, which
as they form every here and there wide bays, make the land
journey much longer than the way by water. I pushed on,
however, at a rapid pace, keeping almost up to them, till I came
to the last two miles, where I lost my way and wandered in a
wood*. Skirting the waters, having no notion at the time that I
was wrong, I pushed on, though I saw no road, and after a very
perplexing, weary journey, now clambering over rocks, now
climbing over walls, now creeping through rough hedges and
palings, often uncertain which was the right path, but, contriving
to fall in with the footpath, without very miich difficulty, I at
last threaded my way, wearied out and exhausted, to the ferry-
man's house, — for the road runs along the east side of the loch,
and you must cross to gain Lochlomond.^ Here I earnestly
craved a drink of butter-milk, but the woman had none. She at
once, however, sent out her pretty little girl to get water at my
request, but, meanwhile, milked her cows, and brought me a
bowl half full of milk and warm water, which I most greedily
drank, and was thereby greatly refreshed ; in truth, it was no
doubt the best thing I could have taken ; and when, in answer
to some inquisitive questions of her fine manly husband, I said I
was a surgeon, she so simply said, ' And to think that I should

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

is.fr

be giving you advice!' I assured her I knew them as being
very skilly folks, and that I was half a Highlander myself, and
I at once craved her husband to sing me a Gaelic song. While
crossing, he told me he ' couldna sing' iinless he ' had a glass o'
whisky ;' but as I had every reason to believe there was none in
the loch, my only accessible place for liquors, I had no means of
making him musical ; and so, with stories about Eob Roy, and
jokes, and the like, we sat and talked while he rowed me across.
I had still five miles to walk, which was no cheering prospect
to me, who had already walked twenty-three ; and, in spite of
my invigorating drink of warm milk, I crept very laggingly on.
The road was a dull, sterile, rugged thing, only, every now and
then, I saw the party which had passed up the loch, moving
with ponies. I should have been very glad to have made up
to them, and should certainly have treated myself to a pony's
back had I reached them. A last, jaded and exhausted, I
arrived at the small clachan of Inversnaid. After resting, I
took off my collar and washed my face and hands in the cool-
ing waiors of Lochlomond, along whose surface I very speedily
was moving in a comfortable little steamer. I was much
too weary to enjoy it as I should have done, had I been re-
freshed ; but it is truly a magnificent (that's the word) loch,
especially at the west end, where I was greatly delighted with
the fairy-like f ppearance of the scattered islands. "We make a
work about our Arthur Seat and Calton Hill, and our Dudding-
ston and Lochend, — the market here is quite glutted with them.
You might tumble Ben-Ledi or Ben-Lomond and fill up half a
dozen lochs, and the only effect would be to bring into view
twice as many more of hills, lochs, straths, guUeys, peaks, and I
know not what. I am just going off to Dunoon ; and with the
kindest love to all, I am, your affectionate son,

" George."

" To Miss Mack ay, Glasgow.

October 6, 1837.

"My dear Miss Mack ay,— Having finished the perusal of
some tomes treating of certain recondite philosophical and lite-
rary subjects, I gladly sit down to dispel all your anxious fears

1837-38.

ENTEBS DR. CHRISTISON'S LABORATORY.

B37.
ll of
fiite-
rears

regarding my safe arrival from your most hospitable city. Some
foolish people would at once have called for pen and paper, and
before their boots were fairly pulled off, have indited a scanty
unreadable scroll, purporting to tell that the steamboat had not
blown up, nor its engine gone wrong, nor itself come in colli-
sion with another, nor the writer fallen overboard, etc. Then
reverting to travels ly land, the scrawl would go on to say, that
the horses did not run off, nor the coach tumble over a cliff, nor
the traces break, nor the wheels suffer any mishap, a id so on.
But I am far too much of a philosopher to write any such non-
sense, nor am I about to bore you to death with a melancholy
recital of my being almost frozen to an icicle, and nevertheless
nearly tumbling off the coach with sleep. I have fortunately
forgotten these trivial and temporary inconveniences, and the
reminiscence of them would be of no possible use to either of us,
so I. meddle not with it any more. After the sobering influence
had duly improved me, I set off on Monday morning to the
College, and the fii-st person I beheld was my most respected
instructor. Dr. Christison. After shaking hands with the worthy
professor, and making inquiries after his health, I whipped off
my surtout, and on with my old coat, — I say my old coat,
but it stands in the same relation to my back, that Elijah's
mantle did to Elisha, being the legacy of a departed (to the
Continent) friend, — and I fell to a very curious case of attempted
poisoning, by putting vitriol in tea, in the analysis of which
I occupied the whole of the first day. Since then I have
been engaged up to the period when I write, with two deli-
cate processes for the purification of Sulphuric Acid, one for
the more accurate preparation of Tinctures of Barks, not to
mention the analysis of Laudanum, and assistance in opening
a box from Ceylon, containing roots, fruits, leaves, etc., from
that most interesting place, sent by a lady for Dr. Christison's
Museum.

" Situated as I am just now, — buried in the difficulties of
several of the physical sciences, changing from pharmacy to
chemistry, from chemistry to physiology, or taking a refresh-
ment in the subtilties of logic, or the elegancies of rhetoric, —
you must not expect my epistle to be very rich in what may

i
1

MEMOIB OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. in.

either amuse or instruct, the more so, that I have lost my brother,
who sharpened every faculty as ' iron sharpeneth iron.' I have
no one now to laugh and joke with ; or, if a feeling of lonesome -
ness comes over me, and I cast my eyes round for a familiar
countenance, they fall on a grim, grinning battered skull, sur-
mounted by two cross-bones, the adormnents of my mantel-
piece. Nevertheless, I am not to be outdone in grinning -by a
skull, and when any odd idea comes from the caverns of my rest-
less head, I grin and show my teeth, and a great many more too,
in a far more joyous fashion than the said lifeless cranium
can do.

" Whatever the reason, medical men are never more at fault
than in reasoning on their own disorders. I seein to have bid
good-bye to a considerable portion of my senses, not to talk of
bottles, messages, appointments, and articles of dress, forgotten,
misapplied, or neglected ; of a letter put into the post-office
marked paid, thrust into the common receiving aperture, and
safely lodged at the bottom, before I remembered that I had
written in great characters the ' paid ' so cheering to the receiver,
but in this case, destined only to raise the compassion, or awake
the indignation of the young lady, its recipient, at the melancholy
poverty of the writer. ....

" Now I think I know the reason of all this mental absence,
and as you are a discreet young lady, I shall not scruple in con-
fidence to tell you. I am over head and ears in love, and the
object of my attachment so thoroughly engrosses my thoughts,
that I have scarce a speculation to give to anything else, and
though I have wooed her steadfastly, she, with the coyness and
fickleness of her sex, gives me but doubtful signs of a recipro-
city of affection, and I feel that I make but small progress in
her esteem ; and eager as I am to ingratiate myself with her,
and high as I should esteem the honour of having a most
thorough acquaintance with her, I know that many of my friends
would imagine her a very unfit companion, and I can conceive
you saying that although a lady might occasionally converse
with her, a familiar intimacy would be most undesirable, and I
believe you to have more than common charity in such a case
as this. Nevertheless, she is descended from a noble and influ-

1837-38.

CHEMISTRY HIS LADY-LOVE.

ential family of very at'cient oi.gin, which can show incontes-
table proofs of haying flourished in the dark ages, under another
title, and which received great additions • its power and
influence, under the reigns of Elizabeth and James I, under the
Chancellorship of Lord Bacon. If you wish to see the birth,
descent, and fortunes of the family, I would refer you not to
Burke's Peerage, but to the Encycloptedia, where, under the
article ' Sciences,* you will find a minute history of the family ;
and if you ask me which of the daughters has awakened in me
such admiration, I reply, the ' Right noble the Science of Che-
mistry,' who in my eyes is by far the most attractive and
interesting of the family. In case a kindly feeling to the writer
should incline you to know more of this noble house, and its
collateral branches, I would refer you to a work written by a
lady, deeply versed in this branch of Heraldry, Mrs. Somerville's
' Connexion of the Physical Sciences.'"

Jnverse
and I

I a case
influ-

We shall now be greatly indebted to the series of letters,
addressed to his brother, just settled in London, for information
as to his emplojmaents and aspirations. Speaking of this cor-
respondence, Daniel says : — " London, to one crossing the Border
for the first time, had perhaps greater novelties then even than
New York or Washington at a later date, and some of the allu-
sions in one of his first letters are in repl^ to an account of its
marvels. Amongst these, one of the oddest, to my unpractised
eyes, was the public display of the undertakers' establishments,
with miniature cofiins and all the paraphernalia of death, so
totally imknown in Edinburgh, where, excepting an ambiguous
sign-board, labelled 'Upholsterer and Undertaker,' there is
nothing to indicate the fact that the last sad rites supply a pro-
fitable trade to the craft of undertakers. In total contradistinc-
tion to any such decorous euphemism, the London tradesman
engraves a couple of coffins on his card, and presents it to you
with a courtesy that clearly says how happy he will be to find
you speedily requiring his services ; and in full accordance with
this he paints boldly on his signboard, 'Funerals performed I'"
To a description of these and other London wonders, Greorge
thus replies, with a running pun on the names of two London

100

MEMOIR OF OEOROE WILBON.

CHAP. III.

1K)7

publishers, with whom his correspondent hail then some trans-
actions:—

"My dear Daniel, — I had just awaked from a tolerably
sound and refreshing sleep, at the excellent and philosophic
hour of half-past seven, when in bounced into my room, mother,
holding in her hand an opened letter, assuring me she had but
read one sentence. She proceeded to go over it again for my
satisfaction. I, still rubbing my eyes, and not very sure where
I was, patiently ensconced behind my curtains, sat trying to
collect my scattered ideas, and make out what mother and you
would be after, (those horrid steel pens, I could not write a
kind letter with them!) till my attentive ear felt the word
' Moon,' which, coupled with the circumstance of my having
watched an eclipse of the said luminary the evening before, and
joined to the fondly-cherished belief that the word struck had
been kindly passed over by mother, explained the whole mys-
tery. Your conduct in the omnibus, which you so unblushingly
relate, justified my fear of your being moon-struck, and I needed
only to read your cautions against communicating the news to
feel satisfied. There is no surer proof of lunacy than suspicions
entertained of intimate friends. My only consolation and com-
fort is that it was into the power of the 7noon, and not that of
the graves, that you had fallen ; an accident which the treatise
on cofiBn-making in your last epistle to me made me dread had
befallen you. By the by, what a very odd and amusing thing,
of a sort, would the entry-book of one of these London performers
be. You can imagine some scamp who had spent his time in
kicking his heels in the air, like the donkeys, leaving in his
wiU, ' Item, that my coffin be made roomy at the heel end ;' or
a gouty old gentleman, who felt very doubtful how he should
reach the Styx without his sticks, and feeling «lso convinced
that in case of old Charon getting surly, and ' couping* the
boat, the said stilts would be of great use, might append a
codicil addressed to the undertaker, * Item, that room be left
for my crutches;' and as for those unfortunate beings whom
Campbell used to characterize by his strangely expressive
phrase, as able to act Richard iii. without stuffing, I know what
they would say, perhaps, 'Wanted an Italic S coffin, to be

1M7-38.

BIRTH OF A PUN.

101

made roomy at the bends. . . .* My dear brother, we are most
heartily delighted at your success, in every way so far superior
to what we could have expected, and 1 do congratulate you most
sincerely, and with a lightness of heart which I have not known
since you left, and which is my only apology for the nonsense I
may write or have written. . . . Let us return to more trivial
things, and first to the exploits of others, and then of myself ; for
I am going in my yepistles to cater from all sources for news for
you. Well, on the sixth, my friend John Niven was safely de-
livered of a right good pun, and both child and parent are doing
very well, and as I was present at the accouchement, you may
feel interested in the detail of facts. I was dining with his
uncle, who told us a grave, cober piece of nonsense, believed by
him, however, about the Countess of Mar having had a nuntber
of children born blind, a mischance which no one could under-
stand or explain, till an old spaewife, who called at the door,
referred it to a great stone statue of some heathen god standing
in the park, which the Countess greatly admired, and whose
great convex pupilless eye-balls the old crone said were the
sympathetic cause of the children's blindness. The statue
was removed, and the next child could see. Now, said
the uncle, turning to us, what can you doctors say to that?
' Why,' says John, gravely pulling up the comers of his mouth,
'there is no mysteiy in it at all; the children were stone
blind.'"

" mh October 1837.

" My dear Daniel, — Though you can scarcely have digested
the contents of my last epistle to 'you, I make no excuse for
again writing, — the more so that I forgot a great many things
in my last, which I hope to be able, like Campbell, to ' squeeze
into ' this ; and, in addition, I have been mainly prompted to
write at this short interval that I might tell you what, if left
for a longer time untold, might from passing occurrences
become historical events, and pass out of the jurisdiction of the
letter-writer. . . .

" Jessie has been rather complaining for a few days batlc, and
yesterday became so feverish that we called in the doctor. It

102

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

183;

proves to be an attack of smallpox, which is prevalent in Edin-
burgh just now. Her case, however, is quite mild ; . . . and
she is the contented, uncomplaining occupant of the sick-bed
which you could foretell. . . . Mother is, of course, anxious,
but does not anticipate any but a mild attack. For my own
part I never saw a mUder, and Mr. Lizars is equally convinced
of its non-severity ; so that we are not distressed by anxious
fears, but patiently wait for the disease running its course. I
have taken the earliest opportunity of letting you know the
particulars, lest any exaggerated rumours reach you ; . . . but
you will remain satisfied, I am sure, with what I have written,
which is the whole truth, and we shall write you from time to
time of the progress of recovery. Meanwhile, pray God for
her speedy recovery to complete health : it is all, my dear
brother, that you or I can do, and we know too much of the
Christian dispensation to stop at the consideration or applica-
tion of mere secondary causes or means, or to doubt the ef&cacy
of prayer.

" All the rest of us are quite well, and get on very comfort-
ably in all respects, forming a household somewhat diminished
in size, but knitted closely together. Mother says I don't write
you proper letters, that instead of stuffing them full of nonsense
1 should tell you about the family's doings ; but, besides that
I was never a very enthusiastic watcher or recorder of family
incidents, — and in addition conceived them, like ginger-beer or
Seltzer water, apt to lose all their spirit by travel, — I thought I
should be most likely to please you in my epistles if I just
wrote to you what I would have chatted to you had you been
sitting over your work, and I at my window with book in hand,
surrounded by my bottles and tubes, ' the gods of my idolatry,'
with the exception of snatches of bongs, which are as untrans-
portable as the articles mentioned above ; though, by the by,
I may say I'm making considerable advances both in singing
and whistling, as well in compass of voice as in number and
variety of tunes. I have seriously begun the piano, and I am
told I finger the scale in a very promising fashion ; to all of
which profitable occupations of time I am greatly cheered bv
the hope of amusing you when I have the happiness of visiting

Lo
pu

1837-3S.

TROUBLES COME THICKLY.

103

London. Well, this parenthesis, worthy of Knickerbocker,
purporteth to let you know that, till orders to the contrary
arrive, I shall write as I have written and spoken. . . .

" I have no time to tell you how busy I am with Christison
all day, and chemistry and physiology all night. ... I need
not tell you, 'I'm lonesome without thee, my own dear br' — other.
— Your afifectionate George."

irisitiijg

Two days later than the preceding letter is the last entry for
the year in the jouri/fl : —

"Saturday, October 2()th. — I was agreeably surprised on
coming home to-day to find a parcel awaiting me, addressed in
a very pretty lady's hand, and, as it was easy to know, from

Miss . I opened it with great glee, expecting an answer to

a very odd, whimsical letter sent to thank her for a present of
bottles ; but how amazed and aghast was I to find in it that my
poor friend, Samuel Brown, had been seized with fever the day
he should have left for Berlin, and that 'accounts are very
unfavourable indeed.' Poor fellow ! I don't know what I should
do if I lost him, almost the only friend I have except my
brother ; gained as a friend, though an acquaintance before, at
a time when returning health and energy had sent me to the
careful study of the physical sciences. I was delighted to meet
him, and to meet one who so fervently reciprocated an enthu-
siastic love for such pursuits. The gaining of such a friend was
a stimulus to more active study, and a most potent motive to
steady perseverance, and many a day-dream of the future, and
many an air-built castle had him for its hero. And now, when
I eveiy day expected a letter from him, to be stunned and
startled by such terrible news ! I prayed to God for him every
night, and perhaps God was beneficially watching over him, and
preventing his reaching Berlin, where cholera is very bad. It
has quite unsettled me ; the idea of studying — what I thought
to have done — chemistry this evening seems cruel, while a
brother-chemist is lying in the fangs of fever. I cannot open
my books, and instead am in a listless, melancholy mood of
mind. Troubles have come thick on me : my brother gone to
London to buffet with the distractions of that great city, my

104

MEMOIB OF CEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IIL

sweet sister Jessie lying ill of smallpox, my friend Brown
dangerously iU of fever, and poor Dobbie [an artist friend]
dreading the development of consmnption. I have been out at
Mr. Dobbie this afternoon, and feigning a mirth I did not feel,
have succeeded in raising his spirits above their former most
melancholy state, without in any degree swerving from the truth.
But to my sister I can be of little use, and to my brother and
poor Brown not only of none, but an anxious, passive, not even
spectator, but most anxious listener, depending on letters for
the increase or removal of my sorrows. I don't much crave
sympathy, and my brother Daniel would suffice of my own
sex; but I've lost him, and it's a terribly awkward way of
exchanging feelings, the post. I would I had one dear
lady, either beside me or in correspondence, but I am denied
so great a privilege, and must e'en feed, as best I can, on my
own thoughts, for friends of either sex I have scarcely any to

share them with me. What poor will do, I don't know ;

it's a most melancholy situation, suspense is so agonizing;
. . . and the risk of infection makes it impossible for my
sister Mary to call there. The fortnight that's to elapse
before more news come, how wearisome and long to all of us !
Could it but be annihilated ! I shall exist in most troubled
suspense."

Ten days later he informs Daniel of home affairs : —
"Lest you should entertain groundless apprehensions regard-
ing your sister's health, and magnify her ailments, I, at this
early period after the receipt of your most kind and acceptable
epistle, sit down to write you ; allow me to give you the con-
soling intelligence, that Jessie is declared convalescent, and
freed from all the restrictions of an invalid. She is now engaged,
after the approved mode of all convalescents, in speculating
after the finishing of one meal what shall be the character and
quantity of the next : already has she so much progressed, as
to have made great havoc in the corner of a beefsteak, not to
talk of eggs, calf-foot jelly, grapes, plums, and other such trifles,
which are despatched without so much as ' by your leave.' The
periods between meals she eidivens, after the equally orthodox

1837-38.

STUDIO DESCRIBED.

105

this

Stable

con-

and
iged,
iting

and
Id, as
Dtto
ifles,
[The
t)dox

fashion of recovering sick-folks, in listening to odd tales and
fantastic anecdotes : the great demand is for ' funny stories,' and
such a thing as drugging the market is quite impossible, so
great is the consumption of the article in question. She has
already digested a great portion of the celebrated story of Eoiy
O'More, with the top-boots, the illigant stick and the gridiron ;
has devoured piecemeal Croker's Legends of Ireland, and having
her eyes now open, she has been able, in addition to hearing the
inimitable story of your namesake, O'Eourke, to feast her eyes
with a sight of the sketch taken from life, of * 'pon the honour
of a gintleman,' and the stone sinking in the bog. This evening
has seen Mary and me relieving each other (like shipwrecked
passengers at the pumps) in instilling into her the wholesome
precepts of Mansie Wauch, and as a further proof of her being
on the high road to complete recovery, though yet very weak,
and unable to do more than half sit up in bed, she and I sing
together the ' Angel's Whisper,' the ' Mistletoe Bough,' and the
' Fairy's Song,' every verse with great 4clat and mutual congra-
tulation. Before I close the letter I shall have a message from
herself, but just now she is sleeping, so I for the present close
my duties as Secretary for the Home Department.

" Lest you should throw back in my teeth some of my grumb-
lings, let me tell you something about my own doings. Well,
you will be delighted to hear that I have made great progress
in the — honing of razors. Excuse the vanity that dictated that
last sentence, while I proceed to tell you what alterations have
been effected in my studio, that you may be able to realize the
idea of myself sitting in the ancient morning gown. Well, there
are no wooden or brick partitions built up ; it has four walls,
one window, two hat pegs, two doors, one museum (see you pro-
nounce that rightly) ; and in addition to all that, your protege,
the muse's son, M'Donald, brought me over, the night you sailed,
an oil painting of the Dutch s'orgeon, and his patient squealing
before the knife touched him, — a fine spirited thing. Dobbie is
greatly pleased with it, and I have got the young fellow engaged
to paint me a partner for it, in the shape of an old grave grey-
headed and bearded alchymist, puffing his furnace among fan-
tastic vessels, so that, as the one points to a surgeon's room, the

li'i i
in

106

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. in.

other may point to a chemist's. In addition, generous Mr. Dobbie
has given me a dog's skull to match the leopard's, a cast of the
sheep and bull's head from Trajan's column, and two heads from
the same, so that when they are hung, one on either side of the
cattle, my two pictures farther out, my skulls, and two or three
busts, on the mantelpiece, interspersed among crystals and alche-
mical-looking bottles, in a mission for the obtaining of which, I
am about to set off to the Cowgate, I shall boast of having a
unique room for my study. I have another object in making it
neat. You know I proposed beginning a set of demonstrations
on chemistry this winter ; well, I did begin, though I got no
time to tell you, Jessie's illness permitting me only to give one,
which was attended by all the Misses L and Mrs. L, Mr. L,
being prevented by necessitous calls on his attention. These,
added to the family, made a goodly audience, and I am promised
Miss Gibson and Miss Blackwood, not to mention others. I
created quite a sensation with my first prelection, Mrs. L. won-
dering if I would print it ! and with Mr. Macgillivray's assistance,
we made a splendid enough show of experiments, only a few of
the more trivial ones failing. B took notes. Jessie's ill-
ness drove the idea out of my head. Now that she is fast reco-
vering, I shall begin to get my bottles in order anew, but a
gloom is cast over my chemical speculations, by the knowledge
of poor Samuel Brown's illness. I feel it in the light of a piece
of hard-heartedness, to be thinking of such matters when he is
lying ill ; but it would appear it is a nervous fever which very
rarely is fatal, so I augur the best. But to wait a whole fort-
night in restless suspense is a most torturing thing ; poor B-

must feel it very deeply. I work some three hours with Dr.
Christison. I get on finely with him, and we are knowing each
other better eveiy day ; I hope we shall soon be on the thorough -
est footing. Have you seen or heard anything of Faraday?
I have not seen the Misses L, or Mr. Scott, or in truth, any one,
since Jessie took ill. I have nothing new in the way of story
or intrigue to tell you, which is my only apology for the barren
character of tliis yepistle.

" Jessie bids me tell you that she will soon be up and will
write you. She sends, carefully sealed, signed, and marked

1837-38.

GENEROSITY OP NATURE.

107

' this side up,' a kiss, which you are leisurely to devour. If the
hope of visiting London was great heretofore, how much greater
is it now. Your account of the pretty young Quakeress, to
whom I should be delighted to sing anjrthing I could, and the
notice of Mr. Mitchell's organ, are great attractions. If I knew
the piano, he would perhaps teach me how to manage the organ
stops, and I should make some progress. Meanwhile, don't you
imagine I'm an accomplished piano-player ; I'm just fagging
away at all the horrid scales, gamuts, etc., but I'll stick closely
to it. You must on no account think of waiting for me to see
the sights of London ; it is extremely doubtful if I shall get up
at all ; at any rate, it cannot be earlier than next autumn, so
don't think of waiting. If I gained the Essay I am working at,
that would decide me in the affirmative."

very
fort-

th Dr.

each

[ough-

laday ?

ly one,

story

)arren

will
larked

George's unselfish devotion as a brother and friend, was never
more visible than now. Whatever his own sorrows and dis-
appointments, at some of which even his most intimate friends
can but dimly guess, he was able to put them aside, and assume
the most hearty mirth, if others were cast down. "When the
infectious nature of his sister's illness kept almost all aloof from
her, he would not be restrained from trying to cheer the little
invalid. The evening-time that brought him home was eagerly
longed for, and when her eyes were sealed up from the effects
of the disease, and a ray of light unbearable, this good brother
sat outside the chamber door, with a candle so placed, that no
light could enter the room, and for hour after hour read the
drollest stories, laughing over them with a heartiness peculiarly
his own. Wishing to give some slight token of her gratitude
for all this love and care, the child said to him one night before
going to sleep, " Kiss me, Dozie." Immediately was the kiss
given, tcf her great satisfaction; and not till weeks after, when
the first glance at a mirror was permitted, did it flash upon her
what she had asked, what the repulsive state of the lips had
been, and the danger even to his life. Trifling though the
incident is, it was a true expression of the generous nature,
ready at any moment with unconscious grace to sacrifice life
itself for the objects of his love.

P I

108

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IIL

The last entry in the journal treats of the lectures given at
home ; though written at a later date, its contents make it suit-
able for our notice at present.

"May 1839. — Following out the proposal to amend the sub-
jects of ladies' conversation and study, I assembled some of them
in my father^s house, and delivered a course of lectures on
chemistry, especially the chemistry of nature. It was in the
winter of 1837-38, so that I was then cet. 19 ; the majority of
my audience were older by a year or two. I was greatly
praised and encouraged, most kindly listened to and assisted in
many ways, especially by John Macgillivray, a generous, unself-
ish, happy fellow, without whose aid I should have come on
very poorly. This course, which began in October, was first
interrupted by the illness of my sister, and afterwards, in
February, by the mournful indisposition of my cousin Catherine,
so that only ten or twelve lectures were given.

" I place here the names of those who smiled on a juvenile
attempt, both because I would keep on record the titles of those
persons who gave rise to many a happy thought, and that as I
hope to address other audiences, I may not lose the recollection
of my first, which was more kind, generous, and forgiving to-
wards me than any future audience ever can be."

Of the list which follows of twenty-seven names, thirteen
have passed into the unseen world, almost all in the bloom of
youth and hope, so that it recalls sadly, years of anxiety, fear,
suspense, and desolation to the hearts in whose depths all those
loved ones lie buried. In a letter of 1839, George says to his
brother, referring to the death of his cousin Catherine, — " How
little did I think, when last winter I assembled a few happy,
youthful forms to hear of my favourite science, that in another
year two of the fairest, and kindest, and seemingly most healthful
of them should be struck down by the demon disease of our
country."

Tlie correspondence with Daniel continues the narrative : —

1837 3a

VISITS GEORGE HARVEY.

109

" November 4, IS&7.

My dear Daniel,—

5py.

ther
iful
lour

" 'Tis the last sheet of paper
Left blooming alone,
All its foolscap companions
Are crumpled and gone,

and gone to you every one of them, saving and excepting a
single sheet which winged its way to the Eow, and cost two-
pence, and this yepistle you certainly should not have had, had
not the kind Mr. L— sent up to acquaint us with his pro-
posed journey to the capital of Cockneys, I have therefore
just arisen from the old piano, whence I have been educing
the most melodious strains, again to take plume in hand, and
indite a few lines to keep you from quite forgetting, among
the ecstasies of 'big works,' that you have got both 'wee'
brothers and sisters at home.

" To begin, as is befitting, with sisters : Jessie has been greatly
delighted with your letter, has read it over and over again, and
all the favoured entrants of her bedchamber are privileged with
a sight of the elegant sketch of the Charity Boy.

" In addition to what I told you of formerly, I am to get from
Dobbie a bas-relief of Arago's head, by David, and perhaps
another of Cuvier. You see how covetous I am, and I entertain
some hopes of getting a portrait of Fanny Kemble, whose portrait
I long ago fell in love with, and used to go a particular road to
see. If I get it, old Irvine shall leave his frame and give room
to the fair ladye. It was the last work of Sir T. Lawrence, and
is, according to my notion, the most beautifully expressive face I
ever saw. It shall hang over my mantelpiece as my guardian
angel.

" I called last Wednesday evening on Mr, Harvey ; as it was
after daylight had departed, I did not see his picture, but enjoyed
the pleasure of a long conversation with him. He begged me to
call again, which I certainly shall do at an early opportunity, and
think myself proud of an admission to his studio, , . ,

" We have had a very busy month of it, plotting and plan-
ning apparatus, and executing analyses, in most of which we
have been very fortunate. All our wits were at work to manu-

110

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

facture a convenient arrangement of tubes for distilling, and at
last we succeeded in erecting a most beautiful and simple appa-
ratus, which completely effected its purpose, and saved us all
trouble in tending it. You would be greatly amused did I tell
you some of the little incidents which take place in the labora-
tory ; they are rather of too flimsy a kind for grave insertion in
a letter, however well fitted for telling you while chatting to-
gether ; but as this will only cost you the breaking of the seal,
I may venture to tell you one. While rummaging one day over
one of the dark cellars which are appendaged to the class-room,
we stumbled on a great, large, thin, glass vessel in a hamper,
generally used for holding sulphuric acid, and knoA^m to mer-
chants by the title of a carboy. It was at once agreod on by
the triumviidte, composed of Eob, Christison, Geo. Wilson, and
Mariano Martin de Bartolom^ that the said vessel would make
a most excellent recipient for the distilled water we were en-
gaged in preparing. We soon succeeded in dragging it from its
obscurity ' into life, and light, and fame,' and in doing so dis-
covered that it contained a large quantity of some liquid.
Christison out with the bung and down with his nose al-
most to the bottom, and slowly pulled it out with a most merry,
gleesome look, as he sung out, ' Smell that, Mr. Bartolom^, and
you too, Mr. Wilson.' As soon as we had inserted our probosces
as far down as we could (I half wish that I had your nose, but
no matter), he declared it w^is the mother liquor of opium ; in
other words, the infusion of opium, from which the morphia
alone had been removed, and which contained all the other pure
and crystallizable principles. Here was a prize, a very useful
bottle, and a valuable liquid. All the basins and platters were
immediately in requisition to contain the nectar ; and Barto-
lom6 and I set about devising a plan of cleaning the bottle,
which was encrusted with the thick resinous matter. Alas,
alack-a-day! man is bovn to disappointment; the fragrant
liquid, after boiling for three days, and almost suffocating us
with its extraordinary odour, ended in smoke, affording us no-
thing but an abominable tarry stuff, which has spoiled all our
filters, towels, etc. ; and for the bottle, woe is me ! ' Frailty,' as I
had occasion to write to Miss L — in the letter I told you of.

1837-38.

FIRST LECrrURES ON CHEMISTRY.

Ill

' thy name is glass.' While Bartolom^ was working away with
a long flexible rod and a sponge, polishing the inside most care-
fully, for he is a very neat-handed, ingenious fellow, bang waa
heard an awful sound, and the point of the rod protruded ! So
much for our calamities. I hope you sympathize. I am sure
J. G. retains a sufficiently vivid remembrance of his apothecary
dealings most sincerely to feel with us in our present bereave-
ment.

" I may tell you another odd conversation — one with Barto-
lom6 — who is really a fine fellow, from whom I learn a great deal
We were talking about some of the infidel and atheistic students,
and mourning their folly. ' Ah ! I wish they were Free-Masons,
they would then know the true God.' I am sure this idea of
evangelizing wicked people will greatly amuse you, and I could
tell you a great deal more ; but here is James L — arrived to
say that Mr. L — is just going, so I must seal up this bad and
hurriedly- written letter."

" Laboratory, November 26, 1837.
" ' SPECIMEN OF HIEROGLYPHICS.'

" My dear Dan, — I have been upbraiding myself for many
days back for not writing you, but, in truth, I have been very
busily occupied, so much so, as almost to preclude me writing
any one, and I am still in debt an epistle to Macmillan and B — ,
both of whom I allow to stand aside (though you are not to tell
them) till your superior claims are satisfied. All notion of
letter for letter is absurd in our present circumstances. I shall
write you when I find time, taste, and opportunity, and I have
no doubt you will do the same to me, so I proceed to describe..
I may observe, that I should not likely have had leisure suffi-
cient to write to you to-day, had it not happened that last night,
while engaged in delivering my second chemical demonstration
before an audience of twenty, a piece of phosphorus on the end
of a wire, which I intended should have descended in a vessel
of oxygen-gas, became refractory, and whether because not dry
enough, which is Macgillivray's theory, throwing the blame on
me ; or because it was not sufficiently fixed on the wire, which
was only stuck into it, which is my hypothesis, blaming Macgilli-

•K&

112

MEMOIR OF OEOKOE WILSON,

CHAP. III.

vray, who insisted on trying his own way of impaling it, I know
not ; but suffice it to spy, that he and I got three fingers apiece
burned, and here am I with a great blister on the neh of my
middle finger, prevented from going to Christison's, and thereby
enabled to write you an yepistle. We both deserved the punish-
ment ; and with my hand stuck in a jar of water, I spoke on for
a short while longer, but the phosphorus still sticking to my
fingers, I had soon to stop, and after a few remarks, closed the
scene ; the evening, however, had got on magnificently before,
and this was but a startling episode. With my one hand in a
jug of water, and my other across the table, I bade the ladies
good-bye, assuring them that if they would return next Friday,
I should promise them something better than even that night,
with which they expressed themselves pleased, and whispered
to Miss Gibson that I would only bum my own fingers, and not
theirs. Our digits wrapped in cotton, my fine young friend
Macgillivray and I sat quaffing our tea together in joyous and
laughable reminiscence, endeavouring to throw the blame on
each other, but obliged at last to confess that we had both
neglected certain ii cessary precautions. We shall repeat the
experiment next night, we hope and confidently expect with full
success ; but fire is ' the goddess of the chemist,' and I don't
mind being burned in carrying on chemical researches.

" Now, I am going to tell you another laboratory incident, for
unless I tell you them I shall have nothing to tell you at all,
for as far as concerns ' moving accidents,' my life lacks them :
the variety is change of thought, notion, or speculation, not of
place, personages, and scenes of action ; only, if I weary you, tell
me, and I will fish up some other thing for you,

" It so happens that Dr. Christison's laboratory comprises
three huge rooms, at considerable distances from each other, and
all far removed from the outer door ; it generally happens that
we are spread through the rooms, most of us separated from the
entrance-door by two long passages and two flights of stairs. It
is therefore a great bother to us when people come to the door,
obliging us to follow this long cimtmhendibus of a way to let
some idler in ; for it unfortunately happens that the laboratory
is near the college gate, and vagabond strollers of all sorts come

1R37 sa

STORY OF A HAT.

11.1

for

all,

sm :

tell

■ises

and

ntliat

Ithe

|oor,

let

fory

jme

poking, and peering, and rattling at the said door. For the last
month the door has been most carefully attended to (this being
the primary chemical duty of the Doctor's assistants), because
the new students are taking out his ticket, and he says himself
merrily, ' I am willing enough to run to the door just now when
the prospect of a fee allures me, but you'll see, Mr. Wilson, I'll
not be so alert by and by.'

" Well, Christison and two of us were standing together carry-
ing on some analysis of salts ; over and over again the door had
been knocked at, and shaken, and rattled. ' That restless door,'
says Christison ; but I know something more restless.

" It happened, the Doctor told us, refusing to answer some
questions about the chemical operations we were engaged in, and
declaring that he would tell his story first, that when he was a
young man, he was a clerk in the Infirmaiy, residing there.
Among his companions was a grand-nephew of the celebrated
Cullen, the physician, a very clever young fellow, by far the
cleverest person Christison had ever seen; moreover, good-
looking and handsome, and having a very large circle of ac -
quaintance among the fashionables of Edinburgh, and a great
favourite, from his talents, handsomeness, and politeness, with
the ladies. Accordingly, when he and any of his companions
walked through the streets together, every few minutes he met
some one he recognised, especially ladies, and of course he
politely raised his hat and did graceful obeisance. Well (for
my plot is complicated), there was another Infirmary clerk, one

S , I think, an ' uncombed' lad from the country, who, from

his various oddities, was the butt of the rest ; nevertheless by
no means destitute of some cleverness, and although generally
the theme of ridicule, often succeeding, as you must have seen
such persons do, by lucky single strokes, in occasionally flooring
a whole bevy of cleverer fellows. One day, after dinner, it
chanced that the clerks, being very religious, fell to talking
about the probability and nature of punishments in another
world. Espousing the doctrines of Pythagorean transmigration,
they wondered much into what sort of animal or form each
would be transformed. ' I wonder,' sang out Cullen over the

table, 'what animal you'll be turned into, S ?' 'I don't

iii'i

MEMOIU OF GEOBOK WILRON.

CHAP. III.

1W7

know,' says S , bristling up, for the very question had

awakened a wild ahout of laughter ; ' I don't know, but I would
not, at any rate, like to be turned into yaiir hat' Was it not
exquisite ? So much for the ' restless hat.' ....

" We have received the most gratifying intelligence from
Kussia, Samuel is fast recovering, and was able to dictate a
portion of the last letter. He was very ill ; a whole month
delirious : he will likely come home, and not think of Berlin
at all"

" LABoBATonv, Friday Eveninf/.

" I have finished my foui-th discourse on chemistry, and the
knife which mended this pen has just been absolved from the
cutting of corks so as to fit accurately the bottles which ser\'o
so many useful purposes. I shall, however, take up no time
with a recital of the various perilous risks which fragile tubes
i-un, and how they escaped being broken, etc. etc.

" Let me take other topics, though not to be less egotistical,
for I am about to recount to you so many particulars of my own
most wonderful doings. Well, an odd enough incident occurred
to me the other day. When entering the College, I saw in its
post-office, in a hand which I did not know, a small note,
marked ' George Wilson,' which, presuming it must be for me,
as there has been no G. W. about college since I joined it, I im-
mediately dragged out, and promised Mr. Borrowman uis two-
pence next day. On opening the epistle, I was startled by the
first words ' Dearest George,' and, on turning to the end, scarcely
less so by the concluding term, ' Yours in love, Agnes Y. S. M.'
You may guess what kind of letter it was ; inquiries after the
health of the G. W. addressed, protestations of fond admiration,
and a curious declaration that the correspondent, all the time
specified, was suffering under toothache, which she declared
would be dispelled, as by a 'farry's wand,' by the sight of her
beloved, and some more of such stuff. Perfectly puzzled, I read
it over and over again ; there was no other G. W. known or re-
gistered about College ; it must be for me. I did not know any
one, high or low, named Agnes ; so that, unless some servant
maid or the like liad fallen in love with me ! and taken this
modest plan of saying so, I could not tell who could be intended.

III.

isn? n'».

LAllOllATOIlY INCIDENTS.

11.'^

me,
im
two-
>y the
ircely
S. M.'
the
atioii,
time
lared
f her
read
)r re-
vany
rvant
this
InJed.

Puzzled what to do, I showed it to Bartolomd, and then to Chris-
tison, who could make no more of it than I ; Christison declar-
ing, however, it must he for mo. At last, Bartolomd went to the
college alhum, but I was the only G. W. It might still, however,
he some student of divinity, or some extra-collegian who took
advantage of the post-office ; and, as I felt perfectly convinced
that I was not the enchanter that ^ould wield the 'fairy's'
wand, and as it was no business of mine to keep her from her
' Dearest C4eorgo,' though I was not he, I marked within the
envelope my profession and address, and a statement of my
having opened it, but being sure it could not be for me, I had
returned it ; I sealed it and gave it back ; this was on Saturday.
On Monday it was gone, and no questions asked, nor have I
heard any more about it. I thought it possible the veritable
fellow might conceive the opening of the letter a designed insult,
and demand satisfaction ; but he had the good sense to say no-
thing about it. How he and Agnes took the singular denoue-
ment, I, of course, do not know ; but Christison veiy justly
remarked that it would have been the best answer to a demand
for explanation, to declare that I was the insulted person, in
having my name connected with such persons ; and so the mat-
ter rests.

" Now for some Laboratory incidents, though I fear you will
but shrug up your shoulders at the word, and think of the middle
syllable, ' bore ;' nevertheless, as your sensitive nose cannot be
offended by noisome odours or pestilential emanations, I shall
venture to record another thing or two, begging you will read
them with the window up, and put out all the contaminated air
with your bellows.

" Well, my first is a claim on your sympathy, but about a very
trivial matter. You'll remember a paragraph regarding the find-
ing of a huge glass bottle, containing an opium liquid, which
disappointed us completely, our bottle breaking in the cleaning,
and our stuff almost suffocating us with its overpowering odour,
and after all yielding nothing. It so happened, that some of the
large porcelain basins, in which the stuff had been evaporated,
were left standing on the table of our farthest back room.
Something led me into that room, where I had not been for

116

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

some time, and carelessly casting my eye over the table, I saw
something dark and shining in the bottom of the basins ; re-
membering our former trials, I picked out a little of it, and saw
it had a crystalline structure. What, thought I, if this be the
muriate of morphia, which has slowly separated from it. I
showed it to Dr. Christison ; ' Oh,' says he (for he had been too
often disappointed to entertain sanguine hopes), ' it will just be
muriate of lime,' a useless thing. I resolved to try ; boiled a
little with alcohol in a tube, and having my attention at the
time directed to something else, put the tube aside, thinking
that the proof of its being morphia was incomplete, yet puzzled
to conceive it anything else. For two or three days I was em-
ployed in other processes ; and, on the third or fourth, it chanced
a test tube was wanting. I carelesslv took the one in which
the solution of the cr^'stalline matter had been put, but as I
proceeded to wash it, I was struck by a singular appearance
inside, and what was my astonishment and delight, on looking
more closely, to find a most beautiful circle of small feathery
crystals, which it could not be doubted were morphia, and which
was completely proven to be this, by adding the test of morphia,
which gave the most characteristic results. I am now analysing
the whole, some two gallons of stuff, having volunteered to un-
dergo the disagreeableness of the smell, which I keep f^m every
one else, by shutting two glass doors between me and them.
You will understand that this is refuse liqiior, discarded by the
druggists as useless, from which we are separating a large
quantity of the precious high-priced muriate of morphia. We

shall have a fine laugh at old throwing away the good

morphia, and work hard at it, for I believe it will please Chris-
tison ; and there is a great deal of useful manipulation to myself
" But I'll tell you another laboratory tale, which cannot fail
to interest you as a Scotchman, away from your country, and
fond of your native language. The other morning, when all
standing before the museum fire, before going in to lecture,
Bartolom^ announced some rather singular proposition, on which
the Doctor commented by saying, ' It's all a lee frae end to end.'
This was quite unintelligible to Bartolome, who is a capital
English scholar and speaker. On this Dr. Christison took

iw;

IfiSr 38.

SCOTCHMEN IN PARIS.

117

occasion to remark, that he had generally found a few Scotch
words sufficient to confound one who was well versed in English,
and quoted as a case what occurred to him in Paris. It so
happened that he and several other young Scotchmen paid a
visit one evening to the Thdatre-Franqais ; a short time after
their arrival, seating themselves in one of the most conspicuous
places, they began, with tlie characteristic recklessness of
Britons, to talk treason about all that was going on around them.
In the midst of their criticisms, a very polite old French gentle-
man, with a low bow, leaned over the seat behind them, and
suggested to the thoughtless fellows, that there were a great
many more of the audience knew English than they were at all
aware of, and that they would assuredly get themselves into
scrapes if they continued talking as they had done. ' Come,'
says Christison to his friend Cullen (he of the hat), ' we'll try
them with a little Scotch;' and so they began, Christison watch-
ing the face of old Monsieur, but soon convinced that he at least
had not studied the mysteries of ' but an' ben,' etc., and ever
after, when they had any foolish thing to say, they discoursed
it in good broad Scotch. When you commend me to my much
esteemed and loved friend, J. G., give ) "m my advice, if you
please, to be sure and study Scotch before going abroad, and
then he may say anything about their vaunted pictures without
getting himself guillotined for his trouble.

" In spite of Christison's studiousness in Paris, lie seems
to have loved most heartily all sorts of fun. He told us of
himself and half a dozen otlier Scotchmen, celebrating a new-
year's night by a supper, and shouting and singing, to the
amusement or vexation of the restaurateuLs ; winding it all
up by finding their way home through the streets of Paris,
singing at the full pitch of their voices, * God save the King !'
to the utter astonishment of the sentries, who m'cII knew the
tune

" I wish, I hope, and I expect for you all success ; and I can
do this the more heartily, as 1 can in return crave sympathy ;
for though it might appear otherwise, by a reference only being
made to lectures and Christison, my whole time and energies
are occupied in reading, writing, and experimenting for my

118

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP III.

Essay ; and I only allow myself half an hour when walking, to
think of my next lecture. Dr. Christison has given me liberty
to try as many experiments as I like in his laboratory, and I
shall not miss the opportunity. Meanwhile, I am toiling night
and day, as you are, elated with hopes and depressed with fears
and troubles, as you are, and feeling how much more would be
my progress had I you beside me."

" •Sutnnlai/, 16ih December.

" The letter which envelops this was written to-day, and I
now snatch a moment to bring up to the present time, as far as
time will permit me, the news of house and family.

"To my last I intended to add a postscript, but so many
things have since occurred to me as deserving a place there,
that now I have dropped the idea of filling up that space ; and
I doubt not that, after filling up this letter as far as time will
permit, the accompanying Maga will sei-ve to amuse you and
J. G. about Dr. Barry's fooleries. He has been bringing home
an odd animal, one of those, you will remember, referred to by
Sir H. Davy in his * Consolations of Travel,' as found among
the lakes of Carniola. Of course he has been acting Jamie the
showman with it, and deserves the whipping he gets. The
other picture is of young Thomson, very like ; the rest can
scarcely interest you.

" Mr. Dobbie and Mr. M'Donald form a part of my Friday
audience. I have received great kindness from the former. He
has given me a most beautiful — I cannot say more of it, I sum
up all, I think, in the words, it is a beautiful — basso relievo of
Arago's head by David the French sculptor ; it is a very fine
head, and exquisitely done : as the head of a scientific nmn, as
the head of one I have seen, and especially as a piece of fine
and high art, I greatly value it,
he had a Christ's head also for me, so you see I
deal to make my solitude happy. 1 am going to have a unique
Study. You remember two white jars of unglazed porcelain,
one of them the property of a lady in Glasgow, a Miss Mackay,
but I have seized on both. Mr. M'Donald is to paint them or
stain them brownish -red. Thev are then to have black devices,

jNIr. Dobbie told me last night
have a great

IS37 38.

CHARLES lamb's LETTERS.

119

'riduy
He

f fine

great

nn or

alchemical retorts, crucibles, etc., painted in black, like the
Etruscan vases. Mr. Dobbie is to supply a Moritz Retsch-like
design for the central part of some alchemical thing ; and won't
I be a happy man !
" I must scamper off to Christison, so forgive this scrawl,"

The length of letters in those old days is inconceivable to the
degenerate correspondents of this penny-post prepaying genera-
tion. When a letter cost thirteenpence halfpenny sterling, and
its recipient was expected to pay for it, his correspondent felt
himself on his honour to send the money's worth. Such, how-
ever, was not needed as a stimulant to brotherly affection. A
well-filled sheet of foolscap to Daniel, of date 20th January
1838, concludes as follows : " How I have wished to be beside
you, when reading Lamb's letters, which, after reading all the
reviews on them, I got hold of in reality this week. They are
most exquisite. I have laughed and giggled to myself over my
solitary cup, and wished I had been near to read them to
you, and have a sympathizing agreement in praising them.
Many of them, I think, far excel some of his essays. The India-
House and the Temple are now hallowed in my eyes, and if
ever in London, I shall take care to travel to them, and you will '
join me, I am sure." And being now close to the foot of the
fourth page of a closely Avritten sheet of foolscap, and one o'clock
A.M. striking, the letter abruptly closes ; but with the morrow
receives a postscript nearly as long as itself, embodying the
chronicle of an event famous in the College annals — the great
snow-ball bicker of 1838.

Here it is : —

"20lhJanmryl8?8.

" Good-morning ! You must have seen by this time a notice
of certain College disturbances, which being in truth riots or
insurrections, have a good deal excited public attention. The
newspapers have given most lying accounts of it, which I dare -
say, or rather am sure, you have already passed over as un-
worthy notice, knowing the doubtful morality of newspaper
editors, especially liadical ones, towards students, who are of
necessity Conservative in their likings. Well, here's a true.

120

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

and I am sure a refreshing account of the College bicker and its
consequence.

" Last Thursday was the first good snow storm we have had,
and a goodly quantity bespread the ground. We, the students,
began to bicker each other as usual. A posse of students set
themselves in the quadrangle, so as to command each class door,
and pelt the sober fellows, who had to run the gauntlet as they
came in or out ; then the pelters divided into two parties, and
bickered each other. And it was most amusing to see one event
of the skirmish. While throwing at each other, a host of idle
shop-boys, bakers, servants, etc., had placed themselves in the
College gateway, and were amusing themselves gazing on, when
all of a sudden the two parties, without laying their heads to
gether, raised the war-whoop, and rushed on the spectators.
Wliat a scene ! tumbling over each other, knocking, driving,
letting fall candles, and other contents of baskets ; while a mer
ciless shower of snow grapeshot thwacked them soundly.

" This, however, was an episode in the day's deeds, and not in
any way necessarily connected with them ; for, meanwhile, a
set of idle apprentice lads had begun attacking the students as
they went to their classes, and soon the fight became warmer.
And now the first element of riot began, namely, that the police
would not take up the idlers, while they came into College and
apprehended students. This was a double affront : first, the
police showed partiality in only taking students ; second, they
came into the quadrangle, which the students believed (it after-
wards appeared wrongly) was sacred from their intrusions.

" So they had a meeting on the Mound, swore to avenge their
affronts, and agreed to meet, each with an old hat and a short
stick. Away then they went ; a procession, four abreast, fine
gallant young fellows (Medicals, I need scarcely say) ; and after
wandering through all the streets, they parted. Next morning,
they provided themselves with chajoeaux and shillelahs. Little
was done in the first part of the day, but it is notorious that even
on the second day it began with the misconduct of the police
in refusing to take up blackguards who assaulted students. A
regular bicker began against all who passed ; the middle gate
being shut, and the Meds crowding on the stairs, showered away.

1837-38.

SNOW-BALL RIOT.

121

their

bhort

fine

ifter

ling.

little

tven

|)lice

^ate

my.

All the shops were necessitated immediately to shut their
windows, to prevent more breakage, and the thoroughfare
blocked up. Still the police continued to aggravate the feel-
ings of the students by refusing to take up any of the primary
aggressors, and now the attack began on them. They had as

sembled in considerable numbers, and Bailie was strutting

in all his dignity, and getting pelted soundly. At last some of
the superior lieutenants of police arrived, and they attempted to
dislodge the students : they repelled them easily, and a shout
was raised, 'Open the middle gate, and see if they can get in ;'
so the middle gate was opened, and in they rushed. At first
the students gave way ; the short, heavy batons of the police
were more efficient in the porch, and they drove them back in
the quadrangle, without ever taking prisoners.

" The students, too, at first fought in detached groups, and
necessarily quailed before the regular phalanx of the batoned
mercenaries. Soon, however, counselled by an Irishman (every
one of whom was, of course, led there by natural instinct), who
made a speech to them, and ranged them in an opposing line,
bringing all the short sticks to the front, the long ones being
behind, so as to hit over the heads of the first rank —a glorious
plan. After this was resorted to, victory never left the students.
They battered the police, and six different times drove them to
the porch, where their short batons availed them, and there they
stopped. Along with them, and this was the grievous thing,
was an infuriated mob, who gladly took part against the stu-
dents — bakers, and butcher-boys, and sailors, mingling in the
affray by police connivance, and being even given the sticks
captured from students. This was an hour's work from two to
three, and things getting serious, a despatch was sent for the
Lord Provost, who made an attempt at addressing the students,
with the hope of pacifying them. One huge Irishman walked
up, and, patting him on the back, asked in a slang phrase of the
day, but sufficiently expressive on this occasion, 'Does your
mother know you're out ?' Another promised him protection in
his waistcoat pocket ; and all laughed and jeered at him. In-
furiated, he rushed off, addressed some words to the mob, and
up to the Castle for the military, who by this time had become

122

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON,

CHAP. III.

absolutely necessary, for blows had been given desperately, and
many gashed heads testified to the fury of the contest. 'Tis
said, I know not on what authority, that many of the police got
their arms broken. I don't veiy well know, but it was their
own fault as a body. Meanwhile, an official was obtained, and
the Eiot Act read at the gate, amid the pelting of the officer,
who got it knocked out of his hand, and himself driven out, the
students encouraging each other to kill the police, which they
could do before the reading of the Act was over. Meanwhile,
down came the military as fast as they could run, with two
ball-cartridges in their pockets ; and having reached the gate,
the bugle was sounded ! and with fixed bayonets, the officers
with drawn swords, they charged the gate, and, of course, drove
the students before them. The scoundrelly police now came
forward, and picked their men and the ringleaders, lugging
them off to the police-office. Meanwhile, the company of
soldiers was drawn up across the quadrangle, and five minutes
given for dispersion. The major looked very nervous, dread-
ing evidently that the students' rashness would drive him
to extremities. He is a fine fellow, a Waterloo man, and, of
course, like all good officers, dislikes quelling a civil riot. He
seemed afraid of his men taking the students' part, especially
when a Pole shouted over the window, ' Shoot the jjolice !'

" The major had him immediately apprehended, and with the
back of his sword drove back the students, declaring he did not
wish to hurt them. Very likely something awkward would
have occurred, had not Christison mounted one of the broad
corner stones of the balustrade, and thence addressed the stu-
dents, who received him with acclamations, and waved tlieir
hats, which they took off as a token of respect. He bade them
go aw^ay, as they were all liable to be apprehended and lodged
in jail. We had to find our way out, through a line of soldiers
across the North Bridge, amid the jeers of the dastardly mob,
the soldiers laughing, while the police put out their spleen
against us.

" That .light every one like a student was assaulted by the
rabble, who always fell on single persons and abused them.
Macgillivray was lufvented from coming over on Friday, in

183r-38.

THE UNIVERSITY MAG A.

123

spite of his courageous bravery, by the attack of a crew who
severely hurt him. He was taken, however, as a culprit to the
police-office, which was so full that he got out. The other
students were bailed out, and trial is coming on. Meanwhile,
the students and the professors are having a daily committee,
sitting in Dr. Christison's room, collecting evidence, a Mr. Scott,
solicitor, having volunteered his services ; and we hope to have
against the police various charges, likely to cost them their
places. The students will probably be fined, in which case we'll
all subscribe to pay. I shall most cheerfully contribute my
mite. The students are all in great glee. A number of songs
and parodies are written on the occasion, such as the * Battle of
the Quadrangle,' the ' Gallant 78th Eegiment,' and so on. There
are parodies, one a most excellent one, on Hamlet's famous
scene, 'The Policeman's Soliloquy,' — 'To stand or not to
stand, that is the question.' One on the Battle of Hohenlinden,
the Battle of the Baltic, the Lady of the Lake, Byron's Hebrew
Melodies, Burns' Tam o' Shanter, etc. It is intended to publish
them in a pamphlet afterwards; if so, I'll send you a copy.
The students have no ill-will at the soldiers, but praise them
highly. It is declared that the soldiers were brought to accus-
tom them to snow-fighting in Canada. In another song, the
'Mfijor's Address to his Men,' he shows the probability of
his being knighted, and recommends the expunging of Sala-
manca from the flags, and putting in its place. Quadrangle, and
so on."

The Maya alluded to in this letter was a weekly periodical,
sold at the College gates, of which Edward Forbes was editor,
and the contributors students. It might be considered a Uni
versity Punch., containing, as it did, caricatures of lecturers,
chiefly professorial, as well as of civic dignities, or others who
chanced to rouse the wrath or mirth of the students. A healthy
spirit ran through it, and it formed a safety-valve by which the
worries of student-life found a harmless outlet. Correspondents
were informed that " no lil)ellous personalities, or hetises of any
kind," were admissible. The number George speaks of sending
to his brother was the first of that Session ; and Dr. ]\Iartin
Harrv, of whom it treats, had excited much iunusoment by

12t

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IIT.

wonderful accounts of an ascent of Mont Blanc, from which he
had just returned.

To George and his cousin James, also attending College, the
Maga was the source of much enjoyment. On the day of pub-
lication it was brought home with glee, irvariably producing an
amount of merriment incomprehensible to those in the house -
hold to whom the butts for satire and ridicule were less familiar.
They were not only admirers of, but contributors to it. The
first article sent by George at this very time is mentioned in
notices to correspondents. The signature B. I. stands for Bottle
Imp, a name he had adopted long before this, occasionally dat-
ing letters from " Lahoratorimn Impicum."

" B. I.'s communication is received, and meets with our ap-
probation. All articles from the same quarter shall receive due
consideration ; so he may spin another yarn or two with a fair
prospect of insertion." A private note accompanied the article.

"To THE Editor of the Maga.

" Sir, — Being a warm admirer of the University Maga, I read
with sorrow your doleful account of editorial difficulties, and
with the hope of assisting you, bestirred myself to the producing
of the following. I know not whether it will suit your purpose
or not ; perhaps its length will be sufficient to exclude it ; if
that be passed over, the subject may be amiss ; but having
quizzed police, military, mob, Council, Provost, etc., till the
subject is threadbare, why should we not quiz our sensitive
selves, and hand down to posterity a record of our present Col-
lege fashions for the benefit of future Antiquarian Societies ? If
the thing suits your purpose, give it what name you please.
Perhaps ' Ourselves,' or ' Sketches about College, 'No. 1,' might
do ; but of this you will be best judge. To save yourself and
the printers tiouble, I ha\'e eschewed hieroglyphics, and got a
youngster fresh from the irons to write it out in his best hand.
— I remain yours, etc. etc., " B. I."

The name given was "The Consulting Room, and College
Philosophers."

1837 38.

COLLEGE PHILOSOPHERS.

125

" ' 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view ;' so saith our
poet, and so seem to think the sight-seers, who value places the
more, the nearer they are to our antipodes. We read daily of a
' Visit to the Slave-Market at Cairo,' of a ' Day spent with the
King of Timbuctoo,' or 'Among the Inhabitants of Pitcairn
Island,' or 'With their Majesties of Otaheite.' We hear of
stolen journeys to the mosques and harems of Constantinople,
of visits to Jewish synagogues, Greek convents, and Catholic
monasteries, with sundry other notices of peeps into salt-mines,
coal-pits, madhouses, and all sorts of charitable institutions ; yet
we never chance to find among the multifarious tomes of those
vagabonds who wander to and fro over the face of the earth, in
search of choice specimens of ' men and manners,' any record of
a visit to the Consulting Eoom of our University Library. We
have in vain searched through all our Voyages and Travels,
from the folios of Humboldt down to the octavos of Sir Francis
Head, Mrs. TroUope, or K P. Willis, but hitherto hopelessly,
unless a reference, in the late work of Rich on Koordistan, to
the site of the ancient Babel, has an implicit allusion to the
confusion of tongues characteristic of the Student's Den. And
we have equally mourned to see the many strangers who enter
its precincts, attracted by our unique Museum, our magnificent
Library, and our choice collection of pictures, pass by the ' open
Sesame' door of our Eeading-Eoom, except at rare times when
some illustrious stranger, with one of our august Professors for
a cicerone, thrusts his hand inside the door (thereby exhibiting
men and manners), and listening for a while to the 'sounds
within like music flowing,' draws it back, and marches off to
some more noble Academic Lion.

"To prevent a continuance of this mournful inattention to
one of our most noble institutions, we now crave our reader's
attention to the short notice our limits permit us to give of it.

" After the first hum of many voices has become familiarized
to an entrant into the Consulting-Eoom, he begins, like a tea
dealer or a pearl-fisher, to arrange the busy crew into three sorts
— good, bad, and indifferent; which, of course, he afterwards
subdivides into various genera, species, and varieties. We shall
rather treat the subject in a popular way than in a strictly dia-

126

MKMOIU OF GEOUGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

lectic one, being unwilling to trench on the business of the
Logic chair.

" We set out with the fundamental law, that the farther in you
go, the more quietness, thought, and study you find. There is one
square table at the door, with magnificent mahogany chairs, in
the same style of costly decoration as the rest of the gorgeous
apartment, where, to the best of our knowledge, a new idea was
never picked up, it being the rendezvous of a set of raffs, who loll
on the chairs, lay their accoutrements on the table, and bravely
bid defiance to the demon of enmii. At the other end of the
room a different set are seen. We generally find, about the
second divan, some two of Forbes' crack students, unravelling
the mysteries of the last week's problem, now with head bent
over, tracing the course of their mathematical hieroglyphics, and
anon, when some debatable point arises, talking with a loud-
ness and energy sufficient to square the circle, though it were as
large as Ducrow's ampliitheatre. A little farther on sit ann- in-
arm, most lovingly, their debate being over, two neophyte Aris-
totles, fresh from the logic class, diving deep into the subtleties
of innate ideas, concepts, con-elates, and the like— these, we
need scarcely say, are disciples of the Academic school : the
philosophers of the Porch, a much larger body, will be found
clustered round the College gates, studying human nature on the
great scale ; and the Peripatetics, by far the most numerous
body, oscillate between the North Bridge and Princes Street,
unless the weather be wet, when they join their rivals of the
porch, or, along with them, mingle with the Academics ; the
Epicureans, an equally large body, are spread over the many tem-
ples of their order situated in the neighbourhood, among which
we may particularize one, having marked on its walls the mystic
words DOULL, SINCLAIR, AND WHITE, which, according to the learned
Greek Professor, indicate the names of the ministering hiero-
phants within ; the Stoics in our University a distinct branch
from the disciples of the porch, a mere handful, will be found in
an adjoining edifice, sacred to their order, eating hard biscuits
and drinking water. But to return : we can only indicate the
more prominent characters of the room, and we draw attention
to a species, individuals of which are to be found at every table.

isr-3s.

ACQUAINT.VNCE WITH EDWARD FOUBES.

127

They arc known hy their care-worn, anxious looks, and by
having a huge folio of anatomical plates before them, and a
Dublin Dissector lying hard by. You peep over their shoulders,
and find them tracing the course of the vidian nerve, the rela -
tions of the external carotid, or the like ; and you know that
before the eye of each floats, like the Mirage of the desert, a
japanned tin-case, which, when attempted to be grasped, fades
like Macbeth's visionary dagger into viewless air. Reader !
these unhappy mortals are asjDirants to the name and honours
of Surgeon. You will join us in wishing them a chirurgical
exit from the inquisition in Nicolson Square.

" We pass over the stray Divinity students, who have wan-
dered from their own libraiy ; the Law students, digesting
Digests of Scotch Law ; the students of Hiimanity micrdcring
Isim, et Jioc genus omne, to notice a strange crew, whose occupa-
tion we could never divine, or the exact object of their frequent-
ing College. We thinly naturalists vvould style them the aber-
rant types of the geims Student. We observe them stalk up to
the librarian, and ask the ' Small ' favour of some huge Greek or
Hebrew tome, over which they bend for hours together. From
the want of ' Attic salt ' in their conversation, as well as from
direct proofs, we believe that the object of their studies is to
restore to its ancient glory the forgotten Doric dialect.

" B. L"

It may have been shre'vdly surmised by our readers that
Doull's temple was a pastry-cook's shop ; and as the name of the
college librarian is Small, we can understand what a huge book
had to do with the smallness of the favour. So fully did the
preceding communication " meet the approbation " of ihe Edi-
tor, that it induced him to seek the personal acquaintance of
B. I. Those two genial spirits found in each other many points
of sympathy, and the friendship then fonned soon ripened into
true regard and affection, which only terminated with life.

The second contribution of B. I. was not inserted ; its quiet
satire was abundantly appreciated, but it did not seem to the
wise editor prudent to turn the pecub' "ities of the College
Museum into ridicule, and thus offend t le Professor of Natural

128

MKMOIR OF UEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

History. Seeing it can injure none now, and may amuse many,
there seems no reason wliy it should not appear in our pages.

"It is now nearly four years since the courts of the Univer-
sity rang with a (hsbate which for a long time engrossed public
atteni/ion. There was as yet no Marja, and the world was not
enlightened by the wisdom of the disputants. It is not our
intention to do more than merely allude to it, as a fitting intro-
duction to tlie subject under consideration.

" Among the literary students arose a question concerning the
proper pronunciation and etymology of th(5 word generally
spelled and pronounced musfeum. After much wrangling and
turbulent debate, the disputants divided into three sects, to one
of which each student interested in the progress and result of
the discussion joined himself.

" The first party, or disciples of the ohl school, advocated the
common or vulgar pronunciation already referred to, declaring
that the word in question was derived from the Latin vinsa, since
the first cabinets were dedicated to the Muses.

" The second sect, the disciples of the middle school, reversed
the sound of the word, and named it as if it were written muz-
zeum, scoffed at the invocation of etymology as fitted to deter-
mine the point, and rested the truth of their doctrines on some
new laws of euphony, deciphered from one of the manuscripts
found in Pompeii.

" The views of the third party (which included all the stars
about college) supplanted in the minds of all men of calm and
sober intellect the opinions already considered. They declared
the right pronunciation to be museum, contending that the word
was derived from the Latin mus, a mouse, since, though cabinets
may come to contain elephants, camelopards, and even mam-
moths in the course of years, yet must they all have begun by
enshrining the stuffed skin of a mouse. True it is that the
illustrious Pillans, seconded by the learned Scholtenbruner, held
it to be against all classical precedent to derive a word from the
nominative and not from the genitive ; but as the pages of the
Maga are as open to them as to us, and there being no claim on
us to record their reasons and arguments, we unconditionally
advocate the common-sense view of the question.

is:)r :««.

CANVAS LIPPED KLKPH ANT.

129

" Let us now enter the Museum, and in this paper we shall
confine our attention to the lowiu- room containing the larger
animals. We are not about, showman like, to say, on the right
you will behold this, and on the left that ; but, taking the great
Cuvier as our exemplar, we are about, as he did, to open up a
new field of fossil zoology not less striking than that which the
illustrious Frenchman mrvcd out of the gypsum beds at Paris.

" We had not paid more than two visits to the Museum before
we began to peer narrowly into the characteristics of the assem-
bled animals, and for the sake of simplicity we took the larger
quadrupeds first ; and, singidarly enough, we have discovered
two extinct species, which we proceed to indicate to our readers.

" On your left hand as you enter the room stands the effigy of
a huge elephant, at first sight not apparently much different
from other stuffed elephants. To be sure, it has a resplendent
coat of blacking, which all of them have not ; but we daresay
Day and Martin, or, failing them, Warren, could nigrify any
others as well ; otherwise, this animal, to the vulgar eye, pre-
sents nothing remarkable. Great discoveries, in truth, are only
made by those who, as Professor ^Vliewell remarks in his late
work on the inductive sciences, possess ' exact facts and clear
ideas,' P)eing favoured with a very acute perception of both
these desiderata, we carefully scrutinized the wondrous quad-
ruped ' from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail ; '
and as our eye wandered over the huge mass, we were struck
with something singular about the lower lip. We had traced
the wrinkled skin from the bosom upwards in unbroken texture,
when suddenly we were startled by a strange line of demarca-
tion which ushered us into a new territory. On approaching
nearer, it seemed marvellously like a piece of interpolated
canvas, and a closer inspection convinced us that the pointed
characteristic lip was neither more nor less than a piece of cloth
painted black without and red within. It was not without great
caution and many doubts that we adopted this opinion. We had
read of 'canvas-backed ducks' (see Stewart's 'America'), but of
canvas-lipped elephants, never ; and as a diligent inquiry soon
satisfied us that not only did no living specimen exist, but that
no dead one adorned the walls of another mu.seum, we gazed on

130

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

this relic of a former age, this strange extinct genus, and thought
of ourselves its discoverers ; like Franklin, we heaved a deep
sigh, and declared us immortal. To this genus we have given
the name of ' Elephas linteolabiatus,' or canvas-lipped elephant.
■ " Stimulated by our discovery, we made a ' labial' journey
round the room, but no other canvas trophy rewarded our la-
bour ; but wliilst stooping to examine the mouth of the rhino-
ceros, we were startled by something rough in the cavity. We
gazed within the mighty jaws expecting to behold a white and
polished skull, wLon a large, shapeless mass, much resembling
a block of fir- wood, attracted our attention. Here was an un-
described characteristic ; the replacement of bony matter by
ligneous fibre struck us as a physiological phenomenon hitherto
unnoticed ; and we need scarcely say that this led to the con-
clusion that we had here a solitary specimen of another extinct
genus. Till the learned Professor of Materia Medica publish
his analysis of this curious mass, we shall only say that we
have satisfied ourselves that it contains a large proportion of
lignine mixed with that variety of gelatine called glue. We
purpose therefore to term this genus ' Ehinocero xylocephalus,'
or wooden-headed rhinoceros. But we may remark that it is not
our intention to depart from the current fashion of naming new
genera after distinguished individuals ; we shall only make the
trivial difference of naming the individual after the genus, and
not the genus after the individual. We are aware that many
illustrious men have begged the title of the latter animal, but
we gladly take this opportunity of showing that forgiving spirit
towards the hero of a late memorable engagement inculcated on
us by our eminent counsel; instead therefore of naming it
' Ehinoceros xylocephalus,' we shall entitle it ' Rhinoceros For-
restianus,' or, for brevity's sake, * Frostianus.'"^

In a letter of March 1st, the last notice of the memorable
snow-battle occurs : — " I suppose you got a paper containing a
report of tiis ' students' trial.' I shall say nothing more of it
in this epistle, but in an early one will refresh you with some of
the amusing ^jleasantries of our witty counsel [Lord Robertson].

1 Th( reference is to a well-known civic dignitary, who had made himself very
luipopiilai ivith the students durin.'j the snow-ball riots.

1837 38.

ILLNESS OF A COUSIN.

131

The students' expenses amounted to two hundred pounds, and
we are all subscribing.

" Catherine is much the same ; for some days back she was
better, i.e., in her feelings, for the real state of the case never
altered ; but she is again not so well. She is in that state of
iuind which theorists might deny, as impossible, but which all
who have felt keenly or have thought much, can enter into and
sympathize with ; she is entertaining the incompatible feelings
accompanying a looking forward to another world and yet a
lingering interest in a present. That the latter should remain
is no cause of wonder, specially in her disease." What this
disease was, with its clinging to life, the reader will easily sur-
mise. Catherine was the second oldest of the cousins, and was
loved as a sister. Her illness was of long continuance, as will
be seen from references in future letters. Truly the clouds re-
turned after the rain in this household, and the stern monitor,
affliction, seemed commissioned to take up her abode in it, and
teach, for many years to come, lessons hard to be learned.

The enthusiasm with which work in chemistry was prose-
cuted is strikingly shown in some letters of which specimens
are now given.

ig it

rable
inga
lof it
leof
|son].

very

" February 7, 1838.

" My dear DanieI;, — I am quite ashamed to take up so small
a bit of paper to begin writing to you. I have no foolscap, and
a long sheet appals me. In truth, I should not have written to
you at all (for my time is very much occupied at present), had
I not been told of a gentleman going to London, who will take
the accompanying drawings, which I have had lying beside me
waiting an opportunity. You will recognise them as sketches of
the leopard's skull, and they were done for practice' sake by
your quondam pruief/e, }'oung Macdonald. As soon as I saw
them, and called to remembrance your fondness for that osteo-
logical ornament of our mantelpiece, I thought the drawings
would please you.

" I am veiy glad to learn your comfortable progress. Your
persevermg undauntedness, spite of frozen water, etc., was to
me quite refreslung and invigorating.

132

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

1837-

" Be it known to you, most worshipful brother, that in the
course of some speculations on crystallography, which sprang
out of my abortive essay to bring to the test some views, which,
could I but realize, would be the making of me, I thought of
trying to make a chemical compound, whose exi>itence hitherto
has been only guessed at — a compound of iodine and sulphur.
Searching in Dr. Christison's, I fell upon a glass ball, a most
necessary piece of apparatus, and cut and bent a piece of glass
tube for myself, and fished out a small glass bottle, my object
being to pass the vapour of iodine over melted sulphur, thus :
I suppose a drawing will please you most, so there's for you.

Well, I only waited for an opportunity, which soon presented
itself in the illness of Dr. Christison, which kept him at homo
on Saturday. Secure from interruption (though remember Dr.
Christison would let me experiment before him, but I hate to
have any one near me, and work best alone), I set up my appa
ratus, as you see it above, and worked from ten till two in a
lower room without a fire. On first removing the vessel there-
after, I was stopped by an explosion from the stoppage of my
tubes. There seemed nothing but a concrete mass, and, with a
heavy, deep-drawn sigh, I said, ' Then there's no compound such
as I expected?' when, turning the vessel, I saw a little portion
of rich red fluid — all was right. I carefully set aside the in-
valuable liquid, a'-.d succeeded by a few hastily contrived ex-
periments in showing that it possessed curious properties. The
next point was to make a large quantity, to purify it, and exa-
mine its chemical relations. Away T went to the glassblowc^-,

1837-38,

ENTHUSUSM FOR CHEMISTRY.

133

and got a piece of apparatus with tubes of longer diameter, and,
on King Charles the First's martyrdom day, tried the process
on the larger scale ; but though I worked from ten till four in
the same cold room (obliged to dip my hands now and then into
hot water kept boiling over a gas-light, or I should have
' starved'), not a single drop of the liquid did I get. Then I re-
solved to reverse the process, and pass the sulphur over the
iodine. The thought struck me about nine o'clock. I imme-
diately got three test-tubes, one without a bottom, and tried it.
I made a veiy little this way, and
cleared out my large apparatus,
which with much difficulty I did,
and, sitting down next day to bore
a cork for it, I forgot it was in my
pocket, and crushed it to pieces.
No time was to be lost, so I fished out an old funnel, and

rigged it up thus ; but I only got the
smallest quantity. Then I thought of
a different plan, and I bought from Mr.
Duncan a compound of iodine and lead,
and tried it — equally unsuccessful; a
compound of iodine and potassiimi —
no better. Then I thought of getting a new arrangement of
apparatus, where both should
meet in a state of vapour.
Whilst getting the corks ready
for this, I bethought of trying
with different proportions of
iodine and sulphur fused to-
gether. Some dim indications appeared with a glass tube, so
1 fused some in a tobacco-pipe bowl, and noticing ruddy va-
pours, I held a glass jar over,
and was delighted to see some
of the fluid condensed. All
doubt was at an end, and, this
day, discarding all glass para-
phernalia and other fooleries, I have made half a bottleful in
three quarters of an hour, with an old and well-known black

134

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

183'

ink-bottle, and a curved glass tube. In my next epistle, I
hope to tell you more about this ; meanwhile I am very glad,
with all my disappointments and labours, to have met with
some success. Enough of chemistry."

" March \st.

" I am glad you were pleased with the chemical dissertations.
I shall give you more of them, for I give you all credit for sym-
pathy, but I cannot add very much definite as to results. The
compound I have got is a very curious one, and throws very
great light on the constitution of a supposed element, bromine,
which I am at present trying to decompose. Mr. K. Kemp is
much interested in the inquiry, but I dare say nothing yet as
to the results, for they may be very tedious, and complicated
processes must be gone through before any conclusion can be
safely drawn. I have to regret that I must almost entirely re -
linquish chemistry for the next two months, to study for exami-
nations, and revel in the delights of anatomy and practice of
physic. You must not contrast your situation and mine as you
do — ^years of labour, and months rich in discoveries. Eemem-
ber that you have fairly begun, have got all the machinery set
in play, which can ' lead on to fortune.' You are engaged in
purely professional labours, and the result is very much in your
own hands. Now, I have not even entered on the threshold
of my profession. I am obliged to study what I abhor, and
cannot get pursuing the branches that I wish ; and even if I
could, I would not, my dear brother, make discoveries so very
plentifully as you think they may be made, and, like yourself,
I must imperiously mind the main chance, and alchemist or
no, study the art of gold-making. Don't think I am proving
myself to be miseraljle — not at all; I'm content and wiUing
to wait and hope the best, but the future is very dim and
doubtful

" I read, with very gi'eat pleasure and sympathy, of your
kneeling at the altar of St. Paul's. I cannot understand the
religion which mingles not with every act and feeling, or con-
ceive of those who dismiss God with the morning and evening
prayer, as too pure or holy for the affairs of this busy world.
The busy world may perhaps be the scene of many actions

rie

has
vol
the

1837 38.

THE DESIRE OF HIS HEART.

135

and

where God could not be invoked as the spectator or disposer of
what was just or good, but *an undevout anatomist,' Dr.
Fletcher says, 'is a maniac;* and while perhaps the chemist
has less powerfully than the anatomist the incitements to de-
votion, yet must he study his subject in a wrong way if he find
them not. I have no altar to kneel at but my own bedside,
where I have often prayed to God for you ; but there I have
prayed for success in my endeavours, and there, should God
grant me the honour of going deeper into His laws than others,
I would pour forth my sincere thanks and gratitude. I found
a strange verse in reading over the Psalms. I have not now time
to look for the exact place, but it was to this effect, that he who ^
obeys God 'shall have the desire of his own heart.' Do look-^
at the passage. I think it is in the early Psalms ; but of course
to love God should be the primary feeling, though the secondary
' desire' will in our minds too often supplant it. . . .

" You say the folks ask if I'm coming to town. I think you
might have told me whether it was ladies or no. As' to my
reaching London, you know, Dan, nothing would give me more
pleasure ; and to spend a winter there would greatly delight
me, and I'm sure I could turn it to veiy great professional
benefit. Dr. Christison and Mr. Kemp would give me letters
to Professor Graham, and I would perhaps get introduced to
Faraday ; also there are classes there that I cannot attend here,
and I won't state any hypothetical objections, but I do not en-
tertain a hope of being there. Had I gained that Essay, I should
have come up in autumn to spend the winter with you ; but I
did not, and I ceased to look forward to the realization of my
hopes. Further, and let this be your consolation, I would not
like to leave Mary at present. Meanwhile, I shall be very busy
preparing for my first physician's examination in May. I, in
the midst of much haziness from dull weather, remain your
very affectionate brother, George."

'• March 20, 1838.

"I am breaking my promise in taking up a sheet of long
paper, though that is but half- stating my crime, for I sent out
expressly for it, that you might have no cause of complaint con-

136

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

183

ceming littleness of letter, and so I thought old John^ and his
concerns worthy of a long sheet. I do also think certain
youngsters, who have lately sojourned with us, equally worthy
of what is so justly, as 1 feel it, called Foolscap. This is, I
believe, positively the last long sheet you will get for some
time, as I have put on my wisdom-cap and taken to osteology
and its delights again. I shall send you a parcel soon, and
perhaps a few lines, but Maiy must be your correspondent till
my examinations are over. You will remember my delightful
leisure when preparing for Surgeons' Hall, and excuse silence.
Well ; away ye bones ! Have you seen any strangers floating
in your tea ? — yes or no ? Well, whether or no, here they have
come — the two daughters of an excellent old gentleman you
have heard me speak of, one Hugh Mackay of Glasgow. They
have spent a whole week with us, and now, after slowly becom-
ing reconciled to the dulness which has succeeded the pleasur-
able feelings their presence awakened, I sit down (or being
already seated, remain sitting) in some degree to call back the
pleasure by recounting it to one who will beUeve all said, and
think it too little. ... I get on hazily with this letter ; but
now that I have got clear of what does not belong to myself,
I'll perhaps amend. I suppose, like me, you iind any little
incident regarding folks or things you know about, amusing and
pleasant, as disturbing the monotony of your thoughts. When
I can get speculating on chemistry, I don't care for these things ;
but now when I dare not speculate, as I would soon leave my
studies to chase atoms and the like, I am very glad of any foolery
to amuse me. Well, here follow a few of the last incidents for
your benefit : One night, at my only visiting place, it chanced
that I asked the young ladies to sing ' The last links are
broken.' They sang it, but declared that, although wearied of
the words, they loved the tune, and would sing it to new words
if I would write them. Accordingly they sent me the original
words, and I fell to, setting James at the same time to the task.
We both wrote a couple of verses. James took, as I suggested,
autumn, and wrote very quickly two verses ; the first halted,
the second was very good, and, failing in the autumnal lines, I

' John M'Lure, of whom more ngain.

1837-38.

LINES TO BE SUNG.

137

took the '--^oliaii harp' and soon despatched eight lines, and
sent both off with a letter. They were most favourably re-
ceived, and I was down on Saturday night to hear them sung.
James's did not sing well, in spite of the goodness, especially of
the last verse. There was, from his almost complete want of
musical ear, a certain indescribable roughness, which threw a
discord over their singing. Mine own did better ; in truth, they
were declared faultless ; and both B. and R. sung them (you
know it is a duet), as they said, with gi-eat pleasure. like
Campbell, I'll squeeze them in here, as they won't take up much
room ; and I have a very useless head to-night ; but mind you
don't give anybody a copy, for I think they are the property and

Only, as I used formerly, when I promised to keep a secret,
to make the reservation that I should tell you ; I now send you
them, premising that I was restricted to two verses, that each
line must have a double rhyme, and that the first rhyme must
be a dissyllable, or equivalent to it. Here, then, the lines are.
* To be said or sung.'

" The deep tones are dying that haunted mine ear,
Lilce the summer wind sighing, wlien autumn is near ;
Wlien the fairies are singing along the green lea.
And bright birds are winging their way o'er the sea.

. " Tliat music revealing awhile to my heart,
Each heaven-born feeling, too soon to depart,
But awakes the desire, that so witching a strain
Should steal from the lyre o'er my senses again.

" I amuse myself in my afternoon ramble in stringing to-
gether different rhymes promised for insertion in ladies' albums,
in somewhat an odd fashion. I have the three somewhat oppo-
site subjects of a quizzing Conversation with a Skull, an Ode to
a Soap-Bubble, and a Hymn on Death. They are all begun,
none of them ended. Now I apostrophize the grinning cranium,
now I address the resplendent soap-bell, and 1 again move in
the trappings of woe. ^ly mind is a mobile one, and loves the
shifting. I don't hurry with the execution of these poems, as
I don't care to lose the amusement very speedily.

" I will not let slip any opportunity I can improve, of writing
to you, spite of anatomy, biology, and all the ologies."

138

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

1837

" April 7th, 1838.

" I did not expect to have had the pleasure of writing, except,
perhaps, a few lines at the bottom of some other person's letter,
but I studied this last week till I gave myself a headache that
drove me from the college to wander away and inhale the spring
breezes.

" And this day being Saturday, and Sam Brown having come
into town yesternight, I shall just take a holiday, hoping the
better on Monday to assail all the recondite and abstruse sub-
jects which must be made al present my daily fare.

" Many and manj'^ a choice thought you should have had and
have lost, because, not having an amanuensis, they were all givpn
to the winds and lest for ever ; now and then only did an idea
seem deserving enough of treasuring up, to be thought of a
second time, and commissioned southwards. There was, for
instance, a declaration of Professor Jameson, that leather, espe-
cially that from the sow's back, was of great use to ' saddlers,
trunkmakers, and other artists,' which I thought could not fail
to give you a pleasing idea of the category to wliich your fellow-
worker and friend belonged. . -

" Owen has been here with his wild vagaries of a new moral
world, and his living in parallelogi-ams of harmony. D, is
smitten ; came to me telling that he had had veiy few antipa-
thies before, but he had none now ; and explaining to me how
foolish and absurd it was of me to be angry, seeing the object of
my anger was possessed of the character he had because society
had made him so, and a great deal more in that strain. He left
me Owen's book, desiring me to read it. I tried a page or two,
and found it as you may imagine, just such a tissue of nonstn.se
as Whitelaw, the vapour-bath man, wrote in his Buttercup
theories of disease. You had ju«t to change the subject-matter,
and the mode of reasoning would have served eitJier. I ex-
pounded a page to him, forcing his assent to the preposition ; I
built upon it, by obliging him to confess that he could not
understand it, and he of course reolied, in his own chara.cteristic
way, that Moses and David and Job did not knc^A' of a future
world, and sundry other equally cogent arguments ; and when I
proceeded to prove to him that Job and his friends did, he

wit
spr

III.

IK}?- 38.

UNWhLCOME STUDIES,

139

departed, declaring at least that Solomon did not, and so it is
with him the bubble of the hour, to live till a bigger and brighter
spring.

" I made a vain attempt on Saturday to write more than the
preceding page ; so here on Monday night, I am again doing my
best to write you a few lines, though in such a state of ferment
as to be unable to write anything very worth reading. In truth,
occupied, as I am at present, all hours of the day except one
(and meal hours), it is not very easy to shift the thoughts from
the multitudinous technicalities of manifold sciences, and at
once fall into the pleasing vein that fraternal love demands, —
the more so that each hour given, even to the worthiest pur-
pose, awakens only the feeling that rejection may be the result,
and calls up the thousand ugly yet relentless phantoms that wait
but for one moment of remorseful leisure, to rush in and over-
whelm the unfortunate medico. It is not that, in an hour of
leisure, I cannot turn over a merry thought, and get the good of
it, for I am never merrier than in the sweet hour that succeeds
fagging ; but never reading anything but dry matters of medical
sciences, all the fresh and juicy ideas of my brain are sucked
out and expended on my own needful self, and no overplus
remains to send to a friend for his help. But you must remem-
ber my former willingness to write to you, and anticipate the
renewal which emancipation will assuredly bring, and in the
hope of this, suffer me for a while to drink in at my studies,
and aft(!rwards you shall receive the outflow thence welling.

" I have, in spite of the narrowness of my bonds, read one
interesting work, of which you have probably already heard from
Macmillan, Isaac Taylor's new book on Home Education. It is
certainly an extremely interesting and very beautiful book, on
which this opinion, which you and I have often passed on others
of his -works, may be held, that, without putting faith in all his
statements and views, there is a very great deal curious, novel,
ingenious, and true ; and few, whatever their age be, can fail to
derive very great good from it. I at least have, and I am sure
you w .11. We are both of us past the age when the Home Edu-
cation he proposes should be put in force, but we are not past the
age when i.}ie hints intended for an earlier period may be prac-

140

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

1R.17

tically useful to a riper age ; and Samuel Brown and I, waiving
the application to ourselves, justified our perusal, by declaring
we both proposed to be educators, meaning public teachers of
science, — but I suspect Samuel might have an inward reserN'a-
tion of a looking forward to have a cliarge of Home Education
in its most natural and most simple sense ; I have none, but
you may.

" I descend to no parties Inra on the system till you have
read it, but I should enjoy very, veiy much a long talk with
you over it, its benefits and the like, as we used to have in our
evening walks. And this leads me to remark, that I grieve to
say I cannot encourage the hope of seeing you in London this
svmimer or autumn, and that I trust you will not either form
high hopes, or, above all, deny yourself the visitation of inter-
esting things about London with the affectionate intention of
waiting for me, for really, Daniel, I know not when I shall get
up. As soon as I pass my examination, which will be some
time in May, I shall have to begin German, to re- study French,
to attend the Infirmary, to attend (most hoiTible) the Dispen -
sary, — as necessary studies and duties. Further, I shall have
to write my Thesis,* which I cannot put off till winter, seeing I
shall have abundance then to do in preparing for my second
examination, with all its delights of midwifery, surgery, practice
of physic, pathology, etc., etc., so that 1 fear, even could I other-
wise reach London, I saould commit an error in going, which you
would be the first to mourn, T shall likely go out to Haddington
as soon as I pass, but that will be a thoroughly practical journey,
to have the benefit of Sam Brown's laboratory and assistance in
carrying on my series of expeiiments in bromine, on which, if my
researches are successful, I shall early publish a paper ; and I
shall have a very extended series of experiments to perform
there, at home, and at Dr. Christison's on the subject of my
Thesis ; for my only hope, and it is a feeble one, of getting on
as a chemist is to succeed in some projects which shall convince
unwilling friends that I have some chance of success in such a pro-
fession, and this I must do before I pass as physician, for that
consummated, I must at once begin for myself in some capacity.

' The inaugural dissertation required from graduates of medicine.

sun
la
onl
hac

1R37-38.

OBSTACLES BOLDLY MET.

141

" I shall betake myself to the study of pmctice of physic this
summer and next winter, and fit myself for practice when
I am set afloat on the world, should such an alternative be my
only resort ; but what I have ever felt is, that even although T
had no liking for chemistry, I should be most miserable as a
pmctitioner, for I am neither intellectually fitted for discerning
the nice shades of disease, in observing and detecting which a
physician's sagacity is shown, nor am I morally formed to
grapple with the tremendous moral responsibility that in my
eyes hangs over my profession, and 1 am physically unequal and
averse to the eternal trot of going rounds ; and thus I feel, that
if I should practise, all labour at other things is hopeless. But
of course none of these are reasons for my staying to burden my
father, or making greater claims on his house and purse, and I
have too much pride and independence to be beholden to others
for a livelihood, when I may make one for myself. I wrote

Uncle A , at mother's request, to tell him about Catherine,

and as he has always been veiy kind to me, I mentioned cau-
tiously my wishes regarding chemistry. He writes me back (in
a very kind, however, and affectionate letter, in which he asks
for you particularly), ' Respecting chemistiy, you may find it
more pleasing than profitable,' and regarding the future hopes I
held out of liecoming a lecturer, he says, ' I entertain the idea
that it is but a poor profession.* The letter is, let me however
say, written in a veiy kindly spirit, and he adds that I am better
(qualified than he to judg(^ and begs me to write him soon.
You see what I must expect, and that every moment between
this and my final passing I must turn to the best account. I
write this neither with morbid feelings towards my profession,
or towards those who do not see things as I (and you) do ; they
shall only stimulate me to redoubled energy ; and 1 shall neither
mourn nor repine, for I have high hopes, and not unprofitable
speculations, and if God grant me health and leisure, my most
urgent needs, t shall not despair. All this I write as my apo-
logy for giving up the hope of seeing you. I am sure you will
agree, and we shall meet the sooner and the more honourably
to ourselves, when all the sorrows are past. I^on't write, unless
your health permits."

142

MEMOIR OF GEORUE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

" LABoiuTonT, May 4, Friday.

" My examinations arc over, and I am half a physician, and
80, five hours after birth, I am writing you the good news,
knowing it will interest you. We receive our summons a week
before, from a kindly wish to give us time to look ovor our sub-
jects. I luckily got hold of mine at the College, so they had no
idea at home that I was going up. I shall not trouble you with
a recital of the toils and troubles through which I passed ;
suffice it to say that I began yesterday at ten o'clock, and
studied straight on without stopping till three o'clock this
morning, so I am rather wearied now, which is my only excuse
if this letter be didl and iminteresting. I might amuse by re-
citing the contrivance I fell upon to keep myself awake last
night. I was in the finest studying trhu all day, and dreading
I shoiUd become sleepy at night, I pilfered a portion of tea,
kept a slice of toast, a little cream and butter, which I hid
behind a rampart of books, and having commissioned Margaret
[a servant] to leave the tea-kettle where I put it, I made myself
a cup of tea, and got on excellently; the object of all this
secrecy being to conceal my intention of going up for examina •
tion to-day. . . .

" I shall not attempt to run over the peculiarities of each
letter you have sent me since I was chained to the oar, but
shall only say they were great treats. I took them with me out
in my afternoon walk to the Dean Bridge, and read them with
much comfort and inward refreshment, and to the last of them I
shall somewhat more minutely bind my attention and exchange
a few thoughts, as many of the subjects you touch upon are n -
teresting to both of us, and excellently fitted for the easy freeaom
of letters. Don't you fear that I will take into consideration the
getting to London ; if possible, I shall come, for nothing could
be more delightful, and I could study excellently beside you,
but I cannot say anything yet very definite, although I shall
write you more explicitly afterwards. . . . Albums are the most
flattering and comfortable records of poetry for folks like you
and me ; one is sure to please, and I should never think of
writing songs did not the wish to please, or promise to fill a
page, form a stimulus. Now for the story of the soap-bubble,

1R37 3a

TO A SOAP-BUBBLE.

143

of
la

which is certainly, as the sternest mathematiuian would allow, a
trifle light as air.

" Miss reproached mo for not writing in her album. 1

told her I never wrote without being asked, but would will-
ingly if she wished. On receiving it, I inserted the following
verses : —

" TO A SOAP-BUBBLE.

" Bright little world of my own creating.

Blown with a breath of the viowlesa air,
Thy fragile form in circles dilating

Seems destined each hue of the rainbow to wear ;
The amethyst's purple is given to thee,

And tlie ruby has lent thee its own ruddy hue,
And the emerald's green, like the sparkling sea,

Mingles its tints with the sapphire's blue.
Thou art a sun, rich in thy brightness ;
Thou art a moon, silvered with whiteness ;
Thou art a planet, begirt with a glow
Of colours enamelled above ond below.
As only the pencil of light can bestow.

" Who knoweth now but that each starry sphere
That silently floats in the heavens on high,
Was once a gay bubble, pellucid and clear,

Before it was given a place in the sky,
And blown by the lips of some young anj^el, trying,—

While his close feather'd wings were yet tiny and frail, -
By other bright things, and their fashion of flying.

To luani on his own gilded pinions to sail ?
For thus one by one the planets were blown.
And the bright milky way with starry gems sown.
In the ether above no storms ever blow
To crush their frail forms, or toss to and fro
Those delicate worlds,— so round in their orbits they ever shall go."

"J/ay 28, 1838.

" It is now a long time, nearly a month, since I wrote you,
and without the excuse of busy study to plead for silence. Not
a line has reached you from me fcince I wrote immediately after
passing. I told you then that I purposed going to Haddington,
on Samuel Brown's invitation. At the time, however, which
suited me best, some friends came out to see the family, and it
woidd not have been convenient to receive me, so I was left
disappointed in the very beginning of the flitting [Anglic^,
removal]. You will not wonder that I hesitated little to
accompany Mr. Mackay to Glasgow, in which place, and the

144

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

adjoining towns and the like, I have spent more than two weeks,
having returned to town on Friday evening from Lanark, which
I made the goal of my journey."

The day after he writes to Miss Mackay : —

" You will not doubt my sincerity, or think the less of me for
it, when I say I am very glad to be at home again. I am such
a slave to habits, and so easily set wrong in bodily frame, and
therefore so unequal in spirits, that the change of mode of living,
and the like, however slight, which attend moving about, soon
discomfort me ; and with much greater wish to be meny,
thoughtless, and at ease, than among llie grave studies of home,
I am always less so ; and would rather have my friends come
and see me, than I go to see them. In all this, I talk of the
part I play, not of that of my kind entertainers ; so you are to
regard this in the light of an apology for any lulness, stupidity,
crossness, or the like, which appeared in me. Since I came
home, I have got several new ideas, especially in geology, which
I am studying, and have devised many foolish poems, quilibles,
and much such nonsense, which of course evaporates away,
leaving, I hope, a clear full-bodied liquor, as the brewers say,
all the better, like porter, of losing the barm. My visit to
Glasgow was a very pleasant one, and the source of much
pleasure and happiness."

'• Gayfieijj Squakk, Jiinn 18, 1838.

" My dear Daniel, — Your most acceptable letter to mother
arrived to-day, and the reading of tlie last line lias set me to
writing you. Tliink not that I have suddenly had my discern-
ment of logic so powerfully increased, as to make the question
of whose letter was last, decide ray periods of correspondence ;
even if I had, I should be guilty, for your letter recognised both
of mine, and I was inexcusable. My only excuse for not writ-
ing you, has been the apparently paradoxical one — to you, I am
sure almost without meaning and weight — of having too little
to occupy me ; not that 1 have been idle, for that I cannot be,
but my business has been more of the body than of the mind ;
more of the feet than the head. As soon as 1 came home from
Glasgow, I knew I had to begin dispensary duties, and set

1837-^8.

DISPENSARY PRACTICE.

145

about finding one. I found the New Town one full. The Old
Town Dispensary had the Grassmarket district, which they
offered me ; but I felt little inclined to take on me at once the
onerous responsibility of so large a district, in which I knew I
should be little assisted by superior doctors, but left to blunder
my way on through fevers and wounds and distempers. In an
agony of fright, and a delirium of suspense, fearful of committing
evil, and by the very fear unnerving my hands and paralysing
my energies, — in short, doomed 'to wade through slaughter to'
a knowledge of practice, — and bent on learning the profession of
a doctor, I articled myself to the Port-Hopetoun Dispensary,
where, though their list was full, I was taken on as a subsidiary ;
the period I serve being sufficient to give me claims to a certi-
ficate, so that I learn and get over all difficulties at the same
time. The great recommendation, however, is that, instead of
being a principal, I am hooked to my good friend John Niven,
with whom I every day perambulate the delightful purlieus of
the West Port and the neighbourhood, sometimes steering across
the 'bridge that spans' that prince of ditches, the Canal, and at
other times winging our flight to the Grassmarket ; and wind-
ing up all by journeying to the Weot Kirk Charity Workhouse,
where we have charge of all the little urchins' health and wel-
fare. So you see I am a great man in the way of practice, and
not destitute at least of patients, and the means of learning that
branch of medicine.

" John Niven is an exceedingly clear-headed fellow, the very
opposite of me in perhaps every point and every prejudice ; dif-
ferent in the constitution of his mind and body, different in the
education he has got, and very different in his views of all sorts
of matters. But he is an excellent fellow, gifted by nature with
that estimable but unacquirable qualification, ' a physician's
sagacity,' which, like the ability to be a poet, of which Montgo-
mery speaks, and which you may think far too noble a thing to
be placed side by side with the calling of those who ' thru 3t
their solemn phizes into every abomination,' is nevertheless
equally the gift, I said, of nature and of God ; — I mean that
acute discernment, at a glance, of the state of a patient ; tliat
perception of the change of a symptom, its aggravation or cessa-

»v

146

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

tion, which have flashed on the gifted physician and decided his
practice, while the man, like me, of common gifts, is feeling
pulse, and looking at tongue, and touching skin, etc., after the
approved method handed down by Galen and Hippocrates to
their medical posterity. One after all is puzzled to know what
to think or what to do. This sagacity, which has much in it of
a noble instinct, John has largely, and he has cultivated it by a
zealous attendance on hospitals and dispensaries, by a generous
expenditure on books and other means of acquiring knowledge,
and by a hearty enthusiasm in his profession ; further, he is an
exceedingly well-informed person on most matters, and, though
not very speculative, fond of hearing anything odd, and greatly
pleased with a joke ; to all this add great kindness of heart and
action, invariably shown me, and particularly in this present
instance, you will not think me so badly off in my daily walks ;
and let me say we don't always talk of medical things, of which
more hereafter.

" I trot about every day from ten till two, and most tiresome
it is, and when I come home, I am fit for very, veiy little. Up
to the present time, however, I have taken geology in hand, and
get on with considerable speed, and with very great delight ;
but I have got nothing done at chemistry. There is no room
for working at home, and I cannot work to my heart's pleasure
in Dr. Christison's. I must have no one overlooking, even
kindly ; so, up to this time, I have been miserable from want of
my laboratory, and means to tiy, by the test of experiments, the
projects of my brain. It is the disagreeable mood of mind, at-
tendant on this state of things, which has kept me from writing,
though I had plenty to say, and have a great deal more than
this letter, big as it is, will hold. To-morrow sees my chemical
labours begin, as you will learn before you finish this letter ;
but lest I make this a mere preface and rvpology, and because I
have been w^earying to say it, let me heartily congratulate you
on your success. I cannot, as mother did when she read it,
bring tears to my eyes ; that becomes a kind mother ; but a
kind brother will, with exulting, joyous feelings, wish you
all tlie comfort and happiness so auspicious an event should
bring, and feel his own soul bettered by the knowledge your

1837 33.

A PALACE OF A LABORATORY.

147

you

liould

your

letter conveyed. I am proud of you, Daniel, with your high
thoughts and high hopes, and persevering laborious duties, and
unresting application

" For the present I bid you good-night, and as night brings
sober, chastened, religious feelings and duties, let me only add
the hope (alike for both of us) that earthly things, however
noble, will not shut from our straining eyeballs the higher
things which must swallow up all other feelings, when death-
beds and eternities come. God bless and preserve you, my dear
brother, from all evils and snares, and myself too, for I have
many. Good-night."

"June \Wi. — I do not resume with good-morrow, for night
is the time with me for writing, and I have just fallen to again
to your epistle. Having discoursed of your prospects, occupa-
tion, and the like, let me say a word of my own. After the first
re-beginning of Dispensary rambles was fairly past, I began
seriously to think of some way of getting my chemistry prose-
cuted, and it came into my head, as my wisest plan, just to have
a room, a garret, or the like, and turn it to good account. I
betook myself to requesting the assistance of some old dames to

get me one. Chancing to call on Mrs. to see Samuel

Brown, I had to sit a while, and mentioned the wish to that old
lady, who immediately stalked about the Lothian Eoad, and
such places, in search of a room. Whilst engaged thus, I called

at Leith Street, and mentioned it to Mrs. , who at once

offered and gave me her most kind and most useful assistance,
for she sent me over to a pensioner of hers, a widow, who had
rented a room for six months or so, but having lost her daugh-
ter, had gladly taken a place as housekeeper in a family. From
her I got the key of the room, which will cost me nothing but a
trifle a week to the old deaf lady who sweeps and sorts it ; and
will be as it is a very palace. It is situate in that strange and
not very decent place of Edinburgh, Eichniond Court ; but, as
far as I have yet seen, it is an excellent little corner, with the
best window in the court. I have a goodly sized furnished
room — a perfect palace of a laboratory ; the window to be sure
does not command a very fine view, but lets in a great stream
of light, that valuable auxiliary to all sorts of researches that

148

JIEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

don't ask the shelter of tlarkness. I have five arm-chairs, with
flaming yellow covers ; walls adorned with sewed samplers, por-
traits of Queen Mary and Eichard Cceur de Lion, and which is
a great deal better, a beautiful, unframed, fine engraving of one
of Gerhard Douw's pictures, not to mention an elegant looking-
glass, basin-stand, tumblers, glasses, etc. ; and a press, the key
of which I am promised, if I don't break the old lady's china.
In short, I want but one thing, as you will be pleased to mention

to , — a housekeeper. You woidd have been greatly amused

at a conversation between Mrs. , of Argyle Square, and me.

She is a kind, simple, affectionate woman ; and I at once ad-
dressed her, ' Well, Mrs. , I have taken up house for myself

' Taken up house, Mr. Wilson ; is it possible ? You are not veiy
old.' ' No.' ' Have you really left yoiu' father's ?' ' Yes, ma'am,
I have got a house of my own,' said I, adding it was ' in a retired
part of the town, as we wished privacy ;' and I explained I had
been visiting it Lliat day, getting the furniture (a few bottles) in.
' Well,' said the good-mannered but wondering lady, ' you'll
need a housekeeper.* ' Of course,' said I ; ' whom do you re-
commend ?' and so on. A gxeat deal of fun I got, laughing and
blushing for the last foolish thing I did, seeing two very nice
pretty young ladies, strangers to me, were listening to all this
nonsense. 'Well,' says Miss , *I won't be your house-
keeper.' Said I, ' You might have waited till you were asked.
I see there's been somebody here before me ;' and ended by in-
viting the ladies to visit me at my private residence. Explana-
tions, fun, nonsense, and laughter followed, and all enjoyed the
joke. I told them if they knew any young heiress, wishing
to be lady of a house, to send her to me ; I would know the
motive, and spare her feelings any questions. The promise was
made. Make you a similar one. I must close this long yepistlo.
I shall write you in a few days, by a bearer whose face you will
be delighted to see."

"GatI'IKIJ) Squark, ./I'/.y (!, 18^8.

" In spite of lost time from several causes, and at eleven
o'clock P.M., I begin, not on short glazed paper, but on long
foolscap (the foolscap seems to fit me), to write something. I

1S37-3S,

OUR COURT OF RICHMOND.

149

long

don't know what you could make of my last epistle, so hurriedly,
confusedly, and stupidly written was it ; and so conscious of this
was I, that as soon as I wrote it, I sealed it, for fear of being
tempted to look over it, and put it in the fire. Busy as I am, I
have not been unforgetful, my dear brother, of your interests. . . ,

" This day on which I write, Saturday morning, is very beau-
tiful, a great thunder-storm last night having swept away the
darkness and gloom and mist. I write away busily to you,
intending, when done, to get my chemical labours on a bit, as
the thunder-plump of last night was so severe that I could not
stir out, and the day before I was almost suffocated with
chlorine gas, and obliged to come home and recline on some
chairs for a couple of hours ; my headache has scarcely left me
yet, and a snuff of the fumes brings it back, but it would never
do to retreat for that. That's quite enough of a letter to be full
of sense ; I must now see if I have no nonsense to fish up for
you, of some kind or other. 1 get strange visits at my Eichmond
Court, from friends, I presimie, of the previous resident. Yes-
terday, a dumb man knocked at the door, and looked with
amazement when I opened it. I tried to speak on my fingers,
but found I had forgotten the dumb alphabet. I hailed him,
and took pen and paper to write, but he could not read writing ;
liowever, he whipped out of his pocket a bit of chalk, and
snatching up a black tray, wrote on it with his left hand, back-
wards, ' Friend of way,' wliich I suppose stood for my friend is
away. I saw him in the street, and begged the clialk to write
his friend's address, but he would not give it me.

When I took possession of my royal apartments,^ I saw lying
on the window-sill one of those large buttons which livery-ser-
vants wear, with their master's crest on it. The eye being
broken off, I doubted not it must be a button pitched up by
some of the players at pitch and toss, this being the season ;
accordingly, a rap came to my door, and two laddies put their
heads in ; ' Will you gie's our button. Sir?' Just think of the
simplicity ; they never seemed to dream I could be ignorant of
llie place where the button lay, nor did they preface their re-

' A book containing notes of I'xiieiiments made in them, li:is for title-page ' Inipic
Arcliives o'i Labours iicrfoniiecl al our Court of Richmond in August 1S38.'

150

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

quest by any statement that the button was theirs, that it had
accidentally been tossed up there, that I would find it on the
siU, etc. etc., but evincing the most perfect confidence in my
universal knowledge, they at once asked for it. I thought such
confidence deserved similar treatment, so I, without any unne-
cessary remarks, said, ' yes ;' walked to the window and got
them their button.

" What a delightful walk it is round Arthur Seat ! When the
evening is dull, I walk through the valley and the Hunter's
Bog; when anyway clear, I journey round the Eadical Eoad,
for the sake of the extraordinary view, never two nights alike,
and yet always so beautiful. I wonder some of the painters
don't build themselves a painting-box, as the sportsmen do a
shooting-box, beside the Cat-nick : the whole line of buildings,
the alternation of land and sea, are so fitted to show every
charm which varied atmospherical effects can produce on a
scene. If I had a son who showed any capacity for landscape
painting, I would stick him up, I think, on Salisbury Crags, and
disinherit him if he did not beat Turner. The scene is altogether
so Avondrous, so changeful in all its bearings, and so soothing to
a mind busied with turning over a thousand subtle subjects, that
I shall never weary of it, and probably as long as I go out to
Richmond Court, I shall come home that way.

" I lately gathered some forget-me-nots, from the spot where
you used to pluck them at the foot of tlie rocks below St An-
thony's Chapel ; but I was more fortunate than you, for a little
boy brought me down a drink of St. Anthony's water, which,
though not dry, I readily drank, to show him I appreciated his
kindness. I lately had a visit from your pupil; M'Donald ; he
seems very diligent and veiy enthusiastic; and is a curious enter-
prising promising fellow, though extremely simple in his views.
When he chances to be sent to any house, to look after painting
its walls, or the like, he gets the servants to find out for him
who painted the pictures on the walls, which he takes care to
study.

" He tells me there are two unknown or scarcely known pic-
tures of Sir Joshua Eeynolds in a house in Edinburgh, repre-
senting George iii. as introduced to his Queen, and liis man-iage.

1S37 -38,

BUSY FROM 9 A.M. TILL 12 P.M.

151

One has not been quite finished ; the figures, he says, are stiff,
but the faces very beautifully painted, and said to be all por-
traits. In Sir Charles BeU's house, too, he saw some curious
paintings. This certainly is the pursuit of knowledge under
difficulties." ...

To Miss Mackay.

" July 21.

" I daresay you have thought the old Scotch proverb, ' Out o'
sight out o' mind,' completely verified in your case, seeing my
promise to write a second time has never been fulfilled, and no
reason for silence given. I can only say in excuse that if I have
not written you, it has not been because I have been writing
others, for except to Daniel, I have written but one letter
(No. 2) since I left you, and if I have thought by chance for a
few minutes of ladies, as ladies, you have had a very large
share of those very rare thoughts. In truth, I am at present
from 9 A.M. till 12 p.m. completely occupied ; one half of the day
with Dispensary duties, the other half with chemical and lite-
rary labours. It is not, however, the actual occupation of time
that has stopped my pen ; but the mood of mind engendered by
chemical speculations excludes almost wholly other thoughts.
I am devising, suggesting, experimenting, breaking glass vessels,
and melting, and fusing, and evaporating ; and when I am doing
so, and I am thoroughly possessed with the idea, I don't care for
anything else.

" I am no longer able to afford myself the hour's walk at three
o'clock, which I spent in traversing Princes Street, and walking
out into the country. I never see ladies now, therefore, even
on the street, except when huiTying home from Dispensary or
Laboratory, and so I am more and more every day losing any
opportunities (few at best) of gratifying the passion for seeing
pretty faces ; though now, often hurried as my glimpses are, I
see some forms and countenances I cannot easily forget. I saw
the lady that's like you to-day, with her lame and very interest-
ing looking friend ; I have seen neither for a long time. I
looked on them as friends and felt quite pleased, for I had
been looking in all quarters for them in vain, for some time. I

¥• it

152

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CH\P. III.

have lately got acquainted with a new face in the street, a very-
interesting one ; I would give a great deal to know its possessor.
I am sure she has come lately to towxi ; she is young, florid, with
regular, good-tempered, but dignified features, and something very
pleasing in her appearance. I cannot get out of my head that I
have seen her before ; -t any t; :e the is very like a particular
f.'iend of mine. T >nn n tcriuivcc to and out who she is, and 1
am likely to succeed, for i ioiivi 1 <:ut a lady's name, etc., lately,
after a three months' st.a'ch, ;!!; the t ir>;a I told you of having met
her at the Exhibition of Pictures, i '^ad, however, seen her
often going to school before, admired her eyes and forehead, and
was tormented about her. However, in spite of these annoyances,
and to the great amazement of my friends, I made a point of
asking at every house I was in the practice of visiting, about the
lady, whom I described to the best of my ability, from the contour
of her form to the material of her gown. The ladies of the
families where I inquired kindly assisted me ; three families in
the south side who have a very wide circle of acquaintance, lent
me their aid. One gossiping widow, whose room commands one
of the most famous streets for belles in Edinburgh, went over
the inhabitants of every house, commenting on the ages, sizes,
accomplishments, and the like, of all the female intellects, and
opinion Avas divided between a great tobacconist's and a jewel-
ler's daughter. However, I would not believe she was either ;
and in spite of the assurances of a friend, a young Secession
student and a great beau, that she was the daughter of a gentle-
man in Leith, I persevered in my scepticism, and at last learned
who she was- -but you don't deserve to know, and I'll not tell
you any more. However, I'll immediately set an inquiry afoot
about this other lady, who is a far nicer one than the former.

" I have a goodly set of duties, like those you voluntarily im
pose on yourself, in the visiting of patients, having the famous
or infamous district of the West Port for my share of the town.
I see queer sights and queer things, and am amused, and grieved,
and made indignant, and rejoiced, and wearied by turns. I
shall be glad, however, Avlien the work is over. With visiting
and chemicalizing all day is spent, and evening brings a recur-
rence of either or both duties, while new ones are added. The

1R37 na

OVliUWOKK To BE nUKAUED.

153

present Is ^vith me a sea-.ou of labour, whetb^^r or not to purpose
has ye+ to appear ; T mention so much to 3xcuse the matter-of-
fact tt' \e of t: is epistle."

T( iiis brother he says : " I have iieen veiy much shocked to
iieai" thfit Dr A. B. j u_)mg of consumption. Poor fellow! ho
seemed to be going on so prosperously, and now to be stopped
by that cruel disorder. Daniel, be warned ; remember you are
drawijig on your capital of health— hoping afterwards to refund
it — but remember you have no means of ascertaining the capital
you possess, and may find yourself in irretrievable bankruptcy.
You will say, 'What can I do?' Well, I can say nothing,
only don't let ambition conceal herself under other titles and
mislead you. Both you and I are in perfect health, but we
have nothing above present wellbeing in the least to look to,
and I fear you are not sufficiently alive to the risks you run in
woriwing so hard. I beseech you, for the sake of yourself, and of
every one who has an interest in your welfare, if possible, walk
at least two hours every day, an hour morning and afternoon,
and see that your room is as well ventilated as possible, and as
little confined as may be — that at least you can do. I assure
you, the tears come to my eyes when I think of you working at
that rate, and I dread the consequences. I don't consider you
an invalid ; I only fear the results of the life you lead. If you
have thouglit my previous remonstrances unnecessary, tuke a
warning by poor B., who has suffered from working too hard. If
in all this I have done nothing but awaken useless fears, forgive
the imprudence of a brother's love, who has learned from the
sad records of his family and his patients, that it is more easy
to prevent than to cure.

" I said I did not know when I should be up at London, but
since I wrote circumstances have occurred to change my inten-
tions, and I think I shall be able to spend the month of Octo
ber with you. I don't think I can get away sooner ; perhaps I
may, in the end of September. However, meanwhile believe
me, your affectionate loving brother, Geokge.

" P.S.— Now, Daniel, my head 's hazy, or I would write more,
but my heai-t opens up at the idea of seeing you again. I have not

I5i

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP, nil

a friend like you, and what a host of things I have to tell you,
that could not be written, with divers funny jokes and the like,
which the occasion no doubt will inspire, and as I'll not bring
any of the chemical stuffs, you need have no fear of your nose.
I'll bring Euclid, and get lessons in Mathematics and Algebra.
I have left mother laughing at the idea of studying Mathe-
matics with you. She sends kindest love, and requests as the
greatest favour, that you will conceal no difficulty from her.
My head yearns for the pillow, so good-night."

'•7thAuffusilS38.

" Mother gives me this paper, as ' small paper ;' it looks veiy
large, however ; nevertheless I'll try what can be done in the
way of filling it,

" Your letters and their bearer arrived safely, three days
ago, and we have all been feasting on them. The description
of London is exceedingly enticing and amusing, and all the
motives for visiting so goodly a metropolis, weigh well in my
mind to urge a visit ; but my main object in coming will be to
see you and spend a while with you, my dear brother and best
friend. I can now speak a little more confidently as to when I
shall come up. I am at present the only student in the Dis-
pensary. I shall have heavy and responsible duties till the end
of August, when my time expires.

" I shall hope to spend a part of September and a bit of Octo-
ber, perhaps the whole of it, with you, and surely that would
satisfy you. Tell me, when you write, veiy particularly about
the arrangements you propose, mention the expenses and the
like, and I'll get all put right in time. I shall haul up with
me sArv.a Viooks, and study beside you ; however, we'll not say
much about the study.

" I am going to publish a paper in one of the Journals, on a
new exposition of a chemical law, which has been debated all
over Europe, and argued one way and another, without any one
being able to prove which of two opinions was the true one.

" While engaged in a wholly different inquiry, I made a little
discovery which threw some new light upon the subject. I was
confined at home two days unwell, and tried an experiment or

im 38.

A TROUBLED NIGHT.

165

two, which proved my views, and, in short, before the week was
done, I had proved my point, beyond the possibility of contra-
diction.

" Samuel Brown recommends me to speak to Christison to get
it put in the IJoyal Society's Transactions. I intend doing so
to-moiTow. I was only kept by a dread of seeming to over-
value the matter, and especially by on unwillingness to seem
courting patronage ; but I'll see him, and be guided by his con-
duct to me.

" I am extremely tired and sleepy, so excuse the remaining
blnnk paper."

An extract from a letter to his sister gives a specimen of his
medical practice and its unwelcomeness to his tastes.

" My dear Mary, — You should long before this have heard
from me had not a succession of engrossing cares so occupied
my time, that it was im])ossible for me to do almost anything.
John Niven left me last ]\Ionday, and now I am relying on my
own resources, and fighting away most horribly, at the Dis-
pensary. I purposed writing you two nights ago, but on the
morning of Wednesday, I was awakened at six o'clock, and
hurried away to the Dean l^ridge, to see an afflicted woman ;
all day I was kept running after her, and night brought me no
rest, for I was liable to be sunnnoned at any hour. I lay down
on the sofa, wrapped in my INIackintosh cloak, a little Camlet
covering of James's on my feet, my heac' being cased in a good
white cowl ; but I soon got cold, and I whipped off my boots,
and laid me without undressing under the bed-clothes. This
was at one o'clock. I slept ill, thought eveiy minute I was
liearing the door-bell ring — started up, and awoke fairly at four
o'clock— fell asleep again, and awoke finally at six — dressed,
read till breakfast, and then walked out to see my patient, to
find my trouble misplaced, seeing they had called in another
doctor, as they did not like to send to such a distance. A wee
bairn's voice was the first thing that saluted my ears, and I saw
its little red face peeping from below the quilt. The mother's
name was Mrs, King ; and willing to prove my skill in logic,
if not in physic, T observed that a King's daughter must be a

156

MEMOIU OF GKOttGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

Queen, and therefore the child's name should unfailingly he
Victoria. Tlio good woman smiled, hut I'm not quite sure that
the logic told on her. The upshot of this childish .story is that
neither that night, nor last night, which was its successor, was
I in an epistolary vein. You nuiy well suppose I was very
thankful to get to hed soon last night ; in truth I could not fall
asleep, for felicitating myself on my good fortune in not having
to sit up or tremble in fear of a knock. In real earnest, I spent
twenty-four hours in a state of the most miserable solicitude
and timorous apprehension, prophesying for myself I know not
how many unwelcome things, uud quite unable to rest at any-
thing. I was never made to be a physician, and I'll never, I
do believe, try practice again.

" I'm much delighted to think you are beside Miss Campbell.
1 pray thee, Mary, question diligently anent our genealogy ; I
have a very particular reason for wishing to know our lineage.
I know that Highland lore is more concerned in tracing out the
lateral ramifications, and intenveaving families of this Ilk with
families of that Ilk, and goeth seldom up to the stock, whence
the sprouts have budded ; but if you can get our lineage some
good way back, either among the Campbells, which I suppose
is the only chance, or among the Wilsons, which is a doubtful
clue, I should be greatly pleased. Follow it up to Adam, or as
near as you can, unless midway, about Noah's time or so (N.B.
— not Noah Webster's time), you find out some vagr^ond who
was hanged, drawn, or quartered, or who hung, drew, and quar-
tered some one else ; there you may stop and take a rest, and
we'll refresh ourselves about the scoundrel's prowess. In serious
verity, I would willingly believe the rumour that the Wilsons
are of Danish extraction, and s^^•ear that my veins throbbed
with the blood of Handet, but that good prince having died
without issue, leaves me in an awkward dilemma, and forbids
that line of descent. I'll be satisfied if you trace up any of the
branches ; the Campbells surely can be linked on to the Duke
of Argjde, and that may do for them."

On September 11th, the final arrangements for visiting Lon-
don are announced :- - " You will be surprised not to have heard

i^n: 38.

PERILS BY WATER.

15;

imm nio liefore this. 1 havo waited to bo able to tell you
evcrythiii}.,' as definitoly as possible. Mary and .Teanio are now
home, both lookinj^ a ^Yo.at deal better, and in all respects im-
proved. Their arrival sets me free to set off when I choose.
Now, I am not coming up directly by one of the Leith and
London steamers, l)ut by Hull. I shall arrive there on Sunday
evening, stay all night with our old friends, leave on Monday
morning, and bo in London on Tuesday afternoon or evening. . . .
I am in no mood for writing, have bv>en so knocked about, have
so much to do, been so late u]), and am so sleepy, that I shan't
write a word more. Everything it is desirable you should know,
I keep for oval communication. — Believe me your very affec-
tionate, loving, sleepy brother, George."

"Okoroe Inn, Hull, Afonrhif, 1'th September.

" My dear Mother, — The best of friends are often bad ad-
visers, and so it has proved in my case ; for the ' Innisfail,'
instead of arriving in Hull on Sunday at twelve o'clock noon,
did not get in till one o'clock at midnight of Sunday, and no-
body got ashore till this morning.

" On Saturday, up to eleven o'clock p.m., when ' I turned in,*
the weatlier was most delightful, and the voyage in all respects
veiy pleasant. I did not fall asleep for an hour, and then I
tumbled over into a doubtful snooze. I believe there was a
sensitiveness among all present to any alarm, from the late
accident on the station ; and, accordingly, when the engine
stopped at two o'clock in the morning, I and many others awoke.
1 did not know what hour it was then, and being aware that a
gentleman and lady wqvc cjoing ashore at Scarborough, I thought
it would be the boat stoj 'ping to let them out. One of our
number, however, got up and went on deck, and learned that
some pin in the engine had broken, and caused the stoppage.
However, it was deemed so trivial that he went to bed again,
and we began to talk about steamboats and accidents, and the
like. Now, you must notice that I slept in a room contaming
four berths, three of which were occupied by Englishmen, the
fourth being occupied by your Scotch son George. I was soon
embroiled with the whole three about the nature of the last

158

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. III.

accident : and when I pushed one of them too hard, he began
his speech by telling me, that * we in arguing in England do so
and so,' implying a full anxiety to show he knew my nation,
and hated it. However, disregarding the taunt, I baffled them
all, and was not a little amused next morning, when a surgeon
of dragoons, who had lain in some corner or other within ear-
shot of us, remarked to one of tliem on the amusement he had
had listening to our conversation, adding, ' There was a great
deal of eloquence in it at times.' I take the credit of all the
eloquence to myself, the precious triumvirate can divide the
remainder of praise among them. I and the surgeon enjoyed a
laugh at them afterwards. All that is episodical. After talk-
ing a wliile, I thought I heard the steam cease blowing, which
is always dangerous if the steamboat be still, and I immediately
dressed and went on deck. The steam, however, was blowing
away all right, but one of the engines was completely maimed.
The whole crew were at work unshipping the broken engine, a
work of nearly two hours, during which time we were lying off
North Shields, on the Sunderland coast. The night was most
beautiful, the water as still as a mill-pond, which was well for
us. Had the wind blown hard, it would have been scarcely
possible for us to have managed ; and had the gale blown on
the shore, nothing could have saved us but casting anchor,
which caimot always be done on these coasts. As it was, we
not only lost two hours in absolute inaction, but being palsied
of one side, we could only creep along at five or six miles an
hour, so that it was one o'clock last night before we reached
Hull. One of the many pigs which we had on board walked
overboard in the confusion, and was to be heard squealing at a
distance. A boat was sent in pursuit, and 1 had an opportunity
of seeing verified two truths sometimes doubted. A foolish pre -
judice prevails that swine cannot swim, but cut their throats
with their feet ; but tliis pig, I assure you, swam, and well t .',
— so well as to be nearly a mile off. What was its exact object
in going over, has not yet transpired. Whetlier it had been
exhausted with its exertions in the way of squealing the night
before, and wished a cold bath ; or mistook the English coast
for its own beloved Irisli coast, and M'as journeying homewards,

1837-38.

A PIG OVERBOARD.

159

as it thought ; or possessed a devil, like the sacred swine of
old ; or purposed (' awful thought') to commit the crime of
sowicide, I cannot say ; but so fervent was its love for the
' deep, deep sea,' that it sprang from the embrace of the loving
mate into the wave, and was only secured after a gallant
struggle.

" While the boat was setting off, I saw the other curious thing
I referred to, — the phosphorescence of the sea, which I have so
long w^ished to behold. Nothing could be more beautiful. In
the wake of the boat was a line of the most delicate pale green
light, speckled with stars of a darker green, while each dip of
the oar broke the wave into the most beautiful scintillations. I
walked the deck till five A.M., and having no fancy for being
'laid on the shelf again, T wrapped myself in my cloak and
greatcoat, and laid me down on two chairs, where I brooded till
seven, when I washed and redressed, and was among the first to
gain the quarter deck. 'Twas a most queer sight the cabin at
rising time, — here a cowl was popped up, and there a long thin
shank came delicately over the shelf s edg(> ; and such unbuck-
ling of boxes, and bags, and portmanteaus, and hauling out of
razors and soap-brushes, and combs, and the like ; for my part,
thinking it right to ' rough it out' at sea, I kept my beard on ;
and thanks to the goodness of an excellent old man, who gave
me, unasked, a hair-brush, when he saw me stroking my head
with my fingers, 1 was able to make myself comfortable. 'Twas a
sorrily kept Sunday yesterday. I saw only the old gentleman who
gave me the brush take out a small Testament, when he got up,
and read a chapter to himself He then offered it to a tall, old,
military-like man, whom I suspect to be an East Indian general
or the like. Nothing could equal the wonder, and fierceness,
and politeness of the refusal. He seemed amazed that he shoidd
offer that to him (doubtless an Episcopalian, for he was after-
wards hoping he'd be in Hull in time for evening prayers) ;
angry, because it was an implication on his imjiiety ; and polite,
because it was kindly and sini]ily offered. When I heard the
repeated refusals of the old gentleman, it quite overcame me,
and I laughed long and loud. It was without comparison the
most lovely day I have seen this summer : the sun slione out

■^ J

160

MEMOIR OF GEORGE AVILSON.

CHAP. III.

without a cloud to dim his brightness ; the sea was literally
covered — studded — with vessels ; and the low undulating coast
of England, with here and there a picturesque windmill, and the
like, was seen to the highest advantage. My animal spirits quite
overflowed. I lay stretched at full length on a locker, indulg-
ing in the most blissful reveries. I did not go to bed last night,
but lounged on the sofas, and laughed almost to suffocation at
the old Indian general wlio lay next me, popping ixp his head
and muttering the oddest oaths."

1838-3}).

VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

161

CHAPTER IV.

RESIDENCE IN LONDON — DEGREE OF M.D.

" In this theatre of man's life, it is reserved only for God and angels to
be lookers-on." — Preface to Bacon's ' Advancement of Learning.'

In the renewal of the joyous companionship of former times,
the brothers were truly happy. " I can't tell you haK what I
have seen," George's first letter to his mother says. " I've been
at the British Museum, and gazed with delight on the splendid
fossils, the huge crocodile-like monsters of the ancient deep,
and one specimen I wislied you had seen of those marks of
beasts' feet which you used so much to laugh at. ... I called
on Professor CJraham, and received a most courteous reception.
We talked together for an hour and a half. I told him some
of my speculations, and he smiled, as all older and wiser heads
always do. I was invited to come to the laboratory whenever
I listed ; but the distance is tremendous, at least six miles from
Daniel's place."

About a week later he tells her, " I have visited Westminster
Abbey since I wrote you last, and strolled through that magni-
ficent pile. Daniel and I were fixing on the corners we should
lie in when we are buried in that nol)le sepidchre. Daniel's
steps led him to a wide but gloomy cloister ; mine were long
arrested at the small tablet raised to Sir H. Davy's memory
It's a shame, a sliame ! — that's far too feeble a word -it's a poor
piece of very mean feeling, to see in Westminster Abbey enor-
mous piles of marbles, pyramids bolstered up by all sort of
extravagant allegorical figures, raised to the memory of soldiers,
many of whom were but the obedient servants of accomplished
generals, while Davy has Init a little corner of one of the subsi-

t.k%

162

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON,

CHAP. IV.

diaiy chapels, and iieitlier figure nor allegory ! His birth, his
death, his name, and a few words more, cover the stone ; not
that any pile would have made him more noble, but it would
have shown a wish to ennoble him, Wliat, after all, is fame ?
The man who walked with us, pointing to Sir H, Davy's tomb,
said, ' See, sir, he was a Baronet,' That was all the merit he had
in his eye. Fame is a bubble; but, like the soap- bell, it is a
beautiful one painted over with very bright hues, and arrayed
in most enticuig colours. It may burst in the grasp, bat it is
beautiful till it hath burst,

" Were yoa to wander along the streets as I do, finding abun-
dant occupation and pleasure in watching the flood of faces that
rolls past, you woidd be at no lofs to guess the subject of each
one's thoughts. Business — business — business, is written in
letters of black, with squaring of red, on each ledger -like face,
with pens -seemingly steel-pens, to judge from the lines they
leave on each shrewd countenance. Yet is this stir of business
healthfid and exhilarating ! 'Tis true they are worshipping
Mammon ; yet are they putting forth great mental energies and
much talent, and power is to be respected, for whatever ends it
works,

" I dined last night with Prtfessor Graham, and I spent a
veiy happy evening among a circle of young chemists, I stayed
behind them all, and had a long talk with him, from which I
learned a great deal, I did not get home till one o'clock, so
great are the distances,"

" I am afraid I shall not see Faraday, He's not in town
at present, and his lectures are not begim ; nor shall I bo
present at a meeting of the Eoyal or any other of the Societies.
This is just the ^vorst period of the year for all these things.
Some of them begin in November, the majority not till Feb-
innnry, the beginning of the fashionable season, when the titled
p' >ple rptuni. to town. I must, therefore, depart without seeing
these U'vu ami things. Yet there is still a chance of seeing
Faniday ; but I fear none of b(>holding the Queen."

Of tlus ]H:ri;)(> Daniel sny- —"My lodgings were then at the
t r.tTv"' ;)o cistern \crge of L«)ndon''^ suburbs, in the village of
Snatioid 'e ikiw, on tlie bo.ders ci Essex, mto which we occa

1838-39.

A STEEPLE CHASE.

168

at the

occa

sioually rambled together ; to Westham, wliere an introduction
had procured us a friendly welcome ; and to Barking, through
the marshes, and so to the Thames dykes, where a steeple-chase
was long cherished by him as a favourite jest against me.
Rambling on a holiday we had made for ourselves, through that
strange, Dutchman's corner of merry England, lying below the
level of high-water, with river-dykes, sluices, and other fea-
tures, then as foreign to our eyes as any Dutch canal scene
could be, we spied a steeple in the distance and gave chase.
Already we had got a peep at some of Engknd's lovely little
parish churches, and here was another chance ; but to make for
it as the crow flies could only be done by a crow or a duck.
Carefully navigating our way by means of dykes and hedge-
rows, at length we reached the banks of the Thames, and found
the great river was between us and the object of our desire ; but
we had gone too far to be baffled now. After waiting and long-
ing, we at length succeeded in hailing a boat, got into it, and,
as we rowed across the river, the boatman was drawn into con-
versation about the church, its name, its history. ' It was an
old one ? ' 'Oh yes, it was an old church.' ' Very old ? ' for, as
we drew near, we began to suspect that distance had lent a
little enchantment to the view. * Well,' said our ferryman, ' he
did not doubt it was well nigh fifty years old ! ' which was pro-
bably a very accurate guess. It turned out to be about as plain
a red brick meeting-house, with square belfiy at its end, a«
ever village bricklayer designed and executed. But we enjoyed
our ramble on a clear October day, making up for the long in-
terval since our Edinburgh country walks, by many a remini-
scence of the past, and so beguiled our walk to another ferry
and home. Epping Forest was reached by a similar ramble,
and George's imagination excited by the romantic encounter of a
small encampment of gipsy tinkers with their donkey and covered
cart. The season, however, for wanderings in the gxeen lanes of
Epping Forest or the Essex marshes Avas soon at an end, and
time was viiluable to both of us. The wonders of London, how-
ever, were an inexhaustible delight. Westminster Abbey, St.
Paul's, the Tower, and all other lions, were thoroughly and lov-
ingly explored ; the British ISIuseum was a never-failing resort ;

164

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP, IV.

and through the kindness of our old schoolfellow, Adam White,
it was as free to us on private as on public days, and the read-
ing-room of its libraiy became a favourite resort of both of us
when we could spara the time. Nor is it to be doubted that
both the Temple and the India House were visited for Charles
Lamb's sake."

At the close of a month, when about to return to Edinburgh,
the offer of a place as unsalaried assistant in the Laboratoiy of
Professor Graham, now Master of the Mint, but then I'rofessor
of Chemistry in University College, <.'aused a complete change
in George's plans. The advantages it offered were too great not
to weigh strongly with him, as in no place in this countiy could
better op])ortunity present itself for acquiring a knowledge of
analysis and the other branches of Chemistiy. He wrote to
consult friends at home, saying to his mother — " I will not
make a vain parade of the grief my non return will give me.
A thousand links of the dearest kind which nothing here can
make vpfor, draw me to Scotland and Edinburgh; but you, 1
am sure, would be the first to say ' go.' "

The week of suspense caused by the tardy postage of thost^
days was happily ended by the receij^>t of the desired permission
to remain ; and a few days later found him settled at work, and
reporting to the home circle — " 1 have not completely recovered
my chemical vein ; besides the dissipation of thought whicli
occurred during my idlent>ss here, the long distance I have to
go every day, and the consequent fotigue, as well as the un
settled nature of my views yet, have hindennl me reacquiring
the thoughts which were my summer companions. . . . Let me
say a very little of the Laboratory and my com]ianions there, as
you will be anxious to know with whom niv days are to be
spent. I have at least entered on my labours with the best
wishes of my preceptors and fellow-labourers. Both Mr.
Graham's assistants, Mr. Young' and INFr. Playfair,' are glad of
my addition to their number, and give me all the assistance hi
their power, and as they are both good practical chemists, and
Playfair a geologist, I hope to profit by their society."

' Mr. James Youii;;, UuUigate Clieniical Works.

- Dr. Lyon Playfair. Prol'i'.Hsor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh.

1838 39.

MEETS DAVID LIVINGSTONE.

165

After naming pupils in the Laboratory, lie goes on to speak
f)f " an odd little mortal, a sort of apprentice, who does the dirty
work, cleans the bottles, etc., a poor friendless orphan, aged
fifteen, who never learned anything but his alphabet. He has
contrived to teach himself chemistry most thoroughly, and with
few or no encouragements has attained (no difficult thing, as I
know) to love it too. He is a very obliging, good-tempered,
happy little fellow ; has taken a inncy for me, and I for him. I
sliall certainly help him every way I can, and he says he will
do anything for me. 1 shall immediately begin at his own little
cell some of my old things, as I shall not have, or wish to have,
at home any convenience for such things."

Among the students in the Laboratoiy that session was Dr.
Livingstone, now distinguished for his labours and discoveries
in Africa. On the return of the celebrated traveller to th/'o
country a few years ago, it was a pleasure to him and George to
renew their previous intercourse. A much prized copy of his
travels bears the autograph inscription, " To Professor G. Wilson,
with the kindest regards of his friend and class-mate David
Livingstone." Letters from the rivers Shire and Zambesi have
come to this country since George Wilson's death, in which Dr.
Livingstone speaks of specimens intended for the Industrial
IMuseum of Scotland. " I have collected," ho says, " some little
things for you, but they are really so rude that I have doubts
whether I ought to send thom. The mill for grinding corn, for
instance, is a great block of stone with a hollow worn in it of
about three inches in depth, and the mortar, exactly like the
Egyptian, is about the size of a man's body. A web in process
of weaving, is an uncouth affair, as indeed everything here is.
Tliey have not improved a bit since Tubal Cain, and those old
fogies, drove a little into their heads. Such as they are, how-
ever, you shall see them some day." How m\ich these and
other gifts mentioned in the letters would have delighted the
Director of the Industrial jNIuseum, we can readily imagine.

Some of Daniel's remembrances are amusing. He says —
" At an early stage of George's London wanderings the unfami-
liar face of Charles Lamb's India House led him strangely
astray. His connexion with Professor Cirahani's Laboratory

ie$

MEMOIR OF GEORGE 'WaLSON.

CHAP. IV.

I t

necessitated a daily walk from my remote suburban quar-
ters, through the City, to Gower Street. But at that time the
vigorous and enthusiastic young chemist thought little of
a walk, through Mile End, Whitechapel, Cheapside, and Hol-
bom, with such a goal in view ; nor was it easy to wander,
where the road was sti'aight and well defined. Cleorge, however,
■was not more remarkable for his singidar memory of every face
he ever saw, than for his utter want of what phrenologists call
locality. Pe would persist in taking short cuts on his way to and
from Gower Street, in spite of all warnings, and was picked up
after pursuing !• is devious track in far-away unexpected nooks,
such as only those who know the intricacies of old London's back
streets and lanes could conceive possible. Warned, however,
by such dear-bought experience, he resolved on contenting him-
self with the plain long road, steering his way by well-known
landmarks, which even his im topographical head could appre-
oiflLu. Guiding his way accordingly by such means, as he
CA^^lained to me aftenvards, he wended his way eastward one
afternoon. St. Andrew's Holborn, Field Lane, St. Sepulchre's, and
the Blue Coat School were all safely passed ; the Post- Office and
St. Paul's were .-^Mnced at, in emerging from Newgate Street into
Cheapside ; ant., -pursuing his course steadily onward, — tlie por-
tico of the Mansion House was next noted, as the mariner satisfac-
torily descries a guiding landmark or lighthouse — so far all was
well. But coming soon after upon the portico of the East India
House, in Leadenhall Street, George pulls up in sore confusion :
' Wliy,' said he to himself, ' where can I have been wandering
to ? I passed the Mansion House not long since, and here it is
again ! ' So to put matters straight he turned up Bishopsgate
Street, and started with renewed energy on a road which, if
pursued far enough, might have landed him in Edinburgli, but
could never have brought him to his desired haven. After
getting ever more and more perplexed, he had recourse at length
to that unfailing remedy for such a dilemma, a hackney cab, and
was comforting himself over a favourite passage in Foster's
essay on ' Decision of Character,' in which the author laments
the want of a parallel resource for the midecided man — when,
feeling for his purse, he found he was moneyless ! The cab was

1838-31).

LONDON PASTIMES.

167

only intended to put him in the way of the Bow omnibus ; but
that would not do now ; and I well remember the eager head
out of the cab window, as he at length caught sight of me on my
way to meet the absentee, already long after his time. A few
such incidents, added to the unreasonable length of the road, led
to our changing our quarters, and we set up our abode in Great
Clarendon Street, Euston Square, where we fell into the hands
of the Philistines, and got initiated into some of the mysteries
of London lodging-houses, which furnished materials for many
a joke at a later date, but were serious matters at the time, when
our purses were fully as light as our hearts.

" We did not fail to make good use of some of the great Lon-
don sights of that time : its pictm'e -galleries, museums, cathe-
drals, etc., and among the rest, I do not think that George ever
repented of having availed himself of the opportunity of witness-
ing some of tlie wonderful reproductions of Shakspere's choicest
dramas, with which Macready was then delighting the London
world at Covent Garden ; nor of his first peep at a pantomime,
brought out with all the glories of a London stage, and which he
enjoyed with a mirth as hearty and unrestrained as the happiest
child there. ' Peeping Tom of Coveiitiy ' was often afterwards
lauglied over, and furnished illustrations, both gmve and gay, in
writings of a later date. Such pastimes, however, were only the
rare relaxations of an exceedingly busy and happy season."

Further details of Laboratory duties are given in writing home,
" I go to the Laboratory at nine o'clock, and do not finally leave
it till five o'clock. Long as these hours are, they are agreeably
broken up : thus, at eleven o'clock, I go in to hear Mr. Graham's
lecture ; at two I go home to dinner, and at five I leave finally.
Three days a week there will be a practical class, where I shall
have to assist, so that there will 1)e no room for wearying. You
will observe I am never more than two hours contiraumsly at
work : at Dr. Christison's Laboratory I was often four or five,
and as many at Eichmond Court always. My lodgings are at a
mile's distance from the Univeisity, so that I shall have a
comfortably long walk, to and from my working place, twice
each day.

I
i

168

MEMOIK OF OEOUGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

lal

" We have just learned to-day that Mr. Graham has obtained
the gold medal of the Royal Society, endowed by George iv.,
for the best papers in the Philosophical Transactions. Every
body was coming in congratulating us on our master's prize.

" I think 1 referred, in my last letter to you, to a young boy
who was in the place — a friendless orphan of fifteen, who learned
nothing but his alphabet from others, but has nevertheless con-
trived to make himself a thorough chemist, the best I know.
There is scarcely a fact, however out of the way, he does not
know, an experiment he has not tried, nor a subject on which
he cannot give you something. After slaving all day at the
laboratoiy, cleaning bottles and such things, he goes home to a
miserable dreaiy garret, where he falls to his own labours, and
works away at the science he loves. He is a most striking
instance of the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and that
you may keep in remembrance one of whom I shall likely speak
often, I add his name, William Saunders. I shall probably work
with him, repeat some old inquiries, and engage in new ones, but
i»f that more hereafter. ....

" I hope Jessie and Jeanie were satisfied with my extremely
hurried notes, especially as J wrote them before I got Jessie's at
all, which t(jll her. They must write me now and then, and so
must all of you, when you can. I shall live upon my Scotch
letters, as I know so veiy few people here. I cannot find
pleasure in visiting.

" I shall stop here, promising you a larger epistle the next
time, if I can spare the time ; but considering the multitude
of those I must write, you will be merciful, and be sure 1
cannot make more evident, or feel more towards you, the affec-
tion of a loving son, than I do now that I am for a period a
stranger."

" I shall not send any papers to the journals, so do not look
for such things ; my Thesis must be my first labour, and till
that is done, eveiy other subject must be laid by. Nor is it
likely I should write if I had the time, though I have many
things in hand ; I am more anxious at present to be a learner
than a teacher, and still look to more profitably extending science

the

1838-38.

ENGLISH CLERGYMEN.

169

it
my
ler

ICC

hereat'tur, by storing myself with all the truths it has already
gathered,

" Mr. Graham is an excellent teacher ; so well versed in his
subject, and so earnest in displaying it aright, and in impressing
it on his audience, that the hour of lecture speeds very rapidly
away. I cannot make intelligible to any of my non-chemical
friends the nature of the inc^uiries he is pursuing, except per-
haps by saying, that he is prosecuting the study of the ' Laws of
Combination' between differ(>nt substances.

" Another assistant, as well as I, is working at his subjects :
the other pupils, four in number, are labouring for their own
profit. We have at last succeeded in getting a corner apiece in
the Laboratory ; before this desirable arrang(Mnent was accom-
plished, we were always in each other's way, and half the ana-
lyses were ruined in their middle stages by the carelessness of
some one else than the experimenter. It would often have been
amusing had it not been very provoking, to return anticipating
the progress your analyses had made, and find your vessels,
materials, ay, everji;hing gone, — some other philosopher having
found a use for your apparatus, and not troubled himself to inquire
whether the vessel and its contents were precious or no. That
is past, anc\ it is now death by law to meddle with anything on
another's table. Suffocation in the laughing gas is the method
proposed for the infliction of capital punishment.

" So much, my dear mother, for my weekly emiiloyments. I
had intended writing you at length on the system of church
worship here, and I shall do so yet, at some early period. Let
me only tell you that I came up to London embued, in spite nf
my love for Episcopacy, with the idea that a pious, sincere,
simple-minded English clergyman, was a ver} rare thing. I
was most agreeably disappointed. I have now heard a great
number of the London ministers, and can assure you, that in
meekness, simplicity, and earnestness of purpose, they cannot
well be sui-passed by the ministers of any denomination, and 1
should feel that I pi-aised any denomination amply if I said its
preachers equalled them. ]My love for Episcopalian form of
worship is a love in the abstract ; that is, I love the system of
bishops, archbishops, and the like, I like the solemn simplicity

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170

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

of their prayer-book, and I am delighted with the beauty and
aptness of the musical part of the service. But I do not meddle
in the least with Church and State questions, nor do I care for
the party interests of the body ; I attend the Church of England,
because it seems to me to conduct he public worship of God in
the most befitting and devout way. There are doubtless some
wrongheaded men in the body ; probably not a few in so large
a hierarchy ; and I could tell of the amusing ingenuity of a
vicar S. has been telling me of, who went out to shoot snipes in
the snow with his equally white surplice on, so as to escape the
observation of both the feathered and unfeathered bipeds, who
might have made a bad use of their observations. But putting
such cases aside, I am sure I shall convince you that the great
majority of the preachers of the English Church are excellent
men, and I know I can write you freely on this topic.

" I shall forget nobody at home, not even the little (query
little now ?) black cat."

However the head and hands might be filled with plans and
work, the heart had stUl room and to spare. To his sister, the
juvenile chemical assistant of previous days, he writes, — "I
daresay you are now so completely taken up with your studies
(do they deserve that name ?), chattering French with the little
foreigner, or plajdng the piano under the watchful eye, and still

more fastidious ear, of Miss M ; or engaged in the intricate

meshed of a sampler stitch, slipper pattern, or the trying diflfi-
culties of hemming a shirt-border straight ; or some of the other
important duties which wise preceptors require from youthful
disciples, — that you have clean forgotten, in the whirlwind of
cares, that any such a brother as George ever tormented you.
Well, for any good you will get by reflecting on the fooUsh
words and deeds of that brother of yours, you may as well dis-
miss the recollection of his existence ; yet fain would he keep a
place, even in your little heart, which he hopes possesses an
' apartment unfurnished,' and therefore fitted to hold him, his
laboratory, bottles, bluelights, nonsense and aU."

A difficulty was found in obtaining scientific works, the
library of the College being only for consultation, and the store

1838-39.

LABORATORY INCIDENTS.

1 171

of his fellow- workers too small to last any of them long. He
requests, therefore, that his own be sent up, averring that other-
wise he will perish of mental starvation, and when the mete-
physicians hold an inquest on him, they shall find the organ of
the mind shrivelled into nothing. Apparatus, too, he finds ne-
cessary to carry on experiments for his Thesis, which must be
ready before April Apparatus of all kinds being expensive in
London, he requests that the " corners" in the box to be sent
from home be filled with " the best of his bottles." The subject
of his Thesis was ' The Existence of Haloid Salts of the Electro-
Negative Metals in Solution ;' and shortly after this the parlour
of the brothers was amply stored in all available comers with
test-tubes, bottles, spirit-lamps, and solutions, which their little
Welsh landlady was trained and lectm«d into leaving untouched,
whatever amoimt of dust might accimiulate on or around them.
The comparative leisure of the Christmas recess was eagerly
seized to help forward his own researches, besides working with
Dr. Playfair at having some salts crystallized for Professor
Graham, and ready against his return to town. On the day
preceding Christmas day, he was surprised at the unusual con-
dition of the laboratory. " I found it," he says, " in a sad mess,
a furnace knocked down, and a crew of bricklayers at work re-
pairing it, while a couple of blacksmiths set my teeth on edge,
and wounded my musical ear, by filing 'ud hammering at bars
of iron. To add to the confusion, a whole bevy of those water-
nymphs called charwomen, had taken possession of the place,
and had made themselves quite at home, presenting a spectacle
strange to a chemist's eyes, and according ill with the usual ac-
companiments of a laboratory. On a fireplace, sacred hitherto
to crucibles and retorts, and glasses redolent of fuming acids and
most potent but unpotable fluids, stood a cofifee-pot, wherein was
simmering the aromatic infusion which charwomen love. A jug
stood by, to refresh those who preferred the more common beve-
rage of tea, while in a pail, near the water-cistern, were lying
some roundish red bodies, which, after considerable hesitation
and rubbing of my spectacles, tumod out to be — potatoes. Arti-
cles of domestic ccmfort are rarely foimd in such a workshop as
ours, and excited my suspicion that more valuable creature com-

172

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

forts would reward a more diligent search. I was, however,
satisfied with what I saw, and, after listening for a few minutes
to the maledictions of the women against the fumes which filled
the place and made them cough, I turned away and treated my-
self to a walk in the crowded streets of London." Next day,
along with his brother, he attended divine service in Westmin-
ster Abbey, and passed a happy evening with kind friends.

Part of the holidays were spent in writing long letters to the
home circle, which being forwarded by " a private opportimity,"
took a month to reach their destination, much to the annoyance
of the writer. The following alludes to this disappointment : —

" London, February 9, 1839.

" My dear Mother, — These horrible ' opportunities' are so
disappointing, that I have resolved to give you the expense of
a postage, rather than trust to the precarious chances, especially
as I have delayed writing in hopes of getting the books, and if
I wait longer, must keep you in unwelcome suspense regarding
your boys. This non-arrival of the parcel from Edinburgh has
served to keep up the vexation, which your notice of that long-
delayed bundle of letters caused me. I have by no means got
over the disappointment yet. I know I can appeal to you for
sympathy when I say, that we often feel much disappointed
when those little arrangements, by which we hoped to surprise
our friends, fail in their success, or produce an opposite effect.

" I believe women oftener than men, and the best of women
too, busy themselves in such kindly sti-atagems, and suffer the
bitterness of disappointment when all their plots fail or are
disregarded. You will think of your favourite authoress's beau-
tiful, beautiful lines of her most beautiful poem, —

' To make idols, and to find them clay.
And to bewail that worship.'

Now, when Mr. Graham's departure and the Christmas holidays
left me a period of leisure, a breathing time, between the
labours past and the worse labours to come, I turned my willing
thoughts homewards, and remembering that the Christmas week
must pass more quietly there than it had done on most former

1838-39.

LETTEBS OUT OF DATE.

^73

occasions, I thought I might happily and usefully occupy my
time in writing you all Christmas letters. Accordingly, I wrote
under the inspiration of mince-pies and mistletoe, roast goose
and boiled turkey, i.e., I wrote, as 'The Doctor' would say,
Christmatically, and never supposing that I needed, like Charles
Lamb writing a Christmas letter to a friend in China, to make
any allowance for the time that must elapse before my letter
reached its goal, I made the whole virtues of my story turn on
allusions which were out of date and meaningless, if read a
week later than they were written. Think after all this, after
wondering and wondering and wondering that my letters were
not acknowledged, let alone relished, that the first word should
be that my letters were very short (this referred to other and
former letters, as it afterwards came out), and next the staring,
hideous truth, that the epistles had loitered a whole month on
the wr.y, and came lagging in like a cold dish at table, not quite
unpalatable, but, as the cook would say, quite out of season.

" When I write letters to those I love, and having time, and
having the happy mood on me, feel that I have written what
will please them, I am fond of anticipating the effect particular
passages will produce on the readers. Here a smile, I hope,
will be elicited ; there it will go hard, but the smile will be
fostered into a full laugh ; at another place a doubtful shake of
the head may be given, and the whole letter, perhaps, ended by
an exclamation, ' George will always be George !' And then
the re-readings of the choice passages, the spelling over and
over again of special lines, and perhaps the little tit-bits read
out to Jessie, or Jeanie, or Mary, all this had been amusing and
pleasing me in my thoughts about the letters, and then to find
that not merely had not these letters arrived in proper time,
but letters written afterwards, and of no value unless coming
after them, had arrived sooner, and been divested of their own
value, and seemed only to stand in the way of their tardy pre-
decessors. There now, I am sure, when you got my brief note
accompanying the verses to S., you thought my apologies for
brevity very ill-timed, when accompanying the confession and
proof that I had been devoting the time to spinning rhymes for
a lassie instead of writing to my dear mother ; whereas, had you

174

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

got the long letter first, and not anticipated another very soon
after, the brief note and the verses (written during Christmas)
would have borne some value, instead of coming as a mockery
and a disappointment. And we seem destined to as long and
as provoking a delay as you were, for no tidings have reached
us of the books, and how or when we shall get them I don't
know ; but do not say anything about it — it is the stormy wea-
ther and nobody that's to blame. I'll be in the City on Mon-
day, and shall learn about it then, I have no doubt. Meanwhile,
although neither you nor I have read (I have not) the Queen's
Speech, and are not much given to political speculations or
anticipations, I am sure we shall heartily agree that far above
universal suffrage, vote by ballot, negro slaves, or factory chil-
dren bills, is the Post-Office Eeform, which would enable us, at
the come-at-able price of a penny, to write as much sense, non-
sense, or love, as we felt in our hearts wearying to get utter-
ance. . . .

" My love to all I love, and aU who love me. Imp though I
am (a very bottle-imp, as you know, when you think of the
pennies you now save, by lacking the temptation to buy queer
vials for your alchemical son,) — Imp, I say, though I am, I have,
I know, some affectionate and most dearly-loving friends, who
think of me far above my deserts, and forget the cloven hoof ;
and to all these remember me kindly. I am not about to
chronicle their names in rank and file, like the debtors and
creditors in the merchant's day (or some other of his, to me,
mysterious) books, or a Serjeant's list of militia recruits, or an
apothecary's list of his simples ; but I will speak of them as a
chemist, and say, all that answer to the test of thinking, asking,
or wishing well of me, are my friends and beloved of me. . . .
For my own part, I am now very busy ; the class is only every
second day, but ii; includes thirty-four students ; and so large
a practical class involves a great deal of trouble. I work at it
every day from nine till five, and sometimes till six or seven ;
and I have sometimes had to spend my dinner hour in the
Laboratory. All analysis or personal improvement is at an end
— quite at an end. My health and spirits are quite good, but
my daily occupations are uninteresting, and I never get a walk.

1838-39.

OBIOINALITY OF SHAKSFERE.

176

even through the streets of London. It is this makes we wish
my friends to write to me, as I have no materials whence to
devise letters for them. I was lately visited by one of those
yearnings which I think must often visit London-detained
Scotchmen, — an intense fancy for a walk by a babbling brook,
a bright conception of hills and rocks and trees, such as I have
somewhere seen long ago either in day dreams or night visions;
but such thoughts I always have in the spring months, and I
believe I could as little gratify them in Edinburgh as here. . . .
Talking of poor folks, and thinking of the black man, and the
other black man, the sweep,^ I think I can now sjrmpathize with
a sweep's Sunday feelings. One of my prospects of the day is,
that I'll have my hands clean the whole of it. . . . Remember
me to all the poor people, and if you ever long for me, think
how soon you shall see your most affectionate son,

" George."

Extracts from home letters at this time give pleasant glimpses
in various directions.

" You tell me in your last you have been reading Shakspere.
I am delighted to think you are so engaged. You cannot but
feel it to be a most divine work. When James spoke of non-
originality in Shakspere, if he referred to his ideas, his thoughts,
and imagery, he talked great nonsense ; if to the plots of his
plays, he stated a notorious and easily explicable truth. The
plays of Shakspere are not, I believe, in a single case original
in thbir plots, and purposely not. When Shakspere began
writing there were a great many subjects familiar to men as
having been dramatized, certain plots and characters and even
names being as familiar to the play-goers, and as much stock
pieces in their eyes, as ' Little Eed Riding-Hood' or * The Babes
in the Wood' are in the apprehension of the inmates of the
nursery. When Shakspere, therefore, wrote his plays, he pur-
posely took plots familiar to his audience, secunng so far their
favour ; for it must ever be remembered, in thinking of Shak-
spere, that he was himself an actor, and wrote his plays as

' Acquaintances made in the Iniirmaiy during his apprenticeship, and kept on as
pensioners.

176

MEMOIR OF GEOBOE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

pieces to be perfonned on the stage of theatres with which he
was professionally connected. But the genius of the man was
the more seen in thus, as it were, shackling himself. The ori-
ginals of many of Shakspere's plays, such as ' King John,' and
'Romeo and Juliet,' may be compared with his writings on
similar subjects, and such a comparison brings out the great
power of this wondrous man in more marked prominence ;
indeed often the only similarity between his play and preceding
ones is in the names of the dramatis personce ; all the force, truth,
and individuality of each separately drawn character, and aU
the blending of the whole piece into one harmonious whole, are
his, and prove his possession of powers which no other writer
has ever exhibited. No one can read him, and remain for a
moment in doubt as to the originality of his conceptions ; no
one can bo aware of the powers of his own language, and the
high rank of its poetry, who does not read, and read, and read
the wonderful works of Shakspere. The names of Dr. Johnson,
of Cowper, Wilberforce, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Isaac
Taylor, John Foster, Professor Wilson, and many more whose
names are passpoT+<5 f^^r god to what they speak of, will urge
you to go on in your readings. Meanwhile, I'll stop to add
another name, that of your loving son, George."

" London, 21st February.

" My dear Mary, — It shall never be that you and I shall be
left at the sport of the winds and waves, and debarred writing
to and loving each other, because the seas take a fit of wild-
ness, and the waves become impatient of the ceaseless beatings
of the steamboat wheels. Why, I have a project for a steam-
balloon, which I'll finish and put into practice. Would it not
be a glorious thing to leave this dull earth, and, far above its
mists and its vanities, fly straight as the crow to the point we
wished, and when that was reached, descend like a plummet,
with as true an aim as the eagle has when he drops the tortoise
or the doomed oyster on the flinty rock ?

" So manifold are the advantages such a machine wovJd give
for loving intercourse, that now that my steam is up, I could
go on for the whole of this paper, ballooning. But I doubt if

1S38-39.

A CHEMICAL PUN.

177

that would exactly please you ; and I shall be satisfied with in-
dicating a single advantage which such an engine would give
us for assisting our friends to comfortable abodes. You antici-
pate me, I am sure, and are already smiling ; I must, however,
write it. Don't you think, that by raising ourselves among the
clouds, high above every earthly thing, we should find it a most
easy matter to drop each friend into his or her ' niche' as the
baUoon passed over it, just as the old gander opened his webfoot
and let Daniel O'Rourke descend, as he thought, to the ship
below, but in reality to the marine villa of an astonished whale,
who whipped him for his untimely intrusion. You might, per-
haps, sagely ask, if my machine were possessed of a safety-valve,
and if there were no risk of being blown up ; but such a risk is
effectually cared for by the patent wadding-cushions I have
devised for the use of aerial voyagers. Talking of blowing up,
I have lately devised a most excellent pun, which I shall here
record for your amusement, my dear sister, though to record so
foolish a thing, and gravely to find a place for it in this letter,
is very absurd; and moreover, puns, like mineral waters, are
very uncarriageable articles, and being amorphous, cannot be
warranted and marked ' this side upwards,' so as to insure their
going off with proper effect. That's the priming ; here's the
charge : — Last Saturday, Mr. Graham, chancing to be illus-
trating the nature of flame, required one of Sir Humphry Davy's
lamps. I went and asked Mr. Young, the assistant, for one.
He brought me one, adding, ' You had better trim it, and make
it bum well, or you'll get a blowing up.' ' Oh,' said I, after
smiling a few moments, ' I defy him to blow me up as long as I
have a safety lamp.' And while they all laughed and enjoyed
the chemical pun, I advised every assistant to provide himself
with one to ward off explosions."

d give i t
could
mbt if sr

" Fdyrxmry 1839.

"My dear Mother, — Wind, and storm, and bad weather,
and broken rudders, and maimed steamships, have failed in
their cunning conspiracy to keep us from communication with
each other, and I have resolved to celebrate the deliverance
from the plot by writing you a long letter.

178

M£MOIR OF QEOBOE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

t t

" The weather here, which for a while was warm and sunny,
has suddenly repented of its mildness, and made us shiver with
keen, cold, and cutting blasts ; whether because Murphy, the
Almanac maker, had so arranged it ; or because, as I hope, the
warmth and sunniness are being hained for their right time, sum-
mer ; or in consequence of the ladies presuming on a few good
days to doflf their tippets and thick cloaks, and sport lighter,
frailer, and less comforting dresses.

" How oddly ladies' ideas shift as to the part of their dresses
needing decoration. They used (I speak of my remembrances)
to wear lace in the form of veils, then it descended and be-
came flounces to their gowns ; a partial rise took place, and
last year it was dedicated to adorning their mantillas and tip-
pets. This winter, I find, it has climbed to its former heights,
and black fringes of precious old lace are hung along the edges
of bonnets, or thrown around (I know not what it is termed)
the straw built capital — I mean of a lady's bonnet. It will next
be woven into veils and resume >ts ancient place, after the
approved /as/iiow of fashions, which, like endless chains, return
to themselves, or like the fingers of dials, revoh e in appointed
circles, which they never leave. By the by, I saw a very
curious head-dress the other day, which I intended to have
written about to Jeanie, whom I always look upon as destined,
at no far distant day, to take her stand among the arbitresses
of fashion. Subtle and discriminating I know she is, in the
patterns of samplers and foot-stools, and very learned in all the
mysteries and niceties of perplexing stitches. For her, there-
fore, this fact is specially intended ; but having forgot to tell it
her in the letter to herself, I intrust you with its delivery.
Well, not to make a very trifling matter swell into absurd pro-
portions, I was greatly surprised to see last Sabbath day, as I
walked home from church, a bird of Paradise on a lady's
bonnet. I have seen tails and wings, or wic" feathers, of these
glorious creatures glistering in the sun, as they did wueu cloth-
ing living members ; but a whole bird surprised me ; — yet there
it was, the head and beak projecting over the side. When I say
a whole bird, I of course exclude one element of integrity, or
wholeness, in birds, viz., feet ; for you know that birds of Para-

di
n(

1A38-3&.

DELIGHT FROM SPSINO FLOWERS.

179

dise have no feet, and, according to poet' a lying set of men.
never roost ; physiologists, a presumptuous set of men, declare
they have as good pedal extremities as geese or ganders ; mil-
liners, a foolish set of women, evidently support the poets,
and unfeet them. Where, I wonder, do the feetless birds of
paradise roost or slumber? We might send out a balloon
on a voyage of discovery. Till I can blow a soap-bubble
large nough to carry Samuel Brown and me after them, I'll
believe that they slumber among the ruins of the ca^tlea in the
air.

" I was out at Westham last Wednesday, and what do you
think I got irom S. ? A kiss — eh ? Perhaps I did, but I won't
say anything about that. I got from her two snowdrops. I
was quite amazed when she put in my buttonhole two of these
lovely flowers. I'm thinking of making some verses on them,
involving and evolving a new theory of snowdrop births ; but I
don't think it would be quite fair to send them to you till she
has gotten them ; besides, I have got some verses on the stocks
solely and specially for yourself, which, as soon as my hobbling
muse helps me out with them, shall be sent to you. Let me re-
turn, however, to the flowers. I always experience a strange
and delightful exhilaration when I meet with flowers out of
their season ; they catch me by surprise, and ministering to
that efiicient cause of strong and keeu-felt sensations, the
novelty of impressions felt, they awaken all kinds of happy
emotions. I got no good of the flowers somehow last summer.
I made a few new acquaintances among them, and acknow-
ledged the return of old friends ; but as a whole, the season was
so much spent among rottenness and disease on the one hand,
and among fumes and noxious odours on the other, that the
steaming fragrance of the flowers found my nostrils deadened to
their delicacy, and the beauty of their petals was wasted on my
smarting eyes. Do you remember the forget-me-nots I ga-
thered for you among the rocks of Arthur Seat ? That is a
pleasing exception to the flowerless year. Have they all died
away, and sunk into the earth ? Is there any sign of awaking
from sleep ? any signal of their slumbers breaking into a glori-
ous resurrection ? Flowers lead to my telling how glad I was

180

MEMOIR OF GEORQE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

to learn of B — L — 's convalescence. I do not wish to see more
of those I love die, to prove —

" Thftt the go<Ml die first, and they whone hearts
Are dry as summer dust, bum to the socket."

I speak of her in connexion with flowers, because she promised
to share the flowers she got sent her with me, but did not after
all, because, as I suppose, I one day laughingly said I should
watch diligently what flowers she sent me, and consult the
' Language of Flowers,' to see the hidden meaning of each. B —
laughed in return, and said, ' Oh, then, I won't send them.' And
so I lost my flowers.

" One of the latest and most gifted writers on old favourite
Egypt has found (for he travelled in the valley of the Nile) cer-
tain little porcelain bottles, in some of the catacombs or other
strange nooks of that curious country, which have inscribed
on them a legend in Chinese characters. Tliese bottles are sup-
posed to have been brought from China to Egypt, containing
some rare essence, for the material of which they are made is
coarse, and inferior to Egyptian ware. I pass over the curi
ous proof this little discovery gives of the equal ancientness of
these two curious and very similar nations, and of their having
carried on traffic together, when this geological version of the
world was new, probably before all the timbers of the Ark were
rotten. I wish to tell you that since these bottles have been
brought to this country. Dr. Morrison's son, or some other
learned reader of hieroglyhics, has deciphered the words sculp-
tured on the little vases : they tell the following beautiful truth,
' The flower opens, and behold another year!' Is not it a beauti-
ful and truthful prophecy ? I feel some sympathy with that
cold-hearted, shaven-headed, long-tailed, infanticidal race, the
Chinese, for so sweet a legend. The snowdrops I got forcibly
reminded me of it ; for as God, when he creates a bud, creates it
to be first a bud and then a flower, and then a mature fruit (if
I knew the Bible as well as I should do, I should here quote
the passage which tingles in my ears, speaking of first the blade,
then the corn in the ear, etc., you know it), he gives the earnest
and assurance in the first bud or flower of spring that another
year will be ; for as a whole year will be needed to let the buds

IKM-3I>.

ORIGIN OF THE SNOWDROP.

181

pasB through their several stages till they reach perfection, so
we feel, in the heart and in the head, warmly and with realiz-
ing conviction, that another year is given to us by the Giver of
all good.

" I have but time to add that it is quite arranged that I leave
the Laboratory in the latter end of April ; this i° all settled, and
it is all that is settled ; so be sure I'll not in this thing disap-
point. My M.D. degree will oblige me to come home."

We append the verses of which the preceding letter speaks.

" ORIGIN OF THE SNOWDROP.

" No fading flowers in Eden grew.
Nor Autumn's witheriug spread
Among the trees a browner liue,
To show the leaves were dead j
But through the groves and shady dells.
Waving their bright immortal bells,
Were amaranths and asphodels.
Undying in a place that knew
A golden age the whole year through.

" But when the angels' flery brands.

Guarding the eastern gate.
Told of a broken law's commands.

And agonies that came too late ;
With ' longing, lingering' wish to stay,
And many a fond but vain delay
That could not wile her grief away, -
Eve wandered aimless o'er a world
On which the wrath of God was hurled.

" Then came the Spring's capricious smile.
And Summer sunlight warmed the air.
And Autumn's riches served a while

To hide the curse that lingered there ;
Till o'er the once untroubled sky
Quick driven clouds began to fly.
And moaning zephyrs ceased to sigh.
When Winter's storms in fury burst
Upon a world indeed accurst.

" And when at last the driving snow, —
A strange, ill-omened sight, —

Came whitening all the plains below.
To trembling Eve it seemed— aflright

With shivering cold and terror bowed —

182

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

As if each fleecy vapour cloud
Were falling as a snowy shroud,
To form a close enwrapping pall
For Earth's untimeous funeral.

" Then all her faith and gladness fled,
And nothing left but black despair.
Eve madly wished she had been dead.

Or never bom a pilgrim there.
But, as she wept, an angel bent
His way adown the firmament.
And, on a task of mercy sent.
He raised her up, and bade her cheer
Her drooping heart, and banish fear :

" And catching, as he gently spake,

A flake of falling snow.
He breathed on i*, and bade it take

A form and bud and blow ;
And ere the flake had reached the earth,
Eve smiled upon the beauteous birth,
That seemed, amid the general dearth
Of livihg things, a greater prize
Thau all her flowers in Paradise.

" ' Tliis is an earnest, Eve, to thee,'
The glorious angCi said,
' That sun and summer soon shall be ;

And though the leaves seem dead,
Yet once again the smiling Spring,
With wooing winds,, shall swiftly bring
New life to every sleeping thing ;
Until they wake, and make the scene
Look fresh again, and gaily green.'

" Tlie angel's mission being ended,

Up to Heaven he flew ;
But where he first descended.

And where he bade the earth adieu,
A ring of snowdrops formed a posy
Of pallid flowers, whose leaves, unrosy.
Waved like a winged argosy,
Whose climbing masts above the sea.
Spread fluttering sail and streamer free.

" And thus the snowdrop, like the bow
That spans the cloudy sky.
Becomes a symbol whence we know

That blighter days are nigh ;
That circling seasons, in a race
That knows no lagging, lingering pace.
Shall each the other nimbly chase.
Till Time's departing final day
Sweep snowdrops and tlie world awav."

CHAP. IV.

■ t^^'^iij

.' t

I I * ■ ."^ 1

* ' ' V

• it

',•-.'(

■iil ■''

1838-39.

THE FAIR DEMANDS A SONG.

183

A fuller account of the origin of the verses is given to Miss
Abemethy, a lady whose acquaintance he made in the begin-
ning of his student life, through her nephew. Dr. Mven. An
intimacy then sprang up with the family at Willow Grove,
which each later year became more close and tender. Miss
Abemethy was truly a second mother to George, but the affec-
tion on both sides was usually hidden under a guise of fun of
the most exuberant kind, he representing himself — in sportive
reference to the difference of years between him and his ma-
tronly correspondent — as her devoted swain. The repetition of
facts given in previous letters, will, we trust, be pardoned, for
the sake of the new dress in which they appear.

" Thtirsday, Uth Nov. 1839.

" Dearest Jess, — I send you the long promised verses at
last, which you may well before this have, despaired of ever
seeing ; but not even a chemist can refuse when the * fair de-
mands a song.* I have spared my own words by quoting these
from Cowper, but remembering that you are not a reader of that
poet's ' Task,' I foresee a chance of my quotation being misap-
plied. For while I am using ' fair' as an adjective, in referring
to my dearest Jess ! she may be thinking of ' fair' as a substan-
tive (that is, as she told me in Penicuik, the ' name of a person,
place, or thing'), signifying the collection of men, and women,
and beasts, and roly-poly pins, that assembled at the afore-
mentioned town, and so expect me to celebrate the glories of
the Penicuik fair. Truly that fair did demand a song ; but did
it not receive it from the improvising lips of Ehyming Willie,
since dead and become immortal? and was he not rewarded
with a dole of bread and cheese ? which is more, perhaps, than
Rhyming Wil(lie)son may receive for his labours. So that, hav-
ing seen to the rightful application of my quotation, by which
I thought to have saved myself the coining of some delicate
compliment ; and, after all, I have had to dedicate nearly a page
to avoid its recurring as a slander, or implied but unfulfilled
promise on m 7 own head ; I may make a stride forward, to-
wards the blotting and blearing of the great expanse of fair
white paper, which stands waiting for hieroglyphics. If I have

184

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

long delayed sending you these verses, remember that I have
not been, like other of your friends, sailing on the blue Medi-
terranean, or drinking in inspiration from the bright eyes of
noble Greek ladies, or dancing with Barcelona dames ; but had
to gather what spirit of poetry I could from the reading of trea-
tises on Heat or questions in Algebra ; to which were added,
grief and sickness about me, to hinder the muse. So that, when
I came to my rude rhyming anvil, and strove to hammer into
shape the crude ore that lay in my brain, I could never get the
metal raised to the red-heat necessary to its being wrought ; or
my hand refused its cunning, and I threw the tools away. Thus
verse was slowly added to verse in capricious fasliion, the
second last being written first ; and it was not till the pleasure
of writing my essay awoke in me some quickness of thought,
that I could get my ideas rendered into ^liyme.

" As you may be curious to know Avhat led me to take so odd
a subject, I shall very hastily tell you how it happened. One
afternoon, last spring, after a long d.ay's work in the Laboratory,
at London, I set off to a little village in Essex, to pay a visit to
the fair young Quakeress, whose portrait John brought from
London. When I was departing, she brought me two snmv-
drops, the first that had flowered, and placed them in my left
button-hole ; and so we parted. As I had some eight miles to
walk home, — the snowdrops in my bosom, and a speculative
head on my shoulders, — I fell to thinking of the flowers, and
wondering whether all plants are equally old, or may not have
been added in successive tribes, as occasion demanded (see
Lyell's ' Geology') ; and as I pondered, some angel, like the one in
the story, whispered in my ear the ' theory' which I have just
dedicated to you.

- "It has lain in some cobweb corner of my brain ever since ;
only a single verse being framed, which came into my head one
day when walking to church, but remained brotherless, waiting
for some angel like you to make the other unrhymed thoughts
bud and blow, and so take away its loneliness. When I got
home that night, however (it was the 13th February 1839), 1
put the flowers carefully bj' ; and, being somewhat given to
symbol worsliip, I folded them up and laid them among my

1838-39.

BOTTLE IMP AND MYNHEER VAN SCRATCH.

185

papers. There I found them the other day, when turning over
my portfolio. Instead of burning them, I thought I would
keep them, and send them to you. They accordingly accom-
pany this letter. It is not every day that a lady gets not only
a poem, but the veiy thing on which the poem was written.
So far as I learned, poet D. R. did not send to Miss Niven the
'spirit of the old man' that came to him, — wrapped up in
brown paper, or tightly corked in a bottle ! so that there I have
the advantage of him ; and I ask credit for it."

snmv-

got

Daniel notes in evidence of the versatility of taste which kept
the balance straight between work and recreation : " Leisure was
found, in spite of much occupation, for an occasional evening
with the poets; and others of his favourite home relaxations
were singing to the accompaniment of the guitar, in which he
then took lessons ; and writing verses, grave and gay. One or
two of his earlier efforts have already been given ; and a
memorial of the poetical pastimes of this season lies by
me now, in the form of a well-filled MS. volume cf our joint
rhymes, to which he more than once refers in subsequent
letters.

" His favourite nom de plume, Bottle Ircp, was adopted as his
poetical designation ; and on the title-page of the MS. volume,
among the whims of a miscellaneous emblematic pen-and-ink
sketch, is a large glass flask, out of w^hich an imp struggles to
escape, while thrusting forth one hand with a * sonnet,' or other
rhyming product in its grasp. An easel behind supports a pic-
ture partially veiled, on the cover of which is . this title of the
volume and its contents : * Quips, Quirks, Quodlibets, and Quid-
dities, by Bottle Imp and Mynheer van Scratch.' A rhyming
preface, introduction, and errata of quips and quirks follow ;
and it will be seen that after his return to Edinburgh, George
continued to contribute to the joint volume. At a later date,
our cousin James claimed a share in its space, and some beau-
tiful poems of one we had learned to love as a brother preserve
there the few and slight memorials of intellectual gifts of rare
promise, which were quenched in death just as he reached his
twenty-first year :- . ,

186

MEMOIR OF GEOBGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

' When life was in its spring,
And his young muse just waved its joyous wiug.
The spoiler came.'

" Among these youthful productions contributed by our cousin
to the MS. volume is one of considerable length, and rich in
quaint, fanciful imaginings. It is entitled ' The Trance,' and is
* founded on a story told in one of the Fathers, of a monk who
was bewailed as dead, and afterwards awoke in life.

" The volume is illustrated with pen-and-ink sketches, and
one of the lighter effusions of ' Bottle Imp's' quill may be given
here, though the contents of the book embrace grave and earnest
thoughts, as well as quirks and quiddities : —

i^i

MERMAIDS* TEARS.

Pearls are the tears that mermaids weep
When they their midnight vigils keep,
For mermaids sigh, and sorrow too.
And weep, as well as I or you.

Perhaps you've thought, perhaps believed,
That mermaids, wheu their hearts were grieved.
Wept briny tears ; 'tis even true,
'Tis they with salt the waves imbue.

But tears more precious must be shed.
When those whom they have loved are dead.
The mermen of the deep, whose charms
Have wiled the mermaids to their arms.

And nereids catch them in their shells.
And hide them where the sea fish dwells,
Till years revolving tint them o'er
With hues they did not know before.

Then from the depths of Eastern seas,
Wliere dive the swarthy Ceylonese,
The tiny shell-fish, from the rude rock torn.
Through waves unwelcome, to the light is borne.

The unconscious casket of a gem.

Dies to adorn a diadem ;

And tears that trembled in a mennaid's eyes

Become an English lady's prize.

"The advantages of Professor Graham's laboratory did not
altogether realize George's expectations ; but he attained in

1838-39.

SOUL CARRIED OFF BY GOBLINS.

187

other respects some of his most cherished wishes in visiting
London. Among these may be specially noticed his obtaining
an introduction to Faraday, and his at+^nding one of his brief
courses of Lectures at the Koyal Institution. To these I accom-
panied him. The subject was Electricity in some of the aspects
in which it was then receiving his special attention ; and sub-
ject and lecturer alike furnished a rich treat to the young che-
mist. Faraday delighted him in all ways ; a self-made man,
and yet with a manner so modest, and a bearing so kindly to
the eager inquiring youth ; in addition to all which, he was a
link that seemed to connect him with Sir Humphry Davy.
So those lectures on Electricity, in the Albemarle Street Institu-
tion, were a pleasure of the highest kind, and full of profit to
him afterwards in various ways."

During this winter the iUness of his cousin Catherine had
caused much solicitude. For above twelve months, she had
been almost entirely confined to bed, and George's letters abound
in the kindest messages to her. Mary's health was also indiffe-
rent ; and dark clouds hung over the household. On March
26th, he writes : " How very mournfully you are circumstanced
at home ! I shall soon be with you and find myself in the midst
of all the sorrow ; tiU then, I am the occasional sufferer from
sad reflections, but I do not revolve these subjects half so often
as I should do, being engrossed too much about far less profit-
able things. My Thesis has knocked everything else out of my
head. I had a severe fit of sickness after finishing it, which does
not seem to have left my head clear yet." Eeferring to this letter
he says, ten days' later :

" My dear Mother, — I sent you a letter by a fellow-chemist,
who left this for Edinburgh, which I suppose you have got by
this time ; you will have found it a very heavy, stupid pro-
duction, altogether unfitted to excite a pleasing emotion, and
very unlike the sort of letters I generally send you. I suppose
I had been suffering under the reaction which succeeded to the
toss and ferment I had been in for three weeks before, and that
I was paying the penalty of overtasking my powers and work-

188

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

Ill

ing double tides. Wliatever be the explanation, the case was
this, that my soul was earned away by goblins grim, and hurled
with a splash into the Ked Sea, where it was tied to one of the
rotten wheels of Pharaoh's broken chariot, now converted into a
mermaid's bathing coach. There it was left lying, ' deeper than
plummet ever sounded,* many millions of fathoms deeper, for it
was converted into lead, and not having a string attached to it,
it dived to the bottom in a moment of time ; and all the horrid
ugly creatures that are permitted to tomient ill-regulated
minds, learning from the dull air of the mansion (the body)
that the soul was not at home, took up their abode in its de-
serted temple, and indulged in their hideous cantrips, till even
a 'bottle imp' was tired of their presence. It was doubtless
some corner of my mortal parts that had got out of repair, a
lobe of the liver, or a pouch of the stomach, or a fold of the
midriff, which set the faculties that are under their influence
out of balance, ai d tormented me. In these circumstances, an
ounce of Epsom salts will effect more than an aphorism of
Plato. I am now in possession of my soul again, not to the full
as good as before, but still tolerably well ; and so I'll try and
write you a more readable letter than the last was, though the
brevity of time tells me I shall be able to scribble very little.

" I wrote to father yesterday, in reply to a kind letter from
him, saying that I should certainly return at the time I stated.
I must return immediately and study for my passing.

" They must all excuse me not writing, as I shall be so soon
home, that I may much better keep what I have to say till I
come home, than hastily scrawl it from here. I shall moreover
have many things to do before leaving London, and writing
won't at all suit me, in these circumstances. Three or four
days ago the weather was pleasantly warm ; to-day it is freezing
cold, and snow is falling thickly on the paths ; all the pretty
flowers will be killed, and the young buds be nipt by this un-
timely frost. A little squinel, that lies near me, has played
about a short while ; but even his warm fur was too thin to shut
out the cold, and he has crept into his dormitory, and rolled
himself round and round and round till nothing but the tip of
his tail peeps from beneath his bedclothes. How cold and sad

1838-39.

SUMMONED HOME IN HASTE.

189

and dull eveiything seems ; I have had nothing but disappoint-
ments, cruel disappointments, all winter, and you have had
disease and death for your portion.

"Poor B — L — . She was a noble, lovable creature, and
since you first wrote of her illness, I have ever hoped bravely
that she would recover ; but Mary's last letter has extinguished
all hope, and left me nothing but a horrid apprehension of grief
spread through many families, and hearts wounded irrecover-
ably. She is ripe for the kingdom of heaven, and too good for
this world. I shall leai'n to think of her fate in this light, but
I cannot yet. Write soon, and let us know how her ailment
goes on.

" Before I come home to you, I shall run into Kent for two
days, and snatch a look at the old cathedrals.

" You are better, I am very glad to hear, and Mary is better,
and Jeanie and Jessie are well, all which things do greatly
gladden me, and enhance the pleasure with which I contemplate
my return. Meanwhile, I remain, your sincerely attached son,

"George."

Bezmg
pretty
is un-
layed
shut
rolled
tip of
d sad

His departure was unexpectedly hastened by intelligence of
Catherine's death. Though prepared in a measui'e for this sad
news, yet the brothers were taken by surprise ; so great is the
marvellous change from life to death, we can but very rarely
feel otherwise. All plans were cast aside, and George hastily
packed up his books and papers, bade good-bye to the friends
he had made in London, writing a special farewell to the friend
for whom the "Snowdrop" verses were written. Her society
and music had proved a pleasant relaxation from study, and he
begged her acceptance of his favourite guitar, never again re-
suming that instrument. Hastening to Edinburgh by way of
Livei-pool, he reached it in time to bear a part in the last sad
rites with wliich his cousin's remains were committed to the
dust, in that hallowed spot, where now he and two others of the
group of mourners present on that April day are laid to rest.

The first letter to Daniel after leaving him, tells us of his
journey and home-coming.

190

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

" I shall never succeed in telling you all I wish to do, even
though a huge folio of paper lies before me. But I shall run the
best chance of interesting you by beginning at the beginning.

" A right famous and rapid bowl we had along the railway,
in most comfortable carriages. You remember, I daresay, the
young Irishwoman intrusted to my care by her weeping mother.
Poor thing, a first child, and it only five months old, so dis-
tressed her with maternal fears, that I strove to alleviate her
unnecessary alarm, and soon succeeded by a few little atten-
tions, such as holding Fanny's bonnet, and getting its mamma
a drink of porter, halfway ; but above all, by devising an
arrangement of my handkerchief so as to shade the baby's eyes
from the carriage lamp, I won for myself all of her heart she
could spare from her baby and its father, — that quantity, how-
ever, not being measurable even by our chemical scales. It
would have pleased you — i did me — to see the warm-hearted
young mother gaze on the little baby's face, and then kiss its
cheek, to gaze again, and try, as I imagined, to trace its father's
lineaments in its tiny features. This was my notion. I don't

know what Mrs. G would say to it. I did not rest till I

saw her fairly accommodated in an inn, and then with a thou -
sand thanks, I reached the boat destined for me.

" I may pass over the weary town of Liverpool, a most dull,
stupid pluoe, and the voyage to Glasgow, which was enlivened
by a sight at once (like many scenes in real life) sad and mirth-
ful, of an Ayrshire carpet- weaver, who, having been drinking,
went through the whole phases of intoxication in so charac-
teristic a way, that I shut the book I was reading (Campbell's
' Life of Siddons'), and sat watching the real actor with a feeling
of amazement, and I must say pleasure, which does my heart
no credit ; but it proved Shakspere's characters to be so truly
drawn, that I think I did right to read the lesson which a
foolish fellow-mortal afforded me. I got into Glasgow about
six o'clock on Wednesday evening, and received, as usual, a
most kind hearty welcome.

" Catherine was little altered ; a little more emaciated than
when I left her, but serene and beautiful. I thought her veiy
like her mother, as I remember her. I kissed the cold, blue

1S38-39.

THE CASTAWAY.

101

lips, and wished I had but been in time to have bidden her
farewell. Every cause of sorrow that embittered her life seems
to have been lessened, as she prepared for death, and the kindly,
affectionate feelings she had for all of us were in full force. . . .
I remember the thousand kindnesses she showed me, from her
earliest days ; the generous presents which afforded a thought-
less schoolboy the means of gratifying many an eager desire,
and the manifold unnameable favours f.^ely rendered to an
often ungracious recipient. The dead are hallowed. To think
of them as they lived, is, with me, to think only of their love
and their noble qualities ; if the image of faults comes back
with their memory to me, it so swiftly reminds me of my un-
kindnesses to them, that I dare not, even if I would, think
evilly of them. Catherine suffered little before her death ; she
retained her intellect unimpaired to the last, and with most
steadfast declarations of firm hope in Christ, increasing as death
drew near, she sighed away her spirit, and went to be with
God. James was desolate and woebegone, but by timely con-
versation I have won him to a brighter mood, and he daily
gi'ows more cheerful."

A visit paid within the next fortnight to the Exhibition
of Paintings by Living Artists, which each spring enlivens the
citizens of Edinburgh, gives rise to impressions communicated
in a letter to Daniel, which cannot fail to be read with interest
by many : —

" Harvey's picture, ' The Castaway,' is to be engraved. It is
a fine picture. I am eveiy day more and more convinced how
little judgment, and taste, and knowledge I have about pictures.
I only care for what touches my feelings, I am quite dead,
from mental dulness, to the dexterities and resources of the art.
But this picture influenced me as the ' Titian' in the Louvre did
Haydon. I looked over my shoulder, and past Mary's arm, and
through the doorway, till my eye fixed on the solitary figure of
the helpless sailor, huddled up on some broken spars, arranging
his position so as to elevate a fluttering rag as a signal, while
his curved hand shaded his eye from the lurid glare of a sun
setting in blood. A lean, famished dog standing shivering en

102

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

the brink of the unstable raft is his only companion ; and this
simplicity in the elements of effect is one great chann of the
picture. The newspapers, and a host of fools here, have found
that the man is a ruffian by his look, because, like me, he forgot
in parting from homo to take his razor with him. But this is
all nonsense ; and if it were truth, it would not alter the value
of the picture, for the instinct of life is probably doubly strong
in ruffians, who have no hope beyond the ^'rave. Anyhow, the
intense eager look ho casts towards the unbroken horizon, fills
up my conception of such a scene. The sea is that waveless,
silent abyss, which Coleridge's ' Ancient Mariner' was becalmed
in. I should not wonder though Harvey had been taking a
spell at that glorious poem. They say he painted it in ten days.
Such happy thoughts are not bom every day.

" I have much, too, to say in favour of David Scott, a great

favourite of mine. He has a picture of ' The Alchemist,'

representing Paracelsus among his pupils. It is a speaking

picture : in the students' faces are shown all the moods, from

utter carelessness to intense attention, which may be seen in

the hall of any College, only they are exalted, and made

delicately characteristic by the touches of genius. Two happy,

dark-haired Italians lean listlessly over their lutes, telling by

their looks that they have found in love and mirth an elixir of

life which could not be surpassed by the alchemist's art. A

sceptical Englishman near them looks incredulously on a mystic

vial which his friend declares to be a portion of the autnim

potahile, the all-powerful liquid which was to make ns immortal.

There are few now a- days who would drink that draught could

they have the refusal. I am sure I should not on any terms ;

but I think I might press a teaspoonful on some of my dear

friends to call them back from the precincts of the grave, that I

might have again those who make life worth possessing. Well.

of the picture. It is absurd to tiy describing the picture ; but

I am so haunted by the remembrance of the earnest, impassioned

air of a young enthusiast, who records on his tablets every wild

word of his master : the peiplexed look of a gi-ave old knight

who has lost the alchemist in his extravaganza, and is catching

the sound of a single familiar word here and there, but at such

1S3S--39.

PARACELSUS AND HIS PUPILS.

193

erms ;
y dear
that I
Well.

; but
sioned
f wild
cnight
telling

such

long intervals that ho kr..';v8 not what the teacher would be
after ; the shrewd air of a wily monk, who has eyes and ears
only for the exaggeration and positive 'ceit which he sees the
adept is mingling up with some real and more fancied truth ;
lastly, there is introduced, with excellent effect, a fool, the jester
of some court, who has wandered witlessly in, and sits on the
bench in his motley coat, with glaring, wondering, meaningless
stare, baffled in all his attempts to understand what is going on
in his presence. I have forgotten all about some dames of high
blood and great learning who crowd the porch, except that they
are as ugly as bluestockings are privileged to be. The colouring
of this picture is, like Scott's former ones, unpleasant, but that
is forgotten in the boldness and effectiveness of the execution.
Allan's 'Slave Market' I utterly disliked. It is a cold, stiff
thing, painted so smoothly and softly that it makes it quite im-
possible to forget that it is a picture. You cannot be startled
into forgetfulness of its being a fiction for a moment ; there is
no starting of the figures out of the canvas ; no depth of shadow
to give a bold effect. It seemed to me a merely pictorial inven-
tory of the wardrobe of Mr. Allan, P.RS.A., daintily displayed
on good-looking men and women, but as for exciting the emotions
there is nothing to sympathize with. Tlie Exhibition is, as a
whole, very, very poor. The committee of the old Association
are accused of senseless conduct auout the pictures ; of this I
don't know, but these are aU the ideas I got from the Exhibition.
I would pay a shilling any day to get as many new ideas, and I
am contented. But on former occasions I have got a better
shilling's worth out of them."

A supplement to his Theais was the first work that occupied
George on his return home, followed afterwards by study for his
last examination for the degree of M.D. Early in May, he teDs
his brother, " I am zealously prosecuting my professional hopes ;
and, weighing domestic and professional hopes together, I shall
have no reason to regret that I came back here. This is the
place for me, Daniel. The advantages for studying are very
gi'cat, and I am getting acquainted among the enthusiasts in
science here, whom I too much neglected. I shall look among

104

MEMOIR OF OEOAOK WILSOK.

CHAP. IV.

my peerti now for welcomo and assistance ; and trusting to
enthusiasm and perseverance, I do hope for a name and a fame
among them, worthy of myself, and of us all." A pen-and-ink
portrait of George, taken by an artist friend, accompanies this
letter, of which he says : " How like you the enclosed likeness
of your loving and loved brother ? I shall here tran-
scribe for your quiddity book, if they are worthy of it, some
lines I wrote on Sunday to a Polyanthus, which mother loved,

" How tlie rich cupg of that «o lovely flower

Lift to the heavetiH their purple vchet leaves,
That every i)etol freshened by tiie shower

Wiiich falls in dewdrops, from its slonting eaves,
May foel the warm sap through its vessels run,
In glad obedience to the glowing sun !

" Each fragrant chalice breathes upon the air

A scent more sweet than censer ever flung
In clouds of incense, blinding all the glare

Of garish candles, when the moss was sung :
' The long-drawn aisle,' and the cathedral's gloum.
Ne'er felt the richness of such rare perfume.

" With forms more graceful, and with vestments clad.

Such as the haughty prelate never wore,
They give to God an adoration glad.

That well might teach us all our souls to pour
In high-souled, earnest, heaven-uplifted prayer.
To Him who doth for all his children care.

" We are all pretty well. Mai-y not so well as she was ; but
some cold east winds having blown by, I look for her soon being
better again. Write to mother soon. She tells me I am not
improved by my visit to London, which of course means, I am
worse. Don't you earn this character."

The next letter to Daniel gives a choice specimen of the fun
ever ready to brim over on the slightest occasion. The British
Association met that year in Birmingham, and the possibility of
attending its meetings is alluded to.

" Is not this letter- writing a poor, lean, meagre apology for
talking and laughing, and looking happy and looking sour, and
being merry, and being peiTerse, and sitting side by side, and
drinking and smoking, and seemg each other's faces, and watching
eyebrows going up, and eyes sparkling, and brows knitting, and

1838-3(.

TROUBLES OF A LETTER WRITER

198

lips pursing and pouting, and lines moving from corner to comer
of your friend's face ? And what aid Icndcth the sketch of my
vizTwmy in helping you to realize my April-day countenance,
and fill up the blanks of my written talk to you, by thinking of
the look which tells the sentence before the words come, and,
might teach us to keep our lips closed, and be content to make.
faces at each other? A young fellow whom I met at Willow
Grove the other evening, asked if I were not the brother of ouq
who had gone to London. He had met you somewhere, and has

dilated at great length on the ' exceeding amiability of ! 1

Hang amiability I I get daily more afraid of what would be
better christened ' selfish indolence.* I think better of perverse-
ness, and eschew the friendship of every one who does not, at
times, take indulgence in pride, or satire, or some othei' mis-
named vice of wicked human nature. I will become a Free
Mason, or learn the Egyptian hieroglyphics. I will invent a
system of symbols, and chalk down eyes and noses, and lips
and brows, and tell my tale by some other way than blots and
blurs, and stops and eonunas, and scrawly sentences. It is no
use writing you news ; every fact is twisted and set awry before
it reaches you. Our epistles always set off at the same time,
and, like the fleets of Bonaparte and Nelson, which crossed each
other in the dark seas some half dozen times and did not know
it, come athwart each other, and pass on to spread false intel-
ligence among us. A great pile of unansAvered questions weigh
down my faculties, and would rub the nib off my pen if I tried
to reply to them. Think not that you know anything about us
here. Publish nothing that reaches you. Be very wary of
reflecting on the ideas you gather from my letters. The very
moment after I send a letter to you, something arises to alter
the truth of what I have written ; and the next morning a letter
comes from yourself, which by half anticipating, yet in a different
way, what I had been writing about to you, tumbles me down
from the height of satisfaction, where I had been regaling myself
with the idea that I had cleared scores with Daniel. And yet
the crossing of letters (not ladies' crossing, which I love not)
sometimes effects good, as in the present case ; foi, when I wrote
the last letter, I had abandoned the idea of going to Birmingham,

196

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CILVP. IV.

But your most kind, welcome, very delightful letter urging it on
me, and reminding me of what, in the ungeographical cast of
my brain, I had absolutely forgotten — the nearness of Birming-
ham to London, has set me a thinking again on the matter, and
I think I shall be able to accomplish it. Although my plans
are still green and immature, I write that the damping of your
thoughts on seeing me, which my last letter may have occasioned,
may be effaced by the shadow at least of a hope. I shall not
stay long in Birmingham ; probably come away before the end
of the time. Samuel Brown will go up with me (if I go ; if I
don't, he says, he will not either), and he'll go on to London too ;
so that, if things work well, we'll give yon enough of our poor
presence.

" If I had been brought up at the desk in the ' Dr. -Sir' one-
page school of correspondence, I would stop here, having written
what I took up the paper to tell you about ; but, if you oblige
me to write letters to you, you must read all I write you. And
having discoursed largely on rational matters, like an oracle, I
must now have a little room allowed me for some antic gambols.
I have had a huge share of misfortunes lately, all of which have
concerned my upper works. They have been capital occurrences ;
and have come nigh imto affecting of my brain. I am still,
however, lucid, and take the opportunity to record them for your
benefit. I think I forgot, some long while ago, to tell you that,
when I one evening, ' high as heaven exulting,' clomb Arthur
Seat, a breeze, an envious puff, whirled my good hat ' sheer o'er
the crystal battlement' of the lofty pinnacle. I rushed in
desperation after it, but the hat, having taken a side chase
before it descended (?), was whisked out of sight before I could
follow in hot pursuit. I galloped down to the Himters' Bog at
break-neck speed, but all to no avail (liere I want a line liom
Gray's Elegy, written in anticipation of this event, to the effect,
' Nor on the hill nor in the hog was he) ; no hat could I see, and
no hat did I find. I strongly fancy that it ascended, and was
borne aloft by some ' cross wind' to the limbo of vanity, whicli,
RS according to Milton it contains monks' cowls, could never
reidse a place to a good twenty shillings' stuff hat, not much the
worpe of wear. If it was refused admittance there, I incline to

1838-3!).

ADVENTURES OF A IlAT.

197

tlie idea that it went up among the stars, and forms a new con-
stellation. It would probably settle upon the locks of Berenice,
whose tresses have too long ' wantoned in the wind' not to feel
glad of such a covering. You remember who taught us about
' Coma Berenices.' I'll speak to the Astronomer-Eoyal when
I'm in London, and set him to point his telescope in that d^-^ec-
tion. It would quite suit Sir James South for a new letter in
the Times. Well, I got a new hat, and thought to treat it
handsomely ; but one day, in Princes Street, it took advantage
of a favouring gale to bounce off my head, and after rattling
along, to the grea!" delight of the lookers-on, for nearly a division,
was captured, with a compound fracture of the upper edge. A
cap doctor (not a capped one), by means of a ligature, healed the
breach ; but, as I can assure you, it was never the same since.
This injury to its upper storey deranged its intellects ; and the
consequence, the fearful consequence was, that when I was
seduced by John Mven into entering a bathing coach, two days
ago, my hat took advantage of my head not being in it to rush
with insane energy into the waters. Nor was this enough, for
not content with suicide, it strove to commit murder by dragging
in with it my inoffensive gloves. After being two or three times
overwhelmed among the waves, and battered on the steps of the
machine, it was dragged out, carefully wiped, and being planted
on my head (which it kept cool) it dried as I walked up, —
doubtless to the gi'eat delight of the passers-by. John Niven's
hat, actuated by a generous impulse, bolted in after it, but it
suffered little, having been quickly rescued by its vigilant
master. I must have a gossamer at three-and-ninepence."

The next letter says, " I have offered myself as a lecturer for
the Philosophical Institution here ; but I fear all chances are
gone there. They propose to let the Association lie dormant
for a couple of years, and give the folks time to digest what
they have learned. In truth, last winter did not get on swim-
mingly, owing to the absence of popular speakers, and they do
not wish to try it again. However, I was told by the Secretary
and Treasurer that if I gave them in a syllabus of my proposed
course, they should give it every attention ; this I shall do.
Failing this, I shall lecture somewhere else, write papers, teach

198

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

chemistry even in a boarding-school ; anything, so as I am kept
among the retorts and crucibles. Whatever happens I shall not
regret London and its advantages.

" Meanwhile, I have almost finished a supplement, as long as
my essay, from which I hope for credit, as it is thought highly
of among the good people here. If I write any more I must
give over telling truths and take to lies, such as that pussy
(whom I would have called Miss Hamlet, had she not inten-
tions of early marriage), i.e., Lady Othello, sends her love to
Bob, not Bob H., but Bob Grimalkin; and I, imitating her
Christian example, send kindest love to you and to all friends."

On May 24th a postscript to a letter is as follows : —

"The examinators at Physicians' Hall have rejected one of

the presidents of the Medical Society, and a great star among

the students to boot. This frightens us all, and will -explain

my hasty, horrible scrawling. Samuel Brown has passed his

first examination. Poor 15 is no better.

" As you have so much labour on your hands, I shall tell you
a little incident I learned the other day. I have overdrawn my
bank in the article of sense, and so I add a piece of real non-
sense. You must know by name a certain medico, Dr. ,

who gives people certificates although they do not attend him,
and lives in a very sorry fashion, being in truth a misbegotten,
ill-conditioned, crack-brained knave. Well, the other day, he,
as is his wont, marched out at the head of a crew of raffs, bent
on the capture or destruction of weeds and wildflowers. Having
gained the wood of Colinton, they sat down on a bank to
examine a flower, and while the doctor was explaining the
envelopes of the plant, and descanting on them, one of his sa -
tellites, more curious about the Doctor's own outward covering,
saw with some surprise his preceptor's coat buttoned close to
his chin, and his bare wrists sticking out at his cuffs. ' Doctor,'
quoth the pupil, ' where's your shirt V ' Tout, tout,' was the
reply, 'just where it should be' (by which I suppose the Doctor
meant, hanging over the back of a chair at his garret fire ;
although, as you will see from the nature of the case, the State
Paper Office, which holds so many documents valuable to prove

1838-39.

EXCELLENT TALES.

199

or disprove anything, might be searched in vain for those im-
portant records, yclept in law phrase ' washerwomen's biUs,' to
au'^henticate this idea). The question was repeated, and the
reply ; and at last the youthful philosophers, determined to
have ocular demonstration, stripped the Doctor, and behold,
like the happy Irishman in Sultan Serendib's fcale, he had no
shirt at all! To prevent any bad consequences from the
exposure, the Doctor was immediately taken to the nearest
public-house, soaked outside and in with whisky, and sent
home preserved in spirits."

" June 22, 1839.

" As my last letter was steeped to the brim, and overflowing
with egotism, my present one shall treat of other folks, and
their passing prospects. . . .

" I urged John Niveu, as soon as he came home, to go up for
his examination. He arrived last Saturday, adventured passing
on Wednesday, and is now half an M.D. I don't know whether
I mentioned that David Williamson passed the day before
me [the first examination for M.D.] Anyhow, we three callow
doctor chicks, as you rightly christen us, had a grand chir-
ruping together last night at having broken our shells. I was
purveyor of croivdie.

" I have learned a most excellent tale, illustrating the strange
fancies which monomaniacs take, which I think will at least
amuse you. A young medico was calling the other day on an
old dame in the west end of Princes Street, and found her sitting
at tea, the tea-cups being placed on the table without an inter-
vening tray. 'You'll be surprised, sir,' says she, 'to see me
without a tray ; but you see. Dr. So-and-So took me once up to
a tinsmith in the Lawnmarket, and japanned all my arms, and
since that time I canna bide a tray.' Some conversation fol-
lowed this announcement, and the old lady volunteered the ac-
count of the beginning of her monomania.

" ' You see, sir,' says she, ' my only sister that I liked weel,
died, and I was sitting at the fireside, thinking on my sister,
honest woman, that was lying dead in her coffin on the bed
beside me. And I heard, all of a sudden, an unco noise in the

200

MEMOIR OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

bed, and when I looked, sir, my sister (that was dead and gane)
was sitting up in her coffin looking about her. Aweel, *Bir, she
got out o' her coffin, and cam ower the bedside, and went to the
tapmost lang drawer, and took out a cambric pocket napkin,
and wiped her nose, and then she went and put it in the bag for
the dirty claes that hung upon a nail in a corner. And after
that, sir, she climbed into the bed, and got into her coffin, and
straighted hersel' in it, and pu'd the lid ower her, and laid down
quietly. Weel, you see, I was in an unco fright, and I ran and
got the imdertaker, tell't him what had happened, and asked
him what was to be done. And he says to me, " We'll no let
her rise up for (hat again ; " so he asked me for a white cambric
pocket napkin, and he pit it in the coffin and nailed down the
lid. Weel, Sir, when I was sitting next night at the fireside;
didn't I hear my sister that was dead (honest woman), hlawing
her nose in the coffin ! ' That is the most extraordinary story I
have heard for this long time, and long and loud I laughed
when I heard it. It is gravely related and believed by the old
woman, whose mind was probably overthrown by the death of
a beloved sister.

"For myself (for I must have a little egotism), the Philoso-
phical Association gives no lectures of any kind next winter, so
my offer could not be accepted. I have promised, in the mean-
while, to assist 3kae in the chemical part of his Medical Juris
prudence Lectures, and Jameson, I hear, wants an assistant for
his journal."

The much dreaded ordeal in anticipation being safely passed,
George announces the fact, with particulars, to several members
of the family absent from home : —

" My dear Daniel, — I shall never more, rightly or wrongly,
divide with you the title of Mr., for I am nmv a physician (three
cheers and a hurrah !) having passed the dreaded inquisition
yesterday, so that I am not twenty-four hours old at the time T
write you. I did not intend or expect to go up to Physicians'
Hall for two weeks yet, and had made almost no preparation,
having been writing my Tliesis, and writing letters and makiiifj

1838-39.

EXAMINATION FOR M.D.

201

out abstracts for Samuel Brown, and procrastinating in the ex-
pectation of getting John Niven's assistance. Now I can offer
assistance to him, and help him in his difficulties. It was a
much more simple thing than I expected, and it had need to
have been, for I only studied a week for it, but that was a very
hard week's work. I began Thursday before last in the after-
noon, and worked on that day and every succeeding one up to
yesterday, thirteen hours a day, beginning at nine o'clock, and
getting to bed at one o'clock a.m. I contrived to go twice
through a huge octavo of 600 pages, of ' Practice of Physic,'
another of 700, besides smaller books innumerable. On the
Sunday, I went through the morning service of the Prayer Book
at home, and then took to the Surgery, which I nearly finished
that night.

" The only one of the examinators who bothered me much
was Hamilton ; but he smiled, told stories, and answered his
own questions, and declared himself quite satisfied, the which
I did not contradict, although, when the examination was over,
I apologized for having answered so ill, as I had been working
at chemistry all winter. He would not, however, hear me ; said
I had ari^wered quite well ; so that I must fain lay that unction
to my wounded pride, which does not, however, suffer much on
this subject. I was more fortunate with Home, who took me
on the very subject I had made a particular revision of on the
morning of the examination, viz., measles, smallpox, scarlet
fever, and the like, in which I perfectly succeeded in satisfying
the gentleman, as far as his deafness would allow him ; there
are worse faults than that last in an examinator ; and when he
asked me some inconvenient questions about skin diseases, I
led him away to a more familiar subject. Dr. Trrfill ques-
tioned me regarding the differences between the appearances
when men are hanged by the neck till dead, and when they
are strangled on the ground by a rope twisted round their
throats — in short, on the philosophy of burking ; I amply satis-
fied him on all these pleasing topics, and was sent from 1 ni
with high commendations. Dr. Christison let me very easily
off, with a few words about creosote and prussic acid. Sir
Charles Bell, a most gentlemanly, kind examinator, gave me a

202

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. rv.

few questions regarding the diseases for which legs are cut off.
And here am I waiting only for the mystic touch of the medi-
cating cap to stand forth to the world — a physician ! What the
exact etiquette as to the assumption of the title before capping
is, I don't know, but as I have paid the fees, I make no scruple
of fully doctorating myself Tell any ladies who are about to
write me, that any epistles addressed Mr. Geo. Wilson, will be
sent elsewhere."

" My dear Sister Mary, — When I last wrote you, I told you
I was a physician grub, a caterpillar eating of the coarse food
which suits the palate of an imperfect animal. I am now a
winged butterfly, that is, a passed physician ! (Three cheers
and a hurrah !)

"Yesterday, between the hours of one and three o'clock, I
underwent the transformation, and emerged from my chrysalis
state, leaving my case {i.e., £21) behind me, and soared aloft
(that is, walked, I did not very well know how) into the blue
empyrean {i.e., along the pavement leading from the College to
Gayfield Square), in a mood of mind which only those who
have tasted of the horrors of an eternal caterpillarity {i.e., of
being a sticked doctor) hovering before them, can appreciate.
But I will close my wings, as yet unsoiled and unfeathered, and
come down to the earth, that is to say, I will remember that
* this is my right hand, and that is my left,' that I am sitting in
an arm-chair, writing my dearly beloved sister Mary, who is
recovering her health among the breezes that float over the
rugged Ochils.

" Well, then, in calm and sober seriousness, I am now an
M.D., with bright and beautiful visions of gold-headed canes
held out to my grasp ; of long, tapering fingers, put past muslin
curtains, that the doctor may feel the fair invalid's pulse ; of
tendered guineas, and received bank notes, besides honours
showered on my laurelled head ; and a tale of names added to
my Christian cognomen, sufficiently long to draw a saint from
heaven, if he got entangled among the A's, and B's, and Q's,
and S.S.S.

" I am ovei-flowing with the milk of human kindness to every

CHAP. TV.

1838-39.

A PHYSICIAN GRUB.

203

re cut off.
the medi-
What the
B capping
lO scruple
about to
1, will be

'. told you
•arse food
m now a
36 cheers

o'clock, I

chrysalis

.red aloft

the blue

ollege to

lose who

y {i.e., of

)preciate.

Bred, and

iber that

litting in

, who is

3ver the

now an
;d canes

muslin
ilsb ; of

lonours
idded to
nt from
and Q's,

to every

one, and prodigal of good words and benefits to all around me.
I am in an ocean of self-contentment, swayed about by every
changing impulse ; I am a fettered slave with my limbs set free,
and my ears undoomed to listen to the music of my chains. In
short, though the ' world is all before me where to choose,' and
I am rudderless, compassless, unprovided with ammunition, and
about to taste of ' the fever, and the strife here, where men sit
and hear each other groan,' I am as light-hearted and as gay as
if ' heaven had opened on my view,' and I had left ' earth and
its dull cares behind me.'

" Like the thirsty convalescent from a malignant distemper,
who declared, as he drank his invigorating wine draught, that
the gods knew not what nectar was, for they never had the
' yellow fever,' so I say, that you must try the tortures of a
medico's fortnight before his examination, before you can revel,
like a summer fly, in the feeling of perfect liberty.

" By working devouringly in gulps at my cabbage leaves, I
managed to go over a great deal ; and though I very nearly
knocked myself up with this sort of work, now that it is over
I am perfectly well satisfied, glad that I have the power to work
double tides when there is a need for it."

From his cousin James, the following congratulatory letter
was received : —

"Glasgow, 6<A /M^y 1839.

" My DEAR George, — I received the news of your distinc-
tion with very great pleasure, which was the more enhanced as
it relieved me of certain doubts and fears I had begun to en-
tertain about your success, for Miss Mackay had not heard of
it, and you know I did not hear from home for a long while.
I expected you would have let us know, and the only event of
sufficient importance to have prevented you from doing so,
that occurred to me, was that perhaps, by your close applica-
tion, you had so etherealized yourself, that you had evanished
through your window in a flash of genius, and were perhaps at
the moment, when my cogitations were employed about you,
twinkling on the tail of the Great Bear. I was debating with
myself whether to put it beyond doubt, by a personal examina-

204

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

tion of the heavens, when aunt's letter aifived, and certified me
that you had at last been put in possession of the great object
of your ambition. And what was that ? Two letters of the
alphabet ! Nor would this reward which you proposed to your-
self have been so contemptible, if those said letters had been
out-of-the-way ones, an a and a Q, two q's, etc., but as for an
M and a d, two of the most commonplace members of the A B c,
— to think that they should have been so desired, I should say
you were the victim of monomania, though I could scarcely de-
signate by the term monomania what is equalled in its melan-
choly nature only by its universality. But when we pass from
the mere letters to what they may imply, how much truth do
we find contained in them ! Passing over the common explica-
tion. Doctor of Medicine, we have firstly (synonymous with it),
Man of Decoctions ; secondly. Dedicated to Manslaughter, De-
liverer of Many, Deluder of More, Death of Most, and lastly a
more agreeable truth, that being a Doctor you are Marriageable.
These, especially those preceding the last, I would present to
your attention, hoping that the consciousness of what is thus
implied in the Degree you have obtained may, like oil upon the
waters, perve to moderate the feelings of your joy, and ever, like
the aforesaid oil, remain uppermost in your mind. You will
now be able, nay, in a manner be compelled to take to other
and more congenial studies, for the moment you are struck with
the black cap, it is sigiiified that this is the last step you can
mount in this department of the Temple of Fame; and the
.buffet is a gentle hint to move off to some other staircase, where
your progress is unimpeded by any such restrictions.

" Wishing you all possible joy of your pair of letters, I re-
main your affectionate cousin, J. E."

To which George sends in reply an epist ^ " hazy, because his
tobacco is all done," 'n which he dilates on the troubles of the
intermediate state between passing the last examination and
obtaining the title of doctor. Of smoking he was very fond,
and only abandoned its pleasures when compelled by his broken
health so to do. It was no uncommon thing to find the room
in which he and a friend or two were assembled so densely filled

1838-39.

INTERMEDIATE STATE.

205

with smoke, that only the sound of merry voices and shouts of
laughter showed that it was inhabited.

" I am now, as you know, in my chrysalis state ; while you
were here I was a caterpillar, feeding on the docken leaves and
nettle stalks of physic and surgery ; and now I am in the
transition state betA'een the obscure worm and the brilliant
butterfly. I am, as it were, nobody. I doubt momently of
my identity, and hold conversations between myself and my
non-self ; my Master-ship and my Doctor-ship. Doctor I am
not yet, for the mystic medicating cap has not yet physicianed
me. Mr. I am not, for I have paid out the goodly gold, and
run the gaimtlet of the searching queries demanded at the hands
of aspirants by the doctor-makers. I am neither fish nor fowl,
but some strange hybrid, a human bat (vampire is no bad came
after all for a blood-sucking medico) a two-legged ornithoryn-
chus, a terrestrial merman, a griffin, a centaur, a hippogriff, or
some other ' half-made-up ' piece of vitality, disclaimed by per-
fect creatures of all kinds, and only allowed to hover about the
confines, the neutral ground, which belongs to none or to all.
I can get on at home tolerably well, for they call me George ;
but I fear to answer the calls of Mr. or Dr. Wilson, and those
who address me seem equally perplexed, — they beckon me with
Dr., and when I approach I am saluted as Mr. I am a species
of chameleon ; I change visibly before those who gaze on me.
It is an awful state to be in. I have been combating my
existential non-existence with every weapon in my power. I
have had my card engraved Dr. G. Wilson, and I gaze on it
betimes, when the ignorance of who I am comes over me ; the
servant is instructed to cry Doctor to me, whenever she sees me
musing ; and this last recipe I feel the most effectual of the
whole. For a few days after I was changed, I thought I was
fully fledged, and fluttered away, thinking I was flying ; but I
was soon brought to my senses, and crammed into my chrysalis
case again. I daily become graver and graver. I see myself
equipped in professional black, gliding about on noiseless tip-
toe, bland and courteous, smiling and hoping and fearing, like
the most ancient doctor of them all. I have got a silver- headed

206

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV.

cane by way of preparing myself gradually for the solemn grasp
of the gold-headed wand, and I find it very useful On the
first of August, chosen doubtless because the slaves were set
free then, I shall be liberated from bondage, and along with
some hundred more fledglings, for ever resign the dubious title
of medical student, for the dignified one of doctor."

To a young sister he says —

" You will have by this time sufficiently gone over the novel-
ties of Paisley, to feel anxious to hear from home, and as I
faithfully promised, I am here faithfully fulfilling my promise
of writing you. You tell in your very welcome letter that you
dig assiduously in the garden : well, Jessie, dig diligently, you
may chance to alight on some hidden treasure, some ancient
clay vase full of gold coins, and ancient utensils, and moulder-
ing bones, such as we saw in the Antiquarian Museum. Or
you may only disinherit a mole of his paternal estate, and oblige
him to emigrate to some Australia, some less crowded and
more genial country ; or you may interrupt a pleasant party of
earthworms, invited to feast on a cabbage stock or a turnip
root ; or break in on the festivities of a nation of ants, cele-
brating the birthday of their patriarch, whose name will pro-
bably be Antipater (you see I write you as a learned lady).
Anyhow, by digging, you will find a treasure, which will be of
more value to yourself, and be more highly thought of by all of
us, than if you stumbled on the seal of old King Solomon which
would give you power over all the genii, and turn the wonders
of Aladdin's wonderful lamp into baby rhymes. By digging,
you will get what we doctors are said not to like in others, a
stock of robust health, which will carry you through the French
lessons, and piano playings, and worsted work, of the succeeding
winter, and perhaps add a whole year to your existence, by
strengthening your bones, and nerves, and muscles. Eemember
thon, my dear Jessie, there's to be no sewing of ladies' fooleries,
no showing to strangers of new purse stitches, or novel patterns
for footstool covers ; but plenty out- door work, walking and
sunning and working, delving and digging, hoeing and spading ;
in short, you must just take and merit the title of one of the

183S'30.

A TRANBFORMINO GAP.

207

strange beauties, whose portrait, I daresay, you have seen on
the playing cards, ' the Queen of Spades.'

" Lady Othello looketh ill ; perhaps she misses you ; anyhow,
she visits me very often, and endangers the safety of my bottles
at the window. I rather fear she is in love ; but she won't tell
the name of her sweetheart, unless it be ' Miau,' a name which
she cries aloud till the walls ring with her lover's name."

" A great many folks are going to see us capped, especially
young ladies, who desire to behold the wonderful powers of
the velvet cap, which by a single touch can transform a
thoughtless, foolish, wild, and ill-behaved medical student, into
a grave and trustworthy dignified physician, whom mothers
and fathers are equally ready to put confidence in. I doubt
not, Jessie, that though you greatly enjoyed your visit to the
Shows, and now wish yourself joy of the many acquaintances
you made among giants and giantesses, dwarfs and fat boys,
people with white hair and strange eyes, and the like, that you
would wish, notwithstanding, to be here, so as to attend our
capping, and see us give to the winds the empty, foolish, and
useless title of Mr., now far beneath our dignity.

" But I must not strive to paint in too glowing colours the
delights of sights at home, or you will weary of your present
stay in a place where a great many things may be seen, scarcely
less interesting than many we have here, some of them much
more so. Mr. T — , or one of his sons, will take you, I doubt
not, to see the looms, those especially set in motion by steam ;
in which, to judge from the interest you always took in our
after-dinner disquisitions anent guns and engines, and clocks
and sun- dials, I believe you will be much interested. Indeed,
you should let no opportunity slip of watching the ingenious
mechanical contrivances which abound in a city like Paisley,
where so many fabrics are woven. I look back with pleasure
on the time I spent when I was your age, and for years after
that epoch, in becoming acquainted with the construction and
purposes of machinery. For I found it then, not only an in-
nocent amusement and a profitable occupation of hours spent
idly by others ; but now, when for the latter years of my life

208

MEMOIR OF OEORQE WILSON.

(HAP. IV.

my time has been given almost entirely to other things, I have
still more felt the value of such occupation* of time ; for the
observation of machinery in motion, the mental stniggles before
the mode of action is quite understood, the admiration of the
ingenuity shown in devising beautiful contrivances to effect
desired ends, and still more the endeavour to imitate such or
similar mechanical adaptations, develops the imagination and
the poM ers of reflection, it fosters and ripens ingenuity, and all
the while exercises on the mind a silent but salutary dominion,
which quickens its moat useful powers. Do then, my dear
Jessie, try to fathom the mysteries of wheels and cranks, and
rods and pinions, and strive to acquaint yourself with the object
for which the wheels move at all, and then the means by which
the desired motion is effected."

The following description of the capping is from • George
Wilson's own pen, and may be now to many of our readers : —

" The ceremony, which goes among the students of Edinburgh
by the name of 'capping,' is always looked for^vard to with
great interest, and is the only occasion on which the general
public, including ladies, take part in academical proceedings.
Students of the University of Edinburgh do not wear any aca-
demical costume ; but on the 1st of August the medical gra-
duates of the year, attired in black gowns, resembling generally
those of Oxford and Cambridge, assemble in one ot the largest
class-rooms in presence of the principal and professors of the
University, the magistrates of the city, and a large concourse of
spectators of both sexes. The more important parts of the
ceremony, are the administration of a solemn oath to the gra-
duates, and the offering up of prayers by the Principal, but as
they are couched in Latin, only a small portion of the audience
can intelligently follow them. An address in English from one
of the medical professors, which is often the occasion of eloquent
appeal and important advice, is always listened to with atten-
tion. But in the eyes of the students, the chief and indeed only
essential part of the process is the ' capping,' which is performed
by the Principal, who, as the graduates one by one pass before
him, lays on the head of each for a moment, a velvet cap and

in8-39.

TE MEDlCINif; DOCTOHEM CREO.

209

i.ttors the words 'Te medicince doctorcm creo!'- I create thee
doctor of medicine." A foot-note says in addition : " The cere-
mony referred to above, should, I believe, in strictness of lan-
guage be teniied the hatting rather than the capping ; the hat
being the academic symbol of the doctorate ; the cap the sign of
the status papillaris. Each doctor, also, sliould have a hat for
himself, instead of one serving for all. To modern uuacademic
eyes, iiuwever, accustomed to the stiff material and towering
dimensions of our awkward halt., the soft and pliant velvet hat
of an older period passes for a cap. Hence the name by which
the graduates of Edinburgh, unversed in the mysteries of the
diversified graceful caps, hoods, and gowns, of the English Uni-
versities, distinguish the solitary ceremony at which once in his
college-life, an Edinburgh student of medicine wears for some
two hours a gown ; and for a moment a doctor's hat."^

On the day following he hastens to share the news with the
" dear and only brother," who so fully sympathized with every
incident in George's career.

" My last letter was very hurried, ill-arranged, and ill- written ;
the present will be written more leisurely, and will be the more
pleasing to you, as it is likely to contain more that will interest
you than the former did. Yesterday, the 1st of August, I, and
a hundred and eighteen more young graduates, were created
doctors of medicine. I send you a list of our names, which you
will find to contain the cognomens of several of your friends
and acquaintances. You will see that Samuel Brown has got
one of the medals ; he is the most deserving of the whole four
who have been thus crowned. The others were all of them
above thirty.

" You will see that my Thesis and John Niven's were among
the seven given in (by the professors) as worthy of the prize ;
from these Samuel Brown's and Carpenter's were chosen, and
we must be content with the two stars which flourish at our
names. I never expected a prize, because I was soon awaro
that S. B.'s was a more valuable chemical essay than mine, and

» ' Life of Dr. John Reid,' pp. 15, 16.

210

MEMOm OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IV,

I kuew they would not give two chemical prizes. It is some
reward for our three days* work, that I was chosen among the
few severed from the 119 as worthy of special regard. Chris-
tison said of my Thesis, that it was ' very ingenious ; ' this he
said to some friend, for he never expressed an opinion to me,
and I have no thought of asking him for praise. Hope criti-
cised it in public the day before, very cautiously, without com
mitting himself as to its value, but seasoned it with a wholesome
advice about the delicacy of the experiments, and the propriety
of their frequent repetition ; but I have no thought of taking his
advice, as I am quite satisfied with my experiments and my
conclusions. I have to thank him, however, for making a
groundless objection to one portion, which will Laduce me to
add another portion to my Thesis, so as to take away the last
prop of the false theory. It will be published soon, i.e., in a
month or two, in the volume to be issued by the University
Club, but separate copies will also be printed ; in truth, it is a
College law, that if a Thesis be printed, so many copies (forty
or seventy) must be sent to the University.

" It is not every author who is provided with readers in this
way, and spared the necessity of invoking gentle readers and a
generous public. I shall probably (for I am restricted as to
room in the Club volume) incorporate a portion of the supple-
ment into the text of the Thesis, which I begin to-morrow to
remodel, and leave the rest for a separate paper. By publishing
my result in two papers, I shall have the first and most im-
portant part, perfect as I hope to make it in itself, free from the
objections which may be raised against the second, and might
thus draw down undeserved condemnation on the first. Samuel,
my kind, estimable friend, will probably go to Bi^-mingham ; if
he does, he will read my essay to them, as I have no thought of
going thither."

Thus were the dreams of youthful years to a great extent
realised. Steadily upwards had been the course; unflinching
diligence and sturdy perseverance, surmounting difficulties at
which a Liss courageous spirit would have quailed. And often,
when looking back on student days, has he in later life ex-

P
ti

fo;

as'

ere
abi

rea

GUI

iiia

CHAP. IV.

It is some
among the
d. Chris-
i;' this he
ion to me,
Sope criti-
;hout com
wholesome
B propriety
' taking his
;s and my
making a
iuce me to
ay the last
n, i.e., in a
University
ath, it is a
)pies (forty

ers in this
ders and a
cted as to
he supple-
morrow to
publishing

most im-
from the
md might
Samuel,
agham; if

hought of

1838 39.

THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH.

211

pressed wonder that he passed imscathed through the tempta-
tions thickly besetting a medical student's life, and by means of
which many who shared with him a brilliant noon-day, have
brought an eclipse on their after years, or have sunk in dark
and gloomy clouds below the horizon. Much of George's safety
may be attributed to early training and pleasant home influ-
ences ; much alao to the happy buoyancy of spirit that never
forsook him, while the eager craving after knowledge left no
room for baser tastes to develop themselves. Had he been
asked to say what shield had proved so efficacious in warding
off evil influences, he would doubtless have remioded us of the
cradle prayer, for him answered as for Joseph, so that " his bow
abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong
by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob." " Have not we
realized," he said to a sister many years later, " in spite of all
our sorrows, and cares, and trials, that we are the children of
many prayers ?"

at extent
nflinching
culties at
Ind often,
V life ex-

212

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

te
lis

CHAPTER V.

WORKING IN HOPE.

of
tel

" The subtile chymic can divest

And strip the creature naked, till he find

The callow principles within their nest :
There he imparts to them his mind,
Admitted to their bed-chamber, before

They appear trim and drest
To ol^iinary suitors at the door."

Herbert.

When the weary climber of Alpine steeps has reached the
summit to which his toilsome efforts have long been directed, it
is often but to see before him heights still more inaccessible,
defying, yet tempting him to scale them. The past is as nothing
compared with what is to be accomplished, and only a stout
heart and manly purpose will avail. So with the student when
the labours of years are crowned with success ; the end is but a
new beginning, and the goal is harder to be won than in his
first career. But, happily, all looks bright in the future to youth-
ful eyes, and hope gives strength to do what to faint hearts would
be impossible. In the ' Life' of Dr. Eeid we find George Wilson's
own experience of this time : — " There are few periods," he says,
" more happy in a young doctor's life than those which imme-
diately succeed his graduation. The most diligent student is
thankful to escape from the irksomeness of a round of college,
hospital, or dispensary duties, which occupy nearly the whole
day, during an almost unbroken session of ten months. It can
rarely happen that each of the sciences which occupy the atten-
tion of the medical student is equally interesting to him, and
there must always, in a large school of medicine, be some

1839-40.

A MINISTER S DREAM,

213

teachers who, more or less, try the patience of their reluctant
listeners. A natural reaction, also, from the exhaustion of pro-
tracted study, and the suspense and anxiety which even in the
best prepared, the boldest, and the most hopeful pupils, attend
the anticipation of the dreaded ordeal of examination, arrays the
future in rainbow colours." The necessity, however, of making
his way in the world permitted no rest on the summit of this
Hill Difficulty, but compelled him to scan the horizon in search
of some field for his exertions. The day after graduation, he
tells Daniel of various openings in prospect, such as a promise
of lecturing in the approaching winter to a provincial associa-
tion at St. Andrews, an offer made to the Secretary of the Board
of Arts and Manufactures to teach chemistry to the young
artists, and an invitation to lecture at the School of Arts, Had-
dington. These schemes all proved visionary, but, "for the
sake of practice, and to be doing something," he hopes to ap-
pear as a lecturer on some provincial arena in winter. The
letter mentioning those details thus winds up : — " I shall here,
for your amusement, record a story told us by a dissenting
minister, Eowland Hill, once preaching on the necessity of
unity among Christians, told his people that he had a dream the
night before, and thought he had gone to heaven. When he had
arrived there, he asked the angel to show him where the Epis-
copalians were, as he should like to see them first. The angel
replied that there were no Episcopalians there. " Well," said
Eowland, " I know a great many who intended and eaypected to
be here." However, as there were none of them, he asked for
the Presbyterians. There were none of them either ; then for
the Independents, there were none; then for the Baptists, —
" There are none," was the answer. " Where, then, are the
Christians?" "Oh, the Christians," quoth the angel, "they
are all here !"

Towards the close of the month, George, in accomplishment
of a cherished desire, attended the meeting of the British Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of Science, held that year in Bir-
mingham. His friend and fellow-graduate, Samuel Brown,
accompanied him. He had the good fortune, on his arrival,
to be introduced to the well-known philanthropist, Mr. Joseph

214

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

Sturge, and resided under his hospitable roof during his stay-
there. The recollections of this visit were always associated
with pleasant thoughts of his host, — " As amiable, gentle, and
intelligent a man as I ever met," Mr Sturge's kindly thought-
fulness for his guests, and the graceful manners of his family
circle, left a peculiarly pleasant impression on George's mind.
He could not fail to enjoy himself, where all conspu'ed to give
pleasure. His joyous letters, written near the door of a con-
servatory, seem redolent of the rich and rare flowers beside him ;
while the kindly reception he and Dr. Brown met with from the
members of the Association, left little wanting to the comple-
tion of their most sanguine hopes. The only disappointment
arose from finding the men of whose writings he had been a de-
voted admirer, fall in some instances so far short of his ideal as
to cause a revulsion of feeling that hastened liis departure. "VVlio
can tell what influences for life were then acting on his suscep-
tible nature ?

So deep was the impression left by contact with INIr. Sturge,
that his death, in 1859, seemed the loss of a friend, though they
had never met or held any intercourse in those intervening
twenty years. Lines to his memory, by J. Whittier, gave
George much pleasure by their beauty and their truthfulness.
The length of the poem permits only a slight quotation from
them.

" The very gentlest of all human natxireR
' He joined to courage strong,

And love outreucliing unto all God's creatures,
With sturdy hate of wrong.

" Tender as woman ; manliness and meekness
In him were so allied, .
That they who judged him by his strength or weakness
Saw but a single side.

" Men failed, betrayed him : but his zeal seemed nourished
By failure and by fall ;
Still a large faith in human kind he cherished,
And in God's love for all.

" And now he rests : his greatness and his sweetness
No more shall seem at strife ;
And death has moulded into calm completeness
The statue of his life."

1839 40.

READS ABSTRACT OF THESIS.

210

To those who knew George Wilson best, those lines will
seem as applicable to him as to the noble man by whose death
they were called forth.

In writing home, particulars are given of the appearance at
the Chemical Section of the two friends : — " We were received
as courteously as we could have wished, and attended to with
interest and patience. You know that I spent my time up to
the last moment of leaving, in writing out an abstract of my
Thesis for the Association ; but, after reaching Birmingham, we
found that long papers were in bad odour, and they admitted so
many ladies to the section meetings, that we gave up the idea
of reading, and resolved to speak our papers to the people. This
idea was only formed the night before, and I had no time to ar-
range my thoughts ; but we were fortunately driven desperate,
and so achieved wonders. Our names were read out last, the
day before we were appointed to read ; accordingly, Samuel and
I were sitting together after the section had begun, talking about
our matters, when in came Playfair bounce from the section to
say that my name had been read out, and they were waiting for
me. Away I ran, and before I very well knew where I was, I
was mounted on a rostrum before some hundred strangers.
Though somewhat flurried at first, I speedily acquired courage
and coolness enough to progress satisfactorily, in which com-
fortable progression I was greatly aided by the attentive, watch-
ful looks of some of the more intelligent among them. When
I came down, Playfair said I had done ' nobly.' If I were not
writing for a fond mother's eye, I should be ashamed to say all
this ; but I know you will be anxious to know everything about
this journey. Professor Graham, Dr. R D, Thomson, the Bir-
mingham secretary, and Professor Clark of Aberdeen, all ex-
pressed their interest in the paper, and their satisfaction with
its proofs. We both of us intended to have read or spoken be-
fore them other communications, but business increased on our
hands (that is, section business), and we could not obtain an op-
portunity of addressing them a second time." To George Wil-
son's friend and fellow-chemist, Dr. J. H. Gladstone, London, we
are indebted for detailed notices of manv of his scientific inves-

216

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

ligations. To these we refer the reader for further mention of
this paper.^

It was at this meeting that the difficulty experienced by the
younger scientific men in gaining the access they desired to the
society of those whose fame was already established, together
with the expense of hotel charges, led to their dining together
daily at a small tavern where Edward Forbes had established
himself. The tavern happened to be named the "Red Lion,"
and so pleasant was this arrangement found to be, that, before
leaving Birmingham, it was decided that at every future meeting
of the British Association, there should be a Eed Lion dinner.
At this dinner George Wilson never failed to be present when it
was in his power, though with the club afterwards formed in
London, and bearing the same name, he had no connexion.

From Birmingham, George went to pay a short visit to his
brother, not without a faint hope that in the great metropolis a
sphere might be found for his energies, leading to advancement
for the future. " Now for London," is the close of his first letter
after reaching it ; " it is the old place, as noisy and as busy as
ever : its streets crowded, as when I left it, with handsome men
and beautiful women, and idlers like me, and busy people like

Daniel, and fools like , but I'll not say who. I wonder to

find it so little changed, forgetting that I have only been four
months absent." Daniel reports of him :— " George is certainly
very much improved ; his successful passing, and all other
agreeable circumstances, have combined to produce perfect health
and excellent spirits. He came upon me without the previous
notice he had promised to give, and startled and delighted me
with his company. I hope his visit will be productive of good
in every way, and that you will get him home in very, very dif-
ferent health and spirits from those in which he returned after
the very uncomfortable winter we shared together before."

During the three weeks of this visit the brothers spent as
much as possible of the time together, George going out " only
to look after something to do, striving to get wriggled into some
comer, however small, with the hopes of getting a bigger hole
^ hereafter."

' See Appendix.

m^-io.

INTRODUCTION TO FARADAY.

217

nention of

Having learned at Birmingham that a college of civil engineers
was about to be formed in London, he made inquiries about it,
but found it offered no post suitable for him. Other attempts
fared no better. Wandering for three days in search of Professor
Daniel of King's College, to whom he had an introduction, was
at last repaid by the pleasure of a warm and courteous reception.
The long desired introduction to Faraday was also enjoyed, and
of a visit by appointment to him George says, — " Faraday was
very kind ; showed me his whole laboratory with labours going
on, and talked frankly and kindly ; but to the usual question of
something to do, gave the usual round answer, and treated
me to a just, but not very cheering animadversion on the
Government of this country, »vhich, unlike that of every other
civilized country, will give no help to scientific inquiry, and will
afford no aid or means of study for young chemists ; all my
efforts, therefore, have been unsuccessful. This Fog-Babylon
will have none of me, casts me out of her bosom and drives me
home again ; so I am not only attracted to you by ties innumer-
able, but I am impelled towards you by repulsions innumerable,
and with the best grace I can put on the matter, will be quickly
back among you." Of his return home by steamer he tells
Daniel, — " The weather was very pleasant all the way, bright
and sunny, and the wind light and in our favour. The company,
moreover, was very pleasant ; as I stalked along the quarter-
deck I was a little surprised to hear the names of Carlyle,
Goethe, and liichter, passing from mouth to mouth of a group of
gentlemen walking there. I drew nearer and heard the French
Revolution talked of, on which I requested leave to join the
conversation, and a most interesting one it was. The two chief
speakers in it turned out to be Mr. Terrot, the Episcopalian
minister of St Paul's, Edinburgh, and Mr. MacDougall, one of the
candidates for the Logic Chair, and two very clever fellows they
are Terrot is very intelligent and interesting, and exceed-
ingly frank and free, so that I was happily situated. He told us
a college incident of English discipline, which may amuse you.
The Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he was a
fellow, was a great stickler for every point of etiquette, college
salutation, and the like. One of the graduates, a Yorkshireman,

218

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

famed for his awkward simplicity, chanced to walk up one side
of the College quadrangle as the Master crossed the court
obliquely. The Yorkshireman, with unbent head and unlifted
cap, walked on, whereupon the ceremonious Master addressed
liim, ' Sir, have you no salutation to give me ? Are you not
aware that such is required from every student to his college
superior when he meets him ?* ' Oh, yes,' said the Yorkshire-
man ; ' but I did not meet you ; you were coming diagonally!!!'
The Master added, by way of comment, the declaration, ' You
know that I don't care particularly for these things, but College
rules must be attended to.' ' Awell, my Lord, I think very little
o' them mysel,* an answer which fairly overset the Master's
gravity, and he laughed outright." The next letter to Daniel is
given almost entire : -

" October 7, 1839.

" I was most unexpectedly summoned away to Penicuik^ as
soon as I reached Edinburgh, so that I could not write you
before this time, when Dr. Williamson's departure for London
gives me a welcome opportunity.

" I did not intend to have gone to the country after coming
home froin London, being unwilling to devote more time to
leisure. But John [Mven] was just waiting with an earnest
repetition of the previously-made invitation to go to Penicuik ;
and when he met my attempted refusal with the declaration
that it was a long-made promise, I, who have been to go out
every season for the last four years, could not refuse, and so I
went. I stayed till last night (Sunday), when John and I walked
in together; and I should very shamefully repay the great
kindness shown me, if I did not heartily confess that I enjoyed
myself very much.

" As it is, moreover, you must make the most of this preface ;
for as it is declared that dealers in oxen, when they dream,
dream of oxen, so must I, lately of Penicuik, write Penicuikly,
and be content to dilate on things ' unattempted yet in prose or
rhyme,' which, whatever else they may want, will yet be rife in
hearty, life-like reality, and the description of marked indivi-

' Penicuik is a small country town, about nine miles from Edinburgh.

is:!0-40.

A VISIT TO PENICUIK.

219

duality. As I had the ami and the society of Dr. John Niven,
the use of his pony whenever I wished, the society of his aunt,
sisters, and nieces, over and above his good uncle, the trust-
worthy servants, and the old and young dogs, it would have
been my own fault if I had not evolved from these elements
both profit and amusement ; and seeing I was a guest (liowever
unworthy) whom they all • delighted to honour,' from Miss
Abernethy to the old servant, who came to shake hands with
me, and congratulate me on my doctorate, you may imagine
that an accommodating passivity would have served to secure
my happiness. As it was, what with a gTand tea-party of auld
Scotch farmer folks from the hills, whose conversation was sin-
gularly broad and racy, and startling, too, after a southern
absence, — it completely knocked out of my ears every English
accent I had got hold of Oh, to have had H. G. there, listening
to the strange Babylonish dialect of old and young ; how his
ears would have tingled had he heard a song of Gala (pro-
nounced Gaulay) Water, or another of a fox stealing a goose,
which ended in one line, with the detail of the goose being car-
ried to foxdom, and * the young ones pyked the banes o'. — What
with pony rides, — still more, what with countiy walks through
the grounds around with the young ladies, from whom I always
chose my kind, accomplished, and lady-like friend, Miss Niven,
as my companion, ' time, as he passed us, had a dove's wing,
unsoiled and swift, and of a silken soimd ;' and at night we
nestled round a fire, and I read the last number of ' Nickleby'
aloud, or we played at whist, or chatted together ; and so the
time wore swiftly away, helped to a swifter conclusion by the
occurrence of a fair on the Friday, where, if there were no very
huge shows or Thespian booths, there was the ancient merry-
go-round, and a game which is called, in the elegant language
of Penicuik, the Eoly-Poly, a game like nine-pins, superintended
by most blackguard-looking fellows, where sturdy ploughmen
played for cakes of gingerbread. Tlie evening was ended by a
grand dance in the barn or Gardener's Lodge, where by the pay-
ment of a penny you obtained the right to stand on the floor,
and by the possession of good looks, good manners, or enticing
speecii, the claim to the rosy hand of some Pamela, radiant with

220

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

the blushes, the sempiternal blushes, which the duties of the
dairy and the kitchen imprint on Scottish maidens' cheeks.
Whether I took my place on the floor, enchanted by the tones
of two unrosined fiddles, and footed nimbly with un- Cinder-
ella-footed dames, and was envied by the rustics for carrying off
their sweethearts, and ottered to fight them all round, and would
have done it (with John Niven's assistance) had not the weep-
ing wenches clustered round me and forbade it ; whether 1 did
this or no, modesty and brevity forbid me to mention; and
history reminds me, that when the chronicles of Penicuik come
to be written, and the names of her illustrious natives or visi-
tors to be marshalled in order, ' I shall strike the stars with my
sublime head.' So much for an idle week. Will you, Daniel,
at some early time, send me Whately's ' Logic,' which will be
of service, and ' Ingram' or any other book on algebra I have
left behind me ; they would be of great service, as I have taken
out a mathematical class, and begin logic very speedily."

In the close of October, after alluding to troubles pressing
heavily on the family circle, in reference to which he says, —
" We are men, and will strive to look things in the face ; to bear
is to conquer our fate," he goes on to tell Daniel of his imme-
diate plans and prospects : " I am sure you will approve of my
continuing to study this winter, on the plea of better fitting
myself thereby for fruitful work. You may be certain I have
convinced myself of this before I thought of classes. Further,
you know that I have striven to get a situation and have failed,
and at present I would gladly take one could I get'it. Limiting
that gladness, however, by two conditions, the one that it should
not take me from Edinburgh, for the sake of Maiy, who is still
in a very precarious state of health, and, now that Catherine and
B. are gone, has no friend near her with whom to commune ;
the other, that it should be worth taking, in the sense of lead -
ing to something better, for it would be folly for me to take a
post which should be trifling, and by consuming my time, pre-
vent me fi'om qualifying myself for another and better. But 1
may perhaps get some Saturday lecturing in the provincial
towns about. This I intend, if possible, to obtain.

lS3J)-40.

PAPER AT PHYSICAL SOCIETY.

221

" Meanwhile, 1 have been working at mathematics and al-
gebra, attending a class, and making some progress ; in mathe-
matics, getting on sufficiently well, but a good deal stumbled in
algebra by my sheer ignorance of common arithmetic. But
being engaged at home in the revision of that, I look to quickly
making up all lee -way, and succeeding in algebraic computation
fully. ... I shall have little time for letters this winter, and
only on short fiiim'"

Notwithstanding this prudent warning, a letter on foolscap
was not long in following, with no lack of interesting informa-
tion, and fun in addition : -

" That penny postage bill, when will it come into operation, and
save poor men like you and me the dreadful thought that before
one can fulfil brotherly duties, one must either disburse coins
ourselves, or make a demand on the purse of another ? Such
thought working in my brain, as it has been likewise, I doubt
not, in yours, has hitherto delayed my writing ; and now I am
not altogether hopeless of a letter coming from you to-day,
before this is put in the Post-Office.

" I have been very busy, writing till my side was stitf and
cramped with stooping, otherwise I should have written you
long ago, the mere consumption of time being not so complete,
that I could not have cut off half an hour to write you, but the
way in which the time was taken up left me little ability or
wish for further scribbling. I have finished and read at the
Physical Society th Introductory Discourse I spoke of, to the
great delight of all present. I shall send it to you as soon as I
can get a copy made by John M'Lure. I am satisfied with it
myself, and think you will like many parts of it. I have striven
in it above all things to be earnest, to have something to teach
whereon to expend words ; not words built up like ice palaces
or frostwork, to which here and there one may tag a thought or
two. I have neither been a quack nor a hypocrite, laying claims
to no virtues or talents I did not possess, but have been anxious
to be taken and estimated as I am. I thiiik you will be pleased
with the consideration of ' Tlie Desire of Fame ;' but of this
more hereafter, when I send yo the paper itself Besides the

m
'■A

222

MEMOIR OF GEOK(iE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

Snowdrop verses (which I shall send to you by the tirht parcel),
those on ' The Skull, ' A Song on the Seasons,' and ' Chalybeate!
Rhymes' for Miss S.'s birthday, 1 have written a Song to the Ibi.s
on its landing in Eg}'pt, which I hope to recover from its present
darkness, it having gone mysterioualy amissing. I shall also, at
some early period, send you the ' Sleep of the Hyacinth,' which
I shall next labour at. But in the meanwhile, I have for
swoni all rhyming, and in proof thereof have issued the follow-
ing advertisement : —

" ' (Sign of the Winged Ass.)

" ' George Wilson returns thanks to his friends and the public
in general for the encouragement he has received since he began
the rhyming business on his own account ; at the same time he
takes this opportunity of informing them that he has just
returned from a professional tour to the cities of London, Bir-
mingham, and Penicuik, from which he has brought a large
stock of new ideas, so that he is prepared to execute orders to
any amount. Every article sent from the house of G. W. gua-
ranteed perfect, and warranted to jingle well. The strictest
attention paid to points and commas ; likewise to morality and
grammar.

" ' At the same time, G. W. thinks it proper to inform his
friends, that he is about entirely to abandon the rhyming line,
and open pxmises in logic and mathematics ; so that an early
application will be necessary to prevent disappointment.

" ' In consequence of retiring from business, G. W. has on
hand a large stock of love-letters, consisting of proposals, refusals,
acceptances, and juste milieu, milk-and-water epistles, written
in the most approved style, which will be sold in lots to suit
intending purchasers. At the same time, a quantity of acros-
tics, including Christian and surname, odes to love-locks, and
sonnets to mistresses' eyebrows, will be disposed of at reduced
prices.

" ' Country orders punctually attended to.
" ' No connexion with any other house.

" ' Hill of Parnassus, Highest Cliff,
"' 1400th Olympiad.'

CHAP. V.

1830- 40.

BECOMKH A RED RIBBON.

393

•t parcel),
halybeato
"> the Ibis
ts present
ill also, at
Ji,' which
have for-
10 follow-

he public

he began

e time he

has just

don, Bir-

t a large

orders to

W. gua-

strictest

ality and

iform his

ling lino,

an early

has on

refusals,

written

to suit

)f acros-

cks, and

reduced

"So much for the non-rhyming and what I am not to do.
As to what I am to do, that may be speedily told. I have
begun German with a very intelligent teacher, Mr. Kombst ;
James Ilussell, John Niven, Mr. Skue, and another, are in the
class, and we ^'ct on very nicely ; we have just begun, so that
as to work to be done I cannot speak. Meanwhile, wo find our
method of proceeding very pleasant, and the sounds of tho
German are melodious and pleasing to my Scotch ears. Wo
have fairly settled at once to Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, learning
away at the knotty grammar, which is puzzling enough ; but
the striking similarity between the German phrases and our
own Saxon words and broad Scotch, is a great help to the ren
dering of sentences ; indeed the construction is often almost
identical with English, and never, so far as I have yet gone,
very anomalous. At all events, I love the language, and will
learn it. I hated French, a poor, ]Mngling, crack-voiced, mon
key-like dialect, which I never had patience to acquire ; though
the foolishness of not studying so valuable a key to knowledge is
great; but I can use it at least as a picklock, and I shall fall to the
grammar sturdily soon ; at present I have quite enough on hand.

" They have sent me the red ribbon, and so constituted me
one of the friends of the Brotherhood of Truth. The ribbon I
now wear, to the great wonderment and offence of many of my
well-wishers, who see damage to my character from any con-
nexion with the dubious persons composing it ; but my cha-
racter does not hang on a ribbon, and when I called on Forbes,
he spoke to me in the kindest manner, explained the helping,
imselfish character of the Society, its freedom from forms and
vices ; and wound it up by offering and promising to do every-
thing to help me, especially towards getting a lectureship in
the provincial towns, perhaps Liverpool. At present there are
unions in France, Germany, England, and India, so that the
craft thrives. Some of the best fellows about College are in 't,
to know whom were reward enough.

" Mary sends you her kindest love. She is not better, I am
sorry to say, but confined to bed a large portion of the day. I
fear you will come home to a sad household ; but we will hope
the best, and we shall all be very glad to see you."

224

•MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

The essay on " The Desire of Fame " remains in an imperfect
state amongst George Wilson's papers. His penmanship was
very different in those days from the round clear writing of
later years, when repeated attacks of inflammation in the eyes
made larger characters more pleasing to himself ; and when the
impetuosity of youth being calmed down, thoughts did not so
vehemently outstrip the pen. Of the copyist mentioned, Daniel
gives some account : —

" John M'Lure, referred to in this letter, was a pensioner of
George's and mine years before I left Edinburgh. He was a
worthy, pious old man with a cork leg, and his eyesight fast
failing him ; a most patient, contented creature. He h-'d been
a lawyer's clerk, and wrote a neat, formal hand, which was the
very opposite of the scrawly penmanship our own everlasting
scribblements had begot of our hands. Our first introduction
to the old man was in the capacity here referred to, as con-
verter into readable MS. of some of our competing essays. It
occurred to us one Saturday night over our late cup of tea
(time probably near twelve, midnight), that a remark of old
John's had looked forward to the small modicum of money that
would be due him for a bit of work then in hand. Acting on
the thought, we hunted out the old man on the Sunday morning
in his garret, at General's Entry,^ Bristo Street, carrying with
us certain supplies begged from mother for improvising a break-
fast ; and to our sorrow and pleasure we found John reading
his Bible, without a morsel in the house, or the prospect of
breaking his fast that day.

" Old John M'Lure rises before my mind. He was a source
of great amusement to us. His under lip projected con-
siderably, and he had acquired a habit, from his mode of
walking with his cork-leg, of compressing his lips, with a
smack, between every few words. His ideas were as few as his

' General's Entry received its name from a very old and interesting house, which
waj the town residence of General Monk, while his head-quarters were at Dalkeith
Palace. For a long time it was the residence of the Stair family, and afterwards
was notorious for containing the first billiard table in Edinburgh. Here, too, was
born Dr. Woodrow, the African traveller, before its rooms and attics came into use
by suci inhabitants as poor John M'Lure. It has now been removed to make way
"or tradesmen's houses.

CHAP. V.

imperfect
iship was
wnriting of
I the eyes
when the
iid not so
ed, Daniel

nsioner of
He was a
sight fast
h-"d been
h was the
verlasting
production
3, as con-
ssays. It
up of tea
trk of old
loney that
\.cting on

morning
)?^ing with

a break-
reading
ospect of

a source
ted con-
mode of
with a
ew as his

ouse, wliich
at Dalkeith
afterwafds
re, too, was
me into use
make way

1830-40.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF TRUTH.

225

wants ; and his utterances were compressed into sententious
commonplaces of an exceedingly matter-of-fact and simple cha-
racter, always wound up with a smack of his lips and a slap on
his cork-leg. When he had nothing else to do, he diligently
employed some mechanical genius he was persuaded he pos-
sessed, in effecting improvements on his cork-leg, whereby he
gradually converted it into a mass of timber and iron hoops,
litter to have served as an anchor than a help to locomotion !
Many a laughing argument we had with John about his * im-
provements,' the chief object of which was to draw forth one of
his grave matter-of-fact aphorisms ; for John never laughed, or
perceived that anybody else did. He remained an object of in-
terest and kindly help on George's part as long as he lived."

The brotherhood referred to in this letter was an object of
deep interest to George Wilson, and exercised an influence over
him so beneilcial in many respects, that we cannot pass it over
without special notice. It arose out of the association of stu
dents who edited the * Maga,' spoken of in the preceding chapter.
Various records of its commencement exist among the private
papers of the Society. In an address to its members, by the
chief office-bearer in 1838, its formation is thus mentioned : —
'• Established by a few congenial souls to commune together, it
was first called the Maga Club ; its objects were literature and
good fellowship. The principles which regulated it, however,
were so excellent that many craved an admittance into it, and
its objects became enlarged, its aim more pretending ; from
a club it rose to a brotherhood,— a brotherhood devoted to the
search of truth in every department of knowledge."

Though thus called a club, there was no institution of any
kind formed until the Order was founded. The contributors to
the 'Maga' in 1834 and 1835 were accustomed to meet weekly
for the editing of this publication, and one evening after they
had left, Forbes drew up a paper which proved the germ of the
Order, embodying its first principles. Dr. Bennett, in his Memoir
of Edward Forbes,^ says of the students composing his circle of
friends, "There was a geniality and good fellowship thrown
over their scientific, literary, and professional discussions ; an

1 ' Monthly Journal of Medicine,* January 18u5.

226

MEMOIll OF GEOEGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

intermingliiig of wit, poetry, song, and good sense at their con-
vivial meetings ; a total absence of jealousy, and a strong desire
for one another's advancement, which not only cemented their
friendship, but exercised a great influence on their subsequent
career. .... Such, indeed, were the strong feelings of friend-
ship and unity of sentiment which existed in this group of
students, that a Society or Order was at length formed."

In the second volume of the ' Maga' there are frequent refer-
ences to this Society, its motto, and insignia. The former 0IN02,
EPI22, MA0H2I2, — Wine, Love, and Learning, caused it to be
called occasionally the " Oineromatliic Brotherhood," but this
name its members speedily disclaimed, annoimcing themselves
as " The Universal Brotherhood of Friends of Truth." Its aims,
so far from being selfish, were the regeneration of the world, by
means of the " wisdom of heaven shrined in matter," being un-
folded and interpreted by each brother. They are expressed in
the following manifesto, afterwards published : — " The highest
aim of man is the discovery of the truth ; the search after truth
is his noblest occupation. It is more — it is his duty. Everj'-
step onwards we take in science and learning tells us how nearly
all sciences are connected. There is a deep philosophy in that
connexion yet undeveloped — a philosophy of the utmost moment
to man ; let us seek it out. The world in which we live is a
beautiful world, and the Spirit of Omnipotence has given us
many pleasures and blessings ; shall we not enjoy them ? Let
us refresh ourselves with them thankfully, whilst we go forth
in our search after truth. We are all brethren, but it has pleased
God variously to endow our minds. Some delight in one thing,
some in another : some work for the good of the body, and some
for the good of the soul. Let us all work together in fellowshij)
for our mutual happiness and joy. Wherefore should men
quarrel one with another, because they hold different doctrines ?
Such as seek for truth in the right spirit sympathize wdth each
other, and however opposite may be their present opinions, revile
them not, but assist in their development, knowing, however
wide apart may seem the paths they have chosen, one goal is
aimed at, and if persevering, both must meet in the one wished -
for temple. Let those who feel the spirit to develop the wisdom

1830--40,

THE ROSEATE BAND.

227

of creation, and to act for the good of their fellow-men, strong
within them, unite together in a bond of fellowship, each brother
devoting his time and his energies to the department for which
he feels and proves himself best fitted, communicating his
knowledge to all, so that all may benefit thereby, casting away
selfishness and enforcing precepts of love. By such means glory
shall accrue to his Order, so that it may wax powerful in intel-
lectual strength, and become a mental and a moral safeguard to
the world, and a bond of union among all nations. Such is our
Brotherhood."

The chief dignitary was entitled Archimagus, or Grand Master;
under him were three Grand Masters to aid in directing the
affairs of the brotherhood. The " Koseate Band" was a rose-
coloured ribbon, three-quarters of an inch in breadth, made
expressly for them at St. Etienne, and having woven into its
texture the mystic letters, m, e. o. in black, surrounded by a
hoUy wreath in green. A star in black, with red triangle in
the centre, and a black shield, with red band crossing it
diarjonally, were placed alternately between each group of letters.
The ribbon is beautiful as a work of art, and was worn by each
member of the society.

As its original founders were men whose talents gave them
a high place in the Edinburgh University, entrance to their
circle was eagerly desired by their fellow-students. Great care,
however, was exercised in admitting brethren, and the indis-
pensable qualifications were not only evidences of mental power
and acquirements, but high moral character.

After all preliminary investigations had been satisfactorily
settled, the applicant was admitted to the possession of a ribbon,
and the title " Associate." This was a state of probation, longer
or shorter, as the case might be, and when proofs of talent,
energy, and interest in promoting the designs of the fraternity,
united to blameless moral conduct, had been evinced, the title
of " Triangle" was reached, constituting the happy recipient of a
silver triangle, having the motto engraved on it, with clasp (to
be worn pendant from a short red ribbon on the left side of the
coat), a bona fide brother, entitled to take part in all proceedings.
In April 1838, Edward Forbes counsels the aspirants to the

228

MEMOIP OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

Triangle " to occupy themselves during the summer, so that the
glory of the Order may be increased, and the principles take
root in the hearts of men. Except in very rare and peculiar
circumstances, positive distinction and public reputation con-
stitute the only test by which the claim to that honour can be
tried." The ribbon was worn on all occasions, crossing the
bosom conspicuously, and attracting remarks of wonder not un-
mixed with suspicion, towards the wearer. The triangle was
reserved for state occasions, and in addition to it, the original
members had a silver star to be worn below it.

The high tone of morality exhibited in the addresses delivered
from time to time by the grand masters, and the true chivalry
pervading all their aims, call for our admiration, and show how
strong was the stimulant to youthful effort afforded by such a
fellowship. Two extracts will best illustrate this. Both are from
addresses by Edward Forbes, who was the soul of the Brother-
hood, his interest in it being apparently so truly heartfelt, that
the absence of years caused no diminution in the loving care
and watchfulness shown by him in its early existence. In 1838,
on the 9th day of the third month, the day selected for their
yearly meeting, he says, " Tlie brethren are earnestly exhorted
to follow out the principles of the Order, to exert their abilities
to the utmost of their power for its honour and the good of
mankind, and to set such a moral example that the world may
respect and honour the Brotherhood to which they belong ;" and
at the close of the third year, he winds up an address as follows :
— " Let us always so conduct ourselves that the intellectually
good, whose good opinion we should ever strive to gain, may have
nothing to complain against us, being ever mindful of that
canon of our Order, which bids every one of the brethren ' dis-
countenance vice, and act according to his conscience.'

" Paul, Eomans i. 20, ' For the invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead ;' xii.
10, * Be kindly aflfectioned one to another in brotherly love : in
honour preferring one another.' "

Meetings were held frequently by the brethren ; and not only
was a kindly care shown by them to one another, but a watchful

1839-JO.

ILLUSTRIOUS BRETHREN.

229

discipline exercised towards any deflections from right conduct
and the " true philosophy." Edinburgh was the head- quarters,
but its realm was the world, without distinction of rank or
nation. Before long, branches were formed in many parts, on
each member the duty devolving of kindness, to the utmost
extent of his power, to every wearer of the roseate band.

To George Wilson it was a great pleasure to be one of this
fraternity. He was proposed for admission by his friend Samuel
Brown, and his qualifications stand on the minutes of the Society
thus : " Distinguished as a chemist in the higher ranks of
chemistry, distinguished himself highly at the British Associa-
tion 1839, expresses a desire to enter, and is known to under-
stand the principles." On these grounds was he welcomed as
an Associate, receiving before long the coveted Triangle. The
maximum as to numbers seems to have approached one hundred;
and of the youthful band composing this union, the greater
number have amply fulfilled the purposes to which they were
pledged. Sufficient proof of this may be found in the fact, that
six of them have been chosen to fill chairs in the University in
which they were students. Professors Goodsir, Bennett, Blackie,
Edward Forbes, Lyon Playfair, and George Wilson, need no one
to claim merit for them ; while elsewhere the brethren have not
less distinguished themselves. Amongst them we find the names
of Professor Day, St, Andrews ; Professor Ramsay of the
Geological Survey ; Dr. Nicholas Tyacke of Chichester ; the
Rev. Joseph Goodsir, and his brother Henry Goodsir, who went
out as Naturalist in the fatal Arctic Expedition under Sir John
Franklin ; Dr. Giraud, professor of Botany and Chemistry in
Bombay ; Dr. John Percy, London ; Dr. Falconer of Bath ; Dr.
Stanger, of the Niger Expedition in 1841 ; Dr. Wright of
Birmingham ; Dr. Embleton of Newcastle ; Dr. Samuel Brown;
and Professor Daniel Wilson, Toronto. In such a union of
genius, wit, and fancy, each adding to the general store by con-
tributions from his special science, it may readily be supposed
how iron would sharpen iron, and love beget love ; while the
discoveries in science, and the aims of each one, would rouse all
to vigour in their various departments. Their social enjoyments
were also pleasant features of the union. Some of the brethren

380

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

were possessed of high musical attainments, of which a record
remains in a song, of which we give a few verses, the words
composed by Edward Forbes, and the music, with arrangements
for pianoforte, by John Hughes Bennett, dedicated by them to
the brothers in 0. E. M., and sung for the first time at the yearly
festivalof 1836:—

" Fill ye up a brimming glass,

Jolly brother students,
Ere you let the bottle pass.

Jolly brother students !

" To the King, with three times three !
To the monarch of the free 1
Supernaculum to be,

Jolly brother students 1
Fill ye up, etc.

" Alma Mater, if you please.
Her professors and degrees.
And our rights and liberties.

Jolly brother students !
Fill ye up, etc.

" To the maids whose love we prize.
In the sunshine of whose eyes
Earth again is Paradise,

Jolly brother students !
Pill ye up, etc.

" Here's our sacred triune sign,
And the words that on it shine,
' Learning, love, and rosy wine,'
Jolly brother students !
Fill ye up," etc.

How often might George Wilson have been heard in those
days humming the beautiful air of this song, while carrying on
experiments. It was a gi-eat favourite, while he liimself was
wont to contribute " Old King Cole," as his share in the musical
department, acquiring a wonderful reputation on the strength of
this one song. Edward Forbes's inimitable comic ditties, given
in a manner peculiar to himself, were a rich and ever- varying
treat, which none failed to enjoy. George filled the post of
joint-secretary for some time ; and after the Rev. Joseph Good-
sir left town, he continued the duties they had conjointly per-
formed.

18S9-40.

INTIMATE FRIENDS.

231

The original members of this Society being speedily scattered
far and wide, and its members sorely thinned by death, its
pristine glory and vigour gradually faded. Edward Forbes,
through years of absence, watched over its interests with paren-
tal solicitude; and even so late as 1855, after his return to
Edinburgh, meetings were held of the brethren. In name it
still lives, but its Utopian aims having no essence of true life in
them, can only be considered as scaffolding, helpful in building
up wise and noble men, but to be put aside as relics of the past
when that end is accomplished.

The comparative leisure of this winter permitted George to
cultivate the society of a few choice friends. In addition to
those already named as on intimate terms, there were John
Goodsir, George Day, now of St. Andrews, David Skae (Dr.
Skae, Momingside, Edinburgh), Edward Forbes, and one or two
more, with whom much joyous and profitable fellowship was
maintained. His cousin, James Kussell, was now one of Sir
William Hamilton's most distinguished pupils, and through his
introduction a valuable acquisition was gained to the circle of
friends. A student from the country — a year or two James
Russell's senior, first known to him as a competitor in the
Humanity Class of 1837-8- -had become his almost daily com-
panion ; and the introduction of John Cairns (the Rev. Dr.
Cairns, Berwick) to the rest of the family circle was welcomed
with pleasure by each of its members. In the subsequent years
to fall under our notice it will be seen how powerfully inter-
course with their common friend influenced the character of the
two cousins.

In November George tells his brother that — " The having a
winter of peaceful study is a great boon, which would atone for
many discomforts. And as I continue to make progress, slowly,
yet surely, in what I am studying, I am quite contented and
happy. The Introductory Discourse [that on the Desire of
Fame] is making the round of a few friends here of both sexes,
so that I cannot send it at this time, but it shall be despatched
very soon. Meanwhile, besides praise from many quarters, it
has procured me the Presidentship of the Physical Society.
There are four presidents ; I am tlie third. I was equal in

232

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CUAP, V,

183d

votes with the second, and above the fourth, an older member.
In truth, as I was almost the youngest member, and received
the chair without request or canvassing in the least, altogetlier
unexpectedly, I value the honour, and I expect to derive from
my place many benefits in my prosecution of science. In
virtue of my office, which is no sinecure, I have got the pleasant
task of drawing up a report of the recent progress of chemistry
and geology, besides inaugural addresses and such like. As the
Physical is a. Koyal Chartered Society, including an 'ilder and a
superior class of students, and as it ropoits its Transactions in
tlie public npwr.papers, there is more good to be gained from it
than fiom any other of the junior societies.^

" There is some prospect afar off, but not uncertaJTi, of lecturing
being got, so that I work hoj^euilly onward?. The Snowdrop
piece, my farewell rhyme, has greatly delighted the ladies who
have read it ; and two young friends, Messrs. Giraud and
Shaw, amiable, kind-hearted, accomplished fellows, have been
fighting for the autograpli scrawl, so that I hope to please you
with it. ... .

" I am assured by Miss that the Hampshire ladies are

not of the sort we have found most of the English girls. But a
story she tells with great glee against her brother may show,
unsentimental and equestrian though they are, that they are
somewhat of the same cast. It appears that, on some occasion,
N — and his sister, and some of their English friends, had been
coming home late in the evening, in a close covered waggon.
One young lady, with whom N — had been very gracious, sud-
denly put out her hand, and, grasping Miss 's, Vvas proceed-
ing to give it a very loving hieroglyphic squeeze, when, feeling

onJ
8qi|
she

^ The work of this session compiised six papers read to the Royal P'.ysical Society
on the following subjects : — 'The Motives which prompt to Uie Study of Science ;'
'The Photogenic Decompi'sition of Water by Chlorine, Bromine, and Iodine;'
' The Value of Balards Hypochlorous Acid as a Bleaching Agent ; ' ' Report in
the Progress of Chemistrj', in Two Parts — Part I., 1 its Recent Application to tl ,
Arts ; Part II., On its Recent Application to tlie Production of Light for Economical
Purpose's ; ' 'On the Decomposing Pc wers of Hydrogen as a Metal, and its Rela-
tions to the Constitution of Haloid Salts;' 'On the Solution oi Cases in Water,
and its i\ elation to Pneumatic Inquiries.'

To the Royal Medical Soci.'>ty he iJso re.id a pap'^ • on the ' Non-electric Character
of the Light of the Pennatulu Phoaphorea.'

1839-40.

THE HORIZON BRIGHTENS.

233

it to be a lady's, she drew back her hand with a scream. The

only explanation Miss can give is, that N — had been

squeezing her hand, and that she was striving to return the
shake. From N — nothing can be got, but he confesses that
papa, fearing something, would not allow him to walk alone
with his daughter. . . . Let us take off our gossamers (I have
a four-and-sixpenny one) and hurrah for the 5th of December
and the fourpenny letters."

On December 13th he says —

" I have not acknowledged the receipt of your kind and
most welcome fourpenny letter in the way I should have done ;
and I have but a sorry apology to make for myself I
expected to have answered it long before this, but this whole
week my time has been taken up in the most unsatisfactory
way, so that I have little pleasure in looking back on it. I
went out to supper on Monday night, to meet an unfortunate I
could serve in some way; on Tuesday the Physical Society
took me away from home ; on Wednesday I refused an invita-
tion to tea, and prepared for study, was sitting down to read,
when in came Macgillivray. I had scarcely shown him the
courtesies of friendship, when there arrived a note asking me to
sup with the Presidents of the other Societies, at Mrs. Shaw's
house. Off I went — sang King Cole (which is much admired
and encored here) — got home at two, and next evening the
Unfortunate came to take tea with me, and left at half-past ten
— with barely time to learn a proposition in Euclid, and make
up for lost time. So here is Friday night, and having got home
from my German class, I sit down to begin the first rational
performance of the week. The above description wiU satisfy
your request that I should write of myself. Let me now write
of you and your affairs."

In the beginning of the year 1 840 a bright spot becomes
visible in the horizon. " Two days ago I heard from a young
friend that Dr. D. B. Eeid, the chemist, is to leave Edinburgh
for London at the end of this winter. This has set me seriously
thinking about beginning to teach chemistry here next winter.
Many friends urge me to it, and if I had the capital I would
risk my reputation on it." About a week later he asks Daniel,

234

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

— "Do you remember my poor old friend the sweep? He is
dead — fell from a ladder and hurt his side. His case was ne-
glected, and when he sent for me he was past remedy. I sent
him to the Infirmary, where he lived only two days. He was
buried on Christmas day. I sold my Koran to buy him a coffin."
This poor man was one of the Infirmary patients in whom
George had become interested while attending the hospital
Since then he had received help in many ways, being considered
a pensioner of the house, his broken health unfitting him for
active labour. No small amount of self-denial was shown in
parting with his beautifully-bound and much-prized Koran to
afiford his poor friend decent burial. The same letter says : —
" I have had an oppressive bilious attack for the last month,
which has damped my energy and kept me very quiet, circum-
stances not being of a kind to give one the elasticity with which
to meet depression. I am getting well again, and Mary is a
good deal better. Mother is pretty well, and otherwise we are
as we were. They talk of writing to you by this penny post,
and they certainly will soon. Meanwhile we are all glad of this
reduction in postage. ... I have now made up my mind to
begin lecturing next winter in Edinburgh. In the meantime I
have learned that I shall not require to take out a fellowship,
but only a license, which may be had for the asking. Dr. D. B.
Eeid will certainly go to London, and his brother come here to
lecture for him, but there will still be a vacancy, which I shall
strive to f ^^ All my friends urge me on, and I see no oppor-
tunity so promising. . . . Dr. Reid's brother will have his fine
rooms, and I cannot vie with him as a teacher of practical
chemistry, but as a lecturer I may."

"I am now (February 13th) spending most of my time in
working for my lectures, not forgetting, however, mathematics
and German, in both of which I make satisfactory progress.
Well, we must hope that the future will belie the past, and
bring us the freedom from corroding anxiety which we have
never yet known. What a moral lesson I am teaching you !
Meanwhile our hearts will not burn the less warmly than they
would do if gold were ours to command. In proof whereof I
shall give an example of my benevolence. While I was reading

1839-40.

AN AULD HAT.

235

away at electricity I heard the sound of a flute on the steps,
and thereafter the voice of an Irishman singing. I went to the
door to give him a penny, and found a poor, but happy-like
blind man, who, taking the coin as his due, accosted me, ' Och,
yer honor, and couldn't ye spare a bit ould hat, for mine was
druv off by the wind when I was playing yesterday in the
Kirkcaldy boat, and they wouldn't wait for me, nor for yer honor
naither.* Pitying the poor bare-headed man, I tried to get hold
of some other body's hat, and failing, gave him my own old one.
My four-and-sixpenny gossamer must do night as well as day-
work now, thanks to the blind Irishman."

As letters in the two following months are the only sources
of information, we give several to his brother almost entire.

"J/arcA 12, 1840.

" Wliether do you like best to get a letter on Saturday or
Monday? I like the former best, and suppose you do. It
seems to me to cast a pleaaant shadow, when the news are good,
over the week's labours, to suit well with the lay-the-oar-by
feeling, which slowly increases through the last week-day, till
towards evening, or you will say towards midnight, the feeling
gains its maximum, and the repose of the Sunday is pleasantly
anticipated by a silent comforting read of a home letter. If the
news are bad, why then let them come on the Monday, if they
please ; they won't cheat us out of Sunday's peace, and pervert
the day of rest into a time of brooding over the incurable.

"This letter, heralded by the preceding waste of ink and
paper, is neither good nor bad in its tendency, being a letter of
love, dictated by conviction of its being owing you, and likely
to contain what floats uppermost in my brain between this and
post time. The time I had set apart for writing you has been
somewhat intruded on by the young folks wishing to see some
electrical experiments in the dark ; and as we had puss to give
a shock to, the gas to set on fire, ourselves to illuminate, and aU
to astonish, time slipped away unheeded, till the clock striking
made me throw down my electrical rods, and snatch up the
paper.

886

MEMOIB OF OEOROE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

" Of business I have nothing to tell — things are as they were.
I have been foiled in another attempt to get something to do,
and am ^VTiting away at electrical lectures.

" The weather hero has been of the finest. Our sparrows, like
yours, have put ofl' their flannels, morning gowns, and slippers,
and walk about in innocent nakedness, to enjoy the sunshine
and pick up the crumbs. There is plenty of sunshine going ;
no rain for a month ; but the supply of crumbs is rather scarce
here as with you. I have found it more than once befitting my
complexion to wear Kaphael-like hair; it saves a sixpence.
And I can now understand your delight in finding in an unknown
hole in your waistcoat, an unsuspected coin. I collect pennies
together, and hide them in a comer for letters ; and except in
the article of tobacco, I am a very economical man. As regards
that latter ncccssa'^j, indeed, as it only costs threepence half-
penny an ounce, I do not upbraid myself much for it ; the less
that I have found a decent woman who gives me a pipe in to
the bargain. Except a visit to the Exhibition, to which I treated
myself, I am innocent of expenses, which I need to be, seeing I
am already in debt."

ser
wli
my
in

"Zd April -ifiiO.

"We received your welcome letter this morning, telling of
your exceeding business, and freely admitting the propriety of
your not writing us. I am about, as the voice or oracle of the
household, to send you what comfort I can in the shape of a
letter, — all the comfort, I mean, that a kind letter from a brother
can give, whatever its subject be. Had I known how very busy
you were, I should have thought twice before I s( \i you such a
shameful affair as that epistle you got this morning was. But,
in truth, mother did not put the idea of writing into my head
till late in the day, when the available hours were mostly past,
and I had to scrawl away after dinner, when half my energies
were away on duty at the central citadel of the stomach helping
to digest an indigestible Scotch mess. In these circuri-" stances,
spite of fuming away at my pipe, the brain was in a minority,
and the house being counted, so few idea-members were at their
places, that the business had to be abandoned, especially as the

iKra-40.

MARVELLOUS PROCESSION.

237

sergeant-at-arms could catch none of the members, or tell
whither they had gone. In these circumstances, I contented
myself with sending } on the proceeds of another night's business,
in the ' bill for the better regulation of time.'

"You will not, however, think that I have forgotten you.
My thoughts at present move round in a narrow circle, of which
you are one of the great elements. Since January I have been
out nowhere, except at considerable intervals to see Miss
Abernethy, so that no foreign affections have come in to invade
the sanctity and integrity of home-love. I have abstained from
writing, very much with the hope of seeing you very soon. For
example, I read the other day expressly for your sake, a work on
the use of artificial light, from which I would have copied out
passages for your benefit, had not I looked to see you very soon.
But we soon shall see each other ' face to face,' and this and
other matters thought about for your sake will come out one by
one as occasion serves.

" Do you remember a certain production of your schoolboy
days, a painted procession of men of all nations, journeying to -
wards some central goal, some mysterious and unpainted limit,
which was left for the imagination to sclieme out for itself, be-
ing too great to be squeezed into the naiTovv space of pasteboard
dedicated to the marching of the wondrous host ? I remember
well the delight I used to feel in watching your deft (not daft)
pencil designing, with a curiosa felicitas, the assembled hordes
of all nations, and peoples, and kindreds, and tongues. No Mil-
tonic pageant of wanior angels marching to battle, or school-read
history of the 10,000 Greeks retreating from treacherous foes to
their native land, or Elgin marbles, with their noble men figures,
and wild, unearthly, snorting horses, nor anything else I have
read or seen of mock or solemn procession, ever affected me more
than that same strange pilgiiming host of yours. Marry! history,
grave and gay, waxes dim, when compared with that hieroglyphic
chronicle. The strange men, with uncouth dresses and wild
looks, who bestrode great serpents ; the cars of victory, drawn
by wild an' -^l' p'.s ; the wild boars tamed down into beasts of
burden ; the bloody panthei*s chained, as of old, to Bacchus's
chariot, — all these, and a thousand other forms, come back on me

238

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

as a chance occurrence has turned ray thoughts to that long-
forgotten panorama. Whither has that marching host wended ?
One may ask in answer, whither Alexander and his Greeks are
gone ; Xenophon and his 10,000 ; Xerxes, or Csesar, or Charle-
magne — whither? All gone back to nothingness and night,
mouldered into dust, ay, and made up again, mayhap, and that
over and over again, into men and women. So has your great
army vanished, and of its existence seemingly no vestige now
remains. So thought I, so I daresay did you ; and yet, strange,
strange to say, one solitary waif has survived the destruction of
his brethren, a single pilgrim, untouched by time, but dumb as
to the fate of his fellows ! You will see some meaning in my
raving when I tell you, that last night I found lying on my
table (arrived there I know not how) one of the figures that
once filled a place in the procession. There he lay, right before
my amazed eyes, a Turco-Persian, by the look of him, a jagged
crown upon his head, and in his clenched fist a long sabre, suit-
ing well with the swashing look of the fellow. I cannot think
how he got to my table ; perhaps he fell out of the leaves of a
book, where he had been imprisoned, like Ariel i.r, the cleft pine,
for some ages. I do not know, but so soon as I recognised him
I caught him, and stowed him away carefully in a sly drawer of
the curiously-devised desk I inherited from you. There he is,
very precious a? a memorial of you, and of old, old days, when
we and others were young. There he shall lie near your astro-
nomical devices, which I consider my property, and shall keep
till you are married. I shall then make a present of them to
your lady, as an heirloom of the family, and an evidence of the
superior powers of the boys of the olden time.

" There have I cheated you out of much clean, serviceable
paper, by getting involved and hurried along further than I in-
tended, among that processional throng. Extricating myself at
last, I have to tell you of home affairs. ... I lately sent copies
of my essay to Paris by a friend, with letters to three of the
chief French chemists. I assure you it is far easier to write in
English than in French. John Niven was out of town, and
Harry Giles in London, so that I had nothing for it but to fall
to myself I made one letter serve them all as a staple docu-

m(
su
lo(
wc

1839-10.

WHENCE CAME THE BALL

239

ment, adding, however, to each a special piece of choice flattery,
such as might suit a Frenchman's vanity. I got Miss Niven to
look over my letter, and correct it. Without her correction, it
would have been a very sony piece of French." i

" April 28.
" I am writing on the evening of a day about which you will
have ceased to think in England ; that is, the day misnamed
Fast-day, because the slowest in the year. The dull, sepulchral
clanging of the bells, and the silence of the street, made the
day dull, and the exceedingly sunny brightness of the air drew
me forth from my books. I wandered down to the sea-shore
near Granton, and loitered along the verge of the sea, singing
and picking up shells and sea-weeds, and now and then a strange
stone, with which I loaded my hat and pockets. There, among
strange crab-fish, and cuttle-fish, and creeping things, what
should I find thrown by the waves at my feet, but a little roimd
leather play-ball. The question arises, whence came it ? It was
small enough to suit the delicate fingers of the most fragile mer-
maid or sea-nymph, who may have tossed it in excess of glee
too far, so that it came to the surface of the great water. I had
been amusing myseK skimming oyster-shells in duck-and-drake
fashion over the surface of the water — this being a great occupa-
tion of mine at the sea-side. Mayhap this pleased the sea ladies,
and they responded by sending me the baU. Who knows ? The
voice of the waters spoke in full diapason tone, some stout hand
being at the bellows. And doth not St Paul say, ' That every
voice in nature has a significance?' Doubtless, but our closed
ears understand it as little as the music of the spheres. It may
have been that some too frolicsome nymph broke one of the
mother-of-pearl panes of Neptune's sitting-room with the mis-
directed ball, whereupon the angry god, snatching the offending
missile, hurled it with his mighty arm sheer through the oppos-
ing waters, to peipetuate its future assaults on brother Pluto's
round earth (as Jove tossed grim Mulciber over the crystal
battlement). Whether or no, it has led me, in vain attempt to
trace its parabolic and altogether hyperbolic course over earth
and sea, far away from my object in snatching my pen to

240

MEMOIR OF GEOBGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

write gravely to my grave brother. Wait a bit, the gravity is
coming. r

" James has got a prize from Sir W. Hamilton for translation,
but otherwise has not done much this winter. I am as before ;
but now done with classes. Dr. Kombst, who has highly eulo-
gized my progress in German, especially my quickness in learn-
ing to speak (after a fashion) ! has sent me a perpetual ticket to
his lectures and classes, so that I may take my own time of at-
tending. . . .

" Forbes and I have visited some class-rooms, and will look
over more before fixing. ... I have many kind friends hero, and
keep a good lieart in me."

fiiiwn

" Wednesday, May 1840.

" I shall just write you here a desperately swift letter, having
too little leisure to take much pains about the perplexing little
commas and stops that stand in the way of composition. I
would I were beside you in your busy working, I think I could
help you more (indirectly) than some better-hearted people.
Whenever you come, we shall be glad to have you, and I can tell
you that you will find your old friends as loving as before ; and
I can promise you some desirable new ones. Although you
are so very busy, I am going to introduce to you by letter a
gentleman leaving this for a short stay in London, Edward For
bes, the celebrated editor of the 'Maga,' a real good-hearted,
clever fellow, and one I am sure you will like. He was a
painter before he took to natural history, and is still a fine
sketcher ; he has seen your work, spoke of it in very high (but
honest) terms, and wished to know you. He is about twenty-five
years old, and now destined for a scientific career.

" He is a very amiable, obliging fellow ; at tlie same time
exceedingly well read in all sorts of books, and fond of litera-
ture. I need not tell you he is a wit, or a good song writer ;
but you may not know that spi*^^ of all the quips and cranks
that gave the ' Maga' so much interest, he is a fellow of great
good sense, and fine taste as to literary or artistic merit. In-
deed, I do not know among my friends any one on whose judg-
ment I would put more reliance in any disputed matter.

mco
nion.
pape
prise

1839-40.

SEARCH FOR LECTURE-ROOM.

241

judg-

" I liope you will like tim ; I am sure you have a great deal
in common, and you may find him a pleasant and useful compa-
nion. We want to give you the red ribbon, as soon as your
paper is done. It was he proposed you, for great was my sur-
prise when I heard read out among the names of the candidates,
one David Wilson. ' May I ask,' said I, * who this namesake of
mine is ?' ' Oh ! that's your brother.' ' Oh ! said I, * then Daniel
is the name he rejoices in,' and so you were un-Davided.

" Forbes is bringing out a book on the star-fish, for Van
Voorst, in the style of the Zoological Gardens, with head and
tail-pieces, which he is at present drawing here on wood. One
of the tail-pieces, illustrating the class of sea-urchins, is very
good. It represents a hedgehog, a sea-urchin, and two little
knavish rascals, admiring each other on the sea-shore. In this
way, all the kinds of urchins are most oddly brought together.
I'll give Forbes a letter to you ; he knows how busy you are,
and will not waste vour time.

" I have been seeking for a room to lecture in all over the
town, but have not yet found one, and am induced to delay, as
there is some prospect of a better room turning up than any yet
proposed to me. One trump card has turned up among the many
blanks that have been coming to my share, with a goodly set of
knave cards too among them. This is Christison letting me
work in his laboratory, I shall thus get something ready for
the Association at Glasgow this autumn. You must get your
visit over by the end of August at least, as I am engaged for
September there.

"Do you remember Mrs. Goldsmith, the old English widow
lady ? A daughter of hers, Mrs. Lillie, a widow, and a young
lady friend, visited Scotland last summer, and I was out a day
with them at Eoslin. The talk turning on verses, I was asked
for some, and promised them ; the next day I called with a copy,
but the lady ^vas gone. Guess my surprise when I received a
note from London yesterday, saying that Mrs. Lillie feared Dr.
Wilson had forgotten his promise, or lost her address, so 1
must send them off : that's the way grave studies are stopped."

Speaking of this lady, he tells his sister Mary, " I have sent
her copies of the ' Snowdrop' and Music piece, and by way of

242

MEMOIK OF OEOIIGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

tttoneineiit, added the following rude rhymes on her own name,
not knowing what subject to choose as likely to please her.
Had Lillie been her maiden name, or her husband been living,
I could have called her bride or daughter, which would have
been more poetical ; the first line is necessarily lame in conse
quence of her being a widow. Perhaps I chose a painful sub
ject, as I have since thought, but I hope not."

RHYMES FOR MRS. LILLIE.

" Thou iirt a fair flower gniHoil among tlio lilies.

Sister or near Iriond of the ricli iiniiu'ylli.s,

And the golden-crested tall dairodilliea,
Spring's early flowers ;

The narcissus is ol' kin to thee ,

Bending his ])roud stem
Crowned by a diadem :

Children love to see

Round the calyx eup, the rosy ring,
And kings in vain might bring,
As an ecjmvl ofl'ering,
Their costly crowns.

Till' tJoiiting lotus on the face
Of some Egyptian lake.
Trailing glories in her waive,

As the Princess of thy race

Hath of old renowned been ;
The poet dreameth to have seen
Her enthroned as the (lueen
Of the Lily Uowei-s.

The lily of the valley is a modest thing,
And dares not to look up
From her tiny tlowercup

When the sun is shining ;

But the water-lily is a brave flower.
And feareth neither wind nor shower,
But owneth the eagle's power
To look at the sun.

Mora I'd sing of, were I dutiful,
To name thy sister flowers,
But this transcends my powers.

Some are grander, none more beautiful

Than the water-lily, all night bathing
Her petals, hidden in the swathing
Leaves, that keep from scathing
Its every charm.

May such a fate be thine, to tiiid

In darkness ami the hour of sorrow
A hiding-place until the morrow,

Casting the shadows far behind,

•■•n

•no..

uf",.;.

iW.

ymt

1839-40.

THE VIRGIN CHEMIA.

24a

Invade the twilight grey,
And dawning on to perfect day,
Drive grief and care away
And the Iieart'a sodneas !"

"I have not heard from Daniel since I wrote to you," he
tells his sister a few days later. " I got letter after letter from
him the week before, concerning a chemical lectureship in one
of the small London schools, which was offered by its pro-
prietors. Daniel would have liked well to get me up beside him,
and made out a fine picture of the advantages '>f the place. But
1 saw from the first that it was a shabby affair, both in respect-
ability and pecuniaiy value, and all my friends here advised me
tu have nothing to do with it. I suspect, however, I got the
credit among the London folks of being knit to Edinburgh by
stronger ties than professional c»prit. Daniel Macmillan sent
me a letter to-day, in which he refers, with evident surimse, to
luy refusing a London lectureship, and puts the query, if the
great attraction here bo not a heroine ? Marry ! they will have
me entangled in some love scrape or other to give a colour of
rationality to their own fancies ; and Daniel, though saying
nothing, has, I daresay, had a laugh with his namesake at my
sudden conviction of the great advantages of a residence in
Edinburgh. Nevertheless, in spite of these sly insinuations,
you know and I know, that the ' Virgin Chemia,' as certain of
the old alchemists call her, is my only love and object of wor-
ship. Her ladyship may be adored in a very quiet way ; a
little expense for glasses is all (and does not every lady need
her glasses -tumblers, spectacles, mirrors, and so forth ?) Flesh-
and- blood ladies need on the part of their adorers lots of wealth
and wisdom, and my share cf both is so veiy slender, that I must
tarry a long while before I get the right to address them."

To the lectureship spoken of the following letter chiefly
refers : —

" 'list May 1840.

" My dear Daniel, — I know not what to say to you in return
for your gi'eat trouble in looking after this vacant place for me,
and if thanks were things to be sent between brothers, 1 should

244

MKMOm OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

1839-4

make my letter so heavy with them, that it would need two or
three of Mulread/s nonsensical envelopes, stuck all over with
Her Majesty's penny heads, to get it through the Post-Office.
As it is, howev^er, 1 fear the place is not worth my taking, even
in its best view. The school must be a very small and humble
one, for 1 never heard of its competition with University College
all last winter ; and no exertions on my part could make much
difference on the small income it must yield its chemist. I

never lieard of Mr. , B.A., nor do the Cambridge

men here know about him ; and from what I know of the London
students, I can assure you a very, very slender stock of chemical

knowledge will go a great way among them. As to Mr.

going to the College of Engineers, he can only be going as
assistant, for Everett, fonuerly of Middlesex Hospital, is the
chemist of that institution. I could have stood with the best

chfince of 's place, for I knew of it when inquiring about

the Engineer's College last autumn, but I did not think it worth
my while.

" Tlie London students are notoriously the most unscientific
students on the face of the earth. My English friends need not
take offence at this, for the Englishmen who come here are
abundantly characterized by scientific enthusiasm ; but the
professional business spirit of the London schools is alien to the
true study of their subjects, and on such things as chemistry
they only ask what will pass the halls. I had full opportunity
of seeing this, last winter, in the practical class of Griffith of St.
Bartholomew's Hospital. An experienced and popular teacher
told me it was useless to discuss law or theory before them ;
they did not care for it. Although, therefore, last winter I
would gladly have caught at what you have indicated, I should
be loath now to land myself among strangers, in a place where
my love of science would be damped down by the want of
enthusiasm in my pupils, and my pecuniary income would at
the best be barely sufficient to keep life in. Further, I should
not like to come in opposition to Graham, as a rival teacher. 1
have spoken to Forbes and other wise men, and they dissuade
me from it. And now, indeed, there is an opening in Edinburgh
such as will not soon occur again ; I have the kindest assistance

fivm

towa

say,

I ap

sity

men.

1839-40.

EDINBUKGH Versm LONDON.

245

fix)m all about me, even from those I thought coldly inclined
towards me. I have the good-will of all the professors, I may-
say, and the promise of their votes (those who have them), when
I apply to the College of Surgeons for license. All the Univer-
sity men are on my side, and all the influential Queen's College
men. Both Dr. and Mr. Lizars have promised to help me, and
recounuend pupils, and I am pretty certain of getting the Cam-
bridge men, one and all. All the red ribbons, of course, stand
by me, and many private friends (ladies especially) are beating
about for pupils.

" In these circumstances, I reconcile myself to the additional
expense in beginning here (though I am certain Lucas underrates
the London prices), because 1 am sure I should have just to do
in a few years what I am doing now, and with no greater, but
in truth with fewer advantages. London is not the place for
me at present ; Edinburgh is better ; this has been impressed
on me by Samuel Brown, Forbes, Professor Syme, l^oung,
and others, long ago, before this matter turned up, and I
should prefer remaining here to going anywhere else for some
time.

" I mourn to think how your precious time has been taken
up about this ; and along with this, I see with sorrow how little
likely it is that you and I will get together for a long while ;
but the same professional necessity that took you to London
will keep me here, and for a while we nmst * dree our weird'
separately.

" I have in hand at present a very interesting inquiry regard
ing the phosphorescence of sea animals, and its possible connexion
with electricity. It was begun at Forbes's request, and is likely
to yield an excellent paper for the British Association. I work
some hours a day at purely chemical labour at Christison's, and
hope to get something in that way ready also ; so that I shall
probably read papera at two different sections.

" -Regarding the Brotherhood, there is no secrecy as to its
character, but the opposite, enjoined on all men. Nevertheless
I never talk of it before people, for they cannot be got to under-
stand its true character. I advise you to do the same."

246

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. V.

" The bearer of this letter is Mr. Edward Forbes, triangle-
bearer, painter, song- writer, naturalist, and I knov not how
many other excellent end admirable things besides. He is at
present in London, to superintend the printing of liis book on
the star-fish, and will stay some time there. As I hpve told yo\i
concerning h'^ talents ani? amiability before, I shall leave you
to disco'^er hi? uitrifs youiself, t'lid close this introductory por-
tion oi my lelv : ; iiw mst you cf<n read at another time.

" Foi J V par; T expf ct to be married about the year

of our Lord 1860 ; all tluviAj^I t of the ceremony being celebrated
sooner, has clean gone out of my mind for a long while back,
and I have banished all love ideas. It is different, however,
with you ; and I hope sincerely to see you soon, as that wild,
strange, powerful man, the author of the Chartist Epic, says,
finding 'expectation substanced into bliss.' With every fond
wish for your happiness, I conclude here, for I have got strange
beasts to analyse, sent me from the sea- caves of Fife, and they
are beginning to decay. Hoping you have not kept Edward
Forbes waiting all this time, I remain your affectionate brother,

" George."

The allusions in the close of this letter are in consequence of
Daniel's approaching maniage, and how touchingly prophetic
does that to liimseK now appear on having reached the year he
names !

"June 6, 1840.

" I work steadily at my lectures, writing and reading often
for eight or ten hours a day. I find that the undertaking is a
more serious one than it seemed at first. But I don't flinch,

and hope to get on bravely."

"JtayU.

" I shall write you at present a very short letter, for I have
not much to say, and am not in the humour for saying that
little same. The weather here has been of the worst, — rain,
rain, such an eternal shower-bath of rain that no Murphy
would have dared to foretell it had he possessed the power to
foresee it. If he had chalked out such an umbrella July, he

CHAP. y.

IKW-IO.

PEDESTKIAN EXCURSION.

247

i May 1840.

I, triangle-
' not how

He 18 at
8 book on
e told yo,i
leave you
ctory por-
Qe.

t the year
celebrated
hile back,

however,
that wild,
'pic, says,
very fond
3t strange
and they
i Edward
3 brother,

:ORGE."

[uence of

prophetic

year he

e 6, 1840.

ng often
ing is a
't flinch,

•ftily 18.

I have
ing that
:, — rain,
Murphy
ower to
Fuly, he

ould have been sei/ea ]»y the enraged people, and burned
'•liv»^ — roasted, ay all unboiled murphies should be. In con-
^equt)nce, I have never got out tc vvalk, and the excess of
v^pou^". without has begotten dyspeptic, l)lue-devil vapours
within, of which I have not yet got a clear riddance, though a
clamber up ht^^ . Seat with Professor Blackie has expelled
most, and given notice of leave to all of them."

The next letter speaks of a pedestrian excursion in prospect,
in which George was to have his cousin James as companion.
How this plan was carried out, and what were its effects, sue
ceeding chapters will show»

" Septfinber 5th.

" I was away at the country when your letter arrived, liavi.'g
gone for two days to Penicuik with John Niven, and since i
came back I have been making preparntions for setting o'v to
Stirling to-day, if possible. The weather, however, is at pi n^
vety stormy, and unless it improve I shall not leave till to-mor-
row. I intend to walk about the countiy there for a few days,
and then set off for Glasgow, when the Association meets. I
shall return as soon as the Meeting is over.

" I go to the country without much desire to be there, I have
so much to do ; but I feel the need of some relaxation, and it
will gain time in the end. I have nothing to tell about almost
anything. ... I have not yet written to Glasgow, but they
know my intention of coming. I shall be there i week, and
leave the moment the business is over. Meanwhile the sun
has come out, and it prompts me to pack up. I'll write you
either from Glasgow, or as soon as I return."

With this glimpse of sunlight we close the chapter, having
before us many days like those St. Paul speaks of, in which
neither sun nor stars appeared.

fiiiiJV

248

MEMOIR OF OCOKGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

CHAPTEli VI.

LOSS OF HKALTII PUBLIC LI5CTURES ON CHEMISTRY
INVALID LIFE.

" As iimny au I love, I rebuke and oliasteii." '

Mercifully is the future hidden from human eyes, else
would the few days of countiy life by which George Wilson
expected to " gain time in the end " have been very differently
anticipated. It may be that compassionating angels watched
with wistful eyes his departure from home, but love infinitely
more deep and tender than theirs was even now preparing the
furnace, by means of which the process of refinement was to be
carried on. Half of his life is now past ; in almost unbroken
health have the years fled, while his soul has been clothing
itself with the beautiful garments of wisdom and knowledge.
Hitherto all has been preparatoiy, and friends look forward
with abounding hope to his opening career.

" If God grant me health and leisure, my most urgent needs,
1 shall not despair : " thus have we seen the desires of his heart
expressed ; yet these were the very things to be denied, while
many other precious gifts could only, from the absence of these,
'j8 partially turned to account. • ^

In allusion to this period of his life. Dr. Cairns says :'—
" Ardent in temperament, buoyant with youth, and elastic in
body as in mind, with gay humour, keen repartee, flashing
fancy, and profuse literary as well as scientific faculty, vnder
the presidency of a clear judgment and a strong will, he seemed

• ' Macmillan's Magazine,' January 1860.

1840-41.

STIRLING AND ITS ENVIRONS.

249

formed to cut his way to the rapid eminence and brilliant
success, after which he eagerly panted. A totally dilfereut
path was mark(!d out fur him ; and in this contrast lies the
moral intt^rest and pathos of his life."

Stirling was thu head (puirters of the cousins in their pedes-
trian tour, a much-valued friend being their hostess there. On
the 10th of September he writes home, " I should have written
yesterday had I not been away up in the countiy, spending the
night in a farm among the highland moors, about eight miles
above Stirling. Hitherto things have gone on most excellently
in all respects ; Mrs. M.'s children being in the country, she
has devoted her whole attention to making us happy, and we
liave received every kindness from her. A brief record of
what we have been doing will best show you how we have been
occupied, and prove to you that we have not misspent our
time. Saturday was devoted to a nine miles' walk over the
carse of Stirling to Bannockburn, to the site of the stone where
Bruce's standard was placed on the day of battle. With the
help of two gentlemen, I got a somewhat good idea of the forces
in the affair.

" Then on Sunday, after hearing two tremendously long ser-
mons in the Established Kirk, it was proposed to walk out to
Bridge of Allan in the evening, and hear a third discourse.
We walked out, but as the sermon was in a w right's shed which
was crammed, James and I walked farther to learn if there was
evening service in the parish church of Lecropt, a beautiful
place on the Perth road. Singulp^y enough, there was no ser-
mon, and we had to occupy ourselves admiring and asking
questions of the myriads of bonnie bairns we saw about us.
Of these there were so many that I can conscientiously say that
Stirling and Perthshire beat all places hollow for beautiful

children, and as sharp as beautiful I am out every day

walking till nine o'clock. I tried last night to finish this letter,
but this is all the length T got. This morning I add that I was
away on Monday walking to Doune, which with the return
makes a distance of sixteen miles. Tuesday, as 1 have said,
we spent at a farm seven miles off, and now we are just starting
for a twenty miles' walk into I'erthshire. We shall rest there

200

MEMOIR OP OROROr. WILSON.

niAI'. VL

a (lay, and conio l)ack on Saturday, f loave this nn Tuesday
at the furthest, so timt time presses, and as t)\o period is lefis
than I thought it would have been, I am anxious to make tho
most of it"

" STiiibiNiJ, Siiturdny, Septemftcr 12, 1840.

"My dear Mother, — I promised to write you, when I returned
from our Perthshire excursion ; I have just come back from our
twenty miles' walk, and sit down to send you a few lines, but as
{ have been a good deal knockod about, and have a very bod
pen, you will excuse the scrawl I send you. On Thursday,
James and I set off for Ilalloch, a fanu in Perthshire, about
three miles from Muthil, where Mrs. M.'s children are staying
with their aunt. It was a very wild day, the rain falling almost
incessantly, but as there was no help for it, we buttoned our
surtouts about us, and, staff in hand, set off, Mrs M. accoHipany-
ing us four miles out of town. As we passed through tho
Kridge of Allan, I was surprised by some one tapping at the
glass of a window, and looking round I recognised John Niven's
goodly countenance. T stayed a few minutes with them, and
set off again, leaving Mrs. M. a little past the Bridge of Allan.
We tnidged on manfully, through rain and wind, walking four
miles an hour without flinching for the first thirte«^n miles. In
this we were greatly assisted by a small drop of brandy which
our kind hostess insisted on our taking ; and 1 !> , the fact that
James was carrying out a quantity of tobacco to Jean Scott [an
old servant of the Russells]. As it was n; . ot all unlikely that
the tobacco had been smuggled, I exacted a tax on it, in the
shape of a few inches off the pigtail, and getting a light at the
cottages we passed on the road, I kept up my steam bravely.
After reaching the thirteenth milestone we stopped at an inn at
Ardoch, and as it was threatening a very heavy shower, we
waited and refreshed ourselves for nearly an hour. Thereafter
all went wrong. We left the turnpike road to take a short cut
by an old road over the moors. We got directions how to
proceed at the toUgate, and James, who professed to kno 7 the
country, learned the route from the man. But, alas ! his memory
failed him at the critical place; and after we had proceeded

1840-41.

A TWENTY MILES WALK.

901

tfi

wo
liter
cut

tlie

about two miles wo caino to a place whore two roads crossed,
leaving us three routes to choose auiong. No effort of renieui
brance could enable either of us to recollect the right way ; and
after reproaching James, wo agreed to take what turned out to
bo by far the longest road, by at least three miles. There was
no house or person near to ask at, and wo had the mortification
this morning to find that, had we asked at the first farm-house
we came to after our dilemma, we might have got across a field
into the right road, and saved our legs a weary stretch ; as it
was, we wandered through fields and over farms, and at lost
reached our destination, having been on the road from eleven
till six o'clock. We were most warmly welcomed at a beautiful
fann -house ; got a moat hearty dinner-tea, and, as tlu! folks had
not seen candles for several months, after a dose of the ever-
lasting toddy, we got off to bed at nine o'clock. Here, however,
our troubles did not end, for though they swore that the bed had
once held two Stirling bailies, we found it too small for us.
The whole night was spent in a battle between us and the bed-
clothes ; the clothes determined to be down on the floor, and we
as determined to have them lying on us. I am sure I awoke
a dozen times, it being my offtce as occupant of the front of the
bed to pull the sheets and blankets up, and James instinctively
gave a giunt, and pulled them over to his side. I slept little,
but as we lay nearly twelve hours in bed, we were quite re-
freshed and nimble next morning, though we did not know
what lee to tell, when we were asked whether we had slept
soundly or not. Last night was a repetition of the same
manoeuvre, but as we employed ourselves speculating on the
way in which two famously fat bailies had lain there, the time
passed away pleasantly enough. My pen wearies to be done,
ashamed of its pci ormance, else would I tell you how we went
to Muthil, and visitod R T., and how we saw old Jean Scott,
and I smoked a pipe with the ancient, witch-like, doited body,
and how in the evening we took tea with Minister Walker.
This morning we walked home again in a bright beautiful sunny
day, and did not lose our way. We looked in at Mr. Abernethy
at the Bridge of Allan, and as he Wfis at dinner, he insisted on
our staying, which we did." , .

252

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. Vl,

1640

The troubles of this excursion were increased by James Rus-
sell, with characteristic heedlessness, having left home with shoes
so worn, that it was found necessary to have a pair made by a
country workman. These, being strong and heavy, so blistered
his feet that he was thankful to take them off, and limp along
shoeless in the quiet roads. The result of the unwonted exertion
to George was a sprain, which might have yielded readily to
simple appliances ; but a dislike to give trouble, combined with
a child-like forgetfulness of pain not immediately pressing, led
to concealment from his kind hostess that he had suffered aught.
It was a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, yet it was to
darken all his life. Passing over the same ground fifteen years
later, he spoke almost shudderingly to a sister of this walk and
all it recalled to mind. nt

Three days later than the letter just given, he went to Glas-
gow, to attend the meeting of the British Association. A week
of exertiou and excitement, almost inseparable from such assem-
blies, caused further injury to health, and he returned home
seriously ill. His friend. Dr. Skae, was his medical attendant ;
and now began that deep debt of obligation which his friends
of the medical profession laid him under throughout the rest of
his life. Their aid was in most cases given unasked, prompted
by a loving regard, and with the tenderness of brothers did more
than one watch the ebb and flow of his strength, prolonging by
affectionate care the years of his earthly sojourn.

A letter to Daniel, of October 2d, speaks of his health : — " I
shall not apologize for taking a small sheet in answer to your
kind, candid letter of this morning, for I am still an invalid. I
have been confined to bed all day for the last week, and have to
look forward to an imprisonment to the house, at least for tlie
next fortnight. Leeching and poulticing were of no avail, and
the end was an abscess, which was opened two days ago, leav-
ing a gash more than an inch long to heal up before I am sound
on my pins again. If I could have looked to the thing in the
country, I might have prevented all this, but tV '., was impos-
sible ; and my hurried departure, the very day lue Association
was over, I feared might be thought a sign of extravagant
anxiety to be home again. . . . And now I must finish this

sen
yoi

lWO-41.

LECTUHEK ON CHEMISTRY.

253

scrawl, and get back to bed, and try to get better in time for
your coming."

It was while laid aside by this illness that his first course
of lectures was arranged, under many disadvantages. He had
received license as a lecturer on chemistry from the Eoyal
College of Surgeons,- —a privilege at first confined to the Fellows
of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians, but afterwards
granted by them to others qualified to teach natural philosophy
and chemistry. George Wilson was their first lecturer on che-
mistry, and his tickets qualified for their diplomas, though not
for that of the University. For the field of teaching thus opened
to him he was ever deeply grateful, as, nameless and with little
influence, no other opening could have offered similar advan-
tages. The title given to the teachers of medicine not professors
is, " Extra -Academical Medical School," and of this body he now
formed one. After a time, the students of those extra-mural
classes were pei'n:iitted to share the rights of the University stu-
dents in competing for degrees. The several schools ha nited
under the name of " Queen's College," and with that in Brown
Square he became associated, sharing the lecture-room with
other teachers, and having a small laboratory fitted up. After
this Association was dissolved two years later, he retained sole
possession of the house they occupied, and did not leave it till
twelve years afterwards. It was within a few minutes' walk of
the University, and thus easy of access to students attending
other classes.

Scarcely convalescent, he entered on the laborious duties of
an opening session with the ardour rliaracteristic of all his ac-
tions. To spare himself, when professional duty was concerned,
was for him an impossibility. A letter to his brother, after the
first month was over, gives a glimpse at his labours and pro-
spects : — '

i " December 6th, SumJar/.

" Nothing but the most overwhelming occupation of my time,
to an extent I never knew before, has kept me so long from
writing to you. For tht last fortnight I have not had a moment
to give to anything but ir'y lectures. I have lectured six days

254

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. vr.

every week, besides teaching a practical class and instructing
private pupils. This excess of labour has compelled me to sit
up every night till two o'clock, and rise at seven ; and so tired
am I when I come home at four o'clock, that I often fall asleep
on the sofa while dinner is being served.

" The worst is over now, and I shall have more leisure for
some time to come ; but till my class had been fairly begun, 1
had not one moment of repose. I have now some thirty-one
pupils, a most unexpected and cheering number, and I am, of
course, most anxious to keep up the good opinion they entertain
of me. Many of them are older and wiser than myself I have
no fewer tlian four Cambridge men fresh from their college, be-
sides prize mathematicians from our own University, and other
shrewd fellows who have sharp eyes to blunders, and could
quickly detect them in my present subject of Heat, which they
have all studied more or less before. I have, however, given
supplementaiy Saturday lectures, that I might bring before
them new doctrines never taught here, at kiust in chemistry
classes.

" In my week-day ordinary discourses, for the sake of my
youngest pupils, I have made eveiytliing as simple as possible.
One of my pupils, however, came up one day to inform me I was
making things too simple (!); as it were, wasting my students'
time, ' gilding refined gold.' I said to him at the time, that if
he would wait till the examinations began, he would see whether
or not I liad simplified too much, determined to give him if he
came, a knock-do^v n question. However, last week we were on
a subject difficult enough in its simplest form ; and the crest-
fallen genius announced to me mournfully that he could not fol-
low one word of wliat I had been saying. I laughed, and told
him never to mind. He is settled.

" I shall only add fuvther about myself, that I have just got
out of bed, havii'g been sleeping there after the excessive labour
of last week. It was knocking me uj), and my wound, after
healing, opcsned afresh and began to inflame : to prevent the
serious results that might follow I rested yesterday and all to-
day. And T shall have much nnmt leisure in the wiek to
come."

1840-41.

EDWARD FORBES 8 ESTIMATE.

255

ether
■ he

re on
'est-
fol-
told

got

DOUT

fifter
tlie
to-
to

He at once became a favourite lecturer. It was a delight to
hini to impart to others the knowledge he possessed, and by the
wondrous law of sympathy, this delight communicated itself to
his audience. And even while with patient care unfolding the
deeper laws of his favourite science, flashes of wit and fancy
lighted up the subject, and made the dullest feel enamoured of
it. Some of those early lectures are still vividly remembered,
notwithstanding the lapse of time. A sv"^"t clear voice added
to the charm ; and foreign students, wii i imperfect know-
ledge of English, were often advised to atteiui hiin in preference
to other teachers, as being more easily followed. As the judg-
ment of contemporaries is more to be relied on than that
supplied from memory, and perhaps tinged by influences of
later years, we shall give Edward Forbes's opinion in 1844, as
communicated in a letter to his friend Dr. Percy : — " Wilson is
one of the best lecturers I ever heard, reminding me more of
the French school than our humdrum English, and is a man of
high literary taste, and great general knowledge. Of his che-
mical views I know that Graham here [London] speaks in
the highest terms, which he does not bestow on any other
Edinburgh man." Had his health and strength enabled him,
he would have long been a most successful teacher ; but general
feeble health, a friend has truly said, " made his life of public
teaching one long and sod trial. How nobly, how sweetly, how
cheerily he bore ail those long baftling years ; how his bright,
active, ardent, unsparing soul lorded it over his frail but willing-
body, making it do more than seemed possible, and as it were by
sheer force of will ordering it to live longer than was in it to
do, those who lived with him and witnessed this triumph of
spirit over matter, will not soon forget. It was a lesson to every
one of what true goodness of nature, elevated and cheered by
the higliest and hai)piest of all motives, can make a man endure,
achieve, and enjoy." ^

. Of the relaxation obtained in some degree by the return of
summer, we have specimens in one or two letters, forming plea-
sant episodes in his outer life. One to his cousin James, now a
divinity student in Olasgow under the Kev. Dr. Wardlaw, refers

I ' UoriE SubBeoivio,' Second Series, p. 106.

256

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

to the opening of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, and the
excitement it caused in the minds of many from a fear of Sun-
day trains. It will be remembered how petitions were circu-
lated by which the subscribers bound themselves never to
travel by this line, and how conscientious people continued to
take instead the canal boat — the /y-boat as it was called —
which was seven hours on the wav : —

" 5th February 1841.

" I suppose the Glasgow people are as much distracted about
the Sunday travelling question as we are here, where beggars,
petition in hand, wander from door to door, craving your signa-
ture io a promise which no conscientious man can hope to fulfil.
The following anecdote, which I had at secondhand, will con-
vey to you an opinion entertained on this serious subject by no
inconsiderable portion of Her Majesty's subjects. The Eev. T.
Guthrie was lately entertained by his Sunday-school teachers
to a soiree, at which the reverend gentleman unbended himself
most graciously, and, among other sayings, uttered the follow-
ing : — On a recent Sunday some juvenile desecrators fell to
making a slide before the minister's door. At sight of which,
anxious to save both the Sunday and his legs from being broken,
he despatched tlie ser\'ant with a dish of salt, and followed him-
self, as the most formidaole inmate, to scare away the sliders.
To his harangue on the wickedness of their conduct, the little
boys, to his great wonder and amusement, gravely and sorrow-
fully replied, ' Eh man ! it would be far better to gie us the
saut for our parridge, than gang and spile our gude slide wi't'
There was eloquence from the ' great fire bosom' of nature
herself !

" I have another thing to tell you, which I read with very
great pleasure some time ago, and have always resolved but
forgotten to communicate. You remember, in relation to Mr.
Moffat and his Beclmanas, we both believed, 1 from a mere
' theopathetic' instinct, you from a clearly-perceived and ana-
lysed nv'i ssity of thinking, that no people or tribe could be
fouud altogether destituts of the idea of a God. AVell ! it has
'>edu ;tg.ur iii.d aguin d Jiirec' that the New Hollanders have no

1840-4a

TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS.

257

idea of a God, and the phrenologists were able to show that
their brains had no cranny or crevice in which such a thought
could by possibility lurk. Very good ! and yet a recent traveller
who has visited the tribes in the interior — where little commu-
nication with Europeans has left them in their unsophisticated
state — finds that these poor brainless people have minds subtle
enough to conceive the idea of a future state, and do actually
believe in a metempsychosis of souls. It appears that the first
white strangers were supposed to be transmigrated beings of
their own tribe, come back in a new incarnation,

" A most affecting proof of the depth and reality of the belief
is afforded by the traveller, whost name I have forgotten.
Wandering one day into the viUage of a secluded tribe, an old
woman walked up and looked at him with evident signs of
agitation and pleasure. After gazing a while anxiously, she
said, ' Yes, it is he,' and clasped the stranger in her arms. He
learned, by and by, that she looked on him as the fleshly ghost
or avatar of a lost son, and he was introduced to sisters, uncles,
and others, as their long lost relation, returned to dwell with
them." , .. ." :

To His Sister-in-Law.

"May 28, 1841.

" My dear Maggie,— I have not been delighted with any
thing this long, long time so much as with your kind, sister!
letter, I let my class wait till I had reaa it ; and over and o\
again, on the day of its reception, I hauled it out of its co
and took another spell at it. As to its various topics I shal
ray best to profit by them, though I cannot say that I
derstand the interest of the Exeter Hall meetings. ? y
meetings, whether to convert Jews or to supply chimney- s et-ps
with weekly rations of soap and soda, have long been tu me
utter abominations. Yet, after all, it may be that the yearly
May explosion of all the froth-bubbles that have been ma-
mering and fermenting themselves into existence, during the
preceding twelve months, keeps ' the brains of men clear for the
rest of the year.* 1 don't like the trumpet-sounding spirit o '

258

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

18401

this noisy generation ; it is one of the virtues of our Ribbon
Order that we eschew all hut the most necessary talk. How-
ever, Maggie, I douht not the listeners, who, like your own good
self, with the best of motives, attend such places. Yesterday,
the red-hot General Assembly of your kirk deposed the seven
poor rogues who have been hanged, or suspended so long ; and
young ladies sat from nine in the morning till three o'clock
this morning, without shifting their places the whole while. I
was advised to go,, but, as it costs a shilling to get in, I reflected
on the price, and resolved, in preference, to dedicate the shilling
to hearing a splendid military band perform in our Zoological
Garden. That will be greatly more' pleasing to my ears than
polemics of any sort are.

" If you had been at a lecture of Faraday's — ahem ! I could
have excused you, or listening to what Exeter HaU was built
for — an Oratorio, — it would have been well. But the yearly
meetings ! Maggie, Maggie ! you see what a grave, censorious
rogue I am grown.

"From the preceding part of this letter you will rightly
gather that any little amiability you once thought I had, has
fairly evaporated. I am afraid it has, and how can it be
otherwise with a poor bachelor who spends the whole day in
making and discoursing on sulphureous, phosphoreous, and
other notorious, sour, acidifying substances ? The heart of me is
clean dried up, and serves no other purpose than to propel blood
for digestive purposes. The whole tone of this epistle, I am
persuaded, will show you (what I have not courage to confess
honestly) the melancholy, stunted state of my moral being, and
will enable you to understand how welcome was that proposal
of yours concerning the procuring a wife for me. Nevertheless
there are difficulties in the way, lions in the path, and the thing
must be thought over. . . . Meanwhile, this much I will say,
that provided you can cle.a- away these difficulties, I see no
person half so well fitted as yourself to pick out a wife for me.

And why should it not be Miss ? I have nobody picked

out for myself here or elsewhere. So that for that matter you
are perfectly free to speculate on my account, in any quarter
you please. You may make any use of my name you thmk fit ;

1840-42^

DELIGHTS OF BACHELORHOOD.

259

make proposals wherever and whenever you see they will be ac-
ceptable. I leave the matter entirely in your hands, with im-
plicit faith in your good intentions, prudence, and discernment.
If an acrostic or a sonnet would help the affair on, it need not
be wanted; or a bottle of marking-ink, or bleaching powder
might, in this practical age, do more powerful execution. I
begin to see no refuge for myself but in a wife. I am at present
in love with so many ladies that I can never, by any act of free-
will, single out one, and even if I could it would be at the risk
of offending a score. But if you were quietly to get me engaged
in London, some quiet morning I would be found missing, and
reaching London in a noiseless way, could get married, and
return. If any lady accused me of ' trifling with her affections '
when I returned with my bride, why, look you, I should assure
her she was the lady I wished to marry, but circumstances,
which I was under oath not to repeat, had brought about my
sad catastrophe.

" O Maggie, Maggie ! see how I rave away at all the i.id non-
sense, as if I were still eighteen. Will mamage, with all its
sweets, be half so free and pleasant as dear, delightful bachelor-
hood, and no claims, duties, or worldly requirements ? Can I
love any woman better, if she made coffee for me every morn-
ing, darned my stockings, and knitted me night-caps, than at
present I adore more than one wingless angel who does nothing
for me, but play and sing to me as long as I desire.

" I ^m beginning to discern the goodliness and desirableness
of marriage, but still I fear afar off. I confess there seems no
other hope for a man than finally getting married. Sometimes,
through cloud-curtains of smoke, I see visions of myself and a
decent little body of a wife, now boxing my ears, now kissing
me, I in the meanwhile submitting patiently to both inflictions.
Again, a stately lady, member of the Six Feet Club, passes in
awful vision before me, her reticule hanging on one arm and I
on the other, looking exceedingly meek. Oh, dear Maggie !
think of that latter dreadful consunmiation. I awake up from
such thoughts in a cold trembling, and determine for the nonce
to wash myself free of all womankind, except relations and ser-
vants (the latter to be chosen of small dimensions and as ill-

260

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

181

favoured as possible). But I have ceased to make vows of re-
nunciation of the love of ladies. I find they are followed by the
same consequences as vows to abandon smoking. It would be
shabby to give up smoking when your tobacco is done, as if
poverty or avarice were the motives. So I get some of the
dearest, such as .shall be worth giving up ; but, alas ! it takes .so
long to smoke a farewell that the weed gets done, and the old
objection is as strong as ever.

" So with the dear damsels, I clothe myself with my vow as
with a brow of brass, and away to show the flintiness of my
heart. But, alas ! what can the old Adam do against the young
Eves ? (By-the-by, how curiously that word rhymes with
thieves.) An ignominious defeat is the end of both attempts.

" Last night I spent in the company of my very dearly be-
loved and bonnie , a young lady of some twelve years'

acquaintance with the world, who, had I my will, shoidd never
grow a day older or an inch higher. The dear lassie sings like
an angel, and is as graceful as a young fawn and as artless as
the first Eve was. Why must she outgrow her present perfec-
tion, and become a grave woman ? I see not, though I feel the
necessity. Good night, Maggie. I have set my brain on fire
thirldng of the lassies."

During the ^nnte^ he had suffered a good deal from rheu-
matism ; and in the hope of regaining strength, he paid a visit
in autumn to his brother in London. Travelling by G^sgow
and Liverpool, he, as usual, met with much courtesy from unex-
pected quarters. Alexander Eussell, the youngest of the cousins
already frequently mentioned, resided at that time in Liverpool.
In his first letter from London, George says, " I was very kindly
treated at Liverpool. When I arrived I found that Alick had
not got my letter. Accordingly, I went with a cab straight on
to his lodgings, and found there his landlady, a very kindly
and superior person, young and ladylike, who, finding I had
come off a journey and was alone, made me tea, brought out
her own pleasant home-made brown bread, and sat and chatted
with me. All this and other kindnesses, I am sure, will never
be charged to Alick's account ; for the secret came out after-

1840-42.

DISAPPOINTED HOPES.

261

wards in her own statement, that I was very like a brother of
hera, a young priest of the Jesuits, and that she knew what it
was for a stranger to be away from home, travelwom and weary.
Alick was very pressing that I should stay longer with him.
It will amuse you to hear that K. is the old fellow about
dress, — showed a waistcoat which, so far as I could make
out the calculation, cost less than nothing to the purchaser,
and was, as it were, when washings were included, a clear
source of gain.

" I have stood my journey well ; my general health and
rheumatism are improving, and 1 hope to continue making pro-
gress." This hope was unfortunately not to be fulfilled, for
almost immediately on reaching London he suffered from severe
inflammation of one eye. Tlie first doctor who visited him ad-
vised simple remedies, and thus time was lost, and the eyesight
only saved by the use of the strongest measures. A medical
friend who happened to call was the first to perceive the dan-
ger, and, being a skilful ocidist, averted the evil by most anxious
care ; so that in eleven days he was able to write home, and to
say, " My eye is now better, my general health much the same,
and my rheumatism no worse. Two doctors I have met here,
reckoned skilful, give promise of rapidly recovering strength,
there being nothing radically wTong with me ; at present, how-
ever, progress is slow." Expressions of anxiety in home letters
lead to assurances a few days later : " So far as my eye is con-
cerned, believe I am honest when I say it is quite better, at
least only retains a little weakness, which obliges me to avoid
glaring lights or exposure to currents of air. You wiU, there-
fore, understand that I am now quite out of doctors' hands, and
absolved from medicine, recommended to good diet and care,
but otherwise just as I was when I left yo\i. As to coming
home, I shall not do so immediately; it would not be safe,
indeed, to travel at present, from the risk of a retuni of my late
inflammation. London has not had a fair trial ; but, at all
events, I shall not remain here long. The weather is extremely
fine, and I walk out in the afternoon when the sun is down,
and think I shall make progress now day by day. Being for-
bidden to walk much on pavements, owing to the reflection

262

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

from the hot stones, you must not look for city news, or think
I am ill because 1 have not visited friends there."

Before leaving London, however, he can say, " The sun shines
on me with a brightness, and the wind blows on me with a
balminess, which they seem to have lost through this gloomy
summer. The weather here has been of the finest; clear,
unbroken sunshine, for the last fortnight. But yesterday a
thunderstorm brought deluges of rain, and to-day we have one
evendown pour, with the temperature much lowered. I hold it
one of the surest symptoms of improvement, that I have lost
that sensitiveness to changes in weather, which made me shiver
in July, and cower by my laboratory fire. You must not expect
to find me fattened up, or very much stronger than when I
left, but more active and more healthy I certainly am."

Shortly after this visit, his first little niece appeared in the
home he had just left ; and he informs Daniel — " I could give
you and Maggie many advices about the bringing up of the
young lady — ahem ! But I am afraid neither of you would
appreciate the fruit of many meditations. One little hint, how-
ever, I throw out, as a small endeavour to assist you in your
new and strange duty — this, namely, that when baby begins to
speak, which she is likely to do very soon, both in respect of
her sex and her relationship, you ought not to try her with such
words as papa and mamma, — these are poor sounding vocables,
the half of them vowels which she could already articulate if
she saw any occasion for it. No, no ; give her some hard word
full of consonants for a gumstick, to help her teeth through. I
don't know a better than imcle, the three consonants come so
nicely together, with a vowel satellite on either side." Alas !
the little lips never achieved this triumph ; a year later found
her in the heavenly fold.

It was now within three weeks of the winter session of
1841-42, which promised to begin in greater physical strength
than the preceding one. How this hope was again snatched
away he teUs Daniel : —

" Noveviber 6, 1841.

" My dear Brother,— You will be glad, I am sure, to receive

1840-41

SEVERE ILLNESS.

263

a letter in my handwriting ; the best evidence I can send you
that I am better. I had a very severe attack of illness, much
worse than in London, and the treatment was proportionally
rigorous. What was most annoying in the whole matter was,
that a week before I took to bed, I showed my eye to Dr R,
the oculist, and requested his advice ; by some strange mistake
he thought I complained of my eyelid, and said there was
nothing the matter. In this way precious time was sacrificed,
and my eye nearly lost. I never in truth spent such a fortnight
of misery. I was twice cupped, blistered five times behind the
ear, horribly sickened with colchicum, and severely saturated
with mercury. I got worse and worse, till within three days of
lecture-time, when things fortunately took a turn for the better,
and my eye rapidly recovered. My first two lectures I dictated
in bed or on the sofa to Mary ; and my third was made up out
of an old production. I hive been left by the medical treatment
very weak, but in the meanwhile my rheumatism is gone, and
my appetite and spirits are good. Things here, however, are
looking very ill ; the classes are very thin ; my own is like to
be exceedingly small We all looked for a diminution in
numbers this winter ; but the amount of decrease makes us
feel rather awkward. I hope, however, to weather the winter,
and have at least the consolation of feeling that I shall have
leisure to recruit my health, and some time for original
research.

" I am obliged to take a coach up and down, which will prove
rather an expensive thing as we now are. I am so rapidly
recruiting, however, that I shall soon be able to dispense with
it, and take to walking again — a mode of conveyance I for many
reasons prefer.

" Along with this you will receive a note from Mary, saying
I would not write you, which will show what dependence is to
be placed on that lady's veracity. Indeed in writing my lectures
she made many (I am sure) wilful mistakes, and tried to put
me out by placing the stops at wrong places. I shall place the
stop at the right place, and end here."

A month later he says :-^

.^.^

IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

1.0

I.I

11.25

ISO

1^ m

1 U£

^ 1^
2.2

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Rmtographic

Sciences

Corporation

23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 873-4503

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.*

5? ,./W

264

MEMOIB OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

"Satdrdat, December B, 1811.

" My dear Daniel, — My own affairs look a little brighter ; a
few more pupils drop in, and with a desperate effort the year
may be got over. At present it is unpaid, thankless drudgery,
which makes me at times seriously contemplate the necessity of
packing off to some other corr 3r of the globe.

"A ray oi golden light stole into my dark den the other day,
which may prove a present help, and earnest of something better
in store. As I was discoursing to my practical students on
some edifying subject, there walked into my laboratory a grave,
business-looking, middle-aged man, who, seeing me engaged,
made a courteous bow, and took a seat in an easy way at the
fireside. My back was to him, so that it was only when I
whisked round to chalk upon the board that I could catch a
glimpse of him ; and, from the quiet, determined look of the
man, I set him down as agent for the gas company, or else the
water-bailifl^ or some other of the account-presenting gentry
whom I abominate. I bundled the class away as fast as possible,
and proclaimed myself at his service. Very good ! The rogue
was a lawyer, his client was landlord of certain houses in Leith,
near which a soap manufactory is carried on, and the soap-
refuse being laid before the house-windows, annoyed the in-
dwellers by its noisome smelL Would I analyse the said stuff,
and substantiate by chemic proof that it might, co'ild, would,
and should have an odour ? Certainly ; but at the same time I
was given to understand that some of the chemists in town
employed by the soap-maker had sworn that the stuff had no
smelL Christison, however, was retained on the same side as I,
and so that went for little. I told the lawyer to send the stuff,
and I would soon tell him whether my art and my conscience
would allow me to say it was odoriferous. The stuff arrived ; I
gazed on it doubting, for I had a ' cold in my head,' and my
sense of smell was as good as gone. Moreover, I never cared
much about bad odours, as I daresay you remember : —

" For you must know that to chemiats' noses,
Little accustomed to smelling of posies,
Assa-fcetida is quite tiie same
As the finest oil of roses.

1840-42.

DAILY WORK.

265

" I sent out for some ells of pocket-handkerchief, and blew
and blew till I nearly blew both nose and brains away, then
with great circumspection I inserted my neb into the paper bag
with the stuff. Praised be the gods, a noisome odour was dis-
cernible ; by and by, according to Scott [an assistant], it tainted
the whole place. Such plenitude of perception was not vouch-
safed to me, but I was grateful for what I got. I distilled from
the stuff a liquid having a formidable odour, which I gave the
lawyer to sniff. ' That's it, sir,' said he, ' put the bottle in your
pocket, and bring it to court ;' lawyers know nothing of chemistry,
but they know a bad smell when they feel it.

"I hope, like Vespasian, to coin some money out of the
noisome odour."

In January, James Eussell is informed, "All your friends
that 1 see are well and thriving ; Cairns grows taller every day,
and wiU require to be stopped by Act of Parliament. My life
is the most dull and monotonous possible, and bears no fruit by
way of thought or work. I work a little in the laboratory ;
analyse delightful (?) things and make some little discoveries.
But I am easily knocked up, and after standing on my feet from
nine till four, am fit for very little when the evening comes."

To his brother, who had been indisposed, the following letter
is addressed: —

" Fehruanj 4, 18i±

" I have just read your letter to mother received this morning,
and mourned over the sad news. I have suffered myself this
winter much from cold and cough, and others have done so, to
a much greater extent than is common even in winter. The
great variableness of the weather has occasioned such illnesses
to a much greater extent than ordinary ; and you must take
hope from this, and believe you have not fared worse than your
neighbours. Rheumatic headache is a sore thing, as I know,
having had a taste of it lately ; at present, however, my rheu-
matics are quite aristocratic, setting up it would seem for gout,
and have, besides various outposts for desultory skirmishing
about shoulder joints and elbows, established a strong position

266

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

in my ankles; where they manoeuvred last night to an extent
that put sleep for a long while out of the question. My ankles,
therefore, to your head, tie us neck and heel together, and we
would sympathize famously; as that cannot be very conve-
niently done at present, you must take the heart's sympathy in
lieu thereof.

"I have at last seen in the 'Athenseum' your work an-
nounced, and shall look out for it. I hope things mend a little,
and the clouds break up ; still I fear you are like myself trad-
ing on the future. I have begun new classes ; have got six
pupils, one of whom, poor soul, begged a ticket, a deserving
widow's son ; it did me good in my present dreariness to be able
to give him one. Of the remaining five one has paid me, the
others have requested to be excused doing so for some time to
come, which is a very pleasant thing for a poor debtor. I do
believe I have got two of them solely because they were con-
vinced that I was more likely to give credit than the other men.
However, they are gentlemen, and will pay. The present dul-
ness of my life was most delightfully interrupted last night in a
rather odd way. I have a friend and pupil, a Mr, Da Costa,
a Portuguese from Madeira, who has often begged me to accom-
pany him to evening concerts. This I always declined, having
been positively forbidden to go out at night. Some days ago
he came to tell me of a famous concert, and very earnestly
begged me to go with him. This I declined again, on the old
plea, adding, that I was too poor, moreover, and could not afford
the sum. ' Oh then,' said he, ' I'll go for you.' ' Very well,'
quoth I, and so the matter was left. I could not understand
why he always kept talking about the concert, till last night it
came out. At seven o'clock Signer Da Costa makes his ap-
pearance, dressed, and acquaints me that if we wanted good seats
we must set off immediately. A great deal of confusion and
enlightenment succeeded ; in the course of which I said, * My
dear Signer, I told you I could not go.' ' But you said,' re-
plied he, ' " very well," when I said I shoidd go for you.' The
murder was out ; the Signer intended to say I will come or call
for you ; his phrase I interpreted as meaning I will go instead
of you. After the kind, good soul had done so much, it behoved

1840-42.

AN UNEXPECTED PLEASURE.

267

me to make an effort. In spite of medical prohibition and well-
grounded fears, I ventured (well cloaked and muffled) to accom-
pany him. Andasmy health appears to-day none the worse, I feel
very glad I did go. Delicious music of the best sort, rich full
melodies played and sung by no common performers, poured
through the ears into the parched soul of a man, hungering
and yearning for sweet sounds and ennobling emotions; all
this was something, and refreshed me greatly. At first I was
ill at ease ; the penalty I had paid for my former night visit
was too recent and too severe to be easUy forgotten. But the
first overture dissolved all fears ; I began to calcidate how
many days in bed the overture ivould stand, and soon all pain-
ful sensation vanished, the middle neutral point was reached
and passed, and I yielded myself up to the fuU influence of the
glorious art.

" Da Costa and I laughed like children at the feats of a man
with fingers made of putty or dough, who did what he called
playing on the piano. Such a sumph presiding over a piano out
of tune, and listening with stolid satisfaction to the dull discords
he made to drone out of the instrument, was like the fool in
Shakspere's plays, he relieved the strained faculties, and whetted
the senses and faculties for the good stuff that was coming. And
good stuff it was ; had I arranged the pieces I could not have
selected things more entirely suited to my taste than the per-
formances were. Old half-known melodies, bits of which I
jjould whistle, came out, startling me with the unexpected plea-
sure, and the ultimate effect was such, that instead of walking
rapidly and quietly home, when all was over, I, who have not
whistled or sung for months, fell to trying with Da Costa who
remembered best what we had heard. There we were like two
fools, stopping at every second lamppost to hum or whistle, or
try to recall something we had heard ; he has a much finer ear
than I, but I did wonders! I need not say that the main
object of my writing this, is the selfish one of having the
pleasure a second time. But you mingled in my feelings.

" I have been thinking a great deal about my godfathership,
and after reading carefully what the Prayer-Book says, have
come to the conclusion that its spiritual duties I cannot dis-

268

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. vr.

charge. These you must take on yourself. I cannot get clear
light for myself, and how can I help another to find it ? But
ray dear little Ann will be much in my thoughts, and most
fervently shall I strive to work out good for her. At present
I often think, as I did last night, that I could at least sing
to her, and sing I shall, please God, to the little lady, some time
soon, till her hazel eyes are like to be gazed away in wonder
and delight."

To James Eussell, Esq.

" February 20, 1842.

" My dear James, — I do not think you will accuse me of
Sabbath desecration because I spend a portion of this Sunday
evening in writing you. Your letter to Mary, and a state-
ment fiom Mr. Cairns, lead me to lose no delay in assuring you
that the evils of our present sickness have been exaggerated to
you, especially in so far as I am concerned. I have, indeed, for
the last fortnight, been lamed by my rheumatism settling in my
ankles and knees, and making locomotion irksome and e\en
painful; but, on the whole, my general health is decidedly
better, and my energy and cheerfulness greatly superior to what
they were at Christmas. The old gentleman had seen me limp-
ing, which in part resulted from my having leeched and bandaged
my ankle that morning ; but he also saw me eat a hearty dinner,
and might have mentioned that good symptom, which he did
not, I fear. Although I walk with difficulty, and lose some
sleep at night with pain, I can talk three hours, and stand on
my feet all day. I do not indeed complain, and have no claim
on your sympathy to the extent to which you have given it,
but I am none the less grateful for it, I assure you. . . .

" At preseiit Mary is living very low [she had burst a blood
vessel], confined to bed, and suffering (but not much) from pain
in the chest ; she has no cough ; altogether, she is as well as
could be expected, and all immediate danger is past. I think
she will recover well, but slowly ; but the greatest caution is
necessary in all exertion. You can believe it has caused us all

1840-42.

ILLNESS OF A SISTER.

269

much anxiety aud alarm, which are now, however, somewhat
abated. From the doctor I have not learned anything precise
concerning the nature and extent of the heart-affection.

" Mary is as contented, calm, and even cheerful a sufferer as
could be seen ; it is the pain it gives others, not her own sense
of suffering, that afflicts her. Poor thing, she has been sorely
tried by illness and sorrow all her days. Pray to God to restore
and watch over her, for I fear anything like complete restora-
tion to health is hopeless for her. Nevertheless, be not over-
much cast down ; I believe this attack, which is a symptom,
not a disease, may prove beneficial to her ; and, at all events, it
is to me a great relief and consolation to know that she is under
the medical care of a very kind and skilful person."

tion is
us all

" Sabbath Mobnimo, Afarch 20, 1842.

" I am constrained by necessity to devote a portion of to-day
to wilting you. I have engaged to deliver several lectures to
Dr. Eobertson's surgical class. I have been occupied all this
week with preparation, and shall not be free to write a letter
till Friday next, so that this deed must be forgiven.

" I am greatly pleased to read in your letter of the delight
you feel in your studies ; it is a sure proof you are in good
health, whether your peptic mill be going right or no. It is a
delicious feeling that sober exultation which successful, pleasur-
able study brings ; the ' exulting and abounding' emotion with
which some long and rugged hill of difficulty being at last
clomb, and every let or hindrance overcome, behold a Pisgah
point horn which a Canaan of promise can be seen. Such a
feeling have I known ; — ' 'Tis gone ! 'tis gone !' as old Capulet
says of his cornless feet and young dancing days ; but it will
come back with the swallow and the summer flowers, and they
will be here one of these days. At present I creep along on a
pair of crutches, literally and metaphorically a lame, blind
man. Nevertheless, you will be glad to hear I am mending,
general health much improved, lame legs ai. least no lamer,
much profitable and promising work chalked out for immediate
and future performance; on the whole, quiet contentment, some-
times cheerfulness overflowing in its old channels, and gladden-

270

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

ing the hearts of the mucu enduring, dear sharers of our little
fireside circle.

" We shall compare plans, and cheer on each other in our
widely differing pursuits when we meet face to face, Ti.hiqh I
hope will be soon after that most appropriate and beloved of
the days of the year, the 1st of April. . . .

" This is a pretty story about ; young man, go on as you

are doing, and you'll have much to answer for. I remember
once being told by a stage-struck haverel, of a certain young
actor, yet innocent of public performance, who, even in plain
clothes, and in a room, could make the looker-on weep with
emotion. What, then, might be expected when he trod the
stage in shammy (not shabby) leather boots, with tin hel-
met, or tinsel crown and corked mustachios ? Surely nothing
less than that the pit would require Mackintoshes and umbrellas
to ward off the briny torrents from the boxes and galleries.
Take warning ; if you, in plain clothes, and in a quiet domestic
parlour, have made such an auger hole through a young ladjr's
chief organ of circulation, what will occur when your reverence
is mounted in the pulpit { The high, white forehead, the long
brown hair, the au:k eye, with its Edward Irving glance to-
wards the sky (or, in default of that, at the ventilator), the silk
gown, the white bands, the cambric handkerchief! All this
may only make the little hearts go pit-a-pat, but when the
' Chrysostom' is opened, and the floods pour forth, the thunder
rolls of eloquence, the platoon volleys of rarely-imagined illus-
trations, the knock-down, smiting blows (prompted by the
'absolute' and 'righteous indignation'), the imagination reels
drunken, and cannot attempt to calculate the number of coro-
ner's inquests which next week's paper will reveal.

" Seriously speaking, I acquit you of blame, of all blame ;
these sentimental, pseudo-sesthetical young ladies are the most
foolish and unprofitable of nature's productions. They are always
in mischief, and hauling other people into it ; a restless, anoma-
lous, and most troublesome species of bipeds."

"JlfarcA20, 1842.

" My dear Daniel,— I received your kind and welcome letter

1840-42.

PLANS FOR THE SUMMER.

271

at the laboratory, and was much comforted, and grieved too,
therewith.

" It seems at present dreary enough to look about and con-
template the state of business, and you, I fear, are still engaged
in a desperate struggle with the world. Now, I need not offer
you sympathy, you have heurtsful of that already ; indeed, that
same sympathy is a wonderfully useless sort of thing, and, like
Falstaff's honour, pays no debts, purchases no commodities.

"We shall therefore waive the subject, and talk of other
matters. You are glad to think my old spirits are returning,
and health and ability with them, and wish to know my plans
and projects. Now I am so famous at castle-building, and have
so often been totally disappointed in the realization of theui,
that I seldom talk now of what I am about to do ; moreover,
everything so completely depends on my health improving,
that, quite unable to foresee the issue of that, I am the more
inclined to ' sit still and keep silence.' I propose, however, in
summer, to give a special course, addressed chiefly to the senior
students and medical men, on animal chemistry, a subject of
great importance, at which I have been diligently labouring
all the winter. I shall bring before them a new and highly
important branch of chemistry, never properly studied in this
country. The medical men themselves are very anxious about
it, and it was the solicitcition of others that first urged me to it.
My own tastes lead me to other departments, but poverty pre-
cludes their prosecution at present, and this is really as rich and
noble a field as any, and grows every day more interesting to
me. I have been analysing all winter, and have not a few ori-
ginal observations collected together. I am sure I shall be
able to give a very interesting course, and I shall only lecture
three days a week, so as not to overtask myself. Many of the
most intelligent medical men have expressed their delight at
the proposal, and have promised to attend. If possible, one of
the A brethren will lecture with me on alternate days on physi-
ology; our courses being illustrative and complementary of
each other. This is John Goodsir, a very noble fellow, a most
excellent and original inquirer, and one of the most amiable
and lovable of men. We are working together at various

272

MEMOIR OF OEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. Vl

topics of a chemico-physiological character. I shall send you
the first-fruits of our labour as soon as it is published, which
will be on the auspicious 1st of April. John Goodsir will be
hampered by circumstances which may prevent him lecturing ;
I shall whether he does or no.^ I do not expect pecuniary
return from these lectures ; I shall have to give away a number
of tickets, and only the senior student, will attend. But I have
no doubt I shall clear all expenses, and I shall raise up a host
of friends who will tell upon my winter course, besides making
myself better known. If my health only improves, with God's
blessing, I shall do bravely.

"In the meanwhile I have engaged to deliver, next week,
three lectures to one of the surgery classes, on the composition
and mode of analysing calculi. The preparation for this has
prevented me writing you sooner. These lectures are intended
as prefatory and introductory to the summer course, and are de-
livered at Dr. Eobertson's suggestion and request.

" As to myself and my state oi health, I am much better, and
hope soon to bid farewell to my present aches. That I have
often written you in another than the old merry mood will not
surprise you ; you know with all my faults I am not a hypo-
crite, and never conceal, or seek to conceal, the mood I am in.
But if I have been grave, I have never been melancholy ; I
have neither desponded nor repined, but have struggled through-
out to bear patiently every pang. I bow myself with the most
sincere resignation to God's will, and pray that I may in all
respects be strengthened and bettered through affliction. And
yet overflowing mirth which could disport itself in letters, I
could rarely boast of. For the last five weeks I have not had a
night's unbroken sleep through pain, and even the repose, such
as it was, has been procured only by the nightly use of mor-
phia. Even so late as a week ago, I had to stop in the middle
of a lecture overcome with a severe paroxysm, and go straight
home. And what has stood even more in the v/ay of writing,
has been the weakness of my eyes, which are easily irritated,
and scarcely stand even shaded gaslight, so that I have written
generally very hastily, not revelled in my thoughts as I used to

• Mr. Goodsir was unablo to carry out this arrangement

mo-ii.

A SERVICEABLE TONGUE.

273

do, Neveitheless, if you were to stumble in some night at tea
time on us here, you might find me at my old tricks, retailing

some jest picked up through the day or ; but I need say

no more, you would find me the old fellow, with the old non-
sense in my head, cheering the hearts of our much-tried and
often sad home-circl j. Mary is no worse, and I hope will amend
still more ; the rest of us are well.

" P.S. — I hope you are not swallowed up by the earthquake.
— lour loving brother, George."

"March 26, 1842.

" Yeatbiday, which was Good Friday, I religiously observed
by eating a hot cross bmi, and enjoyed a holiday from my labours.
1 had been working double tides all the week with the lectures
I spoke of on the calculi, and was fairly worn out with four
hours' speaking per diem, not to mention the preparation, etc.
But you will be glad to learn that I had an audience overflow-
ing, crammed to the door, and scarcely even standing room to
be had, and this for three days consecutively. Several elderly
gentlemen attended, and said very polite things to me afte^ lec-
ture. The class was most attentive, gave me abundant applause,
and through side channels have communicated their great satis-
faction. I knew the subject, had a sufficiency of well-contrived
experiments, which, as they say of fireworks, went off well,
plenty of specimens from the surgical museums, diagrams, and
other appliances. I was very stupid, bad headache, and no ap-
petite, took no dinner for the three days, and had to lecture at
the unpleasant hour of 4 P.M. ; but that nature which has given
horns to bulls, has given me a tongue which nothing but death
will keep from wagging ; and as I was alive, or semi-alive, wag
it did, and to some purpose. The great object of this seemingly
conceited prologue is to let you (whose interest in my welfare I
do heartily acknowledge) see that there is the best hope for the
proposed summer class, for which John Goodsir and I will now
with undivided attention work.

'•' Mary is neither worse nor better, still a complete invalid,
and requiring the utmost care. We are all otheiwise weU.
The first blink of sunshine that reaches my hazy aovl shall give

MKMOIU OF GEOSQB WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

rise to an epistle to Maggie ; meanwhile excuse this scrawl, my
eyes oblige me to write little."

" Alnv 4, 1842.

" I could not answer your kind note sooner, having been en-
gaged for the last week in preparing lectures for a course I
began to-day on animal chemistry. I delivered my introdue
tory lecture to a good audience, who were pleased to think
highly of it ; and being freed from the buiden of it, I can peace-
fully write you a few lines.

" Mary is better than she was when I last wrote, and able to
be out of bed some hours daily. She cannot write, or she would
tell you how much she was refreshed by your letter ; it is a
most diflicult thing, as you say, to write to invalids, whose
moods are ever changing, without the nature of their change
appearing outwardly, or being always susceptible of communi-
cation by letter. But I hope we shall see her improve in the
course of the summer. For myself, I have not crossed the
threshold till to-day for the last three weeks ; I am so lame as
to be unable to cross the room without the help of a stout stick,
and there is no immediate hope of betterness. The doctors
forbid me attempting to walk, and gravely, seriously recommend
a crutch, or a wooden leg (the latter not being intended to sup-
plant, but to complement the living limb).

" I am in the best hands, and have certainly improved under
the treatment, but it is weary work lying on the sofa when in
the house, and still wearier to have to employ a coach (eating a
sore hole into my small earnings) whenever I go out. I pay no
visits, thinking none of my friends worth a coach fare. And
they manifestly rate me at the same value, or they would occa-
sionally despatch a vehicle for my worship.

" I have made a contract with a coachman who carries me up
and down at stated hours, and I find all the consolation I can
in lying all my length on the cushions, and gazing with a
majestic air on the pedestrians broiling in the sun. It's a fine
thing a coach, a very fine thing, and I am the only chemist,
except the Professor, who can afibrd one ; and I am inclined to
think mine is the handsomer turn-out of the two. It is rather

IIU0-4S.

now TO BEAR SORROW.

975

costly, however, and a project I liave set (instead of myself) on
foot, of paying my way (literally paying my way) by offering my
friends sixpenny or threepenny rides according to the distance,
1ms not been so successful as I could have wished, i observed
to the coachman to-day, that if it was not for lame people like
me, he would often want a job, and that I need not expect much
compassion from him. I am not sure that he knew what the
word compassion meant, but he was not destitute of the reality,
for he insisted on helping me up stairs, and as good as carried
me to the top. One great consolation, however, still remains,
in tninking of the vexation the bootmaker must feel in knowing
that my shoe-soles will not be thinned by the depth of a wafer
l)y all my locomotions.

" ' God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' — is not that a
1)eautiful thought ? To me that expression so fully conveys the
idea of the kind way in which God moulds our state of mind to
our condition, that for these words alone, I can 'everence their
author Sterne, a man not otherwise ranked among my idols.
And among the things I have lately been most thankful for,
was the power at times to turn away a dark or sorrowful thought
by some perception of the ludicrous in things around. Our
great sources of consolation are not to be wasted on everyday
griefs ; but these, little as they singly are, may, by oft repetition,
devour a man piecemeal. I have a friend, a solemn serious
pious man, who thinks he will be allowed to laugh in heaven.
I daresay he will, but if he laughs as loudly as he does upon
earth (like to the neighing of a troop of wild horses), he will
get a box on the ear now and then from the angel Gabriel, for
drowning the melody of their harp-music.

" At this rate I don't know where I'll land next, so I shall be
warned and stay my mad pen. This is a love-letter to yourself,
I only send the love at present to Maggie, and bid her give the
same to my dear god-daughter, who is often in my thoughts."

In a letter of this period. Dr. Cairns tells James Russell of
the introductory lecture spoken of in the letter just given : —

" I never," he says, " admired anything more than your cousin's
firmness in writing down the agonies of pain. I heard his

276

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WII^OM.

CHAP. VL

fAu'^a^^

opening lecture on Animal Chemistry with great interest and
instruction. He has a very fine and penetrating mind, and ia
marked out for eminence. We are getting wonderfully intimate,
and I enjoy nobody's society more."

On May 9, George says to his sister-in-law, "Daniel wiU be
greatly grieved, I am sure, to learn of Sir Charles Bell's death,
and stiU more when he hears the circumstances : Sir Charles
was on a visit to a friend, and during the night was seized with
spasm in the stomach, to which he was subject. Lady Bell
arose to get him some laudanum, but he hastily recalled her to
his side, and leaned his head on her shoulder. She thought he
was merely squeamish, and supported him in this position for
three-quarters of an hour, till the doctor came. When the
doctor looked, he found he was dead, quite cold ; his poor wife
had mistaken her own breathing for his, and had been uncon-
sciously supporting his corpse all the while. He must have
died in a moment; his death resulted from ossification of the
large arteries near the h"r rt, which were found extensively
diseased. One of his last acts on the evenmg before was to
make a sketch of a yew in an old churchyard in the neighbour-
hood. He had been struck with the beauty of this churchward,
and had said, that if asked to say where he should like to be
laid, it would be there. There he now slumbers."^

A few weeks more, and George's struggle to keep at his post,
in spite of physical suffering, was at an end. The facts are best
given in his own words to his cousin : —

" My dear James, — I have this morning received your kind
letter, which, if it has grown out of a root of sadness, bears blos-
soms only of mirth and humour. But so it is always, — the
gravest, soberest people, by their own account, are the best com-
forters of those they favour with their correspondence ; and I
have need of all the comfort you can give me. You ask me to
tell you about my lectures and pupils, and in return I have to

1 See ' Life of Sir Charles Bell,' by Di\ Pichot, pp. 199, 200.

1810-42.

PROSTRATE IN BED;

277

reply that I am obliged to abandon both. My foot, which was
pretty well when you were here, has daily been growing warae ;
and yesterday I was informed by Professor Syme that I must
abandon all active exertion, and prepare myself for the tender
mercies of the surgeon. Accordingly, I am returning the pupils
their fees, and in ill health and debt retire from the struggle.
My only consolation is, that I have done all I could do, and
have fought against difficulties till courage and patience would
avail no longer. Had I known how seriously my foot was af-
fected, I should never have begun, and I have greatly aggravated
my complaint by persisting in working when I should have been
prostrate in bed or on the sofa. To that I am reduced now,
having yesterday concluded arrangements for relinquishing
teaching. Even had the doctors not insisted on it, I could not
have carried on longer. I was perfectly helpless, could not put
my foot to the ground, and had to be carried up and down stairs
on every occasion. I lectured standing on one foot, and had to
use a crutch when I attempted locomotion unaided. Within
the last week, however, the pain has gi'eatly increased ; become,
indeed, perfect torture ; and I rest or sleep in one unchanging
and unchangeable position. When not in motion, however, the
pain lulls, and perfect rest, with surgical aid, I hope will soon
abate it, and lead to amendment.

" At present, however, just struck down unexpectedly from
all my hopes, I cannot look hopefully to the future, and must
recover the stun and shock of my fall before I become alive to
all the comforts that yet surround me. But know this, at least,
for your consolation, that, though often despondent, I do not re-
pine, and do never seek enviously to contrast my own position
with that of others. This much of peace of mind God has
granted me, and I trust he will vouchsafe patience and courage
to bear all that is sent me. I believe that, even for this world,
all noble characters are perfected through suffering ; and in that
spirit I try to endure all things. But flesh is weak, and I know
this too well to vaunt anything at present.
,., " Meanwhile excuse the sombreness of this letter, and do not
distress your.clf for me. You cannot assist me but with your
sympathy, and on that I count to the fullest already. ,

2r&

MKMOm OF G£011GB WILSON.

UHAP.iVI.

" Everybody is very kiud to me ; the brethren of the Order
have proved true brothers to me. The very surgeon looked con-
cerned, as if he had no other patient to feel sympathy with.
But the surgeons are more kind-hearted men than they get
credit for.

" I saw Inglis and Cairns on Saturday, but was too unwell to
get good of their society. Inglis, however, I can see, is a very
fine fellow."

A fortnight later, additional gloom is added to the scene by
a return of inflammation in George's left eye. Mary reports
that, " though still a prisoner to bed, a very slight improvement
is visible in the foot. He is doomed to a dark room, and Jessie
spends every leisure minute reading aloud to him. Alison's
• History of Europe,' and Madame Junot's * Memoirs,' are the
books at present in use. I should have added to my accomit of
the invalid life, that George is ordered to the country as soon as
he can bear removal."

Written at such a time, the following letters may serve to
illustrate the genial kindliness of his nature : —

" Monday, June 18, 1842.

" My dear Daniel, — I give the first moment of convalescence
to you. I have written nobody for the last six weeks, inflam-
mation of the eyes having been added to my other ailments, and
putting it out of my power to handle a pen. I am now able to
lie on the sofa, and can use one eye ; but you must, nevertheless,
be satisfied with a brief letter, which, indeed, I should not have
written, were it not chiefly concerning yourself. But first let
me tell you how much pleasure the arrival of Ann and her
mamma has occasioned us alL When baby was first presented
to me, lying half blind, and very indifferent to almost everything,
I star^^ed in surprise, and could only find vent to my feelings in
exclaiming, What a beautiful child! Truly she is beautiful,
-much more so than I expected, though I cannot well say what ex-
pectations I had formed concerning her. She is like nobody I
know, though I daresay the lower part of her face will yet turn
out Wilsonic. Her forehead is certainly from mamma's side, of

1^0-42.

VACUOUS BllAIN-PANS.

279

the house. But, after all, a child is a tertium quid, and has a
right to a new and perfectly original set of features. Her eyes
ai-e, without exception, the most beautiful I ever saw ; and time
will perfect her charms, not impair them, I feel sure. I am
very proud to have such a lovely god-daughter, but I make little
pi-ogress in her good esteem. I have crowed and chuckled, and
whistled and sung, but the only return she makes for my ad-
vances is to put on a face like a Chimpanzee ; and I have at
length, from fear of marring her beauty, given up all active at-
tempts at diverting her. I now content myself with handing
}ier a piece of paper, over which she smiles like an angeL
Nature, in truth, has been far kinder, I can see, to little babies
than leave them dependent for their amusement on bachelor
uncles or anybody else ; and Ann manifestly only needs to bo
left alone to develop abundant means of self-diversion. — Yours,

" George."

" Monday, June 27, 1842.

" My dear James, — I have not used you well in the way of
writing ; you should have heard from me before this. But for
the greater part of the last five weeks I have not been in a con-
dition favourable to scribbling, and my eyes inflaming not only
prevented me writing, but by occupying J essie in reading to me,
cut short your correspondents. It was on various occasions re~
solved that Jessie should write you ; but I was so unconscionable
in my demands on her time, that the resolutions never became
realities. Now that I am on the sofa, I feel such shame at my
behaviour, that I begin an epistle, though with such a vacuum
in my brain-box that, unless I hook up a thought or two out of
the ink-bottle, I do not see how I shall cover the blank paper
before me. But speaking of vacuous brain-pans, I may record for
..your edification the reply of a singularly stupid man, who hap-
'• pening lately to visit Y. (who had been drinking the night be-
«' fore), heard him complaining of feeling a vacuity in his head,
and was asked if ever he felt the same? No, was his reply.
^ Did you never ? asked the sly rogue. No, never felt any vacuity.
"I have suggested, as the only explanation, that his skull is so
^"very empty as to be devoid of even a gi'ain of sensorium; not

280

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

the finest spider-web filament of a nerve present to receive or
retain the impression of emptiness. The same individual was
lately met in one of these dog-days, brandishing a large cotton
umbrella On an explanation being demanded of his motive in
flourishing so elegant and ornamental an appendage, he answered,
' that it looked medical' There's some furniture in the head-
piece after all ! Few would contest the originality of the idea

" I have not looked out at the window for five weeks, so of the
outer world I can tell you nothing, and my inner world is not
worth the looking into. I am to be shipped off to the country,
Newhaven or Seafield, as soon as I can bear removal, and then I
shall hope to see yourself among us. John Caims has been
most kind, has called twice a week, and brought me books, and
in every way contributed more to my comfort than any other of
my friends. His friendship is a debt I owe to you, and I give
you a mountain-load of thanks for it. He was with us last
night, and had been called on while absent by some individual,
whom he supposed to be you. Have you been somnambulizing,
or making spiritual progressions along the railway — the body
being left behind for the sake of coolness? I did not think it
could be you, but would not be positive. Make a clean breast
in your next."

" 29<A June 1842.

" My dear Daniel, — I was prevented writing you last night
by S. Brown coming to spend the evening with me. To-night I
am alone, and may, in the first place, inform you that I am
ordered off to the country, and shall remove to the seaside on
Monday next. I am now nearly free from pain, except from an
abscess which has formed near the heel ; but as the doctors
think it will prove on the whole beneficial, I don't mind the
trifling amount of suffering it entails. It makes a very great
difference on the feeling with which pain is borne, to know that
its issue will be favourable ; the same amount of it, if known to
be the index of formidable or incurable distemper, would seem
imbearable.

"You tell me in your last you still write verses. I have
entirely abandoned the task, as I may truly call it in my case.

mo-4a.

POETBY SET ASIDE.

Indeed, in the utterly prostrated state of mind in which for the
last year I have been, I have avoided even reading poetry. To
relish it — and the same remark applies to music — I find in my
case a certain elasticity and exhilaration of mind necessary.
When I opened old favourites, I was so pained to find the pas-
sages I used to thrill over become flat and unprofitable that I
closed all of them, — resolved that they should lie unopened till
restored health enabled me with the old emotions to read them
again. With the solitary exception of Milton, accordingly, T
have not read any poetry for the last twelvemonth. In addi-
tion, I feel myself now obliged to devote all my thoughts to
science, and blame myself for every moment which I Sj^end
away from it. I am like a stranded ship, lying powerless in the
sand, with sails idly flapping on the masts, while those who set
sail with me, with like hopes and chances, are far ahead out in
the open sea. Every occasion, therefore, on which I feel revisit-
ings of my old energy, is spent in making such preparations as
may enable me to be ready for active service should I get afloat
again. Now, poetry v;as n&\^er with me a mere source of idle
amusement, to which I could turn for relaxation, and listlessly
smile over, lying on a sofa ; but, on the other hand, a field for
as tough intellectual gymnastics as any scientific problem, and
the pleasure arose from the new thoughts struck out by the
conflict between the author and his reader. Now, however, in
relaxed seasons the battle is too hard work, and the idlest book
on the foolishest subject is the most agreeable. I am sure you
can understand the feeling which I lamely strive to portray. I
think the great poets too worthy fellows to be handled with my
worn-down emaciated thoughts. I think the same of the musi-
cians, and listen to none of them. I have felt the same towards
the greater scientifics ; but they are my ' daily bread,' and habit,
and a sort of shop instinct, make me keep munching at them,
though often out of a goodly loaf I digest but a few crumbs." . . .

" Jmie 30, 1842, ,

"My deae Daniel, — A few words with you on whatever
comes uppermost. It's but a poor one-sided apology for con-
versation this epistolizing, but pleasant too in its way, doing

282

MKMOm OF GEOROE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

one's heart good. As I lay on the sofa this morning, 'fast
anchored' as usual, I recalled in thought a most beautiful poem,
written by a young Edinburgh advocate, called Aytoun, and
which you will find in Blackwood for last year. The title is
' Hanuotimus,' or some similar name, and should you stumble
on it, read it ; besides other points of interest, it will make you
acquainted with a beautiful but difficult measure, borrowed
from the German, a language which infinitely transcends oura
in its capabilities of modulation, and can, in fact, imitate the
measures of every nation under heaven. The poem is founded
on an old Greek story of a philosopher who possessed the power
of separating his soul from his body, and sending the former on
errands of its own. As his soul, to which time and space were
nothing, was often absent for days together, he gave strict
injunctions to his wife to take care of his body during its soul-
less condition, and not to be alarmed though it should seem
lifeless even for long periods. Secure in this an-angement, he
made many lipiritual excursions in all safety, but at last, lin-
gering away too long, his wife thought his body was fairly dead,
and burned it. Truly it was a dangerous power to put in the
hands of a woman. We know a wife or two who would be very
glad their husbands had the disembodying secret, and with
help of a lucifer-match would effectually secure against their
revisiting the glimpses of the moon. I accuse not, however,
the old Grecian matron, though hers may have been a Lucifer-
match, which she was thankful to bum to ashes as fast as she
could. But as a process for getting rid of a husband it beats
arsenic hollow. Your arsenic settles Mr. B.'s connexion with
this world, and once he's coffined, unless those prying wretches
the chemists dig him up to analyse him, you are done with him.
But there's another world, Mrs. B., and what will you say when
you have to face him there ? Matron lone (please to observe it
is loTi^, no relation of either Jenny or widow Jones), however,
had fired the match at both ends, and philosopher Glaucus had
' lost his vote ' in both worlds. In vain did the sliivering soul
come back for its body-coat ; it was dust and ashes. It could
not sit down in its own mansion, though empty seats, with soft
cushions, were there in abundance, for the same reason that

lUO-43.

A DISEMBODIED SOUL

283

keeps cherubs always on the wing. And then, poor scnl, it had
no passport for the next world. Charon demands to see a pro-
perly made out discharge from the upper world, and it did not
get so much as a notice to quit. The philosopher's soul wan-
ders yet a pale ghost on the wrong side of the Styx, while lone
has long ago been safely femed over.

" I have been inquiring of a person lately come from Greece
if he had fallen in with the recipe for disembodiment, as, having
no wife to be afraid of, I might, without apprehension, put it in
practice.

"I should explain to my body, that it was a hard case it
must go wrong and require cuttings, and burnings, which made
me (the soul) agonize, while it was indifferent, feeling none of
them ; explain my intention of being an absentee till it saw fit
to mend matters ; and then, escaping through a pore in the skull,
come whizzing south, and alight upon the bridge of your spec-
tacles, perched astride of which I could peer into your eyes and
commune with your spirit. If you should feel any uneasy sen-
sation about your nose, rub gently; souls are fragile things.
Meanwhile, I have exchanged such communion with you as I
can, and sign myself, soul and body, your loving brother,

" George."

"July 2, 1842.

" My deab Daniel, — If I could only sit upon a chair, which,
like the disembodied spirit I spoke of in my last, though not
for the same reason, I cannot do, I should write you longer
letters. But I have to lie in a twisted position, which I cannot
occupy long, and last night I took a holiday, there being no
post to carry you a letter. We are making preparations for
removal to the seaside on Monday ; we all go down ; and being
at Seafield, it will enable Jessie and Jeanie to go to school daily.
Seafield is no very inviting place, and there are no walks near
it, but I am obliged to take a lodging near enough Edinburgh
to admit of the doctors being within call. Moreover, I shall not
be able to cross the threshold for a while, and then only to creep
about the door on a pair of crutches, so that it is indifferent to
me where I go, provided the. sea and the sea-air are present.

284

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

Portobello is such an abominably public place that I should
fear to move about, and I am not enticed by the attraction Mr.
Syme held out of its possessing a circulating library.

"We scientifics, I can tell you, are very indignant at the
recent knighting of three painters and a musician, while not
one of us has, for I don't know how long, partaken of any of
the smiles of royal favour. It is really too bad. We have men,
I make bold to say, of far higher deserts in their crafts than the
artists were in theirs. Half of Europe never heard of Bishop
the musician, and would laugh to scorn his claims as an original
composer. And who is Hayter, that he should carry off an
honour before men admired in Europe and America ? However,
if Her gracious Majesty would give us some hard cash, we
should not mind letting the artists pocket the stars and ribbons.
There is a petty German duke enabling Liebig to beat all the
English chemists hollow. If a tithe of what is spent on mas-
querades and trumpery, c ogs and stables, were granted to some
school or university to fit up and keep in existence a well-
appointed laboratory, the whole country would be the gainer.
Liebig is a man, of genius of the highest order, and would unfold
himself though he had not a sixpence ; but he could not have
reached the eminence he has done had not money in sufficiency
been supplied him. Here our very professors can scarcely keep
life in them. Chairs are not worth the having, even as sources
of income, and there is no surplus to spend on experiments. As
for private teachers, no one is much better than myself. Teach-
ing is at an absolute stand. I am paying off Scott; he makes far
too big a hole in a nominal income, nominal at least to me,
though to him real enough. I shall make shift with a boy.

"It is really disheartening to see the possibility of doing
something in a science you love and profess, almost annihilated
by the cost it takes being beyond you. I have been urged to
go to Paris, where I should be sure of practical chemistry
classes, like those here, succeeding, but it is a long step to
Paris ; and I should require to know French, and a great many
more things before I thought of it. Are not these fine dreams
for a cripple ? But if I went abroad it should be to Germany,
a quiet country, which w^ould exactly suit a politics-hating man

1810-42.

ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE.

285

like me. Government there has all the university patronage
in its hands, and young men of promise seldom fail to get on.
Did not I meet a young fellow a little older than myself, who
was Professor in the Prague University, and had, in addition,
money and two years allowed him to travel where he listed ?
It would little vex me that there was censorship on the press,
unless it should go the length of the Russian one, which pre-
vented a traveller bringing into the c intry a work entitled
'Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies.' The inspector took
alarm at the first word, and objected to any revolutionary work
being admitted. In vain did the traveller assure him that it
was only an astronomical treatise. It did not matter, they did
not approve of revolutions of any sort. The fatherland has
many charms for me, which are likely delusive enough ; but
my motherland has charms too, and I believe I shall live and
die in her much-loved arms. Now I have had my grumble out,
arid am a great deal the better for it. It's like a ' good cry' to a
young lady.

" I have been reading the two concluding volumes of Alison's
' History of Europe.' He proves to demonstration that it's de-
mocracy is doing us all the mischief ; and can name the very
hour when we began to decline. All which I neither believe
nor disbelieve, knowing nothing about the matter. I am a sort
of aristocratical democrat, and abuse no abstract party, seeing
plenty of knaves in all of them, a slender sprinkling of men
with heads on their shoulders, and the great mass selfish rogues,
who strive to be as little dishonest as they can.

"As a literary performance Alison excited my unbounded
contempt. A more wretched style, alternating between the
flattest monotony and the most outrageous bombast, no histo-
rian ever got hold of. In my literary circle he has caused us
the greatest diversion by his 'havers.' He is a very honest,
impartial writer, and deserving all praise for the pains he has
taken. Twenty-eight years were spent upon it, fourteen in
travel and study, and fourteen in composition. His battle de-
scriptions are, I suppose, excelled by those of no civilian, and
I read many of them, for example the Moscow campaign, with
pleasure. But when he comes to moralize or generalize, he

280

MEMOIK OF OEORQE WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

maunders in very dotage. Compared with Gibbon or Robertson,
or, as the scholars tell me, with the ancient writers, he sinks
into utter puerility. A century hence, where will his literary
reputation be ? It is a readable book, however, rails at no party,
enforces a doctrine of poetical justice, maintains that honesty is
the best policy, that virtue is rewarded in this world, and vice
punished, and will in consequence be relished by all * respect-
able' people, and read aloud in family parlours."

The following portion of a letter, though without date, may
justly find its place here. The remainder has not been pre-
served ; it is addressed to Daniel. The veil which conceals his
sufferings so carefully from the loving eyos of friends is for
a moment lifted, and we see the strong, brave spirit in its
agony :--

" With all your sorrows I sympathize from my heart ; I have
learned to do so through my own sufferings. The same feelings
which made you put your hand into your pocket to search
among the crumbs there for the wanting coin for the beggar,
lead me to search in my heart for some consolation for you, if
mayhap the dried up fountain may yield a drop of comfort.
The last two years have been fraught to me with such mournful
experience, that I would gladly exchange my condition for a
peaceful grave. A bankrupt in health, hopes, and fortune, my
constitution shattered frightfully, and the almost certain prospect
of being a cripple for life before me, I can offer you as fervent
and unselfish a sympathy as ever one heart offered another. 1
have lain awake, alone, and in darkness, suffering sore agony
for hours, often thinking that the slightest aggravation must
make my condition unbearable, and finding my only consola-
tion in murmuring to myself the A'ords patience, courage, and
submission.

" You have done the same,, and God, who has supported both
of us through cruel trials, will not desert us in our great need.
My religious faith is feeble, because my light is dim, and my
knowledge scanty, but I pray for more. I have felt assured of
answers to prayer already.

" Even in this world, I feel firmly convinced there is no

1840-41^

PERFECTED THROUGH BUFFERING.

287

worthy charact'^r, ever, for worldly work, who has not been
' perfected through suffering.' Affliction has not developed the
vices of my disposition ; it has iied some and banished
others. My intellect is purified and ennobled, and many mists
which vanity spread before me are blown away. Take comfort,
my dear brother, we shall yet do weU."

From Seafield, letters to his matronly friend Miss Abemethy
give peeps at his invalid life, and show how every ray of sun-
shine was turned to account : —

To Miss Abernethy.

both
J need.
|d my

3d of

Is no

" SeaYield, leth July 1842.

"My dearly beloved, unforgotten, and unforgetable Janet,
— I have now been a fortnight in this region of invalids, and
think it due time to send you a bulletin of my well-doing. I
am happy to say I mend, though still unable to cross the thres-
hold, and hope soon to be able to flourish my crutches with as
much grace as such untoward weapons admit of. I count some
five cripples from my window, and propose, as soon as I can
join, to suggest our having a race upon the sands. The prize to
be a handsome pair of crutches, and each candidate to be at
liberty to knock the stilts from nis neighbour if he can. You
may expect a visit from an official asking your subscription, and
for my sake I trust it will be liberal.

" In the meanwhile, by way of preparation, I snuff the sea-
air at the open window, and am complimented by \'isitor8 on
tha improvement of my looks. I cannot say that, on consulting
the looking-glass, I see therein a very pretty countenance, but I
incline to think that my modesty and well-known humility
stand in the way of my discernment, and that but for these I
should observe that my former knobbed and twisted nose was
now moulded by the sea-breeze into a proboscis of Grecian
form, and marble polish and whiteness. If the sea-breeze alone
ha3 produced so great a change, what may I expect when I am
able to tumble into the water, and enjoy the benefit of wind and
wave at the same time ? Meanwhile, till an end so desirable is

989

MliMOIR OF OKOnOK WILSON.

CHAP. VI.

IR4I

brought about, 1 find my life so evontloss tliat I can record for
your edification nothing more wonderful than my removal from
the bed to the sofa, and back from the sofa to the bed again,
like the worthy Vicar of Wakefield, who chronicled the removals
from the blue bedroom to the yellow, and from the yellow to
the blue.

" The monotony of my daily life is somewliat broken in upon
by the swarms of children who play about the door. They are,
for the most part, the ordinary set of sinful imps to be met
with here below, alternately kissing and fondling each other
like so many angels without wings, and then, when the devil or
' original sin' gets into their hearts, kicking and cuffing like
reprobates. There is one exception, however, to the foregoing
description, in the person of a neat little lassie, with a sunburnt
pretty face, and long fair ringlets. I have learned this little
lady's first name, Aggy ; a lady's last name does not matter
much, being only iiltended for tempomry employment, till a
better name can be found for its proprietor. I of course exclude
from such remarks those exalted members of the sex, whom, as
patterns to mankind, Providence, for wise purposes, permits to
husband their names, instead of getting husbanded themselves.

"My attention was first attracted to this young lady by a
highly original observation I heard her make one day. She was
lying all her length on the grassplot, kicking up her heels in the
air, and proclaiming that 'Johnnie Ritchie's aame was not Johnnie
Ritchie.' Who Johnnie Ritchie is, I don't know, perhaps some
relation of your friend Daniel, who may be able to say what his
name is, though I fear nobody born out of Ireland is likely to
throw much light on the matter. I have inquired at Aggy
herself concerning Johnnie, but she preserves the profoundest
silence, and looks indignant ; so that wiiat Johimie Ritchie's
name is I see no hope of discovering.

" Yesterday, had I had any Samaritan to carry me out on his
back, I might have seen something out of the way. It appears
that an unchristian man and woman, instead of going to church
and hearing sermon, made a pilgrimage out to the Black Rocks,
and seated themselves thereon, whether to meditate or gather
mussels I do not know. The tide, however, came in, and sur-

CHAP. VI.

18(0-41.

ALMOST DROWNED.

289

record for
)val from
>ed again,
removals
^rollow to

in upon

They are,

) be met

eh other

i devil or

fifing like

foregoing

sunburnt

his little

»t matter

lit, till a

) exclude

ivliom, as

jrmits to

iselves.

dy by a

She was

Is in the

Johnnie

38 some

vhat his

ikely to

Aggy
oundest
litchie's

on his
ippears
church
Kocks,
gather
id sur-

rounded them, and for a while there were great hopes that they
would be drowned, which would have been highly satisfactory
to the lookers on, who had waited a while in expectation, and
would have liked to see something after standing so long. The
couple sat on the rocks, like two crows or sea-gulls, apparently
resigned to their fate, till on the church's dismission, and their
situation being discovered, a boat was launched, and, in addition,
three stout men stripped and swam off to save the Sabbath-
breakers.

" Instead of sitting still till assistance came, they proceeded
now to try if they could not wade in. The first step took them
over the shoulders ; but nothing daunted they pushed on, and
fortunately found it no deeper, though, as the wind was up, the
waves came over their heads at every surge. 0)i the whole,
however, the last occurrence might be beneficial, for their heads
could not be kept too cool in such a predicament. They finally
found their way to shore without help of boat or swimming-
men, looking, however, literally and metaphorically, a little
blue.

" Such are the contents of my Seafield journal, barren enough;
but I promised I woidd- write, and you must forgive its empti-
ness. — Your ever affectionate, George Wilson."

" Seafield, Augmt 17, 1842.

" My dearly beloved, — How fares the world with you ?
Except in my dreams I get no account of your ways and welfare,
for all the channels by which intelligence of you used to reach
me are dried up, and for anything I know to the contrary, you
may be changed into Mrs. J. T. or Mrs. D. R ; and the arrival
of this epistle may be the cause of a dreadful domestic scene
and half-a-dozen duels. However, make up your mind to this,
that the moment such intelligence, duly authenticated, reaches
me, I shall commence an action for breach of promise, and make
a clutch at your hoardings.

" In such a predicament, not knowing whether to address you
as miss or matron (though determined whatever betide, to claim
you as my Janet), I am reduced to the painful ncv ^ssii^ of either
speaking of myself, which is anything but pleasant to a man of

3d0

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VL

my modesty, and may, moreover, not be so acceptable to you
as it once was — hem ! or of seeking out some common topic
whereon I may enlarge for our mutual edification.

" Of myself, I will only say this much, that whether you are
pleased to hear it or not, I make daily invisible progress in
amendment; though I grieve to say that the classicality of
outline, of which I spoke in a former letter as developing in my
features, is not so apparent as it was, and my nose is as red as
ever. I now flourish upon my crutches and make daily excur-
sions to the seaside, where they plant a chair, on which I sit
and meditate on the ladies bathing and the other wonders of
the great deep.

" But I have got something better than the crutches to pro-
gress with ; my good uncle (these uncles and, above all, aunts
are the great blessings of creation) has most kindly purchased a
little horse, which he sends down to us, along with a comfort-
able gig, and I go whisking over the country, to Dalkeith,
Musselburgh, Prestonpans, Cramond, and so forth, making all
sorts of geographical discoveries, especially concerning the
existence and site of turnpike gates and toll-bars, which have
now acquired an interest in my eyes equal to that they have in
my purse. I shall be in town in a fortnight, and there is no
saying whither I may penetrate in my shandrydan. If you
have any interest in my welfare still remaining, you may keep
a sharp look-out for a little horse of a sort of ginger colour,
the lightest brown, cream-colour with a slight dash of brown
over it."

The seaside residence, rest, and simpler appliances, all proved
ineffectual. Nature had not strength to work a cure where the
evil had become so deeply seated. George's father had suffered
much in the same way for years, rheumatism throughout the
body ultimately settling in the ankle joints. In his case it had
been thoroughly cured by care at an early stage, but the ten-
dency was probably transmitted to his son.

After returning to town, the kind and anxious medical attend-
ants — Professor Syme and Mr. Goodsir — cauterized the foot
more than once, but all seemed in vain, and each day left less

CHAP. VL

e to you
ion topic

pyou are
3gress in
icality of
Dginmy
as red as
ly excur-
lich I sit
mders of

IS to pro-
ill, auuts
rchased a
comfort-
Dalkeith,
iking all
ling the
lich have
^ have in
sre is no

If you
lay keep

colour,
>f browu

1 proved
here the
suffered
lout the
36 it had
the ten-

atteud-
the foot
left less

1840-42.

A FOOLISH mCIDENT.

291

hope in the hearts of the home circle, as his strength visibly
decreased. In December a long letter to his cousin, "dear
Jeems," gives token of unquenched heartiness amidst the deep-
ening shadows. Speaking of the death of Mr. Kenneth Kemp,
his fellow-teacher in chemistry, which had just occurred, he
says,—

" And now that the ground is clear, I have to sit quiet, y by,
cultivating patience, and seeing some one else step into the
poor fellow's shoes. Well, seeing that shoes are out of the que?
tion with me, and that I could only at furthest step into another
man's shoe, I von't be mulcted out of my patience by any man,
but bide my time.

"Meanwhile, for our mutual gratification, I shall tell you
a foolish enough incident, at which I laughed very heartily
when I heard of it. Y — has returned to town, and is at his
old diverting tricks. A vacant chair at the Medical Society
has led to the ordinary amount of canvassing and crimping of
voters, Y — , of course, as recruiting seqeant-major, taking the
lead in the business. Night before last, Y — having parted
with me, found at N — ^'s a certain young gentleman partaking of
supper, and in a state of considerable excitation. He was at
once pounced upon for his vote, and by due management the
fuU pledge was obtained. I suppose they flattered the poor
rogue terribly, for he had opened his heart to them, and told
them of some lady of £30,000 who was dying for him ; besides
another worth some £15,000, who was in the same distressing
condition. He referred to this as the explanation of what had
surprised everybody, viz., his giving up a capital place, with the
certainty of an appointment in the army. WeU, this Narcissus
carried on at this rate for some hours, drinking tumblers of
strong toddy all the whi!, ; and finally, at three o'clock A.M.,
was handed out of N — 's place in, I fear, a somewhat overtaken
condition. After he was gone, N — thinking it highly possible
he might fail to find his way home, resolved to run after liim
and keep a look-out on his movements. Y — determined to
join him, and some little time was lost in getting ready. When
they reached the street they looked about m aU directions for
their friend, and seeing some little way before them a gentleman

292

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

OHAP. VI.

engaged apparently in making trigonometrical surveys of the
pavement, and occasionally knocking up against lampposts, as
if to make certain that his base lines were properly measured,
they followed, nothing doubting, in his steps, keeping, however,
at a wary distance, as they did not wish to be detected playing
the spy. The road- surveyor resides somewhere near Lochrin
Distillery, so that they had a good long joi mey, greatly length-
ened, doubtless, by their friend's eccentric mode of progression.
At last, however, he reached his own door, and they halted, ex-
pecting to see him ring the beU. Not so, however; on he
stumbled, and as they saw no apparent limit to his journey, and
the probability of themselves finding, like Milton's metaphy-
sical devils, ' no end in wandering mazes lost,' Y — hid himself
in a corner, and N — proceeded forward to come to close quar-
ters with the straggler. After winding and turning about the
drunk man for nearly half-an-hour, at last he pushed close to
him, and behold, when he looked in his face, he foimd they had
been following the wrong man ! !

" I asked Y — if he was quite sure he did not need a fol-
lower himself; but of course he did not. N — thinks they
must have passed the fellow on their own staircase ; but when
I see N — I intend to ask him if he is quite sure of the direc-
tion he took, and that he really went to Lochrin.

" C dined here the other day, and we had a splendid

discourse on various high topics ; on yourself among the rest.
It would have done you good to hear the generous, kindly way
in which he speaks of you, and augurs great things from you.
i was not behindhand in prophecy either. And we consoled
ourselves for our overflowing goodness, and counteracted the too
Christian mood into which we were falling, by judiciously point-
ing out to each other such spots as we had seen in the sun of
your genius. A list of your faults will be forwarded by either
of us on a receipt of 500 queen's heads (for the parcel is rather
bulky), and a letter post-paid."

1842-43.

STRENGTH SINKING.

293

CHAPTER VII.

CONVERSION : ITS PEACEABLE FRUITS
PROFESSIONAL LABOURS.

RETURN TO

"Deep calleth unto deep . . . ; all Thy waves aud Thv billows are gone over
me."

" Cast down, but not destroyed."

A CRISIS was again approaching in George Wilson's life more
momentous than any hitherto considered. At the close of the
year 1842 it seemed evident that the contest with suffering
could not last much longer, rest being only attainable through
the use of opiates.

A record in his own words ^ conveys forcibly a statement of
the facts : " I was required to prepare, on very short warning,
for the loss of a limb by amputation. A painful disease, which
for a time had seemed likely to yield to the remedies employed,
suddenly became greatly aggravated, and I was informed by
two surgeons of the highest skill, who were consulted on my
case, that I must choose between death and the sacrifice of a
limb, and that my choice must be promptly made, for my
strength was fast sinking under pain, sleeplessness, and ex-
haustion.

"I at once agreed to submit to the operation, but asked a
week to prepare for it, not with the slightest expectation that
the disease would take a favourable turn in the interval, or that
the anticipated horrors of the operation would become less
appalling by reflection upon them, but simply because it was so
probable that the operation would be followed by a fatal issue,

' ' A Letter to Dr. Simpson on the Anaesthetics in Surgery, from a Patient's Point
of View.'— Simpson's ' Obstetric Works,' vol. ii.

294

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

that I wished to prepare for death and what lies beyond it,
whilst my faculties were clear and my emotions comparatively
undisturbed, for I knew well that if the operation were speedily
followed by death, I should be in a condition in the last degree
unfavourable to making preparation for the great change."

Being thus brought face to face with death, let us inquire
what fitness he had to meet it. From boyhood onwards evi-
dences have not been wanting of his interest in religion : a
sense of life in its higher developments being imperfect without
it, seems to have been felt even in his most ardent longings
after success in scientific pursuits ; while a deep reverence for
God, and a groping after Him in vagueness and darkness are
perceptible in early letters. So blameless was his youth in the
estimation of his fellows, that one of the most intimate friends
of his student-life has indignantly repelled the thought of con-
version being needful, declaring that " he was always a Chris-
tian." Scarcely consistent with this estimate is the compromise
with conscience when preparing for his last examination for
the degree of M.D. : " On the Sunday I went through the
morning service of the prayer-book at home, and then took to
Surgery, which I nearly finished that night."

Eelatives younger than himself received kindly sympathy
and encouragement from him in their Christian profession, — he
was too generous to cast a stumbling-block in the path of a
"little one,"— yet with aU this, one thing was lacking, and
often was it said, " If George were only a Christian, what a noble
character he would be !" And this desire, transmuting itself
into fervent pmyers, entered into the ear of the Lord of Sabaoth,
to be answered in a way little anticipated, by
in righteousness."

For some years previous to the time of which we now speak,
Dr. Cairns had visited the household as an intimate friend. To
him James Eussell owed deliverance from many doubts and
difficulties, and a clear perception of the method of salvation,
and this formed an endearing bond of union, so that John
Cairns became by degrees like one of the family. His influence
over George was of great power and immeasurable value, — the
very difference in their casts of mind forming a strong bond of

terrible things

1842-43.

RELIGIOUS DIFFlCULTIEa

295

attraction. Reminiscences by Dr. Cairns confirm these re-
marks : — " General conversation was often succeeded by dis-
cussions such as might be expected from a student of divinity
visiting a pious family ; and though George took at first little
or no part in these, gradually he began to feel interested ; and
we used to have long and earnest talks when others had with-
drawn. I cannot recall accurately his religious difficulties. He
had no sceptical tendency, beyond a general inability to recon-
cile the gospel as miraculous with the uniformity of nature ;
and I think, too, that some misgivings disturbed him as to the
doctrine of the Atonement. But his great want was the power
to realize the value of the gospel remedy, from his heart having
been greatly set on literary and scientific eminence. God took
his own way to abate this hindrance by sending iU health, and
thwarting all his plans of rapid elevatioa A very slow yet
steady increase of interest in eternal things now set in ; ... an
extraordinary change took place in his use of the Bible. The
phrase quoted in his * Life of John Eeid,' that he " had a sair
wark wi' his Bible," describes his own state exactly ; and we
used to discuss, I think in the company of his [elder] sister,
many passages. He was especially devoted to the Epistle to
the Hebrews, which he valued for its clear view of the Atone-
ment and of the sympathy of Christ ; and no part of his Bible
is so much worn, this being indeed almost worn away. I used
to report to him the discourses of my late venerable friend. Dr.
John Brown, spending the interval of service every Lord's day,
as weU as the Saturday afternoon, with him ; and I rather
think that, when his illness confined him to bed, I was in the
habit of offering up prayers. I remember, with vivid accuracy,
the earnestness with which, on the last occasion I saw him
before the operation, he spoke of the danger before him, and of
the great anxiety, mingled with trembling hope in Christ,
which he showed as to his spiritual state. He took the Bible,
asked me to read and explain or enforce some passage, and then
pray. The remembrance of that day survives, while the multi-
tude of other conversations have left only a vague impressioix of
progress and saving enlightenment."^

I ' North British Review,' February 1860.

296

MEMOIR OF GKORGE WILSON,

CHAP. VII.

This gradual enlightenn ent of inind may clearly be traced
within the last two years. 3tep by step had God been leading
him intd the wilderness, that there He might plead with him
face to face, and now he was not far from the kingdom of
heaven. In the estimation of some of his most devoted friends,
he was already a child of God ; so great was the change at hand,
however, that he always dated the dawn of the new life in his
soul, when, with death in view, he was enabled so to realize the
mercy of God in Christ Jesus, as to come to Him weary and
heavy laden, and enter into tliat peace which passeth all under-
standing. In a letter to a friend not long after this period, he
says, "When I was recently struggling in a 'great fight of
afflictions,* soul and body racked and anguished, my life hang-
ing in the balance, and eternity in prospect, 1 prayed to God
for light and help, and my prayer was heard and answered."

The weok of delay granted by the surgeons passed slowly yet
swiftly away. He concealed from the relatives around what
was at hand, partly from an unselfish desire to spare them the
grief it would cause, and partly from a fear that his resolution
might be shaken by witnessing their distress. A small Testa-
ment was his constant companion, and every available moment
up to the coming of the surgeons was devoted to its perusal
For very life he searched ; like Bunyan's pilgrim, for " life, life,
eternal life."

On the morning of the operation, with a " trembling hope in
Christ" in his heart, he performed his toilet with unusual care,
in order to disarm the apprehensions of those beside him, in
whose hearts an instinctive fear lurked, knowing that the sur-
geons were to come that day. However, the inise was success-
ful, and the truth was only revealed to them by the irrepressible
cries of agony from the sufferer. In an adjoining room the
little group was assembled, and to this veiy day the scene is as
vividly before the eyes of the survivors, and the cries ring as
loudly through their hearts, as in that hour of anguish.

" During the operation," George says, " in spite of the pain
it occasioned, my senses were preternaturally acute. I watched
all that the sur^'eons did with a fascinated intensity. Of the
agony it occasioned, I will say nothing. Suffering so gi'eat as

1842-43.

INTENSE ANGUISH.

297

I underwent cannot be expressed in words, and thus fortunately
cannot be recalled. The particular pangs are now forgotten ;
but the black whirlwind of emotion, the horror of great dark-
ness, and the sense of desertion by God and man, bordering
close upon despair, which swept through my mind and over-
whelmed my heait, I can never forget, however gladly I would
do so."^

The object in recalling such painful emotions was to make
tiiem an argument for the use of anaesthetics, which, had they
been then in use, would have robbed this experience of the
gi'eater part of its horrors.

The operation was an interesting one in the annals of sui-gery.
He says to James Russell shortly afterwards, " I do not wish to
trouble you with surgical details, but you will be glad to know
that the operation I underwent was a novel one (tried on me
by Professor Syme for the second time only), which leaves me
the whole leg, depriving me only of the foot. It was more
protracted and painful than the ordinary one, but it leaves me
a more useful limb ; and the doctore hold out the hope of my
being able to Mmp about with a wooden foot, or stuffed high-
heeled boot, without betraying to every eye the amount of my
loss."

A time of misemble suspense followed, from the fear that his
strength was too far gone to rally ; and quiet being enjoined, for
days there seemed not a sound in the house. The rather
secluded square in which he resided was a special haunt of
musicians, whose barrel organs, Irish bagpipes, and violins,
might have enabled one to tell the day of the week, had other
means of discovering it been wanting ; for each day failed not
to bring its own train, week by week. Strict watch was kept
over them, and they were induced, by bribes, to pass out of
hearing. And in this night of darkness, the devotion of friends
shone out like stars, in a way never to be forgotten. In one
family, when the sad news was announced, dinner was removed
untouched that day ; and whispered inquiries were made with-
out ceasing at the house door. In a diary of James Eussell's,
we find the following entry on the 1 6th of Januaiy, illustrative

' ' Letter to Dr. Simpson.

298

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. vn.

1M3

of the state of things : — " Appalling yet comfortable news of
George's amputation." •

A letter to him from Dr. Caims remains as a photograph of
those days of trouble : —

To J. M'G. Russell, Esq.

"Jamiary17, 1843.

" My very dear Friend, — You are no doubt discomposed, as
I myself have been for some days, by the operation performed
on Dr. V/ilson. As I happen to have been thinking of him
perforce for some time with peculiar interest, you will, I have
no doubt, welcome every particular. Everything, by the
special blessing of God, has as yet gone admirably ; so much
strength of mind as to resolve to keep all to himself till the
crisis ; so much coolness and presence of mind as to impose on
all who saw him ; so great firmness during the operation and
composure after it ; such a comfortable wearing off' of the first
rude shock produced in the family, without detriment to the
health and spirits of any ; and so favourable a progress hither-
to of the wounded Hmb, all certainly are most striking and
consolatory ; and whether we suppose any supernatural^ grace
or not, call equally for gratitude to Him whose benignant pro-
vidence is the only present help in trouble. After an absence
of three days, I had the happiness of seeing them all to-day in
circumstances of peace and hope. I was also admitted for a
few minutes to the room of the doctor, and exchanged a few
words, and engaged for a very short time in prayer. He is, of
course, weakened ; but the expression of countenance, and look
of self-oblivion, which I never saw him lose in the worst days,
are the same. . . . All danger is now, humanly speaking, over,
and I trust our prayers and anxieties, wh'ch are already passing
into thanksgiving, may soon be for noi-ning but grace to im-
prove past affliction and deliverance."

It was on this visit that John Caims, the ministering angel
of that sick-chamber, was able to come forth with an announce-

' Supernatural seems here used by the writer in a sense akin to preternatural or
miraculous.

1842-43.

ENTERS HALT INTO UFE.

290

ment that in the mind of the sufferer all was peace and joy.
To the sorrow-stricken mother this was an unspeakable com-
fort. " If that he the result," she said, " then all is welL" An
expression of sympathy with his sufferings made by her, called
forth the remark, " Don't regret them ; think how much better
off I am than so many in the Infirmary. Besides, I have learned
from them to look at things in a new light, which is worth them
all."

From letters of later years we gain further insight into the
mental struggles of this season, the more precious, that, being
averse to speak much of his inner life, a few earnest words
uttered when the deeper emotions were stirred, were all that
ever could be obtained. The first extract is from a letter to Dr.
Cairns on New Year's Day, 1854 : — " There is no day so pain-
ful to me to recall as the 1st of January, so far as suffering is
concerned. It was on it, eleven years ago, that the disease in
my foot reappeared, with the severity which, in a few days
thereafter, compelled its loss, and the season always comes back
to me as a very solemn one ; yet if, like Jacob, I halt as I walk,
I trust that, like him, I came out of that awful wrestling with
a blessing I never received before ; and you know that if I were
to preach my own funeral sermon, I should prefer to all texts,
' It is better to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be
cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched.' "

And to a young friend he says, in 1847 : — "I can profoundly
sympathize with your feelings of agitation, agony, and alarm, at
finding your strength and health failing, and another world
looking closer at hand than it did a short while ago. I have
been in this condition, and only passed out of it after a spiritual
struggle such as I still feel appalled at gazing back upon.

" When I was recovering, you can well believe that there
were many weary, wretched, sleepless hours, especially during
darkness. Particularly dreary was the first waking in the dull
grey morning. Despair seemed ready to overwhelm me. It
was then I fully realized the unspeakable preciousness of prayer,
and that not to an overwhelming mysterious agency such as elec-
tricity or gravitation, but to an agent, a person, and he not sepa-
rated from me by all that intervenes between God and man ;

800

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

but possessing, as I possess, a human nature, though (unliku
mine) his nature is sinless, and is unspeakably glorious."

Eecovery proceeded favourably, so that in six weeks tlu>
wound had closed — all but one small aperture, and he was able
to move about a little on crutches. " He came forth with a spirit
strengthened from heaven, to bear the liffe-lpng burden of a
feeble body, and to accept life on the most disadvantageous
terms as a blessed and divine ministry. The inward man had
gained infinitely more than the outward man had lost ; and,
with all his originally noble qualities exalted, there was found
a humility, a gentleness, a patience, a self-forgetfulness, and a
dedication of life to Christian ends and uses, which henceforth
made every place and work sacred."^

What has been truly called "his imconquerable gaiety of
heart," is seen in one or two notes written in the first few
weeks after the amputation. The first two are addressed to
James Russell, who was giving expression to his sympathetic
love in all kinds of presents, to cheer or amuse the patient.
One of these was an accordion, which he fancied might help to
beguile the tedious hours of convalescence. The first letter is
merely dat*^ \ " Friday," but it is evidently written about the
close of January : —

" My dear James, — Your kind letter demands something
more than a mere statement in Jessie's bulletin concerning me.
I coilld write you a whole folio of news from the world of pain,
80 far as intellectual capacity is concerned, or even phyaical
strength, but I have to lie in such a constrained twisted posture,
propped up by pillows, and what not, that I can hold the pen
for only a short period at a time. But I can at least tell you,
that my case proceeds steadily, to my own comfort and surprise,
and to the satisfaction of the doctors. I am now lifted out of
the region of acute suffering, into that of dogged endurance of
quite bearable pain, and am losing day by day the spectral
ghostliness which made me for days look, while sleeping, like a
corpse.

" I have no repentance or repining at the step 1 took, or the
loss I sustained. It pleased God, who speaks to some with the

' 'Macmillan's Mngazine,' January I860.

1H48-43.

WONDER ANr» GRATITUDE.

801

still small voice of gentle persuasion, to address me in the
whirlwind and the storm, and to vouchsafe me, in the prospect
of sore trial, a calmness, even a serenity and patience which
could have been supplied me from no other source. I look
back on the last montli with wonder and speechless gratitude,
and place my reliance for the future on the same mighty arm
which wrought my deliverance from past aftliction.

" When you pray to God, let thanksgiving mingle with ear-
nest request that more light, and stronger faith, and greater self-
renunciation, and all other needful gifts, may be given to me,
still standing on the threshold of Christian experience.

" It's a strange thought, the idea of your foot dying before the
rest of you. Well, I'll find it at the resurrection, or, if not,
something better. I have likewise been thinking that my mind
or soul must be in a more concentrated condition than that of
bipeds, seeing that it has a foot less of matter to encumber it.
What thinks your lordship ? The receipt for concentration ad-
mits of extension ; I am contented with the amount in my case.
I have no feeling of the want of a foot, and seem still to feel
toes, great and small. John Cairns thinks this must arise from
a pre ordained harmony between soul and body ! ! ! Well done,
John !

" All that I have already written has been intended to get up
the steam for what I now struggle out with, viz., that if, when
you held out those magnificent offers about Boerhaave and Tur-
ner, you thought that 1 would generously decline your kindness,
you were, my dear sir, very very much mistaken.

" Your kindly offer made my moniing tea and toast taste like
very nectar; I told it to my kind doctor, John Goodsir, the
moment he came, and asked him ; no, he asked me, would I
accept the offer ? Won't I ? was the polite answer. So, my
dear Jeems, you're in for them. Eoerhaave I have studied
in Latin about the thermometer : he'll be of great use to me for
my histoiy. Turner is precious also. I will most thankfully
and gratefully accept your offered kindness, and will remind
you in return that you will enjoy the consciousness of having
performed ' a virtuous action.' — Your loving affectionate

" George Wilson."

802

URMOIU OF OEOROB WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

"Feiruary7,Ui3.

" My dear James, — I lie at present in such a strange twisted
position, Imlf on my back and half on my side, tliat my views
of all matters are quite oiie-dded, and even if I feel properly
concerning your late kindnesses, it is such an exertion to scrawl,
that my eloquence of gratitude is strangled in the birth. Know,
however, that both parcels arrived safely, and that I boasted and
exult(d over my chemical treasures like a child over a new toy.
Even grave Mr. Syme had to take a look at them, and congra-
tulate me on their arrival. Your mysterious note was beyond
me, but I came to the conclusion that it signified that you your-
self were coming. This morning, however, the melodious
stranger [the accordion] arrived in due season, and being re-
leased from his swaddling bands, was gazed at with wonder and
delight. Before a week is over I shall have composed a sym-
phony in X Y z on the street door key, which shall ravish the
ears of all who hear it.

" Meanwhile, my dear kind cousin, speech really fails me,
and you must suppose my ugly phiz looking into your angelic
one, and symbolizing and expressing the intensest gratefulness ;
otherwise I know not how I can make my heart speak to you.

" My feelings got so much the better of me at thinking that
my dancing days were over, that I had to give them outlet in
the shape of an elegy, which (with the help of a little snuff hi
your eyes) I shall expect you to weep over.

No more 8hall I, in country dance or reel,
Labitsky's waltz or Musard's last quadrille.
Shuffle my feet, or make my body wheel
' On light fantastic toe.'

When I creep outwards to the light of day,
Tlie people passing me will turn and say,
That little fellow limping o'er the way
' Has one foot in the grave'

" I continually improve, and feel most thankful for my pre-
sent hopeful state. I strive to let ' patience have her perfect
work,' but flesh is weak.

" And now, my dear cousin, forgive this rotten note ; I can at

1842-43.

HOM(BPA\THIO BEOIMBN.

aos

T»resent write no better ; when I reach the sofa, you may expect
something more rational. — Your loving
" We are all well." " Georok."

To Miss Abernethy.

" Fdyruary 6, 1848. '

am sure you will be very glad to see a few scribbled lines
i'rom myself to say 1 am getting better. Although still with
aches enough to make a man who had never been ill think him-
self in a very miserable way, I have come out of such a gulf of
pain and weariness of flesh and spirit, that I feel very thankful
for being so well as I am, and am back to many of my old tricks,
though still but in a rickety condition. I owe you thanks for
that refined calf-foot jelly which you so kindly sent me. But
in regard to it, I wish particularly to know if you have turned a
homceopathist in your medical practice, and were induced to send
me that instead of any other delicacy from a belief that a dose
cooked from the foot of one calf would be likely to prove bene-
ficial to the ailing foot of another. If so, I admire your philo-
sophy, and have improved on it, for my diet consists chiefly of
the flesh of chickens, to which I have betaken myself, from a
remembrance that these worthy animals spend a great pail; of
their lifetime standing on one leg ; a feat which, now that I am
struck off the list of bipeds, I cannot learn to perform too well,
and which the infusion of their substance into mine may con-
duce to make more easy and, as it were, natural to me

In sober seriousness, I have every reason to be thankful and
contented with my progress, and I try to lie as patiently as I
can, while the weary days and still more weary nights slowly
glide away.

" I can write no more at present, but be sure that though they
should chop all the rest of me into little bits, so long as they
leave the heart of me untouched, I shall be your unchangeable

" George Wilson."

" The Sofa, March 11, 1843.

" My dear James, — You have long been an enigma to me in

304

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

your intellectual relation. I am sure the highest success in ora-
tory, true oratory, heaven- born eloquence, lies within your power;
you have every gift that should make you a very Demosthenes,
and yet your lips are sealed; the mere gift of utterance is denied
you, or rather has never been developed by you. I always think of
you as a great river dammed up by a floodgate, so that the water
only escapes here and there through holes and by channels, and
nobody sees its greatness of volume. You are to blame, Jeems,
for never cultivating the mere talkee, talkee habit. All the
follies of debating societies are worth enduring for the readiness
they give a man in bringing his thoughts rapidly to the surface
in the shape of words, and in accustoming him to think of
moulding his thoughts into the form best fitted to influence
others. A thoughtful, silent dweller in solitude like you, think-
ing for the sake of your own satisfaction only, must find it an
effort to throw these thoughts into a shape suited to the grasp
of others, and especially of inferior minds, and this to a greater
extent than weaker intellects better practised will do. This is
a horrid lecture I am inflicting on you, but I must tell you that
you have a noble gift of eloquence in you, would you but take
the trouble to dig and wear away a channel for it to flow in. I
would not enter the lists against you on any subject where our
knowledge was equal, with any hope of success, if you had half
the practice I have had as a speaker. It is not popularity, Jeems,
I wish you to fight for ; it's worth nothing, nothing, nothing.
It's to fight against the worldliness and materialism of the age,
and smite down the little men who are leading it astray. What
effect would all the physical science crew have in lowering pub-
lic taste if a gifted professor of the absolute like you would come
down from your solitary dream- filled altitudes and oppose them?
We,physiker, have too much of the public ear ; our stuff" is more
apprehensible than yours ; but you should roar the louder down
the trumpet. My dear brethren, I will conclude with a ques-
tion or two. Whether do you expect to bring your audiences
up to you, or to have to descend to them ? Or may the differ-
ence be split ? This may be, but split with a greater descent on
your part than ascent on theirs. You may write in the loftiest
vein, but to preach in any very high one to ordinary audiences

CHAP. vir.

jss in ora-
>ur power;
aosthenes,
is denied
rs think of
the water
inels, and
le, Jeems,
AU the
readiness
lie surface
think of
influence
Du, think -
find it an
the grasp
a greater
This is
I you that
but take
)w in. I
?^here our
lad half
y, Jeems,
nothing.
;he age,
What
ing pub-
aid come
se them?
is more
er down
a ques-
idiences
e differ-
3cent on
loftiest
idiences

1842-43.

SORROW UPON SORROW.

305

is beating the air. This is a horrid truism, Jeems, but you'll not
wriggle yourself out of it anyway.

" Have you read George Moir's additional chapter to the
' Tale of the Tub' in Blackwood ? If not, you'll be greatly de-
lighted with it. It's the finest piece of humour I have read for
years.

" I learn that the price of bacon is expected to rise immedi-
ately, owing to the great number of penny-pigs about to be put
in requisition to collect money for the dis- established ministers.^
Ladies are running about as pig-drivers in all directions, even
through the himgry High Street, mulcting the poor starvelings
of their pennies. But then, you know, it's all quite voluntary.
Eeport says that the ministers' wives are not able to see their
way so clearly as their husbands do, and that curtain lectures
are delivered nightly to growing refractory audiences. The re-
porters, however, are not admitted, and the result can only be
gathered from the sleepless yawns of the morrow's morn. Mean-
while, it is loudly given out that the clergymen themselves are
removing to attic flats and cheap garrets in all directions, and
the designs, at least, have been made public for the wooden
churches.

"Two young ladies have just caUed. Goodbye ! goodbye !"

While all was going on favourably as to George's health, and
hope was once more springing up in the hearts of those around,
dark clouds again closed over them. >

A month later than the preceding letter, a quiet evening was
broken in upon by violent ringing at the bell, and immediately
the house was filled by a crowd of people. At first the cause of
this was unknown, and only a sense of something terrible having
happened, was felt. It was the dead body of George's father
they were bringing in. Having left the house some hours pre-
viously in perfect health, to all appearance, he was returning
in the company of two friends, and had almost reached home,
talking with cheerful animation, when suddenly he stopped in

> A year later than this, we find the following sentence in a letter to Dr. Cairns :
" The Free Church goes on nobly, showing far less of human pride or weakness than
might have been expected, and even allowed."

306

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

the street, and in a few minutes life was extinct. The cause
was supposed to be aneurism of the heart. There could scarcely
be a more touching sight than when George, pale and feeble,
entered the room, and passed slowly on crutches through the
crowd to the bed on which the corpse had been laid, to see if it
were really true, and not a horrible dream. Alas ! at such
times our hearts kriow the truth, even while the senses try to
disbelieve it.

James Kussell at once joined the sad circle, and spent a few
days with them. On his departure George wrote, according to
promise, to report progress : " I may dismiss myseK in a sen-
tence," he says, " by stating that I am excellently well, and my
foot mending, to use a peculiarly expressive phrase."

A few weeks later, a visitor from Glasgow having carried
back gloomy accounts to James, he writes re-assuringly, " I am
really improving ; I was half expecting I should require a touch
of caustic from the surgeons, but things are looking so well that,
in the meanwhile, I expect to dispense with their tender mercy.
I am out every day ; yesterday I made a tripodal journey round
the WiUow Grove garden four times. Can I give you a better
proof that I am really recovering? I will hereafter always
honestly inform you of my state, but at present I have not seen
a surgeon for a fortnight and more, and I have dined out twice
within a week.

" I must make fresh claims on your sympathy with me as
one involved in the miseries of 'flitting.' Every day reveals
some new and more horrible phasis of the detestable crisis we
are in. Blankets, table-covers, even carpets, are taking wings to
themselves and fleeing away ; and I have to keep a watchful
eye on my crutches, lest they abscond in company with some
migrating grate, and I be ' left lamenting.' I cannot say that I
am, like Niobe, ' voiceless in my woe.' Is it not one of the
privileges of a free Briton, and healthful to the lungs (and
^leen), to grumble, and that loudly too ? I liken myself rather
to Marius sitting among the ruins of Carthage, presenting to the
world, nay, to the universe, the edifying spectacle of ' a great
man struggling against the storms of fate.' With what a deep
sympathy I read the answer of the colliers to the question, 'Why

CHAP. VII.

1842 -a

LECTURES BESUMED.

307

?he cause
i scarcely
id feeble,
ough the

see if it
! at such
jes try to

ent a few
ording to
in a sen-
i, and my

g carried
iy, " I am
e a touch
well that,
er mercy,
ley round

1 a better
r always

not seen
)ut twice

h me as

'• reveals

;risis we

wings to

(vatchful

th some

y that I

e of the

gs (and

f rather

g to the

a great

a deep

/Why

their houses were so empty of useful household articles ?* That
' furniture was an unco fash at a flittin' ' ! ! ! There, my dear
cousin, is a great idea, which, however, if earned out, would lead
to very naked results."

The removal alluded to was to the house in Brown Square,
which he occupied for the next nine years, its great attraction
being that his lecture-room and laboratory were under its roof,
and he was able to attend to the duties connected with them,
even when prevented by ill health from going out of doors. To
go from his bed to his lecture-room was no uncommon thing for
him in the years that followed.

The satisfaction with which the healing of his foot in the
month of June was contemplated, was speedily changed to
renewed anxiety, on finding unmistakable symptoms of pul-
monary affection. He spent the rest of the summer in a secluded
retreat, for which he had a great liking, in Jordan Bank, Morn-
ingside. Occasional drives, and sitting in the quiet garden (to
get oxygen, as he used to say), were serviceable, and he was
prepared, when the winter session opened, to resume his profes-
sional duties. They were increased by his appointment, with
the sanction of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scot-
land, as Lecturer on Chemistry to the Edinburgh Veterinary
College, and by a similar appointment to the School of Arts.
A course of lectures to young ladies at the Scottish Institution
on Saturdays, was also begun in November, involving altogether
ten lectures a week. To a sister he writes, November 26 : —
" You will not suspect me of vanity if I tell you a thing or two
about my lectures. I have twenty students at my ten a.m.
medical class ; forty at my twelve o'clock (three days a week)
veterinary class ; some hundred young ladies at the Scottish
Institution ; and some two hundred stout fellows at the School
of Arts.

" It is sometimes difficult to disentangle the one from the
other, and, accordingly, I called the young ladies gentlemen, and
made them all smile. Last Saturday, however, I took care to
^vrite on my notes, at various places, the word ladies, to prevent
mistakes, and, as I had abundance of magnificent experiments,
the bonny lassies looked bonnier, and were all well pleased.

308

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

" I shall never forget the first sight of the sea of faces at the
introductoiy lecture at the School of Arts, rising tier above tier,
piled to the very ceiling. I cast my eye around for a familiar
face, and lighted on uncle's white head, like the foam on the
crest of a billow. A dragoon soldier likewise attracted me with
his red coat and his mustaches, and I now look instinctively for
him. He is a Scots Grey, a fine tall fellow, and must have stuff
in him to come there all the way from Jock's Lodge. He takes
notes, and is very attentive; I take quite an interest in the
worthy soldier. This class is rapidly increasing under my care
over its former numbers, and is my favourite class. My great
pleasure in it is lecturing to the working people, to whom I may
do intellectual and moral service."

" Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily," was evidently more than
ever George Wilson's motto. He could not give a lecture with-
out taking much more trouble than was necessary in preparing
for its illustration, and in the School of Arts this was most
evident. His lectures were usually delivered from notes, and a
few of those written for this audience, and used for no other,
remain as evidence that some of the finest specimens of his
powers as a speaker jvere elicited by this favourite class. The
enthusiasm with which they responded was abundantly proved
by the band of chemists which then began to form, many of
whom have forsaken all else to prosecute this branch of science,
both in its scientific and its practical departments; while it
would be vain to attempt a calculation of those whose minds
were elexated by its study, pursued after days of toil. At one
of the introductory lectures, he requested the crowd outside to
permit him to pass in. But they, looking round and seeing only
a little man in pea-coat and cap, indignantly declined, to his
great amusement. A laughing assurance that in that case they
should have no lecture, soon cleared a passage for him. A
grateful expression of the pleasure received, was left each evening
(the lectures were once a week), by one pupil, a gardener, in the
shape of a bouquet of the most choice greenhouse flowers. This
gardener emigrating, he left an injunction with a friend, also a
pupil, to continue the offering. It would have gratified them
to see the intense pleasure with which, on his return, jaded,

1842-43.

SCHOOL OF ABTS' CLASS.

309

from the lecture, he lay on the sofa and drank in their beauty.
Nothing beautiful was ever lost on him, and knowing this,
many loved to minister to his pleasures ; so that in his sitting-
room, at every season of the year, there might be found vases of
lovely flowers. One of the pupils^ of the session 1844-45,
whose later career has been marked by unusual success, thus
speaks of this class : — " The students were chiefly artisans, self-
educated, though there was a sprinkling of youths of higher
ranks in society. They (the latter) were generally very young,
I myself only fourteen, and attending the High School classea
The same qualities of head and heart which have subsequently
distinguished Professor Wilson among the many eminent pro-
fessors of the Metropolitan University, then distinguished him
among the teachers of the School of Arts. There was the same
power of riveting the attention of his audience, nay, almost fas-
cinating them ; the same playful fancy and poetical prose in his
prelections ; the same Christian catholicity of heart ; the genial
sympathy with the ' pursuit of knowledge under difficulties ; '
the same familiar, homely mode of illustration ; the same apti-
tude in experiment ; the same affability to his most humble and
obscure student. These qualities combined to render him at
once the greatest favourite and the most efficient teacher among
his colleagues at the School of Arts. I well remember the
enthusiasm which his prelections and experiments stimulated
in myself— displaying itself in a course of private experiments
at home, and leading, at the close of the second session, to a
' Chemical Association,' where a fund was raised for apparatus,
papers were read, discussions held, and experiments conducted.
More than one of the members of this Association are now well-
known citizens or flourishing merchants of Edinburgh."

This Tuesday evening lecture at the School of Arts was one
of the most exhausting duties of the week. "Well, there's
another nail put into my coffin," was often a remark made on
throwing off" his outer-coat on return. A sleepless night almost
invariably followed ; and Wednesday came to be recognised as
a day when his friends might visit him without fear of disturb-
ing literary work, as lassitude forbade any attempt at it.

• Dr. Lauder Lindsay, PitcuUen House, Perth.

310

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

In the previous summer, George Wilson's generous nature
had been aroused on behalf of his friend Dr. Samuel Brown,
whose experiments on transmutation were exciting intense in-
terest in the minds of scientific men. The fifty simple elements,
up to tliis time believed to be indecomposible, he asseited were
capable of transmutation, one instance of which he gave in pro-
cesses for transforming carbon into silicon. Dr. Brown was a
candidate for the Chemistry Chair in the Edinburgh University,
then vacant, and his success in gaining it seemed to hang upon
the confirmation of his new views. Invalid though George
then was, he left no stone unturned on his behalf; and in a
letter to the Lord Provost, in September 1843, printed and
widely circulated, though not published, he strongly advocated
Dr. Brown's claims on the Chair, independently of the transmu-
tation experiments. With this preface, we turn to George's
letters for information as to his occupations during the session
1843-44, in which he laboured to verify the experiments in
question, and which afford an example of devotion to a friend's
interest with few parallels, if any, in the annals of science. In
October he laments the absence of his friend Dr. Cairns, who
had left for the Continent : " I cannot tell you," he writes, " how
much I shall miss you on Sabbath-days. I have not much
prospect of being often inside a church this winter, and I feel
how great my tendency is to grow languid in earnest devotional
feeling when cut off from communion with fellow-Christians.
But is not the very isolation from others as much intended for
a part of preparatory probation as sore physical agony or mental
distress ? It must be so, and the conviction that it is, soothes my
regret at parting with you, from whom I have learned so much.
You will pray for me, however, and send me a word of advice
at times, and I will try to ' let patience have her perfect work.' "
Again to the same friend he says, December 27, 1843 : — " I sit
down to write you with great shame and confusion of face at
the thought of the time that has elapsed since I received your
Hamburgh letters ; but, in truth, I have been so occupied that
I have never had the leisure to sit down to write you calmly.
T'.g repetition of Dr. Brown's experiments has engrossed me
day and night, and still occupies my time ; and I have been so

1842-43,

A SPRAINED KNEE.

311

fatigued with my laboratory work, that when I left it I had no

spirit to write youjsven a few lines I have great reason

to be thankful for the health I have enjoyed since you left,
though it has not been uninterrupted. I had got so far on in
the way of limping about on a stick, that I was promising
myself a visit to church, and the pleasure of hearing a sermon,
when my hopes were disappointed by a fall down stairs, which
sprained my knee, and doomed me to bed and sofa for a fort-
night, and to another leaf out of the book of physical aMction
in which I have lately had to read so many lessons. I have
read somewhere, that in the lives of men, if wisely watched,
may be discerned the finger of Providence, teaching each by a
kind of lesson peculiar to himself ; so that on one bodily afflic-
tion, on another mental sorrow, on another pecuniary distress
falls, — the same kind of trial returning again and again, while
the sufferer is exempt from other forms of woe. I have some-
times thought there was a little truth in it, and you can suppose
in what way I apply it to myself. But in reality every sorrow
bears others in its bosom, and trial in one shape must always
be more or less trial in aU. This is a foolish speculation, and
one I do not seek to indulge in. So long as I feel every lesson
less than sufficient to teach me the patience and faith I so much
require, I feel every disposition to look with a cold eye of
curiosity on God's dealings with me, at once silenced. I know
now enough of the ' peace that passeth all understanding,' to
welcome the attainment of more of it at any price its great Giver
may afford it to me. Is there not something presumptuous in
that expression ? There is only humble hope at least in my
heart.

" A week has elapsed since I wrote the preceding part of
tliis, . . , Yesterday I received your second letter, on which I
would expend much praise, if it would not waste paper. Suffice
it therefore to say, that we all read it with pleasure, and that I
have no wish you should displace Schelling or Neander in your
descriptions, by any of the great physiker, I get enough of
them, and need accounts of the others to keep my soul from
growing altogether one-sided. Judge of this by the life I lead
at present. At ten a.m. I descend to the laboratory, where I

312

HrJtfOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

1841

work till four p.m., driving out, when the day is fine, for one or
two hours. Tlie interval between four and six is spent — ^how
do you think ? — in sleeping, positively in slumbers, so wearied
am I with my da/s work. At six I descend again, and remain
till nine or ten, and when I come up again, some talk with
Mary, a glance at an 'Athenaeum,' and I am ready for bed.
For the last six weeks I have scarcely got so much as the news-
papers read, and have been thankful to secure a chapter of the
Bible, and leave all else unread. Much of this labour has been
spent on mere drudgework — analysis of soils, wheat, etc. But
the chief cause of such working has been the great question of
transmutation, at which I may, without any exaggeration, say I
have laboured night and day, and laboured, I am sorry to say,
to very little purpose. Two of his [Dr. Brown's] cousins, and
Mr. Goodsir, besides myself, are conjointly working at the repe-
tition of his experiments It is a period of great anxiety

to us all, convinced as we are that nothing but the fullest con-
firmation of his views will obtain for him the chair. .... Pray
for us, my dear friend, that we may be kept from falling. You
comfort me greatly by the thought that you pray for me. I am
calm, contented, and cheerful, labouring with a peace I never

knew before Oh ! my dear prediger, spirits of wine at

2id. per bottle (quart, eh ?). The statement affected me more
than all about the professors and metaphysiker." To a sister
he writes about the same time : — " I am better, not yet able to
use my leg again, but very busy. I compose a great many
rhymes to keep us in good humour down stairs. These you
shall be favoured with when you come : they are not carriage-
able articles. I have got Jamaica soils to analyse at present,
and I am seeking for pounded missionaries, and crystallized
tears of emancipation -seeking negroes. I have found some of
the latter, very like chucky stones."

" January 28, 1844.

" I was at church yesterday, and heard a very pleasant sermon.
Had it been bad, evin very bad, I should have been thankful,
but it was the very opposite. We have got James safely among
us, and I hope he will improve on our hands. For improvement
there is great need, as he is wofully tliin and pale, and sorely

del

1843-44.

CONTENTMENT.

313

depressed in spirit, but I look hopefully to his stay with us as
likely to be of good service to him.

" I am on the whole well, and having at last got my shoe, am
limping about with a couple of sticks. I hobble painfully along
in an awkward way, the shoe being far from comfortable ; but as
I never indulged extravagant expectations of its gracefulness, I
am quite content when I compare my present condition with
that of my previous one, mounted on the uncomfortable crutches.
In truth, my dear Jessie, if we could learn contentment, we
should find it a greater acquisition than happiness, or beauty, or
wisdom, or wealth

" God bless you, my dear sister, and watch over you. A sense
of His infinite willingness and ability to succour us, and a firm
realization of the great truth that His ear is ever open to our
prayers, is a precious attainment. For you and for me Jesus Christ
died ; to know that, and to make it a wellspring of devout gra-
titude and obedience, is at once a high duty and a great joy."

I am

The following note, though without date, is evidently written
about this time : —

" Dear Jessie, — Great occupation and unwellness (not illness)
kept me from writing last week, although I had a famous sub-
ject in the burning of the Grey friars [Church] into the Black or
White Friars, I do not very well know which. I sat gazing at
the combustion from my window, without being able to extract
a single moral reflection out of the sight. It wore only a chemical
aspect for me, and I had, I am ashamed to say, almost a fear
that the fire would be got too soon under, and that I should be
cheated out of the sight of the blaze. The flames pointed our
way, and the heat was unpleasantly great on our faces, when
standing opposite the window. Mary indeed held herself in
readiness to rush off with the phosphorus bottle if the tempera-
ture rose so much as another half degree. The Lord Provost,
however, and various other good folks, of whom better might
have been expected, were so delighted with playing at firemen,
instead of going to church,^ that the half degree was never

> Tli« lire occurred as the congregation was assembling for morning service.

314

MEMOIR OP GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIL

reached, and the phosphorus is safe. Some grand specimens for
my lecture-table might have been got next day. But the police-
men have not very elevated views of science, and would not
permit the search after them. From one enlightened attach^ of
the corps, however, I obtained a piece of the melted lead of the
roofing of the porch, and with that I suppose I must be con-
tented.

" A longer letter next time, till which hopping you is well,
which i am, affectionate brother, " George."

Instead of improving in health, his cousin James became
increasingly and hopelessly ill, as extracts from letters will
show. In him were united to genius of no common order,
powers of tenderness and fascination that made him intensely
loved by all who knew him well ; so that, even after the lapse
of sixteen years, his very name possesses a charm, awaking in-
expressibly sweet memories.

In the following letter to a sister, allusion is made to a paper
read to the Eoyal Society, Edinburgh, in which the results of
the repetition of Dr. Brown's experiments were detailed. They
may be summed up in a few words to Dr. Cairns : — " His
experiments I can confirm only in the most partial way ; his
theory and the doctrine of transmutation (by experiment) not at
aU."

" Thursday.

' Dear Jessie, — My time is so entirely taken up at present
with a multitude of .duties, tliat I find it impossible to fulfil my
promises.

"On Monday night all went well at the Eoyal Society.
My paper^ was read to a large meeting, and all the hearers were
very attentive. Dr. Christison rose and complimented me,
refemng to the great impartiality of the paper. Dr. Abercrombie
lauded it also, and from, many quarters compliments were
privately sent forth. Let us, therefore, be thankful, and say no
more of praise, of which we had quite enough.

* ' Account of a Repetition of several of Dr. Samuel Brown's Processes for the Con-
version of Carbon into Silicon.' By George Wilson, M.D., and John Crombie Browi,
Esq.—' Trans. R. S. E.,' vol. xv., part iv.

1843 44.

ABLE TO WALK ALONE.

316

" James is, on the whole, as well as any such sufferer can bo,
growing daily weaker, and wasting manifestly before our eyes,
but free from acute pain, and not much distressed with sickness.
Now and then, at long intervals, I have a cheering conversation
on the world to come with him, end we talk of many matters
quietly together. But often for days we remain beside each
other, saying very little about any mutter.

" I can now walk the streets alone, trusting to my stick only
for support. This is a great deal, like a new life to me. Crocuses
and snow- drops and hepaticas are gi'owing old, and tulips and
hyacinths flinging forth their flowers. It would sadden you to
hear James dwell on the loveliness of green parks filled with
violets and buttercups and spring flowers, as on things which he
will never see. Where he is going he will see ' better things
than these,' and these may not be wanting also. Nothing
strikes me more in the Bible than the exulting calmness with
which the sacred v/riters permit us to imagine our utmost as
to the glories of heaven, and then add, ' Eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love him.'

" I write in the laboratory at a moment hastily snatched from
other duties. Excuse scrawling, and believe me your affectionate

" George."

After speaking of his baffled hopes in connexion with the ex-
periments alluded to, which amounted in number, at the lowest
estimate, to two hunc ?ed, he writes to Dr. Cairns on March 1st :
— " But what are all these things, and any amount of intellec-
tual disappointment and grief . . . compared with the sorrow of
seeing my poor cousin hopelessly, fatally ill ? He is dying before
our eyes, and the doctors hold out no hope of amendment.
Tubercular disease, phthisis (or to use the plainest word), con-
sumption, has set its fatal seal upon him. It has not yet gone
far, but you know that in that disease the beginning is the end.
James knows he is dying. In a house full of invalids like ours,
with the shadow of the grave always over it, great plainness of
speech can be used on such a matter. He is weak in body, but
little changed mentally. He s .aks and reads very little,

316

MEMOIR OF UBOlUiU WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

spending the day in brooding meditation. But now and then
old gloanis como out, and from conversation with him I find
that the consolations of the gospel are not failing h'vn in his
time of trial. I am sure, indeed, that ho enjoys as perfect peace
as one of his temperament, sutfering from his ailment, can do.
Pray for us all, my dear friend. What would I not give for you
beside us ? . . . I shall write very soon. At present 1 am
harassed exceedingly, and can send only this incoherent
scrawl."

On the 20th of the same month ho gives further proof that
James's time on earth will be short, and adds, — " For all this I
would have prepared you by an earlier letter, but all my spare
time, the very little that remains after my weary, sickening,
laboratory work, has been spent for you in another way. 1 have
been copying the essay [by James] on Pantheism, the Trinity, etc.,
for you. It is addressed to you, and you may consider it his last
legacy. . . . Indeed, 1 have been so occupied for the last three
months, that except on the blessed Sabbath, I have known
no intermission,- -chasing a Will o'-the- Wisp is an intermin-
able thing, and you will, I hope, forgive my apparent neglect
of you.

" James has lately read, with more interest than he has felt
in anything else, a very renuirkable work, called ' Life in the
Sick-Room, or Essays by an Invalid,' understood, on very good,
if not quite certain, grounds, to be the work of Miss Martineau.
That lady has been for some years a sufferer, and has now, from
her solitude, given to the world her scheme of consolation in
trial. The work conveys a far higher idea of Miss Martineau's
power and nobleness of intellect and feeling than any of her for-
mer works have done. My cousin and I have read it together
with gi'eat interest and admiration, coupled with the deepest
melancholy at the thought that any poor soul should expect to
find abiding consolations in the hollow transcendentalisms of
her mocking creed. We have rejoiced together, with affection-
ate sympathy for the writer, that we know an unfailing, inex-
haustible source of sympathy as worthy of being applied to, and
far more sure and unfailing, than anything the proud human
heart can extract from speculations on the essential abidingness

1M3-44.

DEATH OF JAMES RUSSELL

317

of good, as contrasted with tho transitorincss of evil, etc. etc. I
am becoming absurdly diffuHe on this topic, but I will have done.
Two of my sisters liave been laid up this winter ; they are both
in bed while I write. This makes a sad household, and drives
one to dwell on sources of consolation."

Exactly three weeks after this did the end come, and the
next letter gives the sad news to Dr. Cuims : — " When 1 wrote
you last, 1 looked for many weeks, at least, as yet remaining.
On the day of his death, however, mo liad all, himself included,
a strange presentiment that death was at hand. He wrote tho
names of several friends on books that day. In the evening
wo were all reluctant to retire. Mary and I had secretly re-
solved (unknown to each other) to remain up all night, and
his brother slept beside him. We were reading together [in
the next room] the eighth chapter of the Komans, and had
nearly finished it, when the sound of his breathing heavily called
us to his side, and we had the sad satisfaction of witnessing him
die. His mind wandered slightly through the short period dur-
ing which he retained consciousness. He was not apparently
aware that he was dying, but believed he was about to fall
asleep. He spoke, however, with more freeness than usual,
though with much physical difficulty ; and in answer to our
questions referred to his never having, since he went to Glasgow,
lost, or ceased to have, trust in Christ. He was repeating a con-
versation he had with Mary that morning, ending with a confes-
sion of his ability to throw himself ' humbly* (he dwelt much on
that word) on Christ. It was inexpressibly touching to us see-
ing him dying, and desiring a repetition of his assurances of
faith, to be gently (very gently) interrupted by his 'wait a
minute.' He would not acknowledge a true conclusion not
legitimately arrived at; and when we anxiously repeated to
him words of Scripture, he kept quietly on in his own state-
ment, and so lost consciousness.

" It would have been consoling to us to have heard him again
repeat his acknowledgments of reliance on God. But it was not
necessary to us, and it would argue a mournful lack of faith to
let the accident of his dying physical state, which precluded
speech, shake our trust in God. I never felt the great privilege

318

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

of prayer more fully than when I knelt at my cousin's dying
bed and implored our great, sinless, sympathizing High Priest's
promised help for him in his last extremity. That it was
given I do not doubt. That last and precious verse of the
eighth chapter of Eomans would alone give me assurance that
it was.

" His death makes a great blank to me — greater, indeed, than
that of any other friend of my own sex can make. We have
grown up together, physically and intellectually. There were
great dissimilarities between us, but we had so much in com-
mon that these rather increased our love for each other. I never
kpew how much I loved him till now, how worthy he was of
^eing loved, how unkind I often was to him. I have tried in
vain all last week to get through a little needful work. Had it
been hand-work, I could have done it ; but I had to think and
write, and my mind wandered always to the thought of my dear
cousin taken away. I can unburden my heart to you, and con-
fess that I have wept more tliis week than ever before since
childhood, without fearing you will think me less a man or a
Christian for that. '

" I am now calm, and able to think of James as I should
wish ever to do. The thought of him is so mingled with every-
thing I do, that no effort could detach him if I wished it. But
I thank God he has made the memory so precious. The presence
of a glorified spirit is something only to rejoice in. This is self-
ish, however. ... I bear up well, and walk about alone with
the help of a stick. I could forget my whole winter's work,
willingly and easily, wei'o it not that I feel it was the means of
keeping me away from J ames's side. This will make the thought
of last winter full of bitterness. . . .

"... I thank God devoutly that I was able in this predica-
ment to guide myself by his commandments. Pray for me that
I may be able to witness a good confession beside the watchful
sceptics I am among. I could write to you whole reams ; for-
tunately for you, the paper is done."

To a sister : — " "We buried dear James yesterday in that beau-
tiful churchyard. Young trees were budding out, and the grass
wearing ine bright green of spring, as if to show us how many

1843-44.

TENDER MEMORIES.

319

dica-
B that
chful
for-

earthly symbols there are of the ' Resurrection and the Life.'
Alick is anxious to have a stone raised over his and Catherine's
grave. He got a design of an obelisk, with an urn on the top,
which I strongly objected to, and recommended in its place a
cross, like those which fill the German churchyards. He was
afraid of being suspected of Puseyism, but I smile at that. A
cross is a precious Protestant symbol, apart from the follies of
Puseyite or Papist. It is in our hearts, however, that his
memory must be preserved, and assuredly it will be.

" How much I miss, and shall miss him, I have scarcely dared
to think. . . . When I recall his sensitive spirit, however, and
how little relish he had for even the most engrossing subjects of
this earth, I feel how justly we can say of him, that he was
'taken away from the evil to come.'" And six years later
he says, " If I often feel that a fine ethereal genius like his
would have done much to exalt and refine my nature, had we
lived together, yet life was to him such a bitter, dreary wil-
derness, that I could not wish him back, whatever might be the
gain to me. To die and be with Christ, was for him, above
all my lost ones, far better than any career of earthly life could
have been."

The purpose of erecting a cross on the grave was carried out,
and on it may be seen the names of brother and sister, dying at
the same age (twenty-one), in the same month (with an interval
of five years), and of the same disease. It was the Russells*
wish to lie in death with those whose life they shared ; and as
three of them are now at rest there, it may be said of both fami-
lies, " The greater part are fallen asleep."

In the spring of 1845 George writes to an absent sister : —
" Tliis time a year ago our dear James entered into his rest, and
all this day our minds have been full of him. All the more,
perhaps, that Dr. Wardlaw preached to us this morning, and
by many things brought before us the image of him who is
now in the presence of God. Mary and I are going to visit
his tomb, and you in spirit wiU be with us beside it, in the
quiet corner of the churchyard where it stands. May God
give to all of us, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Clirist,
a restoration in His good time to our dear cousin in heaven !

320

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

" Meanwhile, I would give a great deal if, with these solemn
thoughts around me, I could gather all my pupils, some two
hundred in number, together, and address to them a word on
something higher than anjiihing chemistry can show. I would
take for the lesson of the day the thirteenth chapter of 1st
Corinthians, and would preach, with the emphasis on the we,
from the words, * We know in part, and we prophesy (or teach)
in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that
which is in part shall be done away.' "

The sorrows of this winter and spring in no way materially
neutralized George's energies ; and from each of his Classes a
testimonial was presented to him expressive of their sense of
the gratitude due for his services. A sentence in a letter re-
minds us of members of the household, without a notice of
which the picture is incomplete : — " All our kith and kin are
well, down to Stronaoh, the beloved terrier, and the absurd cat
without a tail." Both these individuals were great favourites
with George. The terrier accompanied him everjrwhere — to
lecture-rooms ; while driving ; to the laboratory ; to the sofa ;
and to bed, where he reposed at his master's feet. While he
lay on the sofa at supper-time, Strony (as he was usually called)
sat on his hind legs and begged for biscuits ; and puss (a Manx
cat) lay on his chest, and patted his mouth to coax bread out of
it. Their importunities were a pleasure, as expressive of the
strength of their love and trust, and his patience with them was
exhaustless.

The summer session of 1844 was opened by a lecture on
transmutation, which attracted much attention at the time,
owing to its bearing on the new views then under discus-
sion. Dr. Chalmers and Lord Jeffrey were amongst the audi-
tors, and with both of them a lasting friendship was the result.
The lecture was afterwards published, with some enlargement,
in the 'Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal,' for July 1844,
and in it the whole subject of isomeric transmutation was dis-
cussed.

His summei classes occupied three hours daily, besides labo-
ratory duties, so that it is not surprising to find the remark, " I

1843-44.

HIS BAPTISM.

32t

am getting very tired of summer work, and longing for the
country. We have as good as settled to return to our old quar-
ters at Momingside. Two ladies, a crow, and one or two cats,
are the present inhabitants of the cottage."

A month previously he had told Dr. Cairns, — " I have been
baptized by immersion, having satisfied myself that it was the
scriptural and most ancient method, and desiring, since I had
the choice, to realize as fully as possible in the symbolical rite,
the application of such passages as 'buried with Christ in
baptism,' etc. But I incline strongly to consider the mode
unimpoi-tant, and to believe that affusion of water is aU that is
implied in the idea of baptism. My mind is still quite imde-
cided as to the question of the proper objects of the ordinance,
and I look for your assistance in solving the difficult and im-
portant problem when you return." George's parents belonging
to the Baptist persuasion, he had not been baptized in infancy,
and therefore no choice was now left him except as to the mode.
The rite was performed by the friend and pastor of his early
yearS; the Eev. Dr. Innes, for whom lie ever retained an affec-
tionate regard. His views as to believers being the proper
subjects of baptism became very decided in later years, yet with
no tinge of sectarianism or bigotry, from which he was unusu-
ally free. The early admiration of the Episcopalian form of
worship, above that of other religious bodies, passed away with
the dreams of youth, and he united himself with the Congrega-
tional Church under the care of the Rev. Dr. W. L Alexander,
a union only dissolved by death.

Nearly two months were spent in his favourite retreat, from
which we find a letter, dated " Sleepy Hollow," describing its
attractions : — " This is a most sweet spot, and no day is more
delightful here than Sabbath. I miss the prayers of my
brethren much ; the sermons far less. Here I have hosts of
precentors, who lift up a stave whenever they have a mind, and
I never lift staves at them. The blackbirds begin to know me,
and a little bird (name unknown), on a tree above my head,
sings a Te Deum Imidamus of three notes, of which I never
tire. The delight I feel in gazing at flowers and insects, and
watching the trees grow, the shadows on the hills, and the

322

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VII.

changing aspects of the sky, I shall never be able to make
any one understand. I can give it no utterance in words. I
am sure, however, that it is innocent, healthful, and though I
am slow to use solemn words needlessly, even holy, for this
garden has been to me an oratory, such as no other place has
been. I spent this forenoon reading the story of Joseph and
his brethren, onwards to the end of Genesis. It is long since
I read it through, and though no part of the Bible is better
known to me, or more tenderly remembered in connexion with
happy childhood (perhaps indeed for that very reason), it moved
me almost to tears. I felt the hysterica passio, the gulp in the
throat, and should have fairly wept had I attempted to read
it aloud. The dignity, simplicity, and pathos of the scene have
never, I imagine, been excelled, and the wonderful way in
which the old romantic story momentarily reveals God himself
shaping all its events to the most important but far- distant
issues, and yet leaves the human interest in the tale to go
forth unchecked by the awe or even sense of the supernatural,
struck me to-day as it never did before. I spent two hours,
which fleeted away, in reading the account and thinking over
it, ending with the grand prophecy of Jacob as to the destinies
of his descendants, which always seems to me to resound like
the triumphal march of an army going forth conquering and to
conquer. For the blessing of Jacob on Ephraim and Manasseh
I have another and a more subdued feeling. Many a time,
when I was a child, and in early youth, has mother invoked on
my head and my twin brother's, as we slept together, the bene-
diction, — ' The Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the
lads.' That prayer has been answered in full for one of them,
who bade me farewell some twelve years ago, in assured hope of
a blessed resurrection, and the other rejoices to know that he is
the child of many prayers."

A pleasant week, at the close of the holidays, was spent at a
farm-house in East Lothian, where he " made the acquaintance
of a great many nice dogs," and was touched to learn that his
own terrier took his absence sorely to heart, and refused food.
" Give the dear beast," he writes, " a taste of cream, or some-
thing good, in reward thereof;" and so back to town and to
work.

1844-64.

LITERARY WORK.

323

CHAPTEE VIII.

LECTURER AND AUTHOR.

" Nullum quod tetigit non omavit."
"He illuminated the Book of Nature as they did the Missals of old."

In the ten years that follow, we find the most important part
of George Wilson's life, so far as literary work is concerned.
The amount done seems more befitting one strong in body, than
the invalid on whose behalf our sympathies have been excited.
But one secret of his unresting diligence lay in the belief that
his life would be a short one. " Don't be surprised," he said to
a friend in 1845, "if any morning at breakfast you hear I am
gone." So with the shadow of death close at hand, he ever
worked as one whose days were numbered. At first this seems
a gloomy thought, but that to him it was far otherwise we cannot
doubt. " To none," he says, " is life so sweet as to those who
have lost all fear to die."^ They who have large store of health
and strength are apt to lavish them thoughtlessly on various
objects, but such as he, husbanding their strength for work
alone, are frequently able to realize what their stronger brethren
only dream of.

From this period to its close, his life was one long sacrifice
of pleasure to duty. While lecturing ten, eleven, or more
hours weekly, sometimes with pulse at 150°, it was frequently
with torturing setons and open blister wounds; and every
holiday was eagerly seized for the application of similar
"heroic remedies," or "bosom friends," as he named them.

» 'Lifeof.JolmUei(l,'p. 2G4.

324

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. vni.

His keen appreciation of the pleasures of society, and of
all beautiful things, was sternly put aside to meet profes-
sional claims ; and all with such quiet simplicity or gay good
humour, that few if any guessed the price at which his work
was accomplished. " I should have been to see you," a note
says, " but a cold has damaged my bellows a little, and I have
had to put a comforter on the chest in which they are kept."
And before the opening of a winter session, he writes to a fel-
low invalid, " I'll wager you'll get through the winter with less
croaking than I wiU. I was wondering this morning, as I
looked at my collar bones, how soon they would have a blister
occupying the valley below. You have not like me to turn
'stump orator' for six months in the year; and talk, talk, talk
till your tongue cleaves to the roof of your mouth ; however, I
hope we'll both fare weU. To be well enough to work is suflfi-
dent, and quite satisfies me." " One whole day in seven spent
in talking out loud," he says again, " makes that prophecy com-
forting, * Wliether there be tongues, they shall cease.' "

Besides the systematic course of lectures, given each session
to his several classes, there were occasional series of popular
lectures. The greater number of these were delivered before
the Philosophical Institution,' Edinburgh, with increasing ac-
ceptance on each occasion. The subject of the first course was,
" The Chemistry of the Gases," and part of the Introductory
Lecture appeared shortly afterwards in a periodical of the day,
with the title, " The alleged Antagonism between Poetry and
Chemistry."* Professor Goodsir at the same time gave a short
popular course on Human Physiology, — he and George Wilson
lecturing alternately. It was on one of these chemical evenings
that the pet terrier made his last appearance at a lecture.
Stronach having died and left a blank in the household,
Alexander Russell brought a successor, that in due time became
as great a favourite, and, like Stronach, accompanied his master
everywhere. He was named Grim, and one evening in the
Waterloo Rooms, he astonished the attentive audience by push-

» The title, in its earlier years, was " Philosophical Association," and the lectures
were delivered in the Waterloo Rooms.
» See 'Torch,' pp. 13-16. Sutherland and Knox, Edinburgh, 1846.

blj
as
on
of

1844-64.

PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTION.

326

ing aside the green baize hanging from the table, and with
shaggy head and paws visible, gazed with wonder at the assem-
bly before him. The effect was irresistibly comic, for it seemed
as if, in imitation of his master, he had thoughts of setting up
on his own account. But poor Grim never had another chance
of winning public confidence, being compelled henceforth to
spend the evenings at home, listening for the step of him he
loved so welL

Within the decade now under notice, several courses of lec-
tures were delivered under the auspices of the same Institution.
The prelections usually delivered to its members differ widely
from those addressed to most popular assemblies. The audience
which it calls forth regularly throughout each winter, is one
that might stimulate any lecturer to put forth his best powers.
The highest efforts of such men as Ruskin, Kingsley, Hugh
Miller, and many of like eminence, have been elicited by it, and
not a few works of value have resulted from the publication of
lectures given either in whole, or in part, to the members of
this Institution. A favourite lecturer, such as George Wilson
proved to be pre-eminently, is sure to attract a large number of
intelligent, educated, and critically appreciative listeners. To
address audiences so intelligent and so courteous was a source
of gratification, affording an arena on which his powers had
wider scope than the limits of his ordinary field could give.

Few can estimate the amount of forethought and trouble
which a popular scientific lecture, illustrated by experiments,
entails : but so far was Dr. Wilson from grudging this trouble,
that he invariably prepared for each evening, and with the
greatest care, more than could be delivered, and received con-
vincing proofs of appreciation in the unwavering attention of
his hearers, even sometimes for an hour and three-quarters.
An hour before he began seats were eagerly secured by them,
and from half-past seven till ten have they frequently been in
attendance, night after night. To him these lectures involved
loss of sleep and appetite, such as made them the most injurious
to health of all his labours. A list before us of fifty-two items,
required for the illustrating experimentally of one lecture, testi-
fies to these facts, while the more elaborate of his prelections

326

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII.

were, one might soberly say, so much of his veiy life told out.
Almost invariably were they followed by sharp illnesses, yet
not the less was he willing to undertake the duty again and
again. With truthful reverence we may apply to him the pro-
phet's experience, " His word was in my heart as a burning fire
shut up in my bones ; I was weary with forbearing, and I could
not stay."

After his death the following reference to a published lecture
was given in writing to his sister: "Wliile glancing it the
paper, I remembered the voiy sound of many of the expressions
as I heard thera, and how vividly I can recall his look while
lectunng those times I went with you, and the great clear pro-
file cast on the wall by the electric light ! All the biilliauce
and the beauty of the mind, with its thoughts, v/e can't, in
looking back, feel them past ; only the cough after he got into
the carriage — oh, Jessie ' what a contrast it made at the time,
and now, that part is over for ever." One of our gifted men of
letters. Dr. W. B. Hodgson, in a letter of January 1860, speaks
of the " element of childlike wonder which animated George
Wilson, and which he so well knew how to transfuse into
others, or rather, which he transfused into others without know-
ing how, and by the mere force of sympathy. In listening to
Wilson, you not only increased your knowledge, your store of
facts, but you were delighted with the beauty and harmony of
their relations and interdependence ; and few indeed are the
sermons that can leave so deep an impression of reverence for
Him whose works science interprets, as did the simplest of
George Wilson's compositions. There was such a chu,rming
play of fancy about his lecturas, adorning but never obscuring
the accuracy of his observations, or tho close method of his ar-
rangement. ... He was one of the moafc learned of our i^.en of
science, at once the most pracucal and the most poetical, the
most attractive lecturer and eflFective teacher ; and never did a
purer, gentler, kindlier being exist in human ^hape."

"In his hands," Professor Macdougall^ remarks, "eveiy sub-
ject was felt to become not intelligible only, or even interesting,
but almost enchanting. The value and attractions of know-

• Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinbu-gh.

CHAP. VIII.

1841-64.

OCCASIONAL LECTURES.

827

ledge were not merely understood, but intimately felt and ap-
preciated, when exemplified in the joyous activity and happy
dispositions of one, who drew so evidently and so largely from
knowledge the aliment of his energies, and the materials of
varied and exquisite enjoyment."

In the spring of 1846, he was requested by the Young Men's
Society to give a short course of lectures on the " Eolation of
Physical Science to the doctrines mooted in the Vestiges of the
Natural History of Creation," in order to counteract the views
promulgated in that work. Speaking of those lectures, he says
to Dr. Cairns, in a letter of July 11, 1846, "I have too much
wrought only at science and literature, hoping thereby to secure
a position which would enable me to serve Christ effectually.
But many things warn me that my life will be a short one, and
that what I can do, must be done swiftly. Here there seems
some slight opportunity of doing a little good, and I must not
willingly let it pass, or mar it." The lectures were largely
attended, and attracted considerable notice at the time. Offers
were made by six publishing houses to print them without
delay. He felt averse, however, to their appearing permanently
in the polemical form, and put them aside to be reproduced at
a time of leisure, which never came. The severe illness, indeed,
induced by the additional labour they gave, made some months
of quiet rest in the country indispensable, and fresh literary work
pressing in on him soon absorbed every leisure moment.

Occasional lectures in provincial towns were delivered, the
number of such requests being truly legion. Of one in Dunbar,
in 1846, he says, " From what I saw of the people who attended
it, I cm satisfied that single lectures are out of the question to
miscellaneous audiences, so far as rational instruction is con-
cerned ; nor is it possible to offer a prelection which shall be
equally suitable to little boys, young ladies, elderly ditto,
clergymen, doctors, farmers, tradesmen, and working people.
The thing is preposterous. The utmost that I believe is, that
the ^ecture would do them no harm."

To no appeals for aid was a more ready assent given than to
those from struggling home-mission workers, Sunday or appren-
tice schools, etc. ; and the careful arrangement of illustrations

328

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII.

for these lectures compelled the thought that this was v/ork
specially done for the unseen Master. The last of these appear-
ances in the summer of 1859, is now thought of with the interest
that clings to such unconscious farewells. To Dr. Cairns he
sent the following report of it : — " A few nights ago the young
women at it [a Bible class] were invited to a festival, where t,ea,
strawberries, and a lecture on light, got up, 'regardless of
expense,' with specimens, balloons, blue lights, and what not,
were furnished. A well-known ' Prestidigitateui' took charge
of the * spectacle,' and the whole aff'air was a great success.
Some liked the tea, and some the pictures : some the straw-
berries, and some the balloon. A few 'general hearers' liked

everjrthing I took more trouble with the fit& than I have

done with almost anything, and rejoiced much in its successful-
ness. May the omen be blessed ! May He, for whose sake the
work was done to interest the little ones of His flock, feed me
and lead me as one of His sheep once far astray, but now
admitted by the door into the true fold !"

In 1852 he speaks of a similar occasion to his friend Mr.
Charles Tomlinson. " I am much interested in your Vauxhall
doings.* I know how pleasant such work is. I had more
pleasure in two lectures (on the Chemistry of a Candle), to two
ragged schools this winter than in most of my other lectures.
At one of them a very excellent dissenting minister,^ who is the
mainspring of a most beneficent system, came up to me before
the lecture cor^rnenced, and said apologetically, ' We generally
begin with prayer; have you any objection to our doing so
now ?' I at once said, ' No ;' and he offered up (what Scotch
prayers on such occasions are not always) a brief, expressive,
singularly appropriate prayer, in which he prayed for me as a
chemist. I cannot tell you how I was touched. I said in my
secret heart, 'I'll give him another lecture for that.' We
chemists are generally held to be men who, provided we can
tell ink from blacking when asked, do not require moral char-

' The reference here is to a lecture given by Mr. Tomlinson, to supplement the
benevolent labours of the Messrs. Wilson, in the Belmont Candle Works, on behalf
of those employed by them.

* The Rev. James Trench. See Cairns'a ' Memoir of John Brown, D.D.,' p. 262.

1844-64.

LECTURE TO RAGGED SCHOOL.

329

acters. No doubt, we get our shure of the prayers for all sorts
and conditions of men, but I want something more. The day I
hope will come when, without cant, or formality, or hypocrisy,
a class and its teacher will together ask God's blessing on their
work before they begin. If we can't be Christians in all our
daily work, of what worth is our Christianity?" It may be
imagined what excitement such a lecture occasioned amongst
the inhabitants of the close or wynd in the High Street of
Edinburgh, in which it was held. Going down on one of the
evenings, an hour previous to the opening of the door, to make
preliminary arrangements, the lecturer found little boys endea-
vouring with intense curiosity to peep through every crevice of
door or window. Seeing him enter elicited from one the pathetic
petition, " Eh, man ! will ye no let us in V but a more shrewd
companion observed, " That's no a man ; that's a gentleman !"
In due time they did get in, and next day were overheard by
the assistants who came to remove the apparatus used, dilating
to their companions at the mouth of the close, on the wonders
they had seen. " And man !" said one, " he fired a glass pistol
fu' o' naething ; an' he set up a balloon, an' they were a' haddin'
on t' it ! ! !" The description of the explosion George ever
remembered with keen zest.

The notes of this lecture may be given as a specimen of those
from which he usually spoke, only a very few lectures being
fully written out. Special words and marks were written in
red ink, to catch the eye.

CHEMISTRY OF A CANDLE.

I. Methods of producing Heat and Light.
Candles: Lamps: Spirits.

Oas.

Wood: Coal.

II. Apparently very different ; essentially same.
a. All contain charcoal : leave it when heated.
h. Give off inflammable air ov H.
c. Turn into vapour when heated.
III. Cinder, or coke, or charcoal-fire glows, but does not
flame, r

330

MEMOIR OF OEOROE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII.

IMI

IV. We must mako them clmngo into vapours or airs, or

" gases," geiat, ghaist, ghost, spirit,
a. Coal heated in iron bottle (retort).
h. CHI placed in vesat;! with wick
c. Candle with wick but no vessel.
V. Use of vnck to draw up melted wax.
a. Illustrations of capillary action.

Sugar.

VI. a. Long time candle takes to light.

h. Longer even than lamp.
VII. Tallow or wax liiclted and turned into gas. A candle ii
little oil manufactory, and also a little gaa-work.
VIII. Thus lamp-light, candle-light, and oil or coal-gas light,
and wood and coal-flame, all essentially the same — all
gas-lights ; ON' y coal and wood continue to yield heat,
long after they cease to give flame.

I. a. Proof that these vapours or gases contain ii.
b. Proof that they contain c : smoke : cl. and C4 H4.
II. This one half of subject : need of air.
III. Air feeds flame or supports it.

Candle in air.
IV. Composition of Air.

a. -^th pure, vital, or oxygen. Stick and Candle.

b. ^ths non vital, nitrogen.

V. Burning, a uniting of c h with 0.
Illustration from blue and yellow = green.

VI. What they produce when combined ?

a. Water. Oxyhydrogcn blowpipe heat.

b. Carbonic acid. Cause of light : Limeball.
e. Its flame-extinguishing, deadly properties.

VII. Proof of God's wisdom in giving us c and h and air as
combustibles.
S in suffocating and poisonous.
Fein white, h^t and ftisible.
p in acid and irrespirable.
VIII. HO and COj gases, volatile, invisible

Importance of ventilation. ♦

darl

1MI-S4,

8C01T18H SOCIETY OF ARTS.

331

REFERENCKS IN THE BIBLE TO CANDLE OR LAMP.

1 . The candle of the wicked soon put out.

2. The candle of the Lord. " Oh that I were as in months
past, as in the days when God preserved me ; when his candle
shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through
darkness."

3. The golden candlestick of the Hebrew Temple.

4. The seven gold candlesticks of the New Testament.

6. In heaven " they need no candle." " The Lamb is the light
thereof." " Light is sown for the righteous."

*' Perfect in all the courtesies of society, and able to delight
the most refined circles with his exquisite wit and knowledge,
he could turn with still greater relish to correspond with chil-
dren, or to enjoy the wonder of some ragged city-mission audi-
ence at a voluntary scientific lecture."*

Many and various were the contributions to science during
the years of which we speak. A detailed estimate of the greater
number of them will be found in the Appendix, from the pen of
Dr. J. H. Gladstone. To one of the first, — ' On a simple mode
of constructing Skeleton Models to illustrate the systems of
Crystallography,' the Royal Scottish Society of Arts awarded a
medal of five guineas' value, believing the invention likely to
be of much service. Before the same Society a paper was read
in 1845, * On the employment of Oxygen as a means of Resus-
citation in Asphyxia,' In 1848 he brought before it Suggestions
on the use of the Electro-Magnetic Bell in conducting Sound ;
and in later years, 1853 and 1854, his series of Researches on
Colour-Blindness, for which the Society conferred on him the
highest honour, the Keith pri^se, value £30 ; and in addition a
grant of money, to be expended on the inquiry, was placed at
his disposal In 1855 the Researches were published,^ with
some additions, and form a valuable contribution to previous in-

» *Macmillan's Ma;/-?! le,' January 1860.

« ' Researches on Coloni - lilindness, with a Supplement on the Danger attending the
present System of Railway and Marine Coloured Signals." Sutherland and Knox,
Edinburgh.

332

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII.

vestigations on this subject. None of his inquiries attracted so
much attention as these, probably from their bearing so widely
on the welfare of the public. They are referred to with com-
mendation by Dr. W. C. Henry, in his 'Life of Dalton;'^ by
Professor Clerk Maxwell, of Aberdeen;'^ by Professor Tyndall,
of the Eoyal Institution, London;^ by W. Pole, Esq., C.E, -* and
by Dr. J. H. Gladstone.*^ Sir David Brewster, in a recent paper
on Colour-Blindness, speaks of the Eesearches as a " very in-
teresting volume." It is thus more fully referred to in an ela-
borate article, discussing its contents, in the 'North British
Eeview* for 1856 : "Although Dr. "Wilson himself modestly re-
gards his work * only as an imperfect contribution to the history
of a remarkable, and by no means rare peculiarity of vision,
requiring for its full elucidation a profounder acquaintance with
optics, anatomy, and physiology, than he dared pretend to,' yet
we have no hesitation in recommending it to readers of all
classes as a popular work of great value, exhibiting no defici-
ency of optical, anatomical, and physiological knowledge, ana-
lysing faithfully, and criticising candidly, the labours and views
of preceding writers, and calculated, as he himself trusts, 'to
create, or deepen the conviction that the study of colour-blind-
ness wiU throw light upon intricate departments of scientific
optics, anatomy, and physiology,' whilst it has ' already an im-
portant bearing on the eesthetic arts, which express beauty by
colours, and on those economic arts, such as mapping, but espe-
cially signalling, in which colours are graphically employed.' . .
Though Dr. Wilson has already taken a high place among the
distinguished men who adorn the collegp,i of our northern me-
tropolis, his work on colour-blindness wiU add greatly to his
reputation,"^

Professor Cherriroan'^ also reviews this work at great length
in the 'Canadian Journal' for March 1856, and concludes

See Appendix to ' Life of Dalton,' by Henry.

' Trans. R, S. E.,' vol, xxi. p. 284. ,

• London and Edinr. Pliil. Mag.' vol, xi. p. 32D.

'Trans, R. S. for 1859,' p. 323. " '

' Report of Brit. Assoc, for I860,'

' North British Review,' February 1856, pp, 327, 328,

Professor of Natural Philosophy, University College, Toronto.

1844-54.

RESEARCHES ON COLOUR-BLINDNESS.

333

" with hearty thanks to Dr. Wilson, both for his own experi-
ments and researches in this obscure subject, and for having
embodied all that is known about it in a clear and concise
remmf, which will serve as a standard of reference hereafter to
the scientific investigator."

In September 1857, an ophthalmological congress was held at
Brussels, attended by men of eminence from all parts of the
world, and it was confided to Mr. White Cooper, of London, to
draw up a report on the present state of ophthalmic science in
England. So deeply impressed was he with Dr. Wilson's work,
that he expressed his opinion of its value in the following
terms : — " Though I have abstained from making special refer-
ence to books, I cannot pass over the admirable and origmal
work on chromato-pseudopsis, or colour-blindness, by Dr. George
Wilson, of Edinburgh. For acuteness and originality this volume
deserves the highest praise." The opinion thus expressed was
indorsed by all present who had studied the subject. Mr. White
Cooper has kindly given in detail his estimate of this work as
follows: — "In 1853, the attention of Dr. George Wilson was
directed to the obscure but interesting subject of colour-blind-
ness ; he did not originally intend to do more than write two or
three papers upon it, but as examples of colour-blindness mul-
tiplied on his hands, and (as he states) the theoretical and prac-
tical importance of many of the questions connected with its
occurrence became more apparent, he was led to study it more
deeply, and to write upon it at greater length.

" A prominent feature in Dr. Wilson's character appears to
have been a desire to utilise any subject, to remove it from the
realms of speculation, and to turn it when possible to practical
account. Thus, as to colour-blindness, until he took up the
subject, it had been regarded merely as a curious physiological
fact, the phenomena and their explanation having mainly at-
tracted the attention of philosophers. But Dr. Wilson regarded
it from another point of view ; he saw its practical relation to
railway and ship signals, and the important results which might
flow from the inability to distinguish one colour from an(^ther.

"His first communication appeared in the 'Edinburgh
Monthly Journal of Medical Science' for November 1853, with

334

MEMOIR OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII,

1844-

the title, * On the prevalence of Chromato-pseudopsis, or Colour-
blindness ; * but as the practical relations of colour-blindness
could not be fuUy discussed in this professional periodical, Dr.
WUson communicated to the Eoyal Scottish Society of Arts an
important paper ' On Eailway and Ship Signals in relation to
Colour-blindness.' This communication was read January 8,
1855, and it speaks well for the liberality, not less than the dis-
cernment of this distinguished Society, that, being deeply im-
pressed with the importance of the facts stated by Dr. Wilson,
they circulated at their own expense, copies of the paper among
the railway companies, and, unsolicited, placed at Dr. Wilson's
disposal a grant of money to be expended on the inquiry.

" The lights selected by the Admiralty to be carried by sea-
going vessels to prevent collision, are green on the starboard
side ; red on the port side. Now these are the colours most
liable to be confovmded by the colour-blind ; and a very singu-
lar fact came to the knowledge of Dr. Wilson in the course of
his inquiries : of a Board amongst whose duties was that of in-
vestigating the use of coloured lights as signals, it chanced that
of five members, two were colour-blind ; and one day a clerk —
unconscious of his defect — copied a letter in red ink, thinking it
was black !

" Eed and green are well known to railway travellers, as in-
dicating, red, danger — green, simply caution. Thus, both by
sea and by land, these, the colours most frequently confounded
by the colour-blind, are the very colours selected as important
signals ! Yet how essential to safety is their due appreciation !

" Dr. Wilson enters at great length into the consideration of
the question in all its bearings, and points out the necessity of
signal-men being tested as to their appreciation of colour,
describing minutely the course to be pursued, which would cer-
tainly lead to the detection of those deficient in this qualifica-
tion ; and as an additional measure of precaution, Dr. Wilson
dwells on the necessity of employing <\e elements of form and
number, as well as colaur, in railway signals.

" Though less generally adopted than could be desired, these
suggestions have not fallen barren to the ground. Dr. Brinton,
who examines candidates for railway appointments in India,

lay<
reco
the
will

SUST

1844-54.

LABORIOUS INQUIRY.

335

lays stress on their due appreciation of colour, testing them as
recommended by Dr. Wilson ; and there is little doubt that, as
the importance of the subject is more generally recognised, it
will receive the attention it merits. In navigation. Dr. Wilson
urges the employment of night signals which the colour-blind
cannot mistake, the Admiralty system being fraught with un-
suspected danger to all who trust in it.

"As facts accumulated, the interest of the subject presented
itself more and more forcibly, and Dr. Wilson felt, in 1855, that
the time had arrived when the results of his researches should
be presented to the profession and the public. An extended
analysis of this work would be out of place in a biography, and
it will be sufficient to mention some of its leading points.

"The first thing that strikes us is the amount of labour
bestowed upon the inquiry ; in 1852-53 alone. Dr. Wilson care-
fully examined 1154 persons with reference to colour-blindness,
and subsequently a further* large number ; it may be confidently
asserted that no one had previously extended the investigation
so widely, and the results are commensurate.

" It is somewhat startling to find that Dr. Wilson arrived at
the conclusion, that one in every twenty persons has an imper-
fect appreciation of colour, and that the number who are
colour-blind in so marked a degree as to mistake red for green,
brown for green, and occasionally even red for black, is one in
fifty. Dr. Wilson's researches fully established the hereditary
character of colour-blindness, which clings in a remarkable
degree to certain families ; he observed, that so far as tints are
concerned, the colour-blind have as nice discernment as others ;
it is proper ^;o mention that Sir John Herschel and others
entertain doubts a?* tc whether colour-blindness is really as
common as stated by Dr. Wilson ; the question may be re-
garded as yet opea^ To a person v/ith perfect vision it is
startling, and almost verges on the ludicrous, to see another
apparently equally gifted, gravely sorting scarlet and red and
green worsteds as shades of one and the same colour ; declaring
that a stick of red sealing-wax was not to be distinguished on

1 See ' Statistics of Colour-Blindness' in ' Report of the British Asociation for
1859,' p. 228.

836

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIIL

a grass plot ; or writing a letter in brilliant red ink, thinking
it was rather a bright black. The examples of such strange
confusion, related by Dr. Wilson, are very numerous, and ren-
der the book as amusing as it is interesting.

" As art can do little towards palliating, and nothing towards
curing colour-blindness. Dr. Wilson points out the propriety of
excluding from certain professions and callings those who have
this defect The professions for which it most seriously disqua-
lifies are those of the sailor and railway servant, who have daily
to peril life and property on the indication which a coloured flag
or a lamp seems to give. Though an imperfect apprehension of
colour must prevent a man becoming a painter, it does not
exclude his excelling as an engraver, for the colour-blind have
a keen eye for form, outline, light and shade, etc. Such callings
as the weaver, house-painter, dyer, etc., are manifestly iU adapted
for them ; and even the pursuits of the analytical chemist, to
whom a knowledge of colour is important, scarcely falls within
their list.

" On what dues colour-blindness depend ? A variety of opi-
nions exist on this point ; but we shall conclude the subject by
quoting that formed by Dr. Wilson : — ' We seem to be fully
entitled to affirm that the cerebro-retinal apparatus of vision in
the colour-blind is, either through congenital defect or subse-
quent morbid change, unendowed with that sensitiveness to
calorific impressions which it possesses in those whose vision is
normal It is probably the retina that is the chief seat of this
diminished sensibility to colour, and the simpler form of colour-
blindness might fitly enough be called colour amaurosis.'"^

From 1846 onwards to 1852, a series of researches on Fluorine
was carried on, involving much patient investigation and labo-
rious inquiry. Its presence was discovered in waters, in mine-
rals, fossil remains, plants, and animal secretions. In the

1 * Researches on Colour-Blindness,' p. 111.

In the * Cosmos' for January 6, 1860, M. I'Abbd Moigno expresses surprise that
no notice is taken in these ' Researches' of labours of his in the same field, pub-
lished in the ' Repertoire d'Optique Modeme,' and consisting of a practical and theo-
retical risumS on Daltonism or Colour-Blindness. Had this paper come under Dr.
Wilson's observation there can be no doubt he would have mentioned any obliga-
tion under which it might have placed him.

1844-54.

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS.

337

English translation of ' Lehmann's Physiological Chemistry,' by
Professor G. E. Day, special reference is made to them.^ With
one or two exceptions, the papers containing a record of those
investigations were brought before the Koyal Society, Edin-
burgh, and have a place in its Transactions.^ The last notice of
the subject was one claiming priority, because of a communica-
tion made to the French Academy in 1856, by M. J. Nickl^s,
entitled ' Presence du Fluor dans le Sang,' this gentleman being
unaware, apparently, of I>r. Wilson's announcement of the same
fact in 1850.

Before the Royal Society of Edinburgh were ako brought, in
1848, the results of eight months' inquiry into the bleaching
powers of certain gases ; and in the following year the ' Early
History of the Air-Pump in England.' In 1845, he read also
here, ' On WoUaston's Argument from the Limitation of the
Atmosphere, as to the Finite Divisibility of Matter ;' later, * On
the Organs in which Lead accumulates in the Horse, in cases
of slow poisoning by that metal;' and in 1850, 'On the pos-
sible Derivation of the Diamond from Graphite and Anthra-
cite;'^ while on another occasion he brought forward attempts
to trace the source of Nitrogen in Plants.

Phenomena of vision, encountered while prosecuting the
researches in colour-blindness, led to observations ' On the
Extent to which the received Theory of Vision requires us to
regard the eye as a Camera Obscura,' which may be consulted
with advantage by those interested in physiological pursuits.
It bears the impress of that careful thought and accurate rea-
soning which characterize all his writings. Of one or two other
papers presented to the Eoyal Society, Edinburgh, notice will be
found elsewhere.*

Before the Chemical Society of London were brought ' In-
quiries into the Decomposition of Water by Platinum ; ' the
'Binary Tlieory of Salts;' and 'Some Phenomena of Capil-
lary Attraction.'

Besides the more strictly scientific labours, of which some

» Vol. i. p. 425.— Cay. Soc. Published 1852.

* A list of them will be found in the Appendix.
' See Appendix.

* See Appendix.

338

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII.

notice has been given, he found time to draw up a series of
essays for the 'British Quarterly Eeview,' between 1845 and
1849, which have justly been reckoned as successful as any-
thing he ever wrote. " The paper on Chemistry and Natural
Theology boldly grapples with the difficulty arising from the
presence of evil as well as good in the manifestations of design,
and contains a vivid reflection of his own experience of suffer-
ing ; while the scientific memoirs on Dalton, Cavendish, Black,
Priestley, Wollaston, and Boyle, show a range of reading and a
power of elucidation not often combined in the treatment of any
science."^ After reading some of them. Lord Jeffrey wrote to
a friend, saying, " They give me a very high opinion, not only
of Dr. Wilson's talents and learning, but of his taste and power
of writing. . . . His severer style is admirable, and nothing
can be better than the lucid and energetic brevity with which
he abstracts facts and condenses arguments." Tliose papers
were the first expression of that love for biography, afWwards
so manifest. " My own favourite study, I will confess," he tells
the Eev. Dr. Vaughan, editor of the Review, " is scientific his-
tory and biography." He had it in contemplation to write the
lives of the distinguished chemists of Britain, and of this work
these memoirs were to form part ; but the design was never ful-
filled, his plans being always more extended than his opportu -
nities of canying them out. The nucleus of another of his
bright visions is to be found in the paper on Chemistry and
Natural Theology. The hope of writing a 'Eeligio Chemici,'
corresponding to Sir Thomas Browne's 'Eeligio Medici,' was
indulged for many years ; but " his life — bright with rare vir-
tues — was the only 'Eeligio Chemici' given him to finish.
This was higher than the contemplated work."^ Tlie ' British
Quarterly Eeview ' was straggling into being when he was re-
quested to contribute to its pages. This organ being the repre-
sentative of the Congregationalists of Great Britain, he willingly
responded, and by his zeal on its behalf, as well as by his articles,
he contributed not a little to its success, identifying himself
thoroughly with its wellbeing.

In the notices called forth by the appearance of its first num-

• ' Macmillan's Magazine,' Jnnuarj" 1860, * Ibid.

1844-64.

TEXT-BOOK OF CHEMISTRY,

339

repre-
ingly
iicles,
imself

niim-

bers, we find his paper on Dalton specially mentioned. " The
scientific strength of the Keview is indicated by a truly admir-
able paper on the ' Life and Discoveries of Dalton,' in which
the atomic theory of that great lawgiver of quantitative chemis-
try is expounded with a clearness, precision, width of view, and
philosophic eloquence, which reminds us of Playfair, and in
which the whole question of Dalton's merit as a discoverer is,
tlirough original research, placed in a new point of view, by
tracing the independent and altogether peculiar course of in-
quiry by which he was led to his atomic hypothesis." " ' The
Life and Discoveries of Dalton,' one of the greatest of English
chemists, is treated with a learned appreciation of the subject.
It is one of those delightful essays which serve to open the lights
of science upon the uninitiated, without dazzling them, or de-
terring them with too abstruse details."

His ' Text- Book of Chemistry,' which forms one of the
volumes of 'Chambers's Educational Course,' was written to
dictation in the summer of 1849, in the "Sleepy Hollow" of
Morningside. Rheumatism was an unfailing visitor in summer,
frequently affecting the arms to a painful extent. In that yeai'
it compelled the abandonment of spring classes, and this text-
book was undertaken as the only work of which he was capable
at the time, idleness being to him an impossibility. He was
quite unable to hold a pen for months, and dictated its pages to
a sister while pacing the room with compressed lips, that showed
the pain could scarcely be endured; but pain never stopped
work, and the success of the book has been such as to repay the
effort abundantly. Its sale has been at the rate of 2,500 copies
yearly, and upwards of 24,000 copies, in all, have been sold in
the nine years which have followed its publication. It has
been recommended by the Council of the Society of Arts, Lon-
don, to the students preparing for examination for its certificate
of proficiency, and has met with general acceptance. It is thus
noticed in periodicals of the day : ' There are few books on
chemical science in our language which so fully explain its lead
ing features. . . . His little work may be studied as a choice
example of scientific literature."^

«' Athen»um,' January 4, 1851. * -

340

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII.

" Dr. Wilson's work ia intended as a simple introduction to
chemistry for the youth of both sexes ; but it deserves a higher
place than the author claims for it, from the excellence of the
spirit in which it is written. Mori; works of the class attempt
to do no more than to give an account of the strange and strik-
ing phenomena of the science, and rarely venture to discuss its
principles; but Dr. Wil on hp" nU ed with considerable Tul-
ness, and in a 1:11.1 rkabiy' eh;<u', cin j^>:o, and inteUigible manner,
into the general doctrines < f ;L;i.,i4ry, and has explained many
matters which are generally, '-it; as 'v believe erroneously, con-
sidered too abstruse for the popular 3t,ai rmt."^ A second edition
was desired by the publishers in 1857, but engagements on hand
put it out of his power to give attention to this request, as con-
siderable additions would have been necessary, owing to the
progress of chemistry since its first appearance.

In 1851, the growing reputation of Dr. Wilson, both as a
scientific writer and a biographer, was greatly enhanced by his
' Life of the Honourable Henry Cavendish.'^ Eight years pre-
viously, while laid aside from active work, he had begun to
collect materials for the Lives of British Chemists, already
alluded to, and these were found of service in this arduous
undertaking. He had also had unusual opportunities of mas-
tering the difficulties connected with the discovery of the com-
position of water, and the claims of Watt and Cavendish in
respect to it. It was at the request of the council of the
Cavendish Society — which includes nearly all the chemists of
the country, and many of its natural philosophers — that Dr.
Wilson undertook this biography, and how thoroughly he identi-
fied himself with the subject of his memoir, we find from a letter
written while engaged in the work : " I read all biographies
with intense interest. Even a man without a heart, like Caven-
dish, I think about, and read about, and dream about, and
picture to myself in all possible ways, till he grows into a living
being beside me, and I put my feet into liis shoes, and become

* ' Edin. Monthly Medical Journal,' December 1850.

* 'The Life of the Honourable Henry Cavendish, Including abstracts of his more
important scientiflc Papers, and a Critical Inquiry into the Claims of all the al-
leged Discoverers of the Composition of Water.' London : Printed for the Caven-
dish Society, 1851.

1841-64.

LIFE OF CAVENDISH.

341

for t^ !.ime Cavendish, and thuik as he t iiouglit, and do as lie
did." ft Avas no light t^dl; he had undertaken, and at its close
his fe^-ling was, "Had I foreseen the lab ur and time it was
destiiv d to v cupy, I should have declined it. A burden is now
off ( :/ shoulders, which has lain on them for some two years.
I never wrote anyt^ 'ng .,ith less freedom and unction than this
book, for reasons which the preface will explain. Much of it
has been dictated even in my laboratory, in the midst of confu-
sion, and the style is horribly rough and rugged in many places.
The book will be a veiy dry one, in spite of all the water in it.
I look upon the whole with a remorseful conviction, that I can-
not answer to God for the expenditure of so great an amount of
time and thought on so small a matter. To me, however, the
past is always bleak and dark."

Spontaneous help was unexpectedly received from Mr. Charles
Tomlinson, London, who furnished many of thos(i graphic details
that make this remarkable man stand out vividly from his fel-
lows. The friendship thus originated with Mr. Tomlinson proved
deep and lasting. The long- debated question of priority as to
the discovery of the composition of water, seems by this volume
to have been decided by public consent in favour of Cavendish.
Any lingering doubt was met by Dr. Wilson in a communication
to the Eoyal Society in 1859, in which he says, — "From De
Luc's ' Id^es,' all trace of charge against the fair dealing of
Cavendish has vanished. Lavoisier is found making fvd, if
somewhat tardy, amends for any wrong he did the English
philosopher ; and as De Luc and Lavoisier testify that Caven-
dish had reached his famous discovery in 1782, the most un-
charitable must cease suspecting that he borrowed or stole it
from Watt, who had it not to offer any one till 1783."^

The book as a whole has met with a hearty welcome ; it has
been spoken of thus : — " Admirable as a biogi'aphy — full of life,
of picturesque touches, and of realization of the man and of his
times ; and, moreover, thoroughly scientific — containing, among
other discussions, by far the best account of the gi'eat water
controversy from the Cavendish point of view."^ It received

•nt) M

' Published in the * Athenreuiii' of April 30, 185^.
s * HorflB Subsecivte.' Second Series, p. 107.

342

MEMOIU OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. Vllt.

public commendation in the address delivered to the British
Association in 1855, by its President, the Duke of Argyll, and
is repeatedly quoted and referred to by Professor J. D. Forbes,
in his ' Dissertation on the Progress of Mathematical and Physi-
cal Science since 1775 to 1850/ He speaks of it as " a valuable
biography, which has been printed in the series of publications
of the ' Cavendish Society,' and thus unfortunately has had but
a limited circulation."^ For further notice of this work, the
reader is referred to the periodicals whose names are given below.''

The work which next proceeded from the pen of " the much-
loved biographer," as George Wilson has been called, was as
different from its predecessor as two books could well be. This
difference, however, existed only in the subjects of memoir, not
in the method of treating them. Approaching the man in both
cases without preconceived notions of what he ought to be, and
discovering with fine instinct the springs of action in each, he,
with reverential faithfulness and exquisite delicacy, portrayed
him as he existed.

Dr. John Reid, of whose 'Life' we now speak, was little known
beyond the professional circles in which his physiological
researches were highly valued, until the later years of his life, —
" comprising more tragical incidents, and exhibiting, finer efforts
of heroism, than are often to be found in real or invented
tragedies," — revealed to the world the qualities of heart and
mind .hat made him a wonder to many. Though not an inti-
mate friend, George Wilson enjoyed the pleasure of John Eeid'a
acquaintance, and on his funeral day, when visiting the pictur-
esque churchyard which surrounds the venerable ruins of St.
Andrews Cathedral, tender reminiscences shaped themselves into
the following lines : —

THE LATE DR. JOHN REID.

Death has at length released thee.

Thou brave and patient one !
Tlie unutterable pangs are past.

And all thy work is done,

* Only members of the Society named are entitled to its publications.

s ' British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review,' April 1852, p. 533. ' North
British Review,' Feb. 1856, In Littell's ' Living Age,' No. 384,— a Boston, U. S.
publication,— a notice of some length is reprinted from the ' Spectator.'

1844-61.

LIFE OF DR. JOHN REID.

84$

Thou wert a Daily Lessou

Of Courage, Hope, and Faith ;
We wondered at thee living,
And envy thee thy death.

Thou hast gone up to Heaven

All glad and painless now ;
The long- worn look of anguish

Has left thy noble brow.

Thou wert so meek and reverent,

So resolute of will,
So bold to bear the utterinoot.

And yet so calm and still.

We think of thee with sorrow.

Thy sad untimely end ;
We speak of thee with pity.

Our sore-tried suffering friend : —

We cheat ourselves with idle words.

We are the poor ones here ;
Sorrow and Sin and Suffering still

Surround our steps with fear.

Our life is yet before us, —

The bitter cup of woe.
How deep it is, which each must drink.

No one of us doth know.

The Shadow of the Valley,

Whose gateway is the tomb.
Spreads backwards over all of us

Its curtain cloud of gloom.

Some stand but at the inlet.

And some have passed within,
O'er all the shadow hourly creeps.

And we move farther in.

Thou art beyond the shadow ;

Why should we weep for thee ?
That thou from Care, and Pain, and Death,

Art set for ever free.

Well may we cease to sorrow ;

Or, if we weep at all.
Not for thy fate, but for our own,

Our bitter tears should fall.

'Twere better still to follow on

The path that thou hast trod.
The path thy Saviour trod before.

That led thee up to God.

These were printed shortly after in the ' Monthly Journal of
Medicme,' for September 1849, and by their truthful beauty
impressed many of Dr. Keid's friends with the conviction that

344

MEMOIR UF OEOBQE WILSON.

ClIAl'. VIIL

to their author alouo could tho preparation of a fit memorial of
him bo intrusted. With what feelings ho responded to their
urgent solicitations, we learn from various letters of that period.
" I can sincerely say that I have no personal end in view in
undertaking the sketch. My hands are full of work, and only
the hope of preserving a most estimable man's memory from
untimely oblivion, and his character from misconception, would
induce me to engage in the task. His death and latter days
were believed to have made a profound impression on the pro-
fession, one such as no death in my remembrance has made on
medical men." " His life was so completely one into which
hundreds of medical men can enter, and the example of which,
they cannot refuse as lying above and beyond their sympathies,
that it conmiended itself to me as peculiarly deserving to be
recorded." The great matter to be illustrated is, " the eminent
Christian example which Dr. Reid's later days afforded to all
men, but especially his professional brethren, who so much need
to be reminded of the claims of Christianity upon them. To
dwell upon this would be to myself a labour of love. It has
fallen to my own lot to sit by the sickbeds and deathbeds of many
near relations and friends, and to have deeply impressed upon
me what the power of Christianity is to sustain under protracted
suftering and the approach of death. I have more than onco
been at the brink of the grave myself, and was led to see the
need of a Saviour, and to experience that He is mighty to save,
at a time when recovery was very doubtful. I have supposed
that, in consequence of these things, I could better nter into
Dr. Eeid's conflicts and triumphs than many could. ... I have
a great delight in the study of men's lives." " I promise myself
an amount of personal gain from the contemplation of such a
life as John Keid's was, that will amply recompense me for any
trouble. To promise this is presumption ; I should rather have
said that I pray for God's blessing to myself and others in con-
nexion with the undertaking, and already have cause to thank
Him that He has put it into my heart to take up the matter.
Let not your prayers, my true friend,^ be wanting ; for nothing
but His help will enable me to write serviceably a sketch which

* This letter is addressed to Dr. Cairns.

1844-54.

STUDIES IN HEAVKN.

345

will be keenly criticiflod, and better not writtcr at all, than so
as to do no service to the cause of Christ. I have not the fear
of man before me, but I have the fear of my own unworthiuess,
and a sense of responsibility often dispiriting."

Many remonstrances were made to him as to the undesirable-
ness of giving the ' Life ' a religious cast, but he followed out
his own convictions of right as to this ; and looking back at the
close of his work, he says, " It was written with prayers and
tears, not to procure me fame or wealth, but to do good."
Though published* a year later than the 'Life of Cavendish/
the two were on hand at the same time. The first named being
the volume issued for 1851 by the Cavendish Society, he was
compelled to finish it within a given time, and not until the
winter of 1851-1852 was he able to devote his scanty leisure
to the completion of Dr. Reid's Memoir. An extract from a
letter referring to the employments of heaven, will be read with
interest : " I exceedingly like the allusion to the continuation
of physiological studies in the world to come, which seems to
have been suggested by Dr. Carpenter, and welcomed by Dr.
Keid. Religious men of science too little refer to their studies
as not destined to cease with their lives. I do not know why
it has been left to Unitarians to insist on this, but so it is ; and
Dr. Priestley is the only chemist who has expressed his convic-
tion that the study of God's works will proceed under His
giudance in heaven. This has always been a favourite belief
with myself, and I rejoice to see that Dr. Reid looked forward
to prosecuting his acquaintance with the works he had begun to
study on this earth. I doubt not that he looked to heaven as a
place of holiness far more than as a temple of knowledge ; but
the spirits of the just, I cannot doubt, feel no such difficulty
in combining faith and n. -son, moral purity and intellectual
labour, as we do. A dying minister, quite ignorant of physical
science, said to a brother who made it a gi'eat study, ' Samuel,
Samuel ! I'll know more of it in heaven in half-an-hour than
you have learned all your life.' "

For the wonderful story of Dr. Reid's gradual preparation for

» ' Life of Dr. John Reid, late Clmndos Professor of Aimtoiiiy and Medicine in
tlio University of St. Andrews.' Edinburgh : Sutlierland and Knox. 1852.

346

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII.

entering on those nobler heavenly pursuits, we refer the reader
to the volume itself. The nature of his disease, and the suffer-
ings entailed by attempts at cure, may form an obstacle to its
perusal in the minds of many, but the lessons it bears for each
one, richly repay an effort to overcome the natural shrinking
from painful topics. Care has been taken to make it accept-
able to the general as well as the professional reader, by the
omission of technicalities ; and as the interest it inspires is
founded on sources connected with no passing events, it will
probably continue to hold a high place amongst biographies.
Much in it reveals the inner life of the writer, and thus there
may be recognised " the vivid lines of an autobiography painted
on another canvas." In it, too, is to be found a specimen of
his skill in popularizing a difficult subject, while describing the
nervous system, to which Dr. Eeid had devoted much of his
research. Abundant evidence was given to the author that his
aims in writing Dr. Reid's 'Life' had been fulfilled. Private
letters from medical men and others show that they who sow in
tears, bearing precious seed, return bringing their sheaves with
them. The journals of the day contained notices highly favour-
able, with one exception, viz., the ' Westminster Review,' which
took deadly umbrage at its religious tone. From the author of
the ' Life of Cavendish' this periodical hoped for better things ;
but over the general public, especially the religious portion of it,
nothing that George Wilson wrote exerted a power so winning
as this book. A second edition of it has been issued.

In 1852 there also appeared in the 'Travellers' Library' of
Messrs. Longman, the reprint of an article, written at the
request of Lord Jeffrey for the ' Edinburgh Review,' on ' Elec-
tricity and the Electric Telegraph."^ On its first appearance,
this article was generally received as the most clear and viva-
cious exposition of the subject that had been issued, and con-
siderable additions were made before its separate publication.
Lord Jeffrey speaks of it in a private letter as an " admirable
paper, giving a luminous account of the invention " of the tele -
graph. A notice of the first edition says, " If any one is u 3 -

> ' Electricity and the Electric Telegraph, to which is added the Chemistry of
the Stars.' Longman and Co.

1844-54.

CHEMISTRY OF THE STARS.

547

tined to open up a royal road to science, it is Dr. Wilson. He
is quite matchless in his use of felicitous illustrations, while the
hearty, off-hand way in which he carries us along with him,
makes us forget that he is dealing with the most abstruse
mysteries of science. It is seldom that we find a man so
eminent in science retaining all the warmth and freshness of
humanity about him. He clothes every subject he touches
with the bright hues of fancy and the warm sympathies of a
human heart." ^

In addition to this essay, there is in the volume one originally
published in the 'British Quarterly Keview,' entitled 'The
Chemistry of the Stars.' It is an endeavour to determine the
extent to which we can ascertain the relative difference of
chemical composition between the earth and the heavenly
bodies. The learned author of the ' Plurality of Worlds ' says
of it :^ " Dr. George Wilson has, in his lively tract on ' The
Chemistry of the Stars,' made some very ingenious reflections,
tending to show that the earth, the planets, tlie stars, and the
sun, are probably very different from one another."

This essay has somewhat puzzled critics. One is disposed to
call it " a scientific yew dJ esprit;" another thinks it " an ingenious
and eloquent argument respecting the stars and their inhabi-
tants, exhibiting the characteristic marks of Dr. Wilson's
writings — great clearness, force, and originality of style, with
uncommon felicity in the selection of homely and apt illustra-
tions." A third reminds us that its precedence of the ' Plurality
of Worlds ' gives it a claim to the notice of those who study the
discussion which followed the issue of that work.

In a second and revised edition of this number of the ' Tra-
vellers' Library,' in 1858, there is inserted a description of the
Atlantic Cable, with verses entitled ' TIk- Atlantic Wedding
Eing,' which appeared first in ' Blackwood's Magazine.' Two
unexpected tokens of admiration of those verses speedily reached
their author, — one a translation of the poem into French, and
the other, a request from the conductor of the Hull Vocal

» The article on Flectricity, as it appeared originally in the 'Etlinburgli Review,'
is reprinted in Littell's ' Living Age,' No. 290, December 1819. Boston, U.S.
= Preface to Third Edition, p. viii.

348

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. VIII.

Society, for permission to set a portion of it to music in the
form of a cantata.

The last of George Wilson's publications in this busy year
was a pamphlet, called forth by the occurrence of a vacancy in the
Chair of Chemistry in the University of Glasgow, by the death
of the learned and renowned Dr. Thomas Thomson. Its object
was to set forth the needless obstacles which t le Scottish Uni-
versity Test Act placed in the way of those who, like himself,
could not conscientiously sign the Confession of Faith and the
Formula of Obedience. The test had been represented in Par-
liament as a form which might be " relaxed where a good rea-
son for such relaxation existed." In the University of Edinburgli,
indeed, it was usually ignored, but in Glasgow, St. Andrews, and
Aberdeen, it was rigorously exacted. On one occasion, however,
the reality of its powers was fully proved by the exclusion, in
1847, of a candidate for the Edinburgh Hebrew Chair.^ The
Glasgow Chair of Chemistry being a Crown appointment. Dr.
Wilson addresses his remarks to the Secretary for the Home
Department.^ A few biographical data are incidentally fur-
nished, while the -writer modestly sets forth his claims ; the ob-
ject he had in view, however, was not a selfish one, but rather the
ungracious task of standing forth on behalf of all who, like him-
self, were not members of the Scotch Established Church. If
the test cannot be wholly abolished, he pleads, at least, for miti-
gation of its rigour. Happily a few more years brought about
its abolition; and whether his pamphlet aided this result or not,
it, at all events, served to call forth expression of the estimation
in which he was held by the general public, and to show the
striking vmion in him of unflinching boldness in a right cause,
with the modest simplicity and gentleness whicli more usually
characterized him. He was by this time recognised as " one of
two brothers who rank among the most distinguished savans of
Edinburgh. One of tlie two is the author of the most learned
and judicious antiquarian work which lias of late years been

' Mr. Macdouall, now Professor in Queen's College, Belfast.

3 ' The Grievance of the University Tests, as applied to Professors of Physical
Science iu the Colleges of Scotland : a Letter addressed to the Right Honourable
Spencer H. Walpole, Secretary of State for the Homo Department,' pp. 48. Edin-
burgh : Sutherland and Knox. 1852.

1844-64.

SCOTTISH UNIVERSITY TESTS.

349

produced in Scotland. The other is a well-known chemist, and
the contributor, if we mistake not, of most of those articles on
scientific subjects in the ' British Quarterly Review,' which wft
have read with so much delight." In an article on the " Scottish
University Tests and the Glasgow Professorship of Chemistry,"
the ' Spectator' says, " Dr. George Wilson comes forward as one
of the most eminent British chemists, one who, though a young
man, has already achieved high scientific and literary reputa-
tion, and has been for years engaged in teaching his special
science, to inform the Secretary for the Home Depa"^ nt, in
whose gift the appointment to the Glasgow chair ^^ jfcically
rests, that because of these tests he cannot offer himself as a
candidate. Here is both hardship positive and hardship com-
parative ; a hardship to be excluded, a double hardship to be
excluded when others to whom the same objection applies, find
themselves not thereby debarred."^ The allusion here may be
to devices for overcoming the difficulty in the way, mentioned
in the pamphlet; how a professor-elect declared that he regarded
the tests merely as " Articles of Peace ;" another, having signed
the bond, went to a bookseller's to discover what it was he had
signed ; and a third affirmed that the documents he had subscribed
contained " the confession of his faith, and a great deal more"

The few remaining literary fruits of the ten years under notice
we leave for the present, not to overburden a chapter into which
so mucli work has already been compressed.

1 <

Spectator,' September 11, 1852.

P'l

350

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

CHAPTER IX.

INFLUENCE ON OTiiERS — INNER LIFE — FAILING HEALTH.

" 'Twas a sight
Of wonder to behold the body and souL

The self-same lineaments, the same

Marks of ideritity, were there :
Yet, oh, how difl'erent ! one aspires to heaven,
Pants for its sempiternal heritage,
And, ever changing, ever rising still.

Wantons in endless being.
The other, for a time the unwilling sport
Of circumstance and passion, struggles on ;
Fleets through its sad duration rapidly."

Queen Mab.

Having taken a general view of ths results of the years of
labour noticed in the preceding chapter, let us now retrace our
steps, and mark the springs of action and the impulses received
during the period which may be considered the summer of
George Wilson's life : in it the harvest was ripening which,
not long after, showed itself ready for the sickle and the in-
gathering.

The ardent love with which his students regarded him found
expression at the close of the Session 1845-46, in the presenta-
tion of a very handsome analytical balance, weighing to the
1000th part of a grain. It was given at a public dinner, at
which I'rofessor Goodsir, Dr. Seller, Professor Dick, and other
frieD'5 i. anited with the students in manifesting kindly regard
and respact

The influ.ii ^^ George Wilson exercised over those under his
care wap very gresit' udeed, the lo/e with which he inspired

1844-64.

LOVE OF I'UPILS.

351

those much with him, more resembled that of affectionate rela-
tionship than the usual intercourse of teacher and pupil. Deceit,
dishonourable conduct, or idleness, met with little mercy; but
v/ith faults of ignorance, youthful impetuosity, or thoughtless-
ness, he had wonderful patience, accompanied by a power of
eliciting the better points of character, which seemed at times
to transform a youth of whom all were in doubt, into one abound-
ing in rich promise. A pupil says of him, after an interval of ten
years, during which there was little intercourse, and that chiefly
by letter : — " I cannot say more tlian that Dr. Wilson's life and
character have always been an example to me, as a realization,
in some degree, of the highest life. My acquaintance with him
would in ordinary cases have been but slight, as I was thrown
so little into his society, and that at an age when I was hardly
capable of valuing him. But there was something in him which
I cannot define, which made me feel more than ordinary friend-
ship, real affection for him; boy as I was ; and I think this feel-
ing towards him is what all had who worked under him while
I was with him. That something consisted partly in an earnest-
ness and practical goodness which inspired one with respect and
admiration, partly his great consideration for others, which gave
his inferiors confidence —I mean inferiors in intellect, experience,
or anything else — and a warmth of feeling which drew one to
him immediately, and which, so far as I knew him, never cooled.
All this falls very far short of my aim. I can only say that I
count it a blessing to have known such a man, such an example."
His assistants in the laboratory and lecture-room were objects
of much interest to him, and in almost every case his regard was
warmly reciprocated. One of them says, - -" He always treated
us as if we were his dearest friends ;" showing that the delicate
courtesy of his manner was appreciated. Another writes, — " I
shall never require anything to remind me of one wlio was so
true a friend of mine at all times, and whose memory I respect
beyond that of any other man I ever knew." This attractive-
ness was one of the most remarkable features of his character ;
while it made him almost idolized by the circle of friends to
whom he was best known, it extended to his public audiences,
and even to the chance acquaintances of a day or hour. " The

362

MEMOm OF GEORGE WILSON.

CIIAP.LX.

wonderful power he hud in his genial happy nature of making
others love him, is strange and almost overpowering in its mani-
festations." One who knew him from his writings says, — " So
much of the man himself came out in all that he said or wrote,
that even in those who knew him only from his public actings,
there insensibly grew up the feeling of personal attachment to
the great heart that welled over in his writings and addresses."
To multiply testimonies of affection of a striking nature would
be easy, but they could no more convey an impression of the
truth than would a description of the fragrance of a bouquet of
flowers, bring back the exquisite aroma which was so gladden-
ing and refreshing. Friends who knew liim will think this at-
tempt to speak of his lovableness a failure, while to others it
may seem overstrained and unnatural. We shall only, there-
fore, in addition say, that no one was more surprised at it than
himself. What could make So-and-So take such a fancy for
him, showing it by untiring labour on his behalf, was often a
subject of speculation, the riddle being sometimes solved by his
saying that there surely must be something of the hypocrite in
liim, or people would not esteem him so much better than he
deserved. " I cannot but painfully contrast," he writes to a
friend,^ " my own poor deserviugs with your estimate of my
worth; a little praise is all that is good for me, and I get fright-
ened when I have much of it. I shall try to deserve your good
opinion, and that of your kind friends." This grace of humility,
doubtless, cast a charm over all his acts, and in it somewhat of
the secret of influence may be found.

In the spring of 1847, a poem, addressed by him 'To the
Stethoscope," attracted much notice. It appeared in ' Black-
wood's Magazine,' and the Edinburgh doctors, who eagerly
sought to discover the author, were not a little surprised to
find him one of themselves. In the few words of preface to
the lines, he says, " The stethoscope has long ceased to excite
merely professional interest. There arc few families to whom
it has not proved an object of horror and the saddest remem-
brance, as connected with the loss of dear relatives, though it is
but a revealer, not a producer of physical suffering."

* Mr. D. Mncmillan, Cambridge. ' ' ~'.if'i^

1844-«4.

LINES TO THE STETHOSCOPE.

353

>.-.

Having occasion to send to Lord Jeffrey, with whom a wann
friendship was springing up, a volume for perusal, a copy of the
* Stethoscope' accompanied it, which v;as acknowledged by him
thus : " I have not yet had time to read much — except the poem
— ^with which I was much gratified, and (if you will allow me to
say so) also a little surprised. From the nature of your pur-
suits, I certainly was not prepared to find this among your gifts.
But it is one of Avhich you have reason to be proud, -the speci-
men you have sent me being full of beauty and deep feeling, as
well as having a great command both of versification and poeti-
cal diction. It is, perhaps, rather too much expanded; but
your two pictures (especially the first, of the consumptive girl)
are very touchingly and gracefully executed, though I can
scarcely forgive you for giving us only the tragic and fatal
vaticinations of your stethoscope, and not cheering us before
concluding with some of its happy deliverances and revivals.
Indeed, I think I should be justified in imposing such a supple-
ment as a task for your last days at Dirletoii."

To the suggestion made in the close of this letter, George
could only reply, that as the joyful side of the picture had not
fallen to his lot, he could not portray it. The other, alas ! was
but the welling forth of thoughts which, by expression, relieved
the scorched heart, on which they had been imprinted as with
letters of fire. " I have not been describing imaginary scenes,"
he says, " I have written some of the lines with tears in my
eyes."

Tlie beauty of many of his poems has been freely acknow-
ledged, but exception made to their frequent irregularities of
metre. Aquotation from a letter to Dr. Cairns, who had al-
luded to this blemish, gives his own idea of the matter.
" When you come to Edinburgh, be sure to bring that Latin
hymn-book with you. I won't give you a translation of any
one of those grand hymns, because I can't. It is above and
beyond me. I could not, apart from everything else, reproduce
their exquisite rhythm and metres, without which they would
become alien paraphrases. I— to descend from heaven to earth

-do not use iiregular metres, because I despise regular ones ;
neither do I think the former preferable. I use them because

.^54

MP:M0IR of GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

I cannot compass the latter. At scliool, tliougli a dux, I was a
poor hand at scanning, and most improlific in I^titin verst^ In
the days of my folly, some young ladif s tried to teach me to
dance, but signally failed, for I could not keep the step, and
was foiled both in waltz and quadrille. Part-singing is equally
a closed region to me, for T never could keep time.

"Understand, then, that I do my best, not wilfully following
divisive courses, but using the eccentric gift that is in me as
well as I can. Do not say this hymn will not scan ; iMit this
hopelessly miscannable hymn will, or will not do. I am not
an engine running on hexameter, pentameter, long metre, short
metre, 'old' or 'new hundred' rails. I am an unlicensed pri-
vateer, now sailing discreetly before the wind, and then tacking
at a sharp angle ; now covered with canvas, and then with the
sweeps out, oaring off the lee shore. The end of the manoeuv-
ring, however, is not the manoeuvring, but only like the steadi-
est lugger or straightest sailing steamship, to reach my port ;
ar<^ T need lots of steerage way. Now, the application of all
this L.rade is, that I have several hymns on hand, which I think
will soon get finished. Also, since out here [a country resi-
dence] I have made large additions, spite of rheumatics and th(i
east wind, to a long poem, treating, with shocking irregularity
of metre, of this -fe, and of the life to come, on which, when
completed, and thft soon too, I trust you shall sit in judg-
ment."

This reference, in 1848, is to 'The Sleep of the Hyacinth,
which never was finished, and which has been given to the
public in its fragmentary state.^ The hymn enclosed in this
letter was probably the following, which appeared in ' Black-
wood's Magazine' soon after. During the previous winter he
had only been once at church owing to the state of his health.
" On one of the stay-at-home Sabbaths I wrote the enclosed
hymn, which is at least not the expression of a sham feeling,
but an honest and earnest utterance of what I daresay many an
invalid has felt ; only don't suppose from the second line that 1
am a weeping philosopher. That's a fetch. I have roared in
the hands of the surgeons, but I never cried."

' See ' Macmillan's Magazine' for April an<] June 1860.

:Wi>i.

l\B ■■
«( 1)

IS14--54.

AN invalid's longing.

355

THE WINGS OP THE DOVE AND THE EAGLE.

P8AI.H Iv. 6 ; IftAr/lH xl. 81.

Ah I lay upon my bed,

Weeping and complaining,
Turning oft my weary head,

Hope and help disdaining ;
Lo ! before mine eyes there stood,

Vision of an ancient wood.
Full of happy birds pursuing

Each the other with keenest zest ;
And I heard the plaintive cooing

Issuing from the turtle's nest,
Till I murmured at the sight,

And forgot God's high behest ;
" Had I but your wings, I might

Fly away and be at rest."

':' r»:>' ;■*

I,' •

Then the low, sweet, plaintive cooing

Of the fond maternal birds.
Seemed itself with thoughts imbuing.

And at length flowed forth in words.

" Plumes of doves and fluttering wings
Are but vain and feeble things,

Timidly tlie air they fan ;
Scarcely would they serve to raise thee -
Need the truth at all amaze thee ?

O'er this earth a little span.
Look thou there !" and, lo ! an eagle.

From his nest amid the stars,
Htood before me, with his regal

Front, and venerable scars.
In a moment, wide extending

His great wings (so seem'd my dream),
He was in the air ascending

With a wild, exulting scream.
Fiercest winds, and rude blasts blowing,

Could not stop his bold careering,
Higher still and higher going ,

He kept ever upwards steering,
Till I lost him in the zenith.

Far above the mid-day sun,
Where he seemed like one that wiuneth

Rest in heaven when work is done.

" Judge thou, then," the voice said, " whether

This or that's the better thing -
Rainbow-tinted dove's soft feather.

Or the eagle's ruffletl wing ?"
" That's the better !"— " Rest then still ! ' '

In thy heart of hearts abase thee ; — • *

366

MEMOIR OF GEOROE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

Lose thy will in God's great will.

By and by He will upraise thee,
In His own good time and season,

When 'tis meet that thou should'st go,
And will show thee fullent reason

Why he kept thee hero below.
Wings of doves shall not be given ;
But to lift thee up to heaven.
Thou shalt have entire dominion
O'er the eagle's soaring pinion,
Thou shalt mount to God's own cyrip,

And become a crownid saint,
Tliou shalt run and not be weary.

Walk, and never faint ;
Therefore utter no complaint."

Now I lie upon my bed

Saying, " Be it even so,
I will wait in faith and hope

Till the eagle's wings shall grow."

The subjects of his verses are very varied, some being sacred,
and expressive of his deeper feelings ; others brimming over
with fun, as in the youthful days, in the form of Valentines,
prefaces to books for autographs, and rhyming letters. Of the
lighter effusions we may name, ' A Naughty Graph ;' ' Valentine
to S. D.'s donkey. Flora;' and a series of Valentines from
Redivivo, his terrier, to Lady Fanny, a pet squirrel, in which
both these animals show a power of versification highly credit-
able to them.

A specimen of the more humorous will not be unwelcome ; —

ONE OF THE ADVANTAGES OF NOT BBING ABLE
TO WRITE YOUR NAMR

I've heard a story of a country wight, —

Whether 'tis true or not I cannot tell,—
Who never had been taught to write.

And veiy likely could not spell.
He kept a sort of shop of shops.

Dealing in blacking, boots, and teas,
In Epsom salts, and humming tops,

And cotton handkerchiefs, and Stilton cheese.
His windows were so full they cut a dash,

And he displayed his goods, an3 people wanted them ;
And if tbeycould not pay in cash,

And asked for credit, why, 'twas granted them.

1M4 51.

A STORY WITH A MOIIAU

86?

But how was 't possible to keep his books

When he was ignorant as any nigger,
And never learned to make pot hooks,

Or found, in early life, the way to figure ?
Why, this he did, he used his pen.

But not to mark the money due him ;
When he sold any goods, why, then

He pulled his ledger out aud drew 'em.
If hats were bought, he painted hats.

If China-ware, he sketched the dishes ;
If mats were sold, he drew the mats ;—
Or herrings ? portraits of the flshes ;
And so, with some mysterious signs

That made his pictures clearer,
He marked, beside his quaint outlines.

Whether his goods were cheap or dearer.
One day a customer came in to settle

And begged his bill might be looked up,—
There drawn against him stood a kettle,

A pound of sugar, and a breakfast cup,
" And I find also," quoth the dealer,

" Here sketched against you, if you please.
Nothing you see, Sir, could be clearer.
The portrait of a skim-milk cheese."
" A cheese ! oh no !" the other cried,

" I never bought a cheese from you,"
" You did indeed," the first replied,

" And there's tlie figure of tlie cheese I drew."
And so he showed a round thing like the moon,

Or any other round thing that you please,
A hoop, a ring, a saucer, or a spoon, -

But ho who drew it said it was a cheese.
A cheese it could not be, the man protested ;

And so there rose a very strong contention —
Cheese or no cheese, they bitterly contested,
And lost their temper in the hot discussion.
At length the dealer, making no impression.
Suddenly stopped and changed his ground.
" My good man," says he, " make at least confession.

You lately purchased something round."
" Round !" quoth the customer, " why, wait a bit !

Ay, sure enough, as I'm Jack Bilston,
(We'll square it now, the nail you've hit),

I bought from you last spriug a millstone."
Loud laughed the dealer ; " I forgot —

I see you did not try to diddle-
So put within the ring a dot,

To show the axle in the middle :
I mark my cheeses from my millstones so.

But I was hurried on that day.
And so forgot the dot ; but you must go,
Well, here's the sum you have to pay."

IMAGE EVALUATION
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11.25

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Pliotographic

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Corporation

23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 872-4503

^ A

99%

MEMOIU OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX

The two shook hands and parted friends, ■ I

And wondered they had been so hot.
A story 's good if well it ends,

And here you see 's the wondrous dot — •

Mural.

This worthy man no doubt had his distresses.

But well he could afford to laugh ;
He might mistake his millstones for his cheeses.

But none could ask him for his autograph.

As the friendship with Lord Jeffrey has been alluded to, one
or two extracts from his letters may be given to show the extent
of his regard. Feeling assured that had Lord Jeffrey now been
in life, a similar testimony would have been given, we feel at
liberty to make use of them. In a note acknowledging a paper,
possibly his article on * Chemistry and Natural Theology,' in the
' British Quarterly Eeview,' Lord Jeffrey says, — "I thank you very
heartily for your touching and earnest homily. I do not perhaps
go entirely along with you in some of your conclusions, but I
never read anj^thing yon write, without feeling myself the better
for it, and being made more aware of the leavening and pervad-
ing effect of an earnest and fearless charity." The following
letter is given entire, with an omission only of some extraneous
remarks, of temporary interest. It apparently contains a refer-
ence to the article mentioned in the preceding extract :- -

" 24, Moray Place, Weilmaday, \5th March 1848.

" My DEAR Dr. Wilson, — I was very sorry to miss you when
you took the trouble to call the other day, and if I had not been
very seriously unwell ever since, I should have made another
attempt to see you before starting for England, as (if at all able
for the journey) we now propose doing in the course of to-
morrow, — v.ot that I have anything in the way of business, or
of any moment otherwise, to talk to you about, but merely to
shake hands with you, — to thank you for the very striking,
(ourageous, and useful paper you were good enough to send me ;
and to assure you (though I feel I can do that better in this way
than to your face) that I have a very sincere admiration for your
gifts and attainments ; and, if you will allow me to say it, a
very true affection for the many lovable traits I have discovered

1844-54.

FRIENDSHIP WITH LORD JEFFPJfiY.

359

ill your nature. The gentle and magnanimous cheerfulness with
which you bear continual sufferings, and the contentment with
which you have accepted a position which every one must feel
to be inadequate to your merits, have made a deep impression
on me from the first time I had the honour of your acquaintance;
and I really cannot resist this opportunity of saying, both that
I shall be proud to learn that you think the offer of my friend-
ship worthy of your acceptance, and beg you to believe that
there are few things which would gratify me so much as to be
enabled at any time to render you any service.

" I am not without fear that you will think all this very in-
trusive and impertinent — and yet I hope not. At all events, I
really could not help it, and I am sure have been as far as pos-
sible from any purpose of vexing or offending you. .... I
hope this vernal-looking weather will tempt you soon to your
pleasant retreat, and that we shall all meet at Craigcrook in im-
proved health before the end of May. Meantime, believe me
always, really and truly, very affectionately yours,

•' F. Jeffrey."

This warmth of regard continued unabated, and it may be
supposed, met with a ready response. In January 1850 George
\vrites to Dr. Cairns,— "You will have heard of Lord Jeffrey's
death ? a great blow to me, for I had got to love him, and feel
a very strong affection for him. I called the vei^ day of his
death, and found him, to my utter horror, believed to be rapidly
sinking."

In the spring of 1847, tliere came again one of those great
waves of sorrow wliich, from time to time, well-nigh over-

whelmed Geoi"ge.

,,»2ru:

" Yes, billow after billow— see, they coiuo
Faster and rougher as yon little boat
Nears evermore the haven."

f)f The heart-affection ivom which liis sister Mary had suffered
for many years, had compelled cessatipn of active exertion, and
in her comparative exclusion from the outer world, it had been
her great delight to act, so far as strength permitted, as
George's amanuensis, enteriig into all his literary pursuits

960

MEMOIR OF GEOBOE WILSON.

CHAP. UL

with keen interest The two were so inseparable, that Mends
often compared them to Charles Lamb and his sister Maiy,
between whom a similar union existed. Her gentle, patient
endurance of sufferings made their gradual increase, for some
months previous to her death, less marked in the family, and
only one night of great distress intervened between the ordi-
nary routine, and the blank occasioned by such a loss. The
following letter to Dr. Cairns conveys the first expression of
George's desolation :—

"AjmH 21, 18i7.

" Dearest Friend, — I have the mournful news to commimi-
cate to you, that Mary is gone to the world of spirits. How
deeply I loved her I need not tell you, nor how deeply she de-
served the inadequate affection I felt for her. I count upon
your full appreciation of the greatness of my loss, in the sun-
dering of the earthly bond between Mary and me.

" She died this morning about eleven o'clock, so gently that
the spirit had fled before Jessie, who was watching her, observed
its flight. . . . y^e apprehended no serious danger ; . . . yester-
day we thought her better than she had been some days before,
and I was out in the evening at the School of Arts, where I
was detained from seven till after ten o'clock. . . . Though her
agony was great, she expressed calmly and distinctly her faith
in Christ, . . . comforted herself with passages of her own re-
membering, and prayed audibly and earnestly, referring at
intervals to what an awful thing it would have been, had she
then required to think for the first time of going to judgment. . . .

" How the unkindnesses I have shown her come back on me
now ! To think that yesterday was the last day that I was to
spend with her on this earth, and I did not know it. A round
of necessary, but trifling duties, kept ms from her ; yet I loved
Mary better than I loved anything else in this world. For the
last six years we had been greatly together. We knew each
other so well, and she was so fond, so kind, so self-denying, so
generous, so noble in all respects, so devoted, that now that she
has followed James, I feel alone. Nobody can ever be to me
what she was. I cannot estimate my obligations to her. I
have leant so long on her that, now that her support is gone,

nu-sk

DEATH OF A SISTER. HI

I feel as lame in spirit as I am in body. Pray for me; my deai*
fn^Qi^ and her dear friend. Pray for me ; I need your prayera
It seems but a black dream, and yet it is a reality to make dark
a lifetime. I will not be long of joining her."

Three months later, in a " hasty laboratory note " to the same
friend, he says, " I have enjoyed more, latterly, I think, of the
sense of the Holy Spirit's help than I have ever known before.
Mary's memory is full of blessed associations. The succeeding
two months wUl, I trust, yield me still more leisure for sacred
things."

" Decen ler 1847.

" Pray for me much, my dearest friend. I see few, very few,
devout people. From the public services of the sanctuary I
am cut off. I never hear a prayer. When I look into my heart
I see so much rin there ; I give way so often to unchristian
passions and gratifications, that I tremble at the thought that
God's grace, so little improved, will by and by be taken away.
Counsel me ; I have no Mary now, with her gentle, impressive
words, and the utterings of lengthened Christian experience, to
reprove my sins and follies, and keep me from evil She was
my mother in Christ, and you my father."

" Ma7-ch 31, 1860.

" Your letter was to me unspeakably dear, and again reminds
me of what I never can or will forget, that you are bound to me
by ties such as connect none other of my friends to me. The
dark past, which was long to me the very blackness of darkness,
has now stars above its horizon, and the shadow, not of the
grave, but of the world to come, over it. I begin to think
abidingly of Mary, not as one of the dead, but as one of the
glorified living, though at no time do I realize it less than at
this mournful season of the year, which has witnessed the death
of so many of my dearest ones. The last lecture-night at the
School of Arts remains as the ineffaceable remembrancer of the
latest great sorrow, and inevitably links other griefs of a kindred
sort with it ; and the whole of April is to me a month of physi-

362

MEMOIB OF 0£OROK WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

oal &tigae/ depressed energy, and painful emotion, which I
know better than to cherish, but have not learned the way to
cure. ... Of James I think with more mingled feelings than
of Mary, but with unabated, nay, with ever-meUowiug affec-
tion. ...

" On all this I will say no moi-e. It would distress others
too much to speak thus to them, and might seem to betoken
less affection for their devoted love than they deserve or I feel.
There are some affections which do not grow by excluding or
uprooting others, but, like vines and elms, grow best together,
and I should mourn the day when I found it impossible to
cherish together love for the departed, and the living."

The loss of the terrier. Grim, was associated with his sister
Mary's love for the dog ; and in December 1849 he writes to a
friend, Mr. J. C.Brown, " Have they told you that Grim is dead ?
Poor little fellow, he was suddenly attacked in the very midst of
his gambols by a stroke of apoplexy, and died in a few hours, in
spite of the promptest treatment. The sight of animal suffering
is always to me very horrible, and the loss of my kind little com-
panion has vexed me grievously. He was dear to me for his
giver, my good cousin Alick's sake, and still more as a memento
of my dear sister Mary, with whom I always in thought asso-
ciated him ; and I feel his loss very bitterly. Somehow, Christ-
mas has always been a sad period with me, and this year is like
preceding ones in that respect." Of a visitor who was present
when Grim was seized by illness, he remarks : " Your brother
David is a fine fellow, his sympathy with me over my little
dog's dying agonies endeared him to me. I loved the poor fel-
low for Mary's sake, and lamented him sincerely." Grim was a
general favourite with his master's friend?, and was always
recognr :d as a member of the family, being spoken of as " my
son Grim." A letter to Miss Abernethy contains this para-
graph : " Mi respectabel parint is tolerabil, and if the Guvimor
wood not li on the sofa, but run after the geeg as i doo, which
wood be quite well, butt the oald geinleman luvs too grumbel. —
And am yoor afekshinate stepsun,

" Grim Wilson."

IMI-Si

TO orim's memory.

3«3

• It ip recorded of him that "he never said an ill word in his'
life, except once when he cried ' Bow, bow,' after a man with
bowed legs."
A note-book contains the following lines to his memory :— >.

TO THE SPIRIT OP A DECEASED TERRIER.

My little dog I I loved thee well,

Better than I to all would tell ;

When thou wert dead, a shadow o'er my spirit fell.

The music of thy pattering feet
That came so gladly me to meet,
Will never more my senses greet.

All are at rest ; thy wagging tail,
Thy little limbs that did not fail
For many a mile o'er hill and dale. *

Where art thou now ? myself I ask, —

In vain Philosophy I task ;

She cannot here her blindness mask.

Art thou within that Sirian star,
That shines so bright, and seems so far
Prom this dim world in which we are ?

Where'er in the Universe thou art.
If still of it thou form'st a part.
Thou hast a place within my heart.

What are thy thoughts, thy hopes, thy ways ?
What are thy duties ? what thy plays ?
How spendest thou the livelong days ?

Thou didst not love on earth the Sunday,

It was so grave : it was no fun-day ;

Thou couldst have wished each day a Monday.

Dost thou with soul of shadowy cat
Fight ? or with spectral spirit-rat ;
Or slumber on celestial mat 1

After a time a successor to Grim was found, who seemed to
have so many of his ways, that it was declared his spirit had
returned in this new shape, and the dog was, on this account,
named Kedivivo, contracted into Vivo for ordinary use. It was
this dog that corresponded with the squirrel. His portrait is
given by Greorge in a letter : " I wish you saw my dog, a Skye
terrier, considered one of the finest of his kind, though some of

$4%

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

my lady friends hold that the uglier a terrier in ladies' eyes, tK6
more beautiful he is in gentlemen's. I am sure, however, that
you would admire my dog, with his long, silver-grey, soft hair,
steel-grey drooping ears, finely feathered tail, and mild brown
eyes. He has a long body, short legs, and great broad feet like
a mole's. He is good temper itself, and as full of fun and saga-
city as a clever child. Indeed, I call him my son, and my little
nieces always salute him as their cousin."

It will be seen from these quotations that the love for animals
shown in boyhood continued undiminished, and while it afforded
pleasant relief from the serious cares of life, it contributed to the
buoyancy and freshness so characteristic of him.

Evidence has already been afforded of the new principle by
which George Wilson's life became actuated after his illness of
1843. How strongly it influenced him we learn chiefly from
his letters, as nothing was more distasteful to him than the ob-
trusive profession of religion common in our day. By no act or
word did he ever say, " I am holier than thou ;" a clear percep-
tion of the high standard set before him, led rather to his
esteeming himself, like Paul, " less than the least of all saints."

In May 1845, he Mrites *c h^s n^ach loved friend, John
Cairns : — " When I contrast your profession with mine, with
which in much of the machinery made use of in other points,
it has many affinities, I could envy you your glorious calling.
... I had been thinking, as I should have no evening work in
the way of lectures, and far less every way to do, of teaching a
Sabbath-class, but Mary remonstrates so strongly on the score of
health, and I feel the argument so reasonable, that I am shaken
in my intention, though it is not abandoned. I must find some
way of serving Christ better and fuller than I have employed
hitherto, or I shall truly be an unprofitable seivant."

" December 1847.

" I have found out a means of doing good, that I hope God
will bless. I discovered recently that sick people, who will not'
stand a word of religious advice from their neighbours in health,
are more ready to listen to another sick man like me. You will
think I have been very late in making so notable a discovery.

1M4-U.

WORK FOR CHRIST.

365

Never mind that ; one of my pupils of a former year, a remark*'
ably acute, hard-headed, and self-reliant lad, has recently passed
into oi^e of the latest stages of a hopeless disease. Knowing that
his family, though in intellectualities much above the average,
in so far as religious knowledge is concerned, were little likely
to make known to the lad how soon he must go to meet God, X
cast about for some means of getting at my old pupil His
father was in town, and promised to call on me, but was pre-
vented. I intended, had he done so, to have asked his per-
mission to write to his son, but it was a formidable business to
do so by a formal letter. Behold, however, the mercy of God,
and His answer to the prayer of a servant who had been asking
Him for work ! Whilst I was resolving and hesitating to write,
a letter came from the lad himself, asking me to write to him
occasionally, as it would be a kindness. I replied at once, and
found him glad to have the ice broken in reference to his spi-
ritual state. An exacerbation of his illness has turned all his
thoughts towards another world, and now he sadly beseeches me
to write as often as I can."

In the same year he apologizes for the non appearance of a
hymn : " It, and all other rhymical work, have been stopped by
a painful but pleasing occupation, which has taken up the quiet
hours of the Sabbath. A young lady of fourteen, dying of con-
sumption, has asked me to write to her, and I have been trying
to tell her how the grave may be robbed of victory, and Death
of his sting. She is in the country, and has got to expect a
letter every week. I don't like to disappoint her, for she is a
singularly amiable, gentle person, to whom Heaven, I believe,
has already held out a welcome ; and so I have been stojjped in
the hymns."

The young lady died about a month later than the date of
this letter. A series addressed to her are full of the tenderest
counsels and consolations. They gave great pleasure and com-
fort to her in the prospect of quitting this world, and to many
besides have they been the means of spiritual good. A valentine
sent to this invalid, testifies to the kindly thoughts he cherished
of her temporal, as well as her eternal happiness. The accepta-

366

MEMOIR OF OBORGE WILSON.

CHAT. IX.

bility of his religious letters, written in his most winning style,
became so well known, that abundant scope was afforded for
work in this direction. Of these several series remain, affording
evidence of his deep earnestness and affectionate solicitude. The
simplicity of the plan of salvation, the glorious character of the
Saviour, and the privilege of prayer, constitute the prevail-
ing themes. Even to irreligious people his letters of this kind
were welcome, while similar appeals from others, reused then*
indignation. '>

In 1848 we find him saying, " I long for work in the service
of Christ I have found the means of doing a little good by
writing to invalids ; but I may do that and much more. The
Medical 1 Missionary Society are to have some lectures to stu-
dents of medicine this winter. I am to give one, I believe ;
that is so much." " The students say that they don't care about
addresses from ministers, but they'll listen to a lecturer on che-
mistry, and I hope I shall , succeed in speaking a seasonable
word to them."

The title of liis lecture, one of a series delivered at the in-
stance of the Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society, was ' The
Sacredness of Medicine as a Profession,' and it has been pub-
lished with the others.^ A perusal alone can enable us to
follow him, while he points out the moral, benevolent, and
Christian character of medicine ; but a few of its closing sen-
tences may show its spirit : " I adjure you to remember that
the head of our profession is Christ. He left all men an
example that they should follow His steps; but He left it
specially to us. It is well that the statues of Hippocrates and
Esculapius should stand outside of our College of Physicians,
but the living image of our Saviour should be enshrined in our
hearts. ... He is not ashamed to call us brethren. May none
of us be ashamed to call Him Lord I May we all confess
Him before men, that He may confess us before the angels in
heaven !"

Of this lecture he writes, in 1850 :— "I had the unspeakaule
satisfaction of learning recently from a most unlooked-for quar-
ter, what I almost fear to mention, viz., that that little medical

>' Lectures oA Medical Missions.' 1vol. Sutherlaiul & Knox, Edinburgh. 1801.

IM4-M.

ADDREBS TO 8TDDENTB.

misflion lecture carried the arrow of conviction to one carelesf^
doctor's heart. So few particulars reached me that I fear to
build upon the statement, but the very possibility of its being
true is enough to urge one to new endeavoui-s."

Of a similar address, in 1853, unpublished, he tells Mrs. J. H:
Gladstone, — " On Thursday last we had a very pleasant meeting
of the medical students and pre Jtitioners, for religious purposes.
I was far from well, and went to it, repeating from my heart
the recurring prayer, that Christ would at least not permit me
by anything 1 said, to throw a stumblingblock in the way of
any present, or to hinder them in their strivings towards right-
eousness. And my prayer was answered, I trust. I spoke with
freedom and eamesiaess to a most attentive set of listeners,
some sixty in number ; and many came up after I had finished,
to speak encouraging words to me. My subject was, the ' Ex-
ample supplied by the Lives of Christian Physicians.' i took
four who stand in special relation to our medical school here, —
Dr. Turner, the chemist ; Dr. James Hope, author on Diseases
of the Heart ; Dr. Abercrombie, our physician of highest repu-
tation among recent medical men here; and Dr. John Beid.
They are the latest famous Edinburgh students of medicine who
have died. The great jwints I insisted on were, that all those
four professed to have, 1. Undergone a great spiritual change ;
in connexion with which they were, 2. Great Bible readers;
3. Great offerers of prayer ; and, 4. Faithful keepers of the
SabbatlL

. " I urged the desirableness of us all imitating their example
in these things, addressing my entire audience, although it in-
cluded many seniors, and one of our professors, aa my fellow-
students ; and claimed for the title of student that it was the
highest of all titles given by Christ, and intended to apply to
His disciples as students throughout eternity, of all God's works
and ways.

" I closed with a solemn reference to the world of woe, as a
place where they have ceased to study, and have but the awful
page on which God's denunciations of the ungodly are written
to gaze upon for ever ; or, if they read, it is only backwards,
in the mournful indestructible volimie which memory has pre-

368

MEMOin OP OEOROB WILSON.

CHAP. DC

■eiTed, and which conscience ever holds open before them ; and
with a reference to Christ as the great example, I concluded.

" I hope you will not think all this a bore ; I thought you and
John would bo glad to know how things were managed at our
medical meetings here. Ask him to tell me by his own pen, or by
yours, of his meetings with the students in London."

A few extracts from letters, according to date, will best iUus-
trate the deep spirituality and growing holiness of the writer. To
one who had just lost a brother, he sayt., in 1845, — " To myself
to die and be with Christ, seems so much better than any pos-
sible way of serving God here, that I cannot prevent myself
thinking of your brother, as Peden did of Richard Cameron,
when he came to his grave to say, 'Oh ! to be wi' Richie 1'" To a
fellow-chemist,' in 1848, — "There are none, I am sure, who ought
to be more religious than men of science, professing as they do,
to love God's works, and to know them better than others. There
are none, too, who need religion more, for the isolation of their
pursuits narrows their hearts, and the struggle for places and
distinctions, in which all are involved who, like you and me,
must live hy science as well as /or it, leads to rivalries, heart*
burnings, and disappointments ; and sows, with the devil's help,
the seeds of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.
Nothing but the restraining grace of God, and the presence of
his Spirit, and the all-prevailing mediation of the Saviour, can
keep us from falling. Nothing but the full realization of the
manifest and yet ever-forgotten truth, that God is much greater
than all his works, and a far nobler object of love, can elevate
our afPections."

To Mr. Alexander Macmillan, Cambridge, in 1850, — "In
what you say of Christ and His example, I cordially join. It
is a blessed thing, as a friend said to me, to have a creed ; not
that any man will be bettered by adopting one, unless it is his
soul's belief. I mourn, however, over many whom I know, who
are always learning, and never coming to a knowledge of the
truth ; who are bewailing the bigotry, narrowness, and effete-
ness of modem churches, and seeking for some new catholicon
to heal all. Far be it from me to defend our religious bodies

' Professor Voelcker, Cirencester.

ISM-M.

ATHAKA8IUB CONTRA MUKDT7M.

300

from many of the charges made against them. Men are both
worse and better than their creeds, which are but imperfect
standards by which to try them. Religion should be a life, not
a doctrine ; and if we cannot find what it should be as the
former, from the life of our blessed Lord and Saviour, I know
not where we shall find it. Often do I think of those startling
words, ' When the Son of man conieth, will he find faith on
tb«^ ef.*th?' If men, instead of fretting themselves because
their neighbours are foolish religionists, would leave them and
their real or supposed follies alone, and go to Him who is all
vrisdom, and all holiness, and all love, they would find differ-
ences of creed adjust themselves in the light of that love of
God, and that love of our neighbour as ourselves, which are the
fulfilling of the law. I rejoice that I have a creed with which
I can face death and eternity, and which makes this life often
a joyous worship, and always a patient endurance. My prayer
is for a closer union to Christ my Saviour ; to be able to say
as St, Thomas did, with my whole heart, ' My Lord and my
God ;' to realize to the fullest. His personality and His huma-
nity ; and to walk in His steps as a lowly follower, and
disciple, and servant. For all my friends, as for myself, I ever
ask this blessing. It includes everything, and will open in
good time all the locked secrets of Providence, and furnish
not a — ^but the theory of the universe. I am glad you liked
' Athanasius.' I shall perhaps send you another little thing one
of these days ; but till I am clear of my present book-writing,
I cannot let my thoughts go forth in the way they must do to
beget poetry."
The verses alluded to will not be unacceptable to many : —

>, ATHANASIUS CONTRA MUNDUM.

"■ Athanasius ! thy too subtle creed

Makes my heart tremble when I hear it read,

, And my flesh quivers when the priest proclaims

God's doom on every unbeliever's head.

Yet I do honour thee for those brave words
Against the heretic so boldly hurled,

" Though no one else believe, I '11 hold my faith,
I, Athanasius, against the world."
2 A

97G

MEMOIB OF GEOBGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

It was not well to judge thy fellow-men,
Thou wert a sinful mortal like us all ;

Vengeance is God's ; none but Himself doth know
On whom the terror's of His wrath will fall.

But it was well, believing as thou didst.
Like standard-bearer with thy flag unfurled.

To blazon on thy btomer those brave words,
" I, Athanasius, against the world."

Thy faith is mine ; but that is not my theme :
'Tis thine example I would preach to all ;

Whatever each believes, and counts for true
Of things in heaven or earth, or great or small,—

I/he believe it, let him stand and say,
Although in scorn a thousand lips are curled ;

" Though no one else believe, I '11 hold my faith,
Like Athanasius, against the world."

:o;ty

•ny

.'0'.'

h
•I

To Dr. Caims, George writes in May 1851, — "I am sure you
cannot have more pleasing, and certainly not more profitable re-
membrances of your visit than we have of your sojourn. I am
always quickened spiritually by intercourse with you ; always
grateful for a word in season. I wish I could see in myself
greater growth in grace. It is very slow. I seem to see some
loss of downward tendencies, yet I am like a balloon which, in
spite of casting out its ballast, does not rise. I cling now little
to this earth, and sometimes ask myself, suppose all your bright
youthful visions were fulfilled, would you be happy? and I
answer emphatically, No I I have had more pleasure in teach-
ing for a friend a Bible class for three Sabbaths, than I have
had ir "'"^hing for a long season. I had longed and prayed for
a more direct way of serving God, and being comparatively well
this simimer, had aecretly resolved to ask this friend to let me
address his class one evening, when, lo ! he came and besought
me as a favour to take charge of it in his absence from home.
Surely there is a God that answereth prayer." ; lot

It was the custom of Dr. Cairns and himself to exchange
letters at the close of each year, reviewing the past, and glancing
to the future. In that of December 28, 1851, George says, —
" There are white hairs in both our beards, und we are growing
graver, as we should do if we were mere animals. Yet I hope
I sit looser to the world, and nearer to Christ ; but not near

1844-54.

8PIEITUAL ALCHEMY.

371

enough. This evil heart of unbelief will not 'lickly soften, and
the Saviour is not freely given the central place in it, and the
world looms deceitfully large in all my visions.

" To do work for Him, in His spirit, is my increasing desire.
May my prayers be heard, and yours be doubled for me. I
know a serenity I have not known for months. How much of
it is the fruit of better health and less work, how much through
God's grace, I will not curiously inquire. They are all His, and
only His gifts. The whole household sends you the sincerest
wishes for a happy New Year. I seem to feel the pressure of
your great kind hanrL"

After months of over- work and fatigue, he tells the same
friend in 1853 : — " I can with a rejoicing heart say, that that
great and gracious Lord and Master whom we serve, grows day
by day dearer to me, and to do His will is to me increasingly
the desire of my heart, and its prayer."

Writing to Dr. J. H. Gladstone in 1854, of a medical student
preparing for the mission field, he says, " He is in the way of a
training which will make him a powerful ambassador for Christ
among the subtle, sagacious, metaphysical, oriental nations. I
am going to give him charge of a class in summer, to secure for
him a thorough familiarity with our noble science. It is a
blessed thing to know that our Art, once called emphatically
' the Black Art,' and which, when not held to be the offspring of
Satanic collusion, was looked to by the vulgar as fitted only to
gratify their lust for gold, can be made by us to serve the cause
of Christ. We shall be alchemists of another sort than the
older ones, and whisper to an unbelieving world that there sit-
teth beside the refining furnace, a great Master who can trans-
mute the vilest human dross into gold seven times purified, and
died that He might procure for us the elixir of life, and secure
for His people a blessed immortality."

It is never ? desirable thing to detach religious acts or expres-
sions from their contemporaneous secularities and environments.
This has been strongly felt in illustrating George Wilson's inner
life, for never could there be a more charming union of playful-
ness and fun, with high-toned spirituality, than in very many of
his letters. They remind one of an air with many variations,

372

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

some in a minor key, which never faUs, in all its sweet wander-
ings and eccentricities, to return to the key-note, leaving the
listener with a sense of refreshment and invigoration. The
mass of such letters is so large, however, that it has seemed un-
desirable to attempt more than a selection from them. Per-
sonal allusions also frequently make them unsuitable for the
public eye. Without passing beyond the ten years to which
we have limited our consideration latterly, we shall only add, as
a closing stanza to this portion, one more quotation from a let-
ter to Mr. A. Macmillan, in June 1854 : — "This is a peaceful
Sabbath evening, and my heart is full of gratefulness to God
for many and great mercies to me. Amongst these are my
friends, and my gratefulness shapes itself into a prayer to God
that He will give them His choicest blessings, make them like
His own dear Son, Christ the Lord, and fill them with His
Spirit. And may we all have some work given us to do for
Him, and find such pleasure as the angels feel in doing His
work and obeying His will !"

The desire to conduct a Bible class was more fully met by a
request from some young men, in 1852, to meet with them on
Sabbath evenings. It was gladly responded to, and some of
them remember with vivid interest those hours, and the eluci-
dations given of the book of Hebrews and that of Ecclesiastes.
Very full notes remain as evidence of the great care and dili-
gence with which preparation for these meetings was made. His
broken health and constant overwork made it impossible for him
to continue this work long, dear as it was to him. His services
on behalf of the Medical Missionary and other benevolent So-
cieties, can only be glanced at. It may safely be said that, ac-
cording to his ability, yea, often far above it, as regards physical
strength, he was at all times found to be " ready to every good
work." -■^''J

It has been remrrked of George Wilson, that he was one of
the very few scientific men who, in this restless age, had never
crossed the British channel. This peculiarity was far from be-
ing the result of choice, as to see new places, things, and people,
was a great delight. But uncertain health made travelling irk-
some and difficult, while the pressure of work during nine or

yitf

HAP. IX*

v^ander-
ing the
I. The
aed un-
u Per-
for the
which
^ add, as
m a let-
peaceful
to God
are my
• to God
lem like
vith His
o do for
oing His

met by a

them on

some of

he eluci-

jlesiastes.

md dili-

ide. His

e for him

services

olent So-

that, ac-

physical

rery good

as one of
lad never
from he-
ld people,
lling irk-
y nine or

7flf

1844-61.

PROSTRATION IN SPRING.

373

ten months in the year usually left him so prostrated, that per-
fect rest and quiet were absolutely essential Alluding to the
sad memories recalled by the month of April, so fatal in his
family, he says to Dr. Cairns, "Nor have I learned the trick of
cheating these recurring periods out of their power to re-awaken
the past in all its gloom. An over-developed, ill-regulated ima-
gination, is partly to blame for this, partly a worn-out, weary
body, which would make me uncheerful at this season, even
though I were not visited by sad remembrances. I do not
encourage, but repress the dark broodings, and my southern
ramble is intended to medicine this malady, and drive away
the evil spirit.

" I am not, however, a materialist, blaming my body for the
darkness of my spirit, and accusing the barometer because my
soul is vexed and my heart sad. I rejoice to be pointed by you
to the great and only sufficing soiu'ce of peace and rest. My soul
will be an anxious and troubled one to the end, but only in in-
creased faith in Christ, only in closer brotherhood with Him,
have I any hope of increased peace."

Frequently in spring he was so overpowered that he would
scarcely speak at aU, after returning home, during the whole
evening; from even the nearest friends he shrank, and at
such times he would say to a sister, " Let us go to some quiet
place, where we shall meet no one we know." A few weeks
of change of air and scene, combined with rest, gave power
to rally ; as he used to say, " The water was beginning again
to gather in the well," and he returned to work with the
buoyancy natural to him, partly restored. While absent
at such times, it was his custom to write frequently to his
mother to beguile her solitude. Those letters usually went by
the name of " George's nonsense." A few specimens will be
given occasionally. Here, for example, are one or two from
Bridge of Allan : —

"April 5th.

" This is a most lazy place ; nobody does anything but eat and
sleep and lounge, and we follow the univeraal example. The
weather is delightful ; my cough reduced to a mild trumpeting ;
my bed no longer, like Job's, mocking me when I go to it, say-

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

ing, ' Thou wilt comfort me,' but folding me in its arms, and
hushing me asleep. My conscience is seared or congealed, and
goads me in vain to work ; I reply blimtly, * I won't work,' and
win the battle. . . . All here looks balm and sunshina I saw,
to be sure, two poor fellows with legs quite naked, sitting exposed
to wind and rain, and was about to say to myself, 'There is
misery everywhere,' when on closer inspection I perceived that
— ^but I don't know that they were any the warmer for that; how-
ever, it relieved my mind when I discovered— though perhaps it
wiU not yours — that they were Highland soldiers. ... A pair
of chaffinches who have just entered on married life, stai/ oppo-
site us in a fine airy larch-tree villa, and chat away about the
babies they are looking for in a very pleasant fashion. The
oldest sou is to be a poet, and the oldest daughter a musician,
but they had not, when our reporter left, considered a calling for

the third child. You will give them your benediction."

■ t

"A^yrU 18th.

" They speak of * the luxury of doing good,' but what is that
to the luxury of doiiig nothing ; especially when, as in the present
case, doing nothing is doing good ? What did I do yesterday ?
Nothing ! The day before ? Nothing ! What am I doing at
present ? Nothing ! Accordingly, a diary of my proceedings
would not be very interesting, and need not be extended."

" ApHl 28<A,

" We have been giving all (no ! not all, but many of) our
friends drives, the money which they paid being handed over to
Greybeard [a horse], who is gathering up to buy himself a gold
eye-glass. Even without that elegant and useful appendage he
is much admired.

" A flock of lambs in the field opposite to us have got up a
j-acing club among them, the first meeting of which, I am sony
to say, was held on Sabbath evening. Five of them, called
respectively. Lamb, Lambkin, Lambling, Lamblet, and Lammie,
started for the first race, and to the delight of tiieir admiring
mothers, each was first. The conquerors were rewarded with a
mouthful of cream, and then, with many tail-waggings, were

1811-54.

WHAT MAKES PATRIOTS.

37S.

sent back to their racing. To-day the sun is sleepy, and late of
showing himself, and the lambs are very quiet.

" I have some fine light reading in the shape of a ponderous
MS. folio of Evidence before the House of Lords. It was sent
after me, to be studied in reference to an action for compensation.
I read a little of it now and then, but I am saving my brains,
and leading altogether such a life as an owl in easy circumstances
may be supposed to do."

" May Bth.

" Tliree weeks of idleness are now nearly ended ; weeks of as
sheer idleness as I ever spent ; and I do not feel a bit conscience-
stricken for all that. . . . Yesterday we had a delightful
drive. The day was the brightest and warmest we have had.
We went by out-of-the-way, picturesque roads, new ones, not
afOicted with toll bars. A novel and most splendid view of the
Valley of the Forth repaid Greybeard for a climb at one point.
Such a panorama ! I will not spoil it by trying to describe it.
I felt strongly in looking at it, that it was a landscape like the
one I gazed at, with prominent, marked-out hills, great moun-
tains girdling the horizon, sunny slopes gliding down to the
water-side, and a silvery stream reflecting the sky in its bosom
[take a breath whilst I get a dip of ink] ; it was this that made
men patriots. I could not fight stoutly for the marshes I saw
about Cambridge, but I would fight ' a bit' for a countryside
like this. But what have I to do with fighting ? Nothink !
Therefore let me go on to say that we visited a colony of those
lively pretty birds, the jackdaws ; and that I saw a bird I never
saw before, namely, a jay, a beautiful creature, prettily parti-
coloured, and active on the wing. We got but a glimpse of him,
for he was not sure of us."

Each spring and autumn afforded a few weeks of relaxation ;
but the furthest limit attained was a visit to Dublin in 1857.
Continental trips were frequently planned, but as the time
approached, he felt his strength imequal to the demands they
were likely to make on it, and medical advisers invariably
coimselled the avoidance of travelling, especially by sea. Busi-
ness journeys occasionally called him from home, and they were
undertaken with a cheerful readiness, that trust in God alon*

376

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

can give, for he well knew that each was at the risk of his life.
Looking forward to one of them he says : " The thought of these
travellings n^akes so unlocomotive a person as I startle a little.
But it is a plain piece of duty, and I commend myself to Him
who is equally near at all times." The danger arose from the
state of his lungs, in which disease had been steadily spreading
from the time of their first affection in 1843, and the liability to
inflammation, while exposed to the changes of a traveller's life.
A visit to London, Hampshire, and Cambridge, in 1845, afforded
pleasant glimpses of rural spots, where a Scotchman sees much
at variance with preconceived ideas. The religious destitution
visible in many of the places visited, left a saddening impression
on him. " To do something to lessen this great evil," he says,
" must be my aim in all ways that present themselves. I shall
return, I trust, more earnest than I was in desire and resolution
to be Christ's, and His alone." Ti'avellers always see and hear
wonderful things. It was one part of his good fortune to be
shown, in Salisbury Cathedral, a "gigantic old black marble
baptismal font, lined with lead," which the old verger informed
him had once been lined with silver, having been made " lef&re
had was invented."

Many of his holiday seasons were spent in favourite retreats
at Momingside, Dirleton, Melrose, Innerleithen, or Bridge of
Allan, all at convenient distances, whither he could drive in his
carriage, enjoy sitting in a garden, and have many quiet pleasures.
A hymn or poem was often born at such times ; as, for example,
in 1848, he says, " I get on with my verses. Last night, out at
Momingside, where Jessie and I are keeping house, the gas
would not light. Two dipped candles, stuck into bottles, proved
too dim to make reading pleasant. So I foil to and chanted a
lyric, which Jessie wrote down, and when it is finished I'U send it
to you. It is purely a physical science rhyme, and will, I think,
please you." These verses were probably those on " The Skerry-
vore Lighthouse," which were prompted by a perusal of Mr.
Alan Stevenson's interesting narrative of its erection. He sent
them to Mr. Stevenson, saying, " I have long entertained the
project of writing a series of pieces on subjects connected with
the physical sciences, and have already completed several" He

1844-61.

EFFECT OF TKAVELLINO.

S7T

closes his note with a request not to name him as a poet, whicli,
he adds, " I don't pretend to be, and my analyses would, I dare-
say, be discredited by some of my employers if they heard I made
verses." Our space does not admit of their insertion

A series of visits to the Crystal Palace in 1851, while the
guest of his kind friends, Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson, was a source
of great enjoyment. " To me the whole was unspeakably, un-
utterably inspiriting, refreshing, and edifying." After quitting
the " poem in glass and iron," and spending a short time with
his cousin, Alexander Eussell, in Hampshire, he returned home
apparently better in health. It was therefore with surprise he
learned from a medical friend, that at that very time a large
cavity in his lungs had led the doctors to believe a few months
would bring him to the grave. It healed up partially, however,
and for some time hopes of permanent recovery were enter-
tained. Here is part of a home letter during this journey : —

in his

"Miss Jeanie, — Which am your brother, and was much
pleased to hear that the painters —Mrs. M. I am sure never in-
tended that the wax — and bored four holes in the round piece
of wood — which is a new paper and much — the sermon last
Sunday — at the Polytechnic — a stone heavier — and Dr. Voelcker
stated that— they are not shrimps but prawns — and rose at seven
o'clock. Dear Jean, such is the condition my mind is reduced
to by the anxieties attendant on awaking myself, rising at seven,
shaving with cold water, looking out clean shirts and collars,
and other painful and harassing duties. You will too plainly see
that the power of continuous thinking is gone, and that the
mind wanders distressingly."

"While in London in 1854, giving evidence before a Com-
mittee of the House of Commons, the death of his cousin, John
Bussell, after a lingering illness, made him hasten home, as
once before, in 1839, to be present at the last services of love.
" For all this whirling and night travelling I was to pay. The
sleeping volcano in my lungs was roused from its slumbers, and
the day after my return saw me prostrate in bed, with a sharp
febrile attack, headache, semi -delirium, and cough. Rest, star-

378

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

vation, and a big blister, soothed the volcano to its old condition
of mere mutteriag."

" My work in London," he tells his kind hostess, Mrs. J. H.
Gladstone, " which I expected to be a mere whirl of business,
turned out not only a work of great pleasure, but a period of
religious refreshment such as I have not enjoyed for a very
long time, and the illness I have had has deepened this, for
though it was not severe, it was sufficient to remind me afresh
how feeble my hold upon life is, and how ready I should be for
the great change. Blessed things, too, are taught us in illness,
such as health cannot teach, and I have risen from my sickbed
with a subdued and grateful heart, praying to be taught to serve
Christ more and better. ... I felt it a great privilege to get
back to church to-day ; to hear again my own dear minister's
pleasant voice ; to hear our own folks sing (and famously too)
our beautiful hymns, and to join in the commemoration of the
death of my blessed Lord and Savio\ r." " It is a comfort I
rarely enjoy," he adds to Dr. Cairns, " to meet Christian che-
mists, and the pleasure is great when those who spend much of
the day burn Lng incense before the idola trihm et specus, are
found to devote their most sacred hours to burning incense of
another kind, on another altar, to another God. It was unex-
pectedly, and all the more delightfully, a time of great spiritual
refreshment, and I could have said, when I contrasted my
expectation of a week of weary chemical hairsplitting, with the
actual week of profitable religious conversation and exercises,
' God is here, and I knew it not.'"

His visit to London in May was followed by two months of
work. At their close we find him saying, "I am now very
jaded, and thankful to do as little as possible. This is not the
season of the year when even I generally cough, but since April
I have been coughing and blistering my side ; and the stetho-
scopists talk ominously of some new quarter of my damaged
lungs where mischief is threatening or begua I have been
running a race with Death since I reached my majority, and
he'll have the best of it before long, if I don't get further ahead
of him than I have been recently able to do. There is this
difference between contending with moral and physical disease,

1844-64.

A BROKEN ARM.

379

that every victory over the former makes you stronger for the
next fight ; but beaten or victorious in your battles with illness,
you come off permanently weakened."

Having gone to Rothesay to recruit, he writes from it on
August 26th, evidently with effort, for the letters are crooked
and unshapely. " My sword-ann or pen-arm is suffering from
a wicked rheumatism, which makes writing an unwelcome and
rather scrawly performance, therefore my words shall be few. . . .
In reply to your queries, let me say that my lun^ are fairly
damaged in a new quarter, and a worrying cough proclaims this,
and adds to the trouble ; nor can such a state of body exist
without a sympathetic fever being lighted up, and vexing the
whole system. It is no new condition for me to be in, and I
have acquired a little experience in dealing with its annoyances.
There are two good symptoms : I eat like a man who has a
living body ; and I have a very composed spirit, unless when
fretted by the talk of others. To be alone, or only with Jessie,
as I am here, is the plensantest condition of matters, according
to my present mood." Often had his hopes of improvement in
health been met by days and nights even more wearisome, being
allotted to him. So was it to be now. About a fortnight had
been spent in Rothesay, when one morning, seeing a strange fish
lying on the beach, he dropped down the low embankment
which separated him from it. Endeavouring to guard against the
fall which his lameness might have caused, he overstrained the
right arm, and broke the bone near the shoulder. Among
strangers, and in lodgings far from comfortable, the accident was
doubly distressing ; but his quiet calmness and gentle patience
failed not. Kindness was received from unexpected quarters, and
his friends, as usual, showed devoted love. One of them, Dr. John
Struthers, no sooner heard of the accident than he started for
Rothesay, to satisfy himself that the arm was properly set, and
having spent an hour, was obliged to return home. With
George the anxiety was to spare all possible distress to absent
friends. " I lay," he wrote afterwards, " through the long nights,
with a weary cough, a lost vacation, and a shattered frame, in-
tensely realizing how much sorrow Jessie, mother, and uncle,
were enduring for me." To his mother he dictated a letter the

380

MEMOIR OF OEOKOE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

day after the accident " Nothing but my right arm, being the
disabled one, keeps me from writing to you myself to assure you
I am very well. I trust you will not distress yourself with the
thought that I deserve any great amount of compassion or S3rm-
pathy. I deserve, indeed, rather a severe reproof for my incon-
siderateness in allowing a queer fish to tempt me to foiget that
I was not so good at clambering over walls as formerly. As we
shall soon be with you, and will write every day, I hope you
will not allow this accident to discompose yoa I shall be up
walking in a couple of days, and will probably be in general
health all the better that I shall be utterly imable for a week
or two to make use of my pen hand." The following day his
filial love showed itself in an attempt to use his left hand.
Here is the result : —

~6r

€ftr^

our ^

Bulletins continued to follow, written with the left hand, and
showing great improvement in the penmanship, though neces-
sarily laconic in style.

18U-M.

CAMERA OBSCXJBA.

381

"Dear Mother,— I hope to be with you in a week. To-
morrow I shall send you some verse^ I made to help me through
the night. They are nothing particular."

The verses were the following : —

CAMERA OBSCURA.

Silent, dimly-lighted ch»imber,

Where the sick man lies,
Death and Life are lieenly fighting

For the doubtful prize.
While strange visions pass before

His unslumbering eyes.

Few of free will cross thy threshold ;

No one longs to linger there ;
Gloomy are thy walls and portal ;

Dreariness is in the air ;
Pain is holding there high revel,

Waited on by Fear and Care.

Yet, thou dimly-lighted chamber,

From thy depths, I ween,
Things on earth, and things in heaven,

Better far are seen.
Than in brightest broad daylight

They have often been.

Thou art like a mine deep sunken
Far beneath the earth and sky,

From the shaft of which, upgazing.
Weary workers can descrj-,

Even when those on earth see nothing,
Great stars shining bright on high.

So within thy dark recesses,
GlothM in his robes of white.

To the BuflTerer Christ appeareth
In a new and blessed light,

Which the glare of day outshining
Hid from his unshaded sight.

Silent, dimly-lighted chamber,

Like the living eye.
If thou wert not dark, no vision

Could be had of things on high ;
By the untempered daylight blinded,

With closed eyelids we should lie.

Oh my God t light up each chamber

Where a sufferer lies,
By thine own eternal glory.

Tempered for those tearful eyes.
As it comes from Him reflected

Who was once the sacrifice.

383

MEMOIB OF OIOROE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

After returning home some weeks later, he writes to Tr.
Cairns "a. few lines, for my arm is still very stiff, and aches with
a little work, to thank you for your kindness, not in formal
words, but none the less with a grateful heart. I hope I have
learned something more of God's judgments and mercies than I
ever knew before. I went to Rothesay in a humbled spirit,
craving most of all rest, and seeking to spend a season of ex-
haustion and enforced quietude in self-examination and sub-
mission to God. In this spirit the trial He sent came not as
something strange, but as if it fitted into the daily discipline of
the life I wau leading. And now I look back on the last two
months with a more lowly, chastened, and grateful heart than
I felt towards my Saviour before, and desire more than ever to
confide in Him." " I got great good," he says to Mr. Macmillan,
" from the long, quiet, and often sleepless hours. How soon,
alas ! the whirl of business banishes the thoughts that were so
welcome in the silence and lowliness of sickness I How diffi-
cult it is to live to Christ in the struggle of daily contention,
and to keep one's-self unspotted from the world !"

Among the friends made by George wherever he went, were
little girls from the age of two years upwards. He was a great
favourite with them, and promised to marry several when they
got the height of his stick. The courtship was chiefly carried
on by an exchange of valentines each year, and it did prove a
little inconvenient when the young ladies had come so far to
years of discretion as to be found taking private measurements
of the stick, by which their fitness for matrimony was to be
tested. His interest in the children of his relatives and friends
was great. While in London in 1854, he spent a night in the
house of a fellow-chemist, being almost a stranger to his hostess.
Next morning, entering the drawing-room, where she happened
to be alone, he said, on bidding her farewell, " "Whene.er I re-
ceive kindness and hospitality from friends who have families, 1
make a point of remembering their children in my prayers.
Yours will be so remembered henceforth." To one of his little
brides a tender interest attaches, as the subjoined memoranda
show : —

" In the island of Arran, in the summer of 1852, it was our

Ji844-54.

A CHILD- WIFE.

883

was our

privilege to have George Wilson for a day or two as our guest
We had not known him previously ; but, as was his wont, he
glided at once into the wannest comer of our hearts, and ever
after kept his place. The secret of his influence was love, and
the knowledge that even in its happy interchange ' it is more
blessed to give than to receive.'

" He was especially attracted by our little Lucy, a child of
four years, whose winning ways and bright intelligence delighted
and surprised him. She met his advances cordially, and from
that time he always called her his betrothed.

" The intellect, then prematurely developed, continued to
brighten and apparently to strengthen, for a year or two, cul-
minated at the age of six, and then, under the clouding influ-
ence of brain disease, waned gradually, and before dear Luoy
had attained her seventh birihday, had touched the western
horizon, where, though speechless, it still faintly glimmers, aii^.
where we trust it will continue to do so, till it sinks into the
light of heaven.

" George Wilson, as all who knew him will readily believe,
became ever more and more tenderly interested in his afflicted*
bride; and we do not think that any more striking evidence
could be presented, at once of the deep humanity of his nature,
and of the spirituality which through grace he had attained, than
the following quotation from a letter which he wrote after hear-
ing read some memoranda which had been made by a faithful
attendant of poor Lucy, of sayings well worthy to be remem-
bered :" —

" May IC, 185d.

" I was deeply touched by the memorials of dear, gentle,
blessed Lucy, you read me to-day, but had not the courage to
ask you for a copy. To-night, however, on trying to recall her
words, I find I can do so very imperfectly, and I would feel
deeply grateful if you granted me a transcript It should be
very sacred in my eyes. Lucy is to me so truly an object of
affection, and now, in addition, so much an example of the
blessed Saviour's special love, that I would very highly prize
what I ask. Unless you have a great objection, do grant this
desire of my heart.

384

MEMOIR OP GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

" I deeply sympathize with you both in the anguish which
such a trial must beget ; but with a happy issue out of her great
alfliction so certainly and, please God, so unremotely awaiting
dear Lucy, I do not wonder that you bow in unrepining sub-
mission to Him who doeth all things well.

" And when we consider that each of us, in the depth of even
natural sleep, is as helpless as your silent sufferer when in the
grasp of her malady ; and further, that there is certainly much
less physical agony than from the movements of the limbs we
infer there must be, we may surely think that to be with Christ
as Lucy, spite of her bonds, even now is, is ' far better' than to
enjoy the soundest unblessed slumbers, which shut out not only
the world, but the very sense of God, from hundreds who never
suffered a brief pang.

" "We may yet find that He who has told us that the first shall
be last and the last first, has been peculiarly overflowing in re-
velations of His goodness and mercy to those who, like dear
Lucy, seemed to the thoughtless left alone.

"And how cheering is the assurance that the Holy Ghost

• ' intercedeth for us with groanings which cannot be uttered,*

Her inarticulate sighs are translated by the Advocate with the

Father into prevailing prayers, and, presented by Him, we know

how they will be answered.- -Yours very affectionately,

" George Wilson."

One is often tempted, in looking at the many-sided mystery
of suffering, to come to the conclusion that some are set apart,
not only for their own profit, but as unconsciously teachers of
others, setting forth the causes, the uses, and the results of afflic-
tion. In George Wilson's life we can even now see the wisdom
of God's dealings, in this point of view, with regard to him ;
much more shall we rejoicingly see it when that which is in
paii shall be done away.

His wonderful recovery, time after time, from severe illnesses,
evinced an amount of vitality which was scarcely looked for in
his apparently feeble frame. Again and again did his medical
friends look on him as almost brought back from the grave ;
yet there he was, claiming no compassion, and bravely doing a

1844-&I.

BEARING IN GENERAL SOCIETY.

385

strong man's work in the world. It cannot be doubted that
ever after his experiences of 1843, the perfect calm and serenity
of his mind gave the body every chance in its favour.

To his fellow-men " the personal feebleness of the genial pre-
sence " made him all the dearer. A tender reverence usually
marked their intercourse with him, though of this he seemed
unconscious, having much of that simplicity of character re-
tained by few beyond the years of childhood, and which pos-
sesses a nameless charm when united to full-grown powers of
heart and mind. The impression made on his kind hostess,
while visiting London in 1851, may perhaps better convey to
others a realization of his bearing in general society than a
lengthened description could furnish. " The very first impres-
sion, preceding all others, was wonder at the life that was in
him I had been prepared to see an invalid ; a man whose
constitution had been severely tried, and whose health was at
that time very precarious. His letters had previously made us
acquainted with his genial nature; but although we antici-
pated many gleams of the same humorous and kindly spirit in
his conversation, yet we naturally expected hours of lassitude
and seasons of depression in one who had suffered so much, and
was still suffering.

" And when he came among us, there was nothing in his ex-
ternal appearance to destroy the impression. An invalid, phy-
sically speaking, he certainly was ; the marks of weakness were
on him, and the very texture of his small hand betrayed
unusual delicacy. I almost trembled at the thought of such a
man being exposed to the excitement and fatigue of London at
that busy time. I expected day after day to see him return
from the Great Exhibition thoroughly worn out and exhausted
in body and mind. But no ; the sp^^'ng and elasticity of his
nature were such that he never seemed tired. From morning
to night, abroad or at home, the same cheery spirit possessed
him, the same wonderful readiness for everything which pre-
sented itself. If he felt fatigue, he never showed it in any other
way than by keeping quietly in an arm chair after his return
from the Exhibition, but even then he had not the attitude of

2 «

386 .

MEMOIR OF GEOllGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

one taking rest ; but the lively, playful, emotional manner of a
man thoroughly refreshed and at ease.

" The life that was in him seemed to triumph over all bodily
infirmities ; it gushed out in kindly thoughts and words, and
happy turns of expression, which enlivened all around him.
There were those present during his visit who had endured re-
cent and severe affliction, yet they never found anything dis-
cordant in his mirth ; it was so genial, so tender of the infirmity
of others ; so considerate and forbearing towards aU mankind.
And this life which was in him manifested itself not only to
those who could appreciate it fully, and who could admire the
aptitude of his illustrations, and the quaint humour of his re-
torts ; but it was poured out freely and generously on others,
who must have been less sensible of its value ; on young per-
sons and children ; nay, even on domestic animals, who came
in for a share of his friendly talk, and looked as if they under-
stood it."

To those unstnmg by broken health and the depression
almost invariably resulting from it, he was so often held up as
an evidence of how much of life's best blessings might yet re-
main for all who had power to lay hold of them, that it was
sometimes laughingly suggested to him that his peculiar " mis-
sion" in this world was to comfort invalids. But not only
negatively did he effect this ; his sympathy with sufferers was
such as to make any sacrifice for them a pleasure ; and no
consolatory letters or sickbed visits were ever more welcome
than his.

Looking at this phase of his life, we cannot but be struck
with the gratitude which each attack of illness brings out more
and more fully. His nature having once been brought mto
harmony with God's, he is able, with heaven-taught eye, to see
how immeasurably greater is the spiritual gain than the tem-
poral loss. His medical knowledge made him fully aware that,
step by step, he was steadily approaching the dark valley ; yet
it never seemed to lessen his interest in earthly things, or cur-
tail the plans for work in every department, for which a long
lifetime could scarcely have sufficed. The only deception he
ever practised was that of concealing from those whose affec-

1841-54.

THOUGHTS IN SICKNESS.

387

tions were bound up in him, liis knowledge of the state of his
health. So skilfully was this done, that, while themselves
keenly watching every change, and hoping against hope, they
believed him unconscious of much that filled them with harass-
ing anxiety, and not till after all his sorrows were over did they
learn from letters to others, that to him all had been as an open
book. It is needless to add, that no small amount of self-denial
and self-command were called for in carrying out this affec-
tionate purpose.

"Could I escape exposure to cold and fumes and much
talking," he says, " I should do very well ; but my calling is
not a very helpful one to damaged lungs, and I am not with-r
out unwonted anxieties concerning the winter." "God's will
be done. If His chastening hand is to be laid again upon
me, His sanctifying Spirit will be sent also, and He who
suffered for me will help me to suffer." While in bed from
a severe attack of local inflammation, with high fever and
great pain, he writes to Dr. Cairns : " I have gathered spiritual
instruction from this lesson, and could enlarge thereon, but
the flesh is weak. God's mercies are truly as overwhelmingly
great as they are altogether undeserved ;" and a few days later
he says : —

" Dear John, — ' I sing the sofa,' i.e., I write from it, a great
step towards convalescence. I begin with this fact, which I beg
you will communicate to the K — and J — families. It is
downright dishonesty and cruelty to permit others to expend on
our sufferings more sympathy than they deserve. Let, there-
fore, these good people be notified that now I am so well, that
if they utter any expressions concerning me, it must be those of
thanksgiving. . . . How different the thoughts of health and
illness are ! One thing especially is impressed on me by every
successive attack of the latter. I refer to the feeling that one
must despair of building up a firm faith in Christ in the great
majority of cases of sickness, if it is all to do from the very
foundation, and the disease is in any way rapid or mortal. If
your objective experience is at aU like my subjective one, you
will earnestly warn all against deathbed repentances. In pro-

388

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

bably two- thirds, at least one-half, of the cases of fatal illness,
before alarm is felt, pain — or what is far worse, unless the
agony be tremendous, sickness — has prostrated the intellect,
and clogged or maddened every emotion. Consecutive thought
is impossible ; meditation, reflection, or even distinct apprehen-
sion, greatly weakened ; often out of the question. Who dare
expect in such circumstances that the long-despised mercy of
God shall be experienced, when the very power to listen to a
verse of the Bible, or to understand it, is gone, and memory is
palsied ; or, worst of aU, has no promise to remember, or one
stay or rock of strength to fall back upon ? God's mercy is in-
finite, and reachetli to the eleventh hour, and is often glorified
and manifested at it. Yet, beseech your young people to commit,
commit, commit to memory the Bible. They'U find the precious
comfort of it when sickness comes. And the elders will see that
the * hope set before them ' is so realized in health that it shall
only require to be 'laid hold of when sickness comes. To
attain unto this is to be, with the Holy Spirit's help, far more
the great object of my life than it has hitherto been. The re-
view of the last three weeks shows such abounding mercies,
favours, love — my cup literally running over with them — that
the pain, disappointment, fear, and discomfort, have passed
into the background already, desponder though I am." A
year later he tells the same friend : "I am leading the very
quietest of lives, and yet it is as happy as when I was busier.
I am broken in to an indoor existence, and do not feel that
trouble in getting through the day that active men must feel
when first reduced to draw coal waggons at a mile an hour,
instead of being special engines at a mile a minute. And
though I have no progress to report in the way of bettered
health, but the opposite, and begin seriously to contemplate
the great possibility of having to submit to an ugly operation,
yet the pain I suffer is quite bearable, my intellect is clear, and
there are many more mercies than miseries in my cup. Do not
whisper or hint to any one about the possibility of an operation
being necessaiy. It might reach the folks here and terribly
distress them. The thing may not be necessary, and need not
therefore be talked about. I speak of it to you that you may

CHAP. IX,

tal illness,
uiless the

intellect,
re thought
apprehen-
Who dare
[ mercy of
isten to a
memory is
er, or one
ircy is in-
a glorified
io commit,
e precious
11 see that
a,t it shall
)mes. To
, far more
There-
5 mercies,
lem — that
ve passed

am." A

the very
as busier.

feel that
must feel

an hour,
te. And

bettered
itemplate
jperation,
clear, and
Do not
operation
I terribly
need not

you may

1844-64.

RETROSPECTION.

389

know my stand-point, which I cannot explain to many people,
who wonder they do not see me at church, although they know
that I am able to lecture.

" I turn from the self-magnifying morbid introversions of an
invalid, to something much safer for me, and more interesting
to both of us. I think I have been able to live nearer to God
during the last three months than I have ever done before.
He has granted me a greater share of faith and patience than I
have enjoyed previously ; a deeper sense of brotherhood with
Christ Jesus, and of communion with the good Spirit. I am
graver than I have often been, but I have a joy and peace in
believing, which I would not exchange for the lightness of
spirits that has often fallen to my share."

"MarchlS50.

" I have been in the house all to-day and yesterday, confined
with a cold which this ungenial weather was certain to distri-
bute to me among its other recipients, as one sure to give it
suitable accommodation and some days' lodging. I have only
once been absent from church this winter, a great cause of
thankfulness ; and my health in general has been very fair this
year. ...

" You tell me I show less vivacity than I once did, and you
are not wrong ; but the change noway discontents me. The last
two years have greatly sobered me, and my life between twenty
and thirty seems now to me a scarcely intelligible and very
sorry drama, to be repented and made better without any delay.
I met this day-week a lady whom I have not seen since I was
some seventeen, nor was there anything to bridge over the long
space between our two meetings. It has set me to meditate a
great deal, this glimpse of myself at seventeen, with all that
filled the years onwards to thirty-two obliterated ; and I realize
better than I might otherwise have done, what a changed being
I am. I lament not the loss of my vivacity, for I had more
than enough of that volatile ingredient, and can well afford to
let some of it evaporate. One thing, however, does alarm me,
the fear, namely, lest I should settle down into a sombre, prosaic
mortal, leading a dawdling, semi-valetudinarian, coddling life.

390

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

i) I

which were worse even than the alternate and unequal rises
and falls of my youthful, wayward moods. Tlie fires of my
heart, which once blazed, are all burned out, or deliberately
extinguished ; and without making vows, which would be foolish
and even sinful, I feel every day the circle of my imaginative
rovings shorten its diameter, and the thirst of my earlier ambi-
tion cease, although, like the thirst of a fever-patient, it has
never been slaked. All this is well, if the empty heart be filled
by Him who should from the first have been its occupant ; but
I have seen in others, and I fear in myself, an exchange of dis-
sipation of mind for unprofitable idleness, and this the more
that my mode of life carries me out of the busy current, in
which I formerly at least struggled to swim, and my health has
embayed me in a side pool, little influenced by the tide."

The various effects of affliction he expresses to Daniel
Macmillan in these words : — " The furnace of affliction puffs
away some men in black smoke, and hardens others into use-
less slags, and melts a few into clear glass. May it refine us
into gold seven times purified, ready to be fashioned into vessels
for the Master's use." Expecting a visit from this friend in
1850, he tells him, "I am reputed to be much graver than I
was, but when not in sickness or pain there are lots of fun in
me yet." After the visit was past, he laments the inability to
enjoy his friend's society, for " those two demons, rheumatism and
dyspepsia, had gone shares for my poor body, and I was ill at
ease. Night after night I spend in prosecuting a discovery, the
steps of which are, that I awake in pain on one side, and after
a period of vague uneasiness, say sleepily to myself, ' It is the
other side on which you sleep quietly,' and so I turn to the
other side, and after three minutes find out I was mistaken, and
that it was the other side, and the other follows the other, till
uneasy slumber puts an end to the unceasing revolutions. One
is poor company after such nights ; but I hope when I next see
you I shall be reasonably well,"

The humorous way in which his illnesses were frequently
mentioned, could not fail to provoke a smile even from the
most tenderly sympathizing. One or two specimens must
suffice. "I have not, like some unhappy people, an aching

CHAP. IX.

ual rises
es of my
iiberately
be foolish
aginative
ier ambi-
it, it has
; be filled
ant; but
;e of dis-
:he more
irrent, in

ealth has

3/'

Daniel
on puffs
nto use-
refine us
;o vessels
riend in

than I
f fun in
bility to
bism and
as ill at
ery, the
nd after
t is the

to the
cen, and
ther, till
s. One
next see

quently

om the

IS nmst

aching

1.844-&i.

CURTAIN LECTURES.

391"

void, but an aching plenum, i.e., I am full of aches. I might
quote, as suitable to my case, the words of the beautiful Scotch
song, ' I leaned my back against an aik,' only modernizing the
last word into ache, as of course it should be." Being unable
to join a proposed excursion, he explains the reason : " To tell
you the truth, I have been for some time tired of lecturing
behind a table (like a shopman selling goods over a counter),
and I thought I should like to try Curtain Lectures for a
change. Accordingly, I took care to catch a cold, and fell to
coffin, and finally betook myself to bed the night before last,
and as the curtain course is not yet finished, I remain there
still, lecturing to a very attentive, sympathizing, and appreciat-
ing audience, consisting of my bedfellow Grim, who looks upon
coughing as a kind of barking, and thinks it quite in his way."
In allusion to what he had suffered at the hands of surgeons,
he sometimes spoke of himself as " copiously illustrated with
cuts."

His sister Jeanie is told, " Give a rap on the table when you
get this (that's the way spirits take to communicate thought),
and venerate the postman who gave two (was it ?) raps when he
handed it in.

" I have been vexed with the cares that belong to a landlord.
Into an apartment in my possession, which I intended to shut
up, indeed to fill up, a rogue found his way, bent on making,
not paying a rent, He would not pay the taxes ; on the other
hand, he taxed me. He would not rest even at night, but com-
pelled me to get up at any hour to look after him. I besought
him at least not to disturb me during lecture, but the rogue
declared that he hated fumes, and would interrupt me in the
midst of the most angelic eloquence. His Christian name I
don't know (indeed he is not a Christian). His surname is
Bronkcetis, He comes of an old family, and cheats people into
the notion that cough is a simple word, which will get simpler
by use, as at last it does by changing its spelling, and ending
in coffin. People don't like to spell it that way, but all the
folks who begin with coughing as the right fashion, end with
the other version of it. The Homoeopathists, for example,
advise the administration to sick people of cocoa, because they

392

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

are afraid to recommend coiighy, which the honest gix)cer8 spell
coffee." At another time he speaks of his " everlasting cough,
a Malaklioff which neither French nor English are likely to
take."^ A coughing performance, in which he is engaged at
intervals, through the night as well as day, " excites," he says,
" so much applause, that it is invariably encored."

Excitable temperaments like his cannot but have times of
depression, but these he concealed so well that they were often
unsuspected. "Cheer up, my good friend," he replies to a de-
sponding letter, " I can say, ' De profundis clamavi ;' I look back
with great hoiTor at some of the dark and dreary images which
an overworked brain doomed me to have for daily and nightly
visitants, for weeks together, since Christmas onwards. Only
now [in April] is the heaving black sea of gloom beginnin^^ to
smooth its waves, and the horror of great darkness to pass away.
The fault lies in great part with the body, and that I hope to
mend by a week in the country." " My roving fancy," he tells
John Cairns, " is ever building castles in the air, or digging
dungeons in the nether depths. Well ! well ! there is a cure
even for that, and for the benefit of poor dreamers like me it
has been written, that ' neither height nor depth ' shall be able
to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You need not tell me I am wrong in my exegesis ; if I were
right, I should not say it to such a dweller in the Interpreter's
house as you. But I am right, so far as regards myself, at this
present moment."

The two letters which follow are given nearly entire, the first
being addressed to a literary friend, and the second to Mr.
Daniel Macmillan :- -

" It is always difficult to write to a distant friend, for one
cannot know but very generally how he is, and the cone of a
letter may be all out of keeping with his condition.

" A strong feeling of this makes me reluctant to write this
evening, for I remember too well my own risings and fallings,
and wayward changes when ill, to be at all confident that I can
say anytliing that will be acceptable to you. Yet if I should

» Written during the siege of Sebastopol, with its Malakhoff tower yet unattaokcd.

1844-U.

CONSOLATORY LETTEKS.

393

fail, you will give nie credit I know for good intent, and I will
on my side lay claim to a deep and sincere affection for you.
One thing has struck me when ill myself, and when visiting
others who were ill, viz., what depths there are in every human
heart, which only God can fill ! How impossible it is to find
words in which to express to others some of the thoughts which
stir our souls most. A remembrance of this gives me a very
humble impression of what I can do for another spirit on whom
affliction is laid, and makes me rather look to Him who in all
the afflictions of His people is afflicted, and who, inasmuch as
He hath suffered being tempted, is able to succour us when we
are tempted.

"Were I beside you, so that we could speak together, we
should soon know each other as we are, and have open frank
communion together. As it is, to write is to draw the bow at a
venture, and perhaps send the arrow wide of the mark.

" I shall do no more, accordingly, in this letter, than send you
affectionate good wishes. After making twice over such a
recovery from the severest inflammation of the eyes as I did,
although my constitution is so bad a one, far, far worse than
yours, so bad indeed that no Office will insure my life, I look
forward to news of your bettemess with cheerful hope ; and
strongly feeling that I helped to overtask your eyes by the
demands which the Life of Cavendish made upon them, I also
look forward to your sending me some work to do for you,
whilst your eyes are resting for the future labours which the
great Taskmaster has in store for them. And although out of
our own works we shall never get contentment, and ought not,
if our standard is a high one, it is assuredly a blessed reflection
that God has given us grace to think of Him in what we have
done as authors, and that however imperfectly we have laboured
to honour Him and seiTe our fellows. He has not left us without
some token that He has approved our work.

" May He give us more and higher work to do for Him, and
as a preparation for it, subdue our wills to His, and make us
like our blessed Saviour. I have a poor cousin dying, and the
spectacle of his sufferings has made me stop fretting over lesser
pangs, which seemed less than nothing compared with his. The

a94

MEMOIR OF GKORGE WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

gi'eat mystery of sutfering iu a world so beautiful, and orderly,
and full of law as this, we shall never understand on this side
the grave, and personal suffering ever brings back the problem
in all its insolubility, to tempt the aching heart to aim at its
solution again. But for all practical ends there is an adequate
solution of the great mystery in the fact that the Lord Jesus
Christ himself suffered as none of His people are called to do.
I cannot always think of the Saviour's sufferings. They are too
awful for aught but very solemn meditation. The Roman
Catholics and Methodists alike cultivate a mode of referring to
the agonies which Christ endured, which I shrink from, although
I do not doubt that many of both retain a most reverential
feeling for the Lord.

" But in periods of great sorrow and suffering, the thought
that a holy, sinless, perfect man, was the subject of a lifetime of
trial, wound up by a death of the most painful kind, and this
with His own consent, and by the appointment of God the Father,
comes home to my heart as a warning against being perplexed
overmuch with the mystery of suffering when it is laid upon
myself. And when to this thought is added the other, that this
great sufferer was Himself God, I feel that fully to realize this
truth is the surest way of preventing that eating of one's own
heart, which, when ill and sad, we are all so prone to do."

" It is not about B I am going to write. Tliis is Sabbath

evening, and I desire to think of other things ; and most of all
to sympathize with you in your present sorrow. Think not that
I despise tears, or count them unmanly. If I said once that I
did not weep, it was to explain an allusion in a verse, not to
parade the fact or to boast of it.

" Weeping, or not weeping, is neither here nor there as a sign
of courage or the want of it. It is dependent in great part on a
man's physical make, and the action of a little gland. When I
am prostrated my mind eats inwards, and broods in morbid
silence and gloom. Tears would be a relief, but they will not
come. I would be thankful if they did, and take no credit that
they do not.

" I can, I think, altogether sympathize with you, in the great

J844-S4.

SYMPATHY WITH INVALIDS.

395

reluctance with whicli you must have left Cambridge just wheu
a new term was beginning. When one is exceedingly ill, one
is engrossed with the calamity which compels everything to
yield to it : and when well, how much there is to do ! But to
be neither very ill nor very well ; to have a certain fitness for
work, and conviction of its importance, and yet no sustaining
relish or enduring capacity for it, this is a sore trial of faith and
patience, as months of its endurance have again taught me.

" Yet I am sure such seasons will often, with God's blessing,
teach us what exulting health and terrible agony cannot, and
are as needful to ripen many of us for another world, as a cup
running over with mercies, or sharp strokes of affliction. Great
torture is not only maddening, but enslaving; it makes the
mind reel, and fills the heart with terror. Full health is self-
reliant, God-forgetting, and unheeding. A dreary season, such
as you see before you, often pennits a more profitable study of
God, and carries us farther forward in the Divine life, than the
extremes of ill-health or its opposite will do.

" I do not overlook, in saying this, that the moral regimen
suitable for one mind will not serve another, and that what
profited me may not benefit you. I have nothing but my own
experience to speak certainly from ; but, after all, we are of like
passions and infirmities, and will be more or less affected in the
same way by the same causes.

" Neither do I forget that a mind unstrung for secular study,
is enfeebled for religious work also. How often have I this
summer felt a mean childish gladness, that the chapter to be
read was a short one ; and been as apathetic as if there were
neither God nor devil in the universe.

" Nevertheless, \. e have a promise of the Holy Spirit's help in
our religious work, which, as it is supernatural in nature and
source, is not at the mercy of sickness. It does not, in reference
to this, at all matter what theological theoiy we hold as to
inspiration. We both believe that one of the good gifts which
Christ's death procured for us, is the sanctifying presence of the
Holy Ghost in our hearts. We cannot distinguish His workings
from those of our own spirits, yet we can believe that where
it may please God to cut us off from relish and capacity for

300

MEMOIK OF UEOHOS WILSON.

CHAP. IX.

the oi-dinary affairs of lifo, IIo may yot increase our spiritual
powers, and teach us more of His ' deep tilings,' and make us
liker Himself. The incapacity, indeed, in the one direction may
be a provision for greater endowment in the other, and the
shadow which ill health casts over the soul is often the most
befitting background, and lets us realize best, by the contrast,
the presence and the brightness of the ' Light of Life.'

" I have been preaching to myself all this while, and think-
ing through my pen. I have said nothing that you do not know.
It would be a sad thing for us if we had to indulge in novelties.
But I know how thankful I am to get a hint from a religious
friend, though he should but repeat a verse I had been reading
the moment before. To me the prayer of the humblest Chris-
tian, however defective he may be in other gifts and graces
than those which God grants to the weakest brethren, is always
comforting and refreshing; and it brings you and me closer
than railways could if we can rejoice together, as having ' one
faith, one Lord, one baptism.' You please me much with what
you say of the hymn. It is not the expression of unfelt or put
on emotion, nor does it pretend to be poetry. Before I die I
hope to gather together a set of hymns for the sick-room, and
if I don't live long enough to accomplish this, I can comfort
myself with the thought that there is abundance already.

" And now I will trouble you no further. Your namesake,
the prophet, was in a den of lions, and God shut their mouti. ...
Yours is a trial of an opposite kind, for the den and the lions
are in yoiL Their mouths can be shut by God also, and I pray
that they may. I never can cease admiring that beautiful re-
quest of the Prayer-book, * A happy issue out of all their afflic-
tion.' It is so humble, so undictating to God, so moderate, yet
so ample. God give that to us both. AmeiL In His way and
time,'and in this world and in the next. . . .

" To be well enough to work is the wish of my natural heart ;
but if that may not be, I know that ' they also serve who only
stand and wait.' God will not require healthy men's labour
from you or me ; and if we are poor in power and opportunity
to serve Him, our widow's mite will weigh against the gold
ingots of His chosen apostles.

1R44-S4.

HYMN FOR THE SICK ROOM.

807

" 1 am sure we all pray too little, and trust God too little ;
but the topic is inexhaustible."

We cannot be certain which hymn is spoken of in the pre-
ceding letter. Not a few wore 'Songs in the night/ and are
memorials of times of more than ordinary suffering. In igno-
rance of the special one alluded to, we shall give ' A Hymn for
the Sick-room,' the soothing balm of which lias been gladly
welcomed T)y other sufterers : —

Sufferer, lift thy wenry eye I
Help Ih with thee, GhriHt is nigh ;
Ood regards thee from on high.

All thy groans go up as prayers,
Through the Spirit's interceding :

Each unworded murmur wours,
At Qod's throne, the air of pleading ;

And in all thy woes He shares,
Who was once the Victim bleeding.

Though He is, and was, all sinless.
He remembers mortal pain ;

Holy though He is, and stainless,
On His fdrm the scars remain.

And He looketh now, though painless.
Like a Lamb that hath been ulaiu.

Ho is not a great High Priest

In all sympathy deficient,
From all human things released,

For Himself in all sufficient ;
To be man He hath not ceased.

Though He is, as God, omniscient.

All thy bed, in all thy sickness.
He will make with His kind hands ;

All thy fainting, fears, and weakness,
Anxious thoughts, and fond demands.

All thy patience, faith, and meekness,
Reach Him where on high He stands.

Faint not, then ! God ever listeneth, ,. ,
Answereth ere the cry is sent ;

Whom He loveth, those He chasteneth,
Taketh what He only lent ;

For Himself our ripening hasteneth
By His sorest punishment.

398

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP, IX.

Need of patience have we all ;

Only through much tribulation
Shall the holiest God doth call

Pass through their ordained probation,
And no longer dread to fall,

Certain of their soul's salvation.

Before passing on to new scenes, it will be well to note a few
more of the changes which the years we have been considering
did not fail to bring. The death of a much-loved aunt, his
father's sister, near the close of 1851, left a sadness which was
deepened in the following spring by the loss, by marriage, of his
youngest sister from the fireside circle. Though his judgment
was convinced that he should rejoice with her in the formation
of a new circle of home joys, yet somehow his heart never
acquiesced in the absence of the " Benjamin" of the household.
Shortly after her settlement in England, he quitted the house
in Brown Square, after eight memorable j-ears spent in it, re-
moving to a large and commodious laboratory, and becoming
a resident, along with his mother and sister Jessie, with his
uncle, in a house buUt by the latter, in a pleasant suburb of
Edinburgh. Here the remainder of his life was happily spent,
amidst much to gratify his love for the simple and the beauti-
ful. " Elm Cottage " is now inseparably associated in the minds
of many with thoughts of him. The name was chosen, on
account of the elm trees beside it, by his brother Daniel, who
had scarcely taken possession of one-half of the house (it is a
double dwelling), before an appointment to a professorship in
Canada carried him and his household far from their native soil.
Not long after he left, Alexander Eussell, his cousin, settled in
Australia with his household, so that of the large circle with
which George Wilson was surrounded in our first chapter, only
two now remained beside him. All these were changes which
left bleeding wounds in his sensitive heart ; and to none of them
could time reconcile him. We wonder not that he is graver
than of old, but rather that any of the buoyant fun survives.
" I have had," he says in 1853, " to look at this world as full of
the most serious realities this summer, from a point of view
which seems new to nie, but it is all for the best."

In one way alone could he still unite the broken circle. A

CHAP. IX.

1844-54.

A BROKEN CIKCLE UNITED.

399

)te a few
isidering
lunt, his
hich was
ye, of his
udginent
armation
irt never
)usehold.
le house
in it, re~
)ecoming
with his
aburb of
ly spent,

beauti-
le minds
asen, on
liel, who
e (it is a
rship in
tive soil,
ittled in
cle with
ter, only
s which
of them

graver
lurvives.
s full of
of view

letter to his brother, at a time of domestic trial, gives the receipt,
one that cannot fail to cement in bonds beyond the reach of
earthly changes. It is written in the last year of his life.

" Illnesses are the times that make me despise penny postages,
ias premiums on tortoise and snail paces, and long for electric
wires from door to door all round the world. Were we beside
each other, I should be seeking to comfort you with all kinds of
medico-surgical reasonings, showing that there was more of
good than evil in particular symptoms. But as we are, I can
only wait for the next mail with patient impatience, and hush
alarms by repeating the blessed words : ' Eest in the Lord, and
wait patiently.' Yet after all I can do more. When we kneel
together each evening to offer our prayers to God, you are never
forgotten. Jessie and I are the priestess and priest, and she
reads the lesson ; and when we pray, commending all our beloved
ones to the mercies of God and the consolations of Christ, I
seem to go round the world, passing from Birkenhead, where
Jeanie has had many anxieties and trials ; to you with your
mingled sunshine and shade ; to Alick at Adelaide, still refusing
to be comforted for the loss of three children ; and to Brazil and
Hanover, whence Mina and her sister write claiming relation-
ship, and beseeching remembrance in our prayers.

" I say to myself with a sigh. Are the'' dead ? Are they
living ? Is it well or ill with them ? But there is no reply. I
can only pray for them ; but why say only ? Is there anything,
my dear brother, we can do for each other, or for those we love,
more certain to serve them than prayer ? That it is something,
even my faithless, sceptical heart, and fault-finding spirit has
realized. To the God of all grace I comftiend you."

rcle. A

400

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CFAP. X.

(JHArTER X. I • -

THE SCOTTISH INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM, AND THE CHAIR
OF TECHNOLOGY.

" I doubt my body
Will hardly serve me through : while I have laboured
It has decayed ; and now that I demand
Its best assistance, it will crumble fast."

Paracelsus.

The Session of 1854-55 was begun with gloomy anticipations
as to health. " My lungs are not what they should be ; and the
only thing that could do them good, rest, I cannot get. I have
large classes this winter, and must do all I can for them. I
leave the issue in the hands of God, for I cannot help myself,
nor does any outlet appear." Intelligence received then of the
death of several relatives and much- loved friends, fell heavily
on him, when less able physically to bear the shock. Amongst
these was Professor Edward Forbes, who but a few months
before had entered on flie duties of the Natural History Chair
in the Edinburgh University. His welcome by his old student
friends was of the warmest, and unbounded hopes of the npw
career opening to him, and to the University through him, filled
the hearts of all. In the siunmer of 1854 he gave a short course
of lectures, and was entering upon his first winter session, when
a few days of suffering carried him off. On the 24th of Novem-
ber, George writes to his brother : — " I have very sad news to
communicate. Edward Forbes died last Saturday, after a short
and painful illness, and I can convey to you no adequate idea of

1864.

DEATH OF EDWAKD FORBES.

401

the sadness and dismay with which his unlooked-for death has
filled us. . . . He was a man of genius, and united to it so much
good sense, prudence, discretion, kindliness, gentleness, and
geniality, that he was very largely and widely honoured and
loved. I loved hiip far better than I ever told him ; but he
credited me, I believe, with great affection. To myself the loss
is irreparable. Short-sighted mortals that we are, he and I had
been arranging all sorts of conjoint labours, and this is the end
of it ! With nearly every one there is the feeling that he was
taken away, not from the evil to come, but from the good that
he would have done." That Edward Forbes reciprocated this
admiration may be gathered from his saying of George Wilson,
— " How sad to see so splendid a jewel in such a shattered
casket !" To Dr. Caims, George speaks of the loss as a great
personal grief. " His death takes another idol away." While
to another he writes, " I feel as if all the brave and young and
fair were dying, and a mere wreck like me allowed to float on.
Let us not, however, my dear friend, think of satisfying God by
our works. I try to live as a dying man (which I am), with
faith in a living Saviour, whose finished work leaves me nothing
to do in the way of meritorious labour, though it lays on me the
greatest obligation to work for Him and do His will. It is a
blessed thing to know Christ, as one not ashamed to count the
meanest of us His brethren, who has promised to exalt us to a
share in His glory, and invites us all to come unto Him and find
rest. He is a far more gracious Master to us than any of us
are to ourselves, and His service is perfect freedom."

His cousin, Alexander, had lost a boy of five years on the
])assage out to Australia ; he died in sight of land, and the first
possession of his parents in the new country was a little grave.
His beauty and winning ways had made Harry deeply loved by
all who knew him and his death was regarded as no common
loss. On learning his bereavement, George writes to the sor -
rowing father : — " Scarcely am I home from Rothesay before
we are all startled by the unlooked-for decease of my young,
brave, frank, and skilled colleague, Dr. Richard Mackenzie, who
had volunteered to accompany the troops to the East, and
perishes of cholera after winning the utmost esteem and gratitude

2 c

402

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

of the Highland soldiers, and risking his life at the battle of the
Alma. The shock of that is scarcely past, before we are plunged
into new and deeper grief by the death, after a very short illness,
of Edward Forbes, in the very height of his glory and usefulness ;
and I am in tears for the loss of that beloved friend, when your
letter arrives with its afflicting news. ... I have given up
making idols ; they are all taken away. Harry I thought of
as full of life and energy ; and destined, with that remarkable
mechanical genius of his, to become great, and good, and famous,
long, long after I had found rest in the grave. He was so beau-
tiful — the most beautiful boy I ever saw- -so loving, so lovable,
what had Death to do with him ? Was I not here and others,
who had digged for death as for hidden treasure, and could even
rejoice at the prospect of going to be with Christ, wliich for us
is far better than a dying life here : that he should be summoned
and we left ! I have asked myself the same question regarding
the death of Mackenzie, and still more regarding the loss of
Edward Forbes, whose death is universally felt to be a public
calamity. But I can find no answer, and expect none on this
side the grave. I am learning, I hope, more and more to trust
God, and to put faith in Christ ; and to leave these, and a thou-
sand other black mysteries to be explained, if God please,
hereafter, and if it does not so please him, to be left unex-
plained."

" I have agreed very reluctantly," he tells his brother Daniel,
" to write Edward Forbes's life. I have been so importuned to
become his biographer, that I have assented. I loved him very
dearly, and knew him well, and the task is in that respect very
welcome ; but I had labours of my own to work out which must
be put aside.^ I enclose some verses on his loss, which embody
two ideas of his own applied to plants and animals." The verses
alluded to appeared in 'Blackwood's Magazine' for March 1855,
with a short explanatory preface : — -

» " I hope I shall live to wite Edward Forbes's Life," is an expression in a letter
about this date. But this hope was only partly fulfilled. The amount of labour
demanded from him by the duties of the subsequent years, left almost no leisure for
literary work. Every attempt was made to get on with it, but at his death it was
left unfinished. Arrangements have been made, however, for its early completion,
and we trust it will very shortly be given to the public.

IMI.

LINES TO FORBES S MEMORY,

403

" The lines seek to apply, imUatis mutandis, to the mystery of
the great Naturalist's death, certain canons wliich he enforced in
reference to the existence of living things, both plants and
animals. Their purport was, to teach that an individual plant
or animal cannot be understood, so far as the full significance of
its life and death is concerned, by a study merely of itself ; but
that it requires to be considered in connexion with the variations
in form, structure, character, and deportment, exhibited by the
contemporary members of its sj)ecies spread to a greater or less
extent over the entire globe ; and by the ancestors *of itself, and
of those contemporary individuals throughout the whole period
which has elapsed since the species was created.

" He further held, that the many animal and vegetable tribes
or races (species) which once flourished, but have now totally
perished, did not die because a ' germ of death* had from the
first been present in each, but suffered extinction in consequence
of the great geologic changes which the earth had undergone,
such as have changed tropical into arctic climates, land into sea,
and sea into land, rendering their existence impossible. Each
species, itself an aggregate of mortal individuals, came thus from
the hands of God, inherently immortal ; and when He saw fit to
remove it, it was slain through the inteiTention of such changes ;
and replaced by another. The longevity, accordingly, of the
existing races can, according to this view, be determined (in so
far as it admits of human determination at all) only by a study
of the physical alterations which await the globe ; and every
organism has thus, through its connexion with the brethren of
its species, a retrospective and prospective history, which must
be studied by the naturalist who seeks fully to account even for
its present condition and fate.

" Those canons were applied by Edward Forbes to the humbler
creatures ; he was unfailing in urging that the destinies of man
are guided by other laws, having reference to his possession
individually of an immaterial and immortal spirit.

" The following lines, embodying these ideas, contemplate his
death, solely as it was a loss to his fellow-workers left behind
him ; their aim is to whisper patience, not to enforce conso-
lation :"—.

404

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

Thou Child of genius ! None who saw

The beauty of thy kindly face,
Or watched those wondrous fingers draw
Unending fomis of life and grace,
Or heard thine earnest utterance trace
The links of some majestic law,
But felt that thou by God wert sent
Amongst us for our betterment.

And yet He called thee in thy prime,

Summoned thee in the very hour
When unto us it seemed that Time
Had ripened every manly power :
And thou, who hadst through sun and shower,
On many a shore, in many a clime,
Gathered from air, and earth, and sky.
Their hidden truths, wert called to die.

We went about in blank dismay.

We murmured at God's sovereign will ;
We asked why thou wert taken away.
Whose place no one of us could fill : '

Our throbbing hearts would not be still ;
Our bitter tears we could not stay :
We asked, but could no answer find ;
And strove in vain to be resigned.

When, lo ! from out the Silent Land,

Our faithless murmurs to rebuke.
In answer to our vain demand
Thy solemn Spirit seemed to look ;
And pointing to a shining book,
That opened in thy shadowy hand,
Bade us regard those words, which light
Not of this world, made clear and bright :—

" If as on earth I learned full well,
Thou canst not tell the reason why
The lowliest moss or smallest shell
Is called to live, or called to die,
Till thou with searching, patient eye
Through ages more than man can tell,
Hast traced its history back in Time
And over Space, from clime to clime ;

" If all the shells the tempests send.
As I have ever loved to teach ;
And all the creeping things that wend
Their way along the sandy beach.
Have pedigrees that backward reach.
Till in forgotten Time they end ;
And may as tribes for ages more.
As if immortal, strew the shore ;

" If all its Present, all its Past,

And all iU Future thou canst see.

CHAP. X.

CIlAl'. X.

1854.

JACOBITE STORIES,

405

Must be deciphered, ere at last
Tliou even in part canst hope to be
Able to solve the mystery
Why one sea-worm to death hath passed,-
How must it be, when God doth call
Him whom He placed above them all ?"

Ah, yes ! we must in patience wait,

Thou dearly loved, departed friend !
Till we have followed through the gate.
Where Life in Time doth end ;
And Present, Past, and Future lend
Their light to solve thy fate ;
When all the ages that shall be,
Have flowed into the Timeless Sea.

The letters to his absent brother give a representation of
his life, as once before on tlieir first separation, and to them
we shall occasionally refer for information, and for glimpses at
passing events. In one, for example, we find notice of lec-
tures by Mr. Ballantine, our townsman, on Jacobite music, of
which George says : — " He told with great effect some stories
of the Highlanders and their doings under Prince Charles.
One I think I have heard before, to wit, that a clansman, after
the Battle of Preston, was busy stripping tlie body of an officer,
when a comrade begged a share of the plunder, and was an-
swered, ' Can ye no kill a shentleman for yoursel' ?' "

" The other is quite new to me. When Prince Charles was
in Edinburgh with lots of pipers with him, a Highlander gave
this account of an interview with some of them to a friend :
— ' I was doon in a sma' public in the Cannygate, and there
were nineteen pipers there, and each played a dufferent pibroch ;
an' man, I thocht I was in heeven !' "

In a letter to one of George's nieces we find " a stoiy for
papa. Hugh Miller was recently very ill with inflammation of
the lungs, and related the following experience to his namesake,
Professor Miller. He foi-nd, as he was lying in his bed, and no
doubt just emerging from semi-delirium, that he had lost his
identity. What his name was he could not tell ; but he settled
that he was about to begin business as a travelling merchant,
selling crockery through the country to the sound of two bowls
rubbed together, and he went through many elaborate calcula-
tions regarding his affairs. In the midst of these, his eye

406

MEMOIR OF GEOllCE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

lighted on a coiniee in his bedroom, which lie slowly recognised
as something he had seen somewhere before, then he followed ii
line from the cornice to the floor ; from the floor his eye tra-
velled to the bed which grew familiar to him, and Anally his
glance settled on his own body, and he exclaimed, * Oh, I'm
Hugh Miller!' and there was an end of the crockery business."
In the opening month of 1855, George writes to Daniel, " The
reactionary lassitude following eleven prelections last week, has
slowed my brain-engine, and I look at some duties, and with a
hardened heart refuse to fulfil them. I made stern resolutions
ut the beginning of the winter, not to oveiwork myself, or to
take extra lectures, but the art of saying No is not learned in a
day, and though I have succeeded in uttering it several times, I
could not escape some demands on me." Amongst these de-
mands were three lectures to the Architectural Institute, ' On
the Chemistiy of Building Materials,'^ at the request of its
members. In the closing lecture a hope is expressed that
through the instrumentality of the Industrial Museum, the
knowledge of the qualities of Scottish building stones will re-
ceive large additions.

" The many deaths among relatives and friends have made us
veiy grave. I am soberly cheerful among strangers, and try to
live day by day as a dying man ; and though it is a most im-
perfect copy of the life of my Lord and Master, I know that I
love Him more than ever I did, and I hope to love and imitate
Him better and better." The preparedness for death, of which
these words give evidence, was about to be put to a searching
test. After a lecture at the School of Arts one evening in the
beginning of Febniary, he lay down to rest, but was aroused by
the mpture of a blood-vessel, and the loss of a considerable
quantity of blood. His indomitable spirit showed itself in his
coming down next morning as usual to breakfast, and actually
lecturing twice that day, though his ghastly appearance showed
that he was little fit for such exertion. When the weary day
was over, and he was again left for the night, haemorrhage re-
turned a second time, and consciousness nearly failed him. He;
was unable to summon assistance, and all that lonely rnght hi.s

» ' Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Scotland for 1854-5.'

1865.

NOT DEATH, BUT LIFE.

•407

bed seemed suiTounded by the spirits of those of the family
gone before. Some words of a psahn which he had read just
before lying down kept a place in his mind through all its wa-
verings : " I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the
Lord."

Medical aid was obtained next day, and so probable was the
return of the hasmorrhage deemed, that on the third night there
was little hope that he would see the dawn. It passed safely
over, however, and he gradually regained strength in a way that
made the words of the psalm seem prophetic. At first the
haemorrhage was supposed to proceed from the lungs, but ulti-
mately it was ascertained to be from the stomach, resulting, in
fact, as was discovered two years later, from a great enlarge-
ment of the spleen, unsuspected at the time. The following
was received by Dr. Cairns shortly after he was able to leave
bed:~

" Deak Juiin,-

" Feb. nil, ISiJS.

, / 1 am peisuadud

That neither Death, when the faint soul, invadeil

By its last enemy, awaits the strife ;

Nor all the boundleas energies of life ;

Nor all the awful might that dowers

Angels and principalities and powers ;

Nor present things, nor tilings to come ;

Nor height, though higher than the heaven's dome ;

Nor depth, though deeper- than the Gulf of Gloom ;

Nor aught that in the universe finds room,

Shall be able us to sever

From the love of God, which ever

Is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

" What madness, you will say, what audacity and folly, to
meddle with that sublime passage, and spoil it by a paltry para-
phrase ! To which I say Amen ; and yet I went and did it whilst
lying awake in darkness on Sunday night. It hisisted on being
paraphrased, and won't trouble me again, ... I have had a
perilous attack, and was close upon the grave. ... I was in
bed both times, and on the second occasion, when there was a
gush of blood, a very dying-like sensation came over me. God
has still preserved me, and I trust to do Him some service. I
have enjoyed much peace of mind this winter. Tray for me,

MEMOIR OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

that I may be kept from fainting or failing till He calla me."
Ten days later he writes to Daniel from his n)om8 in town, hav-
ing resumed duty to the extent of one lecture a day. " I had a
narrow escape from death, for the loss (jf a little more blood
would have ended matters ; and indeed I lost between fifty and
sixty ounces, which is rather too nmch. It is a strange feeling
your blood gushing from you, I had no pain, and only slight
sickness, and I felt very calm."

" Since I broke my arm, I have been disciplined into a mental
peace I never knew before, and in spite of fluctuations such
as must occur so long as this mortal body is carried about,
I look with composure to what God may send. I have been
getting knocked down, and then up again at short intervals for
the last twelve years, and have more than oijce felt that 1 could
have been thankful had the coup de grace been given; but al-
ways with convalescence, the cowardly, unchristian desire to
escape the trenches departs, and I go forwards to Sebastopol
again. Valetudinarians like me are apt to become selfish and
lazy, and I must fight against the tendency." And on March 1st
he adds, " I am better, and convinced that the doctors mistook
my case ; although the loss of the blood was equally weakening
whencesoever it came. It would have been poor consolation to
have had as an epitaph —

" Here lies George Wilson, >' " '

Overtaken by Nemesis ; .

He died, not of Haemoptysis, ,, ,

But of Hicniatemesis."'

While convalescent, but still feeble, there was handed to him
-on his birthday, as it happened — an official packet, contain-
ing his appointment as Director of the Scottish Industrial
Museum, then in contemplation. "A week before I got the
appointment," he tells Daniel, " I had no expectation of it.
Tlie talk regarding it began nearly a year ago, but I told no
one, no promise having been made me." After mentioning the
kind efforts of friends in his favour, without solicitation on his

1 By mistaking his case is meant the supimsition at first held, that thehoBmorrhage
proceeded from the lungs, for which haemoptysis is the technical name, wliile hicnia-
temesis means bleeding from the stomach.

1865.

DIRECTOR OF MUSEUM.

400

puit, he goes on to say, " All this was hist April, and then the
thing slumbered. . . . After Kdwanl Forbes's death, my health
was objected to l)y some one, and I gave up the sliglitest hope
of the thing, so that the appointment took me wholly by sur-
prise." Inquiries on the part of (fovemment as to who was the
person most likely to be acceptable to the general public as
Director of the Museum had but one reply, and thus the ap
pointment was made. Coming at a time when his health was
more than usually uncertain. Dr. Wilson, before accepting it,
considted his medical friends as to his physical ability to fulfil
the duties of the directorship, and only did so on their assuring
him that his health might in all probability be better than pre
viously, and that it need form no bamer to his undertaking the
duties of the post offered him, which seemed to give promise of
greater rest, and to call for less exei-tion. To Dr. Gladstone he
writes of it, " Besides the organization and control of a museum
of applied chemistry, it includes what is equivalent to a lecture
ship on Technology. The attractions in the new appointment
are not less of responsibility, concern, and care, but less drudg-
ery in mere elementary teaching, and no night lectures. You,
I am sure, will wisli me God- speed, and ask our Lord and
Master's blessing on a great Educational Scheme, which will
either be a great boon or evil to us, but, please God, only and
largely the former."

As in a few months the new duties became more clearly de-
fined, we shall defer allusions to them. The following letter,
addressed in May to a scientific friend, gives glimpses at the
mainspring of his life : —

" This last year has been veiy full of calaiuities in the circle
of my friends, and of trials of flesh and spirit to myself, as it has
been to you. I gather from your letter, as I trust I can s ',y for
myself, that the national disasters and sufferings of our country-
men, and the state of Europe and the world, and God's dealings
^vith ourselves, have not passed like the winged wind over our
heads, and left no mark behind.

" Aniidst much thoughtlessness and forgetful ness of God, and
many sins which exact their own punishment, and many which
seem far too light to me, though in God's ey« they are not light,

410

MKMOlll OF GKOUliK WILSON.

ClIAI'. X.

1 have n rejoicing feeling that a greater peace of mind and surer
hope in Christ are mine, tlmn was the ease some years ago. 11'
it please God to grant me longer life, my prayer is for more free-
dom from engrossing eai-thly cares, that 1 may do nu)re to servo
my blessed Lord and Master. And if I am not to live, may I
die able to say that I know in whom 1 believe.

" Is it not a strange thing, and not to the credit of our Chris-
tianity, that whilst we eongi-atulate each other on worldly
advancement, on additions to titles, on increase of salary, on
])rofe8sional work well done, on enlargements of families and the
like, we do not congratulate each other on victories won over
Satan, and new proofs of allegiance to Christ ? Let mo not on
this occasion, at least, be wanting in rejoicing with you that
you have chosen the better part, and not gone to I'russia. I
could not judge for you ; or advise otherwise than I did ; but
you who know how far your religious liberty would be compro-
mised, and preferred that it should remain unshackled, to risk-
ing the faith which you have professed in Christ, and perilling
the salvation of your children, have reason to ask all who love
you, and esteem eternal life at its due value, to join with you in
thanking God, that through so great a trial you have passed
and gotten the victory.

"They accuse Christians of a selfish caring for their own
souls. They forget that in this world every man must take
wages ; that no amateurs are permitted ; that invisibly beside us
stand at eveiy moment the Lord of Light and the Prince of
Darkness, to press into our hands the wages we have earned,
whether wo will or no ; and that beyond the gates of death they
Avill appear in their own persons and give us the last instal-
ment, those abiding wages which shall multiply themselves
through eternity. I will not remind you of what Christ has
promised to those who prefer eveiything to Him : I will be con-
tent to remind you that to have grace given us to prevail
against temptation, is a proof that the Saviour already loves us,
is also a present joy, and the assurance of joys yet in store."

After a visit to London, on Government business, in June, n
short but hard-eanied holiday was spent, two months later, at
Melrose, whence he writes : —

IKS.

TIIK AUVANTAOEH OF TUAVEL.

411

"Dkak AfoTHKii, -Tliis placu is called Mol Koso, or Jtosa
Mellis, i.e., Honey Kose, from a faiiiou.s roHo which used to pow
hero, and droj) honey from its leaves. That was in the time of
the jiious old monks, but in these dej^enerate days, the roses
have ceased to drop anythiii<,' but their leaves, and occasionally
u caterpilhu', and are turmid into cabbage roses. . . . Yesterday
we discovered the Tweed, aft(!r a day and a half's search for it,
and found it very thick and muddy ; I am afraid it has been
adulterated." He spent some hours of each day writing under
the trees of the Abbey (lartUnj, kindly thrown open to the
])ublic by its proprietor, Mr. Tait of Prior IJank. " I am taken
for an artist, and have been seen by many parties sketching
Melrose Abbey, and why should I take a fit of egotistical obsti-
nacy, and deny that I ever used the old abbey so ill as to at-
tempt to draw it. Mr. iJuncan Maclaren is not a man easily
deceived, and Dr. hrown belongs to a profession famous for its
acuteness. They both saw me sketching, and n would be rude
in me to contradict them. However, 1 can't find the sketch
anywhere in my portfolio, otherwise I would send it.

" The mutton here is excellent, and for a very good leason ;
the sheep feed upon apples. You'll be saying that's some of my
nonsense, but it is not. I have been studying the ways of the
sheep that share the garden lawn with me. We are now good
friends, and they feed close to me, taking me, as Jessie athrms,
for a shepherd, whom in my hat and plaid I nmch resemble.
The lawn is in large part an orchard, and my friends look out
diligently for the fallen apples, and munch them up as if they
were tumips. To-day the gardener mounted a tree, and fell to
shaking down the apples, whereupon a wise lamb stepped for-
ward, proposing to try their quality, and an altercation arose
between it and the gardener, ending in the victory of the latter
tyrannical person. You see the advantages of travel. I might
have remained long enough at Elm Cottage without learning
the singular fact in natural liistory I have just recorded. Nor
is it the only one I have learned, as you shall find when we re-
turn. It would be wrong to come back from Sir Walter Scott's
I^nd, and not romance a little. His own house, by the way, is
one of the least romantic we have seen ; but the country is won-

412

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

derful, wouderful, such a country as even Adam and Eve, when
the fiery-sworded angel drove them forth, might have wandered
into with delight. Luckily for you my paper is done, or you
would have had a rhapsody." Again he says, "You would
admire the Abbey garden. The old grey towers look over the
walls, with the ghosts of departed monks sitting sorrowfully on
the broken pinnacles, and gazing on the desolation and usurpa-
tion below. A flock of merry swallows wheel about the battle-
ments, darting out and in between the poor ghosts without
touching them.

" The garden la open to all genteel people, so that / walk
through it boldly. A genteel cat paid me a visit in the place,
and after salutations with its wreathed tail, passed on. Of
another visitor, a large tame rabbit, I am a little doubtful that he
had a right of entrance. He looked at me somewhat suspi-
ciousty with his great bright eyes, but I suppose he intended
only to eat the weeds. He was well dressed, better than myself,
a handsome fur cloak, and other things, as the old writers say,
'conform.' My greatness was acknowledged yesterday in a
highly satisfactory way. A clown walked into the garden
straight up to me, and begged to know 'if I soiled any berries?'"

A daily drive in the beautiful neighbourhood diversified such
pleasures. One day, finding that no newspapers could be
obtained in the little town, he drove to Galashiels, about five
miles distant and after purchasing a copy of the ' Scotsman,'
proceeded to read it on the way home. 'This is decidedly
worth a penny,' he said to his sister ; ' read that' What she
read was a notice of his appointment as Professor to the
newly-founded chair of Technology. The official document
apprising him of it reached by a later post. Though it took
him by surprise at the time, he had been aware such a step
was in contemplation. It was suggested first by the profes-
sors in the Edinburgh University, to whom it seemed more
advisable to have the director of the New Museum amenable to
their laws, than to have in him one who might set up rival
claims as a public teachei, with a salary from Government,
and valuable m :<ium8 at his disposal. This recommendation
was approved by the Edinburgh Town-Council, and the pro-

1865.

PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY.

413

posal brought by the Board of Trade before Government. Dr.
Wilson made no solicitations, and merely expressed willing-
ness to accept such an appointment should it be made.

To Dr. Cairns he writes : — " It will bring with it I hope some
bodily rest, although it does not add to my wealth nor dimi-
nish my responsibility ; and I know too well that this world
must be to every wise man a scene of struggle, and to every
humble man a place of sorrow, to expect that I shall have less
of its cares or woes than before. With unfeigned sincerity
I can say that I have rejoiced at the prospect of serving my
Saviour more and better through the influence it may give me,
and the prayer is often on my lips, and oftener in my heart, that I
may be made bold and wise enough to confess Him before men.

" I see so many of my scientific and literary friends devoured
by the cares of the world, and fretted by its little troubles, that
I tremble lest I too become a selfish scheming worldling. Only
God's grace, I know, can keep me unspotted fi-om the world,
but it can, and your prayers will not be wanting, that so long
as I have a place in this world I may be kept from the evil that
is in it.

" 1 wish I could visit you, but it may not be. My duties will
seriously begin on October 1st, for I have my laboratory still to
kebp going, and to gather wonders for my museum from the
four quarters of heaven."

The same desire is expressed at the close of a long chemical
letter to Dr. Gladstone : — "As for the Chair, I trust and pmy
that it will increase my power to serve my blessed Lord and
Master." His appointment was welcomed with unqualified de-
light by the public generally. One of the periodicals of the
time remarks : — " The formation of the Industrial Museum
would in fact have been a matter of comparatively little impor-
tance to the community generally had not this appointment
[that of the new Chair] been made ; and had the Government
sought through the length and breadth of the land for a person
fitted for carrying out the objects contemplated by it, they
would not readily have found one so well qualified as Dr.
George Wilson." A writer in the ' North British Review ' —
believed to be Sir David Brewster attrii)utes it in great part

414

MEMOItt OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

to his labours in reference to Colour-Bliudness. " We have no
doubt," he says, " the researches which it [the work on Colour
Blindness] contains, and their practical relation to the safety of
ships and railway trains, which he was the first to point out,
were among the grounds of his appointment to the Chair of
Technology or Industrial Art, which has recently been founded
by the Crown in the University of Edinburgh."^

It was no small puzzle to the public at first, what Techtwlogy
meant. In December 1855 he reports, " Technology prospers,
and people are learning how to spell it." A definition given
before leaving Melrose, to his married sister, was probably the
first explanation of the word from him.

"Dear Jean, — The Professor salutes you, and grieves over
the absence of Technology from your dictionary.

"Let us see what it means, by analysing it into syllables,
beginning with the final ones. Nology, or knowledge of, must
mean 'the acquaintance with,' so far good ; but what is 'Tech V
A pre-Adamic word, I take it, signifying, as well as I can make
out, 'things in general.' Altogether, then, we reach the full
idea of the Knowledge of Things in General

"You will find the word in no dictionary. Tliey had to
wait till a knowledgeable man like me was bom, before they
could coin the word. A stupid Greek scholar, if you met
him, would tell you that 'techne' meant 'art,' and 'logos'
meant ' science,' so that Technology signifies the science of the
Arts, as if my derivation did not mean the same. Science in its
application to the Useful Arts is the meaning of the word.

" In short, I will lecture on Dyeing, Glass-making, Porcelain,
Baking ; on Hats, Shoes, Bleaching, Ink, Gold, Iron, and, as I
said before, things in general On the objects of my Museum,
and the Arts connected with them, my plan will be as follows :
— If a Shoemaker comes to the Museum, I'll talk to him about
nothing but Hats, and screw information out of him about
Shoes. When a Hat-maker arrives, I will pour into his ears all
the learning I have acquired from the Shoemaker, and extract
from the Hatter information to give the Cobbler on his next
visit. In this way I hope to do credit to my appointment. . . .

' ' North Britisli Review,' Feltrnary 1856, Article ' CoIour-BliiKliiess.'

CHAP. X.

have no
Colour
safety of
)int out,
Chair of
founded

ichwlogy
prospers,
on given
lably the

ves over

jyllables,
of, must

'Techr
an make

the full

had to
ore they
jrou met

' logos '
e of the
ice in its
d.

orcelain,
nd, as I
duseum,
follows :
m about
n about

ears all

extract
lis next

int. . . .

S8.'

18^.

BEQUEST FOR A GOWN.

'4I»

It will bring me no addition of salary, rather the opposite, bui I
shall get more rest, and, please God, I will try to do some good
in my Museum."

Before entering on the duties of the approaching Session, a
pleasant week was spent in Glasgow, at the meeting of the
British Association.

Of the opening address by the President for that year, George
writes, " Last night the Duke of Argyle gave his address. You
will see it in full in the newspapers, and find a bit that made
my head hang down, about a new Professorship. I was glad I
was in a quiet corner, when named so unexpectedly." The
allusion was the following : — " I am happy to say that, in con-
nexion with the New National Museum, which is being organ-
ized for Scotland, there is to be a special branch devoted to the
industrial applications of Science ; and that a new Professor-
ship, one which has long existed in almost all the continental
universities — that of Technology — has just been instituted by
the Government. I am not less happy in being able to an-
nounce that to that Chair Dr. George "Wilson has been ap-
pointed. The writings which we owe to the pen of Dr.
Wilson, and especially his beautiful Memoirs of Cavendish and
of Dr. Eeid, are among the happiest productions of the literature
of science." ^

When his induction as Professor drew nigh, Mrs. J. H. Glad-
stone received the following humble petition : —

" Do you happen to have a gown to spare ? A black gown ?
A silk gown ? A gown not much the worse of wear ? You
will be surprised at me making these requests, but there is a
person here known to me, who would willingly go to a meeting,
but cannot appear at it without a gown ; and though such
poverty on the part of a respectable party may surprise you in
rich England, I am sorry to say, that the individual on whose
behalf I would interest your kind heart, has only two gowns,
and these such singular articles of dress, that an appearance at
church in either, would infallibly provoke even the minister to
smiles, and lead to the gown- wearer being put out of doors. . . .

> ' Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, for 185fl,*
p. 81. ' *■ ■

416

MEMOIR OF GEORGE VILSON.

CHAP, X.

The poor unfortunate for whom I beg, has in vain solicited the
assistance of the kind ladies of this quarter. Here the parties
willing to give gowns are either too tall, or too short, or too
broad, or too thin ; or the gowns are either too good or too bad,
or not all silk, or too fine silk ; and the end is likely to be, that
the poor thing will not be able to attend the meeting in spite of
all my efforts.

" Will you, then, my dear Mrs. Gladstone, give a look over
your dresses, and if you can spare a reasonably good black silk
gown, not excessively much the worse of wear, send it by post
to me, and I will be much, very much, your debtor. For, to tell
the truth, I am not without a selfish interest in the matter; the
party for whom I beg being one for whom, as I will honestly
confess, I have a regard, I will not say greater, deeper, more
romantic, more self-denying than I have for any one else, but
stiU, as my heart acknowledges, a regard of a totally different
kind from that experienced for all other persons in the world.
•Yet this peculiarly beloved person, whom some day I hope to
commend to your indvdgent kindness, is not good-looking, nor
handsome, nor graceful, nor stately (a foot shoi-ter than John),
nor attractive in any way , but, nevertheless, and in spite of the
poverty which would make most gownless persons an object of
dislike, I have for years, more than I care to mention, clung to
the unfortunate, and now take courage to beg a gown for my
companion since childhood.

" To prevent mistakes, please address ' Gown for Dr. George
Wilson, Professor of Technology, University of Edinburgh.' I
have been begging for myself; the Queen, excellent Sovereign,
has sent me her commission, and I am now Professor George."

A few months later he writes to a friend in London, who had
attained a similar dignity, " I longed to ask you how you liked
your gown. I seldom wear mine. Since I left my native hills
and my kilts behind me, I find pantaloons come more natural.
Do you wear caps ? I do not. Do you favour curls or ban-
deaux? I allow a few curls mt naturel. An apron, I feel,
Ayould not come amiss when acids are splashing about, but I
have not ventured on one in public. Is it the case that you
wear a coral necklace and bracelets of students' hair ? I confess

HAP. X.

1865.

A WONDERFUL CUSHION.

417

«d the
parties
or too
X) bad,
>e, that
jpite of

ik over
ck silk
by post
, to tell
er; the
lonestly
r, more
Ise, but
lifferent
i world,
hope to
ing, nor
I John),
« of the
bject of
lung to
for my

George

rgh.' I
vereign,
eorge."
wrho had
ou liked
ve hills
natural,
or ban-
, I feel,
it, but I
bhat you
confess

to a fur boa, but otherwise cultivate a severe simplicity in my
attire, eschewing all tartan, though not, you may suppose, with-
out a sigh."

One more yew ct esprit before proceeding to notice the labours
of the new sphere. In the spring of 1855, Dr. Wilson formed
the centre of a merry group, seated one bright and sunny day
on the grassy banks of the Doune, beside the old castle, about
nine miles from the Bridge of Allan. WMle one of the young
ladies — Miss Black, now Mrs. Henry Lees — arranged an im-
promptu cushion, to add to his comfort, she volunteered the
promise, that should he ever be a Professor, she would work a
cushion for liis Chair. The promise, lightly made, with little
expectation of its being claimed, was faithfully fulfilled, and
her beautiful cushion, on which flowers were worked in beads,
was an object of much pride, and a source of much pleasure to
its recipient, the donor being one whose friendship he highly
valued. The following verses were sent in acknowledgment : —

THE CHAIR OF TECHNOLOGY AND ITS CUSHION.

The Queen of England in her might.

She made a wondrous Chair ;
She beckoned to a Scottish wight.

And said, " Ho ! sit thou there !"

The Scottish wight, he bowed his head.

And stammered an apology ;
" Nay ! sit thou there !" the Queen she said,

" In my Chair of Technology."

" To all my subjects, now I say,

I make thee a professor ;
Of this great Chair, by night and day,

I make thee sole possessor."

It was a strange, unheard-of Chair,

And everj- part was new ;
The wood that made it was so rare,

No one knew where it grew.

All through the land the people went.

And stopping at each college, " Hey !"
They cried, " Oh ! tell us what is meant

By this Chair of Technology."

Tlie base was broad, the back was long ;

It was an ample Chair ;
The arms were wide, and very strong,

But it was very bare.
2 D

418

MEMOIR OF GEOBGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

Tlie feet on which it stood were stout,

The sides were stiffly barred
With angles like a Siege-Redoubt ;

And it was very hard.

The wise Professor tried to take

PoRsession of his Chair ;
But every bone was like to break.

Though he sat down with care.

" Take back thy gift, oh. Queen of might !

Take back thy gift, I say^
I cannot sleep a wink by night.

And cannot rest by day."

" Nay I I will not take back ftom thee
My gift," the monarch said ;

" Qo, ask from other queens than me,
A cushion for thy head."
* * * *

Beside the Clyde's far western shore,

There lived a gentle fairy ;
Queen Mima was the name she bore ;

She sang like a canary.

Into a ^lackhird she could turn,

Whene'er she had the will ;
And all the singing birds would bum

With envy at her skill.

To her the sad Professor
Addressed his mournful prayer,

" Lady, be Redresser
Of this so wrongful chair I"

No sooner had the fairy heard.

Than she began to sing,
" Come hither, every bird •

That soars upon the wing."

The birds of every feather

Came trooping o'er the sea :
" lady, tell us whether

We can do aught for thee !"

" Ye tawny eagles, stretch

Your pinions to the sun.
And from Golconda fetch

Diamonds ere the day is done.

" Ye swift- winged falcons, porch

Upon the highest hills,
And with your keen eyes search

For gems among the rills.

" Ye wandering swallows, lleet

To far Australia's shore ;
And ere the night and. morning meet

Bring back its golden ore.

clia

hoL

tha:

ld(

jest

rati

CHAP. X.

186S.

SOFA versus chair.

419

" And you, ye stately sea-birds, wing
Your way o'er Indian waves,
And precious j)eurl8 and corals bring,
Plucked from the ocean caves."

She waved her hand : away they flew.

She waved her hand, and lo t with gems
And gold returned the busy crew,

Fit for a thousand diadems.

With wondrous skill, and magic powers.
She strung the pearls and wove the gold,

And changed the gouis to buds and flowers.
Which never will grow old.

These magic flowers she mode to grow

Upon a cushion soft as air.
Full of the down as white as snow,

Which swans upon their bosoms bear.

And just as the Professor

Had almost ceased to sigh.
And seeing no Redresser,

Had laid him,dowu to die,

Behold ! a silver voice was heard,
" Hush ! I have heard thy prayer,

The cushion of the Blackbird
Shall glorify thy Chair."

And suddenly, as rooming skies

Tlio clouds with glory gild.
The fairy-cushiou smote the eyes.

And the whole Chair was filled.

It draped the Chair on every side.

It left no angle bare.
It made the Chair a place of pride.

And not a place of care.

And now the once afllicted wight.

To queens makes no apology.
But sits by day, and dreams by night

In his Chair of Technology.

To this lady he writes in the end of that October, with the
characteristic mingling of pathos and humour : " My sense of a
hold upon life is so feeble (for illness after illness cheats us out
of vitality, and lessens one's hope and courage), that I am
thankful to remember I have some who think better of me than
1 deserve, and count themselves my friends. . . . Had Her Ma-
jesty consulted my doctors, she would have given me a sofa
rather than a chair ; but on chair or sofa, I hope to spend my

420

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

allotted days on earth, so as to make none ashamed that they
called themselves my friends." The cushion was not uncalled
for, as very soon after entering on his appointment, he is
compelled to say, "The Chair of Technology is not stuffed
with down: a thorn or two stick out of it, and it requires
cautious engineering to get into it with comfort to myself and
others."

The inaugural lecture was devoted in great part to the defini-
tion of the limits he assigned to his Professorship. Its title
" What is Technology ? " was welcome to the eager public, in
doubt as to what it represented. Tlirowing around the useful
arts the charm which intense earnestness, combined with exten-
sive knowledge and poetic sensibilities, cannot fail to impart,
he speaks of man in infancy as a creature whom every p.nima],
endowed with unerring instinct, can affV.vd to despise. Yet
" half of the industrial arts are the result of our being born
without clothes ; the other half, of our being born without tools.
With the intellects of angels, and the bodies of earth-worms,
we have the power to conquoi, and the need to do it." Man he
defines " as the only animal that can strike a light, the solitary
creature that knows how to kindle a fire. This is a very frag-
mentary definition of the * Paragon of Animals,' but it is enough
to make him the conqueror of them all. . . . Once provided
with his kindled brand, the savage technologist soon proves
what a sceptre of power he holds in his hands. . . . Well did
the wise ancients declare that men obtained fire from heaven,
but not well that they stole it. It was a gift to them in com-
pensation for their having no share in the dfiwry granted to ihe
lower animals ; and it has proved an ample compensation. . . ."
Wliile the inferior animals have an infallible guide in ir.^tinct,
man has to learn by dearly-bought exporierce. " The prevert-
able human suffering, and the needless loss of human lite, which
are occasioned by our industrial doings, are in amount altogether
appalling. . . . All the suffering and death which are occasioned
by our ignorance of physical laws, rre death -staiiis upon our
science, as well as griefs to humanity. From the moment that
we quit the guidance of instinct for that of inti^rpreting, devis-
ing, and constructing intellect, v/e are bound to employ the last

-'^ : \

CHAP. X.

I6S5.

WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY.

421

that they
uncalled
snt, he is
)t stuffed
; requires
lyself and

he defini-
Its titlo,
public, in
ihe useful
ith exten-
to impart,
ry p.nima],
pise. Yet
eing born
lout tools,
th-wornis,
Man ho
le solitary
very frag-
is enough
provided
3n proves
Well did
n heaven,
n in corn-
ed to ihe

• »

ion. . . .
instinct,
prevert-
ile, which
altogether
(ccasioned
upon our
nent that
ng, devis-
y the last

to the full The deaths of thousands lie at the door of imper-
fect science ; and therefore the necessity for Industrial Museums
and Chairs like this." . . .

Speaking of the wide domain included in Technology, he
points out that his brother professors have nearly all commis-
sions as wide, nominally, and restricted in meaning only by
common consent, by traditional custom, or conventional use and
wont. "With the Industrial Museum, this Chair stands in
organic connexion. My office, as Professor of Technology, is to
be interpreter of the significance of that Museum, and expositor
of its value to you, the Students of this University." Those de-
sirous of knowing more specially the objects he had in view in
tlie vast arena now opennig before him, will find a clear state-
ment of his position in this lecture, one of the few publislied in
fuU.^ We shall only further quote the closing paragraphs, with
remembrance of the youthful dreams now realized by his having
reached the goal then set before him as the object of his highest
ambition : — " In conclusion, suffer me a reference to two things.
There are few occasions on which it is becoming for an indivi-
dual to refer publicly, to what the French have taught us to call
his antecedents ; but I may be allowed a word on mine here.
I came to this University some twenty-two years ago, fresh from
the Edinburgh High School, without any prestige in my favour,
any recommendations to pave my way, or introductions which
should conciliate the good- will of a single professor. A mere
school-boy I entered these walls, to pursue, like a hundred
others, the difficult study of medicine, without any extrinsic
advantages. I look back now with unfeigned gratefulness to
the services rendered me by so many of the Professors. I stand
indcl ted to a long list of them for help and encouragement at a
time when these are most needed and most prized ; and but for
the kindness of more than one of their number, I should not be
here to address you as their colleague to-day.

" I spoak thus not to pay this University a passing compli-
ment, for it does not need it ; still less to imply that my case
was exceptional, for it was not so at all ; but simply that I may
bind myself in your hearing to lielp the homeless and friendless

' ' Wliat is Technology V Sutherland & Knox, Edinburgh. 1855.

X\^

422

MEMOIR OF GEOKOB WILSON.

CHAP. X.

students who become my pupils, tis I was helped by my precep-
tors when I was homeless and friendless.

" Lastly, let me commend this now Chair to your good- will
and kindly aid. "With its associated Industrial Museum, it
constitutes a great additional centre of knowledge, from which
light will spread over this land and over the world. I can but
sow the seed. I have sown it to-day ; I am honoured to do
thus much ; but the prediction, true in reference to all matters,
is that * one soweth and ^ir'other leapeth.' I am not so selfish
or so thoughtless as to wish it were otherwise. Institutions,
like all other things, grow faster in these days than they did of
old ; but perennial things are still slow of growth, and the most
enduring the slowest of all. We must be content to pluck the
first fruits, and leave the full harvest to be gathered by those
who follow. But that its first and last fruits may alike conduce
to the glory of God and the good of man, is my prayer ; and,
therefore, we will confide it to Hira who, eighteen hundred years
ago, dignified and made honourable the humblest craft, by per-
mitting Himself to be called the Son of the Caipenter, and who
now stretches forth His divine hand to bless all honest, earnest
labour."

Though the House of Commons had, in 1854, vott^.d £7000
to purchase a site for the Industrial Museum of Scotland, no
steps were taken in the erection of buildings for it till some
progress had been made in collecting suitable objects. In the
spring of 1855, the Independent Chapel in Argyle Square —
which Dr. Wilson had attended as a place of worship for the
previous ten years — and the hospital adjoining, were secured,
and in them stores of specimens quickly began to accumu-
late. As no laboratory or bcture room was provided. Dr. Wilson
continued to occupy those he had already in use. His class
was taught under great disadvantages, the lecture-room being
most inconvenient, and at some distance from the temporary
depository of museum specimens. The introductory lecture was
the only one given within the University walls for the first foui-
sessions. The class was not imperative on the University stu-
dents, and those who attended represented the professions of
"general manufacturer, architect, engineer, farmer, merchant,

1865-il&

SYLLABUS OF LECTURES.

4S8

baker, tanner, sugar-planter, sugar-refiner, teacher, doctor, and
clergyman, besides young men entered simply as students, but
chiefly training for industrial callings ; as well as retired military,
medical, and legal officers of the East India Company's Service,
and amateurs." In spite of all drawbacks, above forty attended
the firet course, of whom six returned the following year to con-
tinue the study of the subjects included in the syllabus. Three
years were required to go over its contents: the first course
being devoted to Mineral, the second to Vegetable, and the third
to Animal Technology. After preliminary special lectures, that
of Mineral Technology branched out into a series of lectures on
Fuel ; Building Materials of Mineral Origin ; Glass and Glass-
making; Pottery; Metallotechny ; Electrotechny ; and Mag-
netotechny. Under the three latter heads were comprised the
working of metals, and electricity in its industrial relations.

It was fervently hoped that in this new sphere, George
Wilson would enjoy greater ease. His health had so long with-
stood the ravages of disease, with little apparent detriment to
his general vigour, that many anticipations were now formed
more sanguine than at any previous period of his public life.
People wilfully shut their eyes to all but the fact which they
tried to impress on their minds, that he might live many years
more, and even medical men who knew the frail tenure by
which any such hopes could be held, argued favourably from
the time of repose which seemed to them now before him. We
have seen that he himself hoped for more rest as one of the ad-
vantages of his appointment ; but so ardently did he enter on
its duties, that the only rest obtained was from the necessity of
more than one lecture daily, and that rest of heart arising from
a sense of acknowledged worth, which the affectionate welcome
of his fellow-citizens had afforded him. For once the proverb
seemed unsuitable, that " a prophet hath no honour in his own
country," and his generous mind too readily received the im-
pulse. His labours hitherto were now far surpassed, as if but
a resting-place for a higher elevation had been attained. " I
am determined," he sometimes said, " to let no day pass without
doing something for my dear Museum." By something was
meant not the daily duties of his post, but speciol effbi'ts put

4S4

MKMOIK OF OEORaE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

forth. " The dear Museum/' as it was usually called in private,
absorbed every energy. How he begged and planned for it, is
well known throughout the world, though what sacrifices were
made on its behalf are known but to a very few. The power of
coaxing, in him almost irresistible, was brought fully to bear,
and sometimes it was amusing to observe how, whan presents
were made to him, with the express statement that they weva
not for the Museum, he contrived skilfully to dispose of all ar-
guments, and finally to deposit them on the public shelves.
His friends soon got to know that the most welcome gifts were
such as had the industrial collection in view, and acted accord-
ingly. Evidence of his zeal and success may be found in the
annual report of this Museum for 1859, in which the models and
specimens amassed in the four preceding years are reckoned at
10,350 in number. "If pro, erly displayed, these would fill a
space equal to that afforded by the Museum of Practical Geo-
logy, Jermyn Street, London ; or to fully one-half that of the
New National Galleries in Edinburgh."

Evening lectures, though not now imperative, were still un-
dertaken occasionally. That the interest of an audience could
be won over in favour of the Museum, so as to add to its con-
tributors, was sufficient excuse for any additional labours. One
scarcely knew at times whether to be more grieved or amused
at the earnest simplicity with which he would urge this as a
reason for work, such as his health made most unadvisable,
" But, you know, they will help the Museum." Eemonstrance
was vain ; the ardent spirit could not be restrained ; " to die
working," seemed to him an enviable fate. Tlie desire was fre-
quently expressed to an assistant, though never hinted at ir the
home- circle, where he carefully abstained from any such allu-
sion. With the view of commending the Museum to the notice
of the general public, he gave an address in January 1856, at
one of the monthly meetings of the Highland and Agricultural
Society, ' On the relations of Technology to Agriculture," which
was published in the Society's 'Transactions' for March 1856.
In it he speaks of the Industrial Museiun as " one of those in-
stitutions which had become necesrary by the altered condition
of the world, and the felt wants < t all the intelligent sections of

1800.

OCCASIONAL LECTURES.

426

tlie community." After showing iu how many ways technology
can aid agriculture, he closes with an appeal for their aid on
behalf of the national collection. A month later, he delivered
two lectures to the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, ' On
the objects of Technology and Industrial Museums,' which wokj
afterwards published by request, in a local newspaper having a
wide circulation among the working classes, and reprinted.
' Granite and its Derivatives, including Glass, Porcelain, and
Aluminium,' was the title under which the lectures were an-
nounced, but those only formed a slender frame-work, from
which many deviations were made. Those who have not had an
opportunity of hearing him lecture, will find in those under
notice that combination of scientific facts with poetry, humour,
and large-heartedness, which swayed hia audiences irresistibly.
While, as iisual, asking their good offices towards the Scottish
Industrial Museum, he made a special appeal to intelligent
women, " If from no other motive than this, that they may
thereby .contribute to increase the means of giving an industrial
education to women of the poorer classes, and to multiply the
vocations which may keep them from starvation, misery, and
crime." 1

In March, by request of the Pharmaceutical Society, an address
was delivered to them, ' On Pharmacy as a branch of Techno-
logy,' which has been published in the ' Pharmaceutical Journal,'
for 1856. It may be supposed how large an amount of corre-
spondence was called for by the infant wants of a national insti-
tution, forming no small item of each day's duties. We find in
a letter the following statement : — " ' Wanted, a Monkey from
the Zoological Gardens, to write letters to a philosopher's friends.
No ape or baboon need apply. The strictest references ex-
pected and given. Apply at Elm Cottage, in the writing of
the applicants, enclosing a witty, a stupid, and a pathetic
letter.'

" You see to what I am reduced. Here has a letter from one
Daniel Macmillan stared me in the face day after day, and
reproached me with unfriendliness, ingratitude, shame/ess,

» ' On the'Objects of Technology and Industrial Museums.' Sutherland and Knox.
Edinburgh, 1856.

426

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAR X.

shameful conduct, indiLTerence, cold-heartedness, selfishness,
unbrotherliness, and deliberate wickedness : and not a monkey
has answered the advertisement, or supplied even a stupid
letter."

At the close of January he tells his cousin Alick : — " I was
preaching a sermon last Thursday' evening to the medical stu-
dents in connexion with the Medical Missionary Society, and
rejoiced to find I had courage given me to speak boldly (oh ! I
trust, convincingly also) in the name of Christ. Nearer to Him!
nearer to Him! is my daily prayer. ... I am going to slave
less, and now only help religious meetings, or strictly profes-
sional ones. My responsibility is much greater than before ;
my physical fatigue, however, will be less. I live from day to
day, feeling no hold upon life, but happy many times, and for
long hours, although my temperament is not one which even
the choicest mercies could rob of its native inquietude and sen-
sitiveness. But all is well I have great holes in my heart,
and dreary voids in my affections ; but on this side the grave
they cannot be filled, and I will work as hard as I can till the
manumission comes."

He writes to his brother a month later : — " I am always vexed
to see a Friday pass without a letter from me to you ; but I am
often hard pressed, and since Christmas the weather has been a
succession of rain, and east winds, and sudden frosts, which have
engaged me in a battle from which I have come off but partially
victorious. I am practising saying No, and improving in the
utterance ; but I am still far from perfect, and I suffer in con-
sequence. I resolved at the beginning of the winter to give
four free lectures, and no more, and to give them to the first
who asked them. Dr. Brown's Kagged Kirk got one ; Dr.
Chalmers' Territorial Kirk got another ; the medical students a
written lecture, under the auspices of the Missionary Society ;
and J. made a speech for the Medical Missionary Society. Un-
fortunately, however, three of these fell on last week, and I had
to sit in one of the Ragged Kirks without a fire for an hour on
the pulpit steps, the fruit of all which has been a slight attack
of hsemoptysis, now, however, passing away.

" Besides these lectures, I have had three on Technology,

1856.

VISIT TO BKIDGE OF ALLAN.

427

which are to be counted as the things to which no cannot be
said. I mention them that you may know why my pen has
not been employed on your behalf."

" April lOth.

"We have had here an Eastern V/ar, which has defied all
meetings of plenipotentiaries, and stiil rages unabated. For a
month or some forty days, a dreadful Lent, the wind has blown
geographically from Araby the blest, but thermometricaUy from
Iceland the accursed. I have been made a prisoner of war, hit
by an icicle in the lungs, and have shivered and burned alter-
nately for a large portion of the last month, and spat blood till I
grew pale with coughing. Now I am better, and to-morrow I
give my concluding lecture, thankful that I have contrived, not-
withstanding all troubles, to carry on without missing a lecture
till the last day of the Faculty of Arts to which I belong. But
it was not possible to write you sooner. Jessie and I propose
to set off on the 12th for the Bridge of Allan, and thence I
engage to write, furnishing all desiderata before next week's
post."

On the 13th he wiites home from the Bridge of Allan : " We
reached this safely last night at half-past six. The band of
music was of course at the station, and the people took the
horses out of the carriage, of course, and drew us into town.
In a region so much visited by volcanoes and earthquakes as
this, we could not but expect to find a great physical change.
The hiUs have grown into mountains since last year, perpetual
snow covers their summits, and glaciers are continually sliding
down into the valleys, sweeping everything before them. The
wind has blown so long from the east that most of the tall
houses are bent double, and the little ones are turned round so
that the back door has become the front. We succeeded, how-
ever, in finding our lodging, and duly entered by the proper
door. Jessie, indeed, cannot see the differences I have described
above, and affirms that there is only one new house. I leave
you to judge whether she or I am correct. If people are to
travel without seeing wonders, I don't see what is the use of
travelling. The folks here evidently recognise me as Professor
of Technology, especially those who never saw me before."

428

MEMOUi OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHA1». X.

The subjoined letter to Dr. J. H. Gladstone alludes to a
chemical discovery he had made : —

" Bbidoe of Allan, April 28, 1856.

" Dear Inspector, — I really have the suspicion that I owe
you a letter, and indeed I resolved as soon as I came here to
write to you, and why did not I ? Because, after a few days'
improvement here, and aU disappearance of the htemoptysis
which had driven me from Edinburgh, I as usual began to work
as if I were quite well. I was seized with a technological fit,
and set off to explore a bleach- work, dye- work, and carpet-work
in my neighbourhood. You can sympathize with the pleasure
such visits give. To me they are mentally exhilarating in the
highest degi'ee : I like to see the machinery, the chemical pro-
cesses, and not least to chat with the workpeople. But my
stupid body always makes itself disagreeable. On this occasion,
after returning much delighted, I lay down on the sofa to reflect
on the sights I had witnessed ; but it was soon stopped by
coughing, and blood, blood, crimson blood. This stopped my
letter-writing, and compelled quietness, counter irritation, and
no more technologizing. I am better, but frail, and sitting in
medical judgment on my own case, I am afraid that I must
report myself decidedly lower down the hill than this time last
year, and with less of my lungs useful than before. But it's all
well ; I am in God's hands. I pray neither to die, nor to live,
but to be kept from the evil that is in the world. Jessie and I
have had a delightful fortnight of Bible -reading, and talking and
meditating and worsliipping, such as you and May can under-
stand. ... I am delighted to hear of your new chemical doings.
... I have given you your new title at the beginning of this
scrawl, but I would be glad to know if the following is the cor-
rect statement of the matter. If not, you must complain to tlie
Mendicity Society.

" * THE BLOOMSBURY DETECT: v'ES.

" ' On the 1st of January, in conformity with John Dalton's
Act, Professor Faraday, in the presence of Dr. Hoffman and the
Master of the Mint, added three equivalents of the nitro-prusside
of sodium to five equivalents of the cobalticyanide of potassium.

1866.

THE BODY UNACCOMMODATING.

429

and seven equivalents of the iodide of methylammonium, wiiich
were mixed with water and shaken together. On April Ist the
liquid was examined, and to the consternation of all parties, the
sixty-seventh part of an equivalent of hydrogen was found
wanting. Information was immediately sent to the different
Universities, the British Association, and the French Academy,
but up to last Wednesday no traces of the missing 67th could
be found. It was then resolved to put the case in the hands of
that active officer, Serjeant Gladstone of the Bloomsbury Detec-
tives, who instantly started in pursuit of the unaccounted-for
fraction, and we are happy to say, by pursuing a curve whose
ordinates are as A is to B, so is C to D, succeeded late on Satur-
day in coming up with the missing fraction, which was imme-
diately projected on paper. Her Majesty, on hearing the
interesting announcement, immediately desired that Serjeant
Gladstone should be made Inspector, and his portrait added to
the Crime-an Gallery.' — (No Nzws, February 30.)

" 1 cordially congratulate you, my good friend. It is a re-
sponsible office that of yours."

To his mother he says, " I have been resting two days after
my technological exploits. It was a great delight to me to visit
two works full of illustrations of chemical and mechanical
science. In truth the pleasure such visits give me is of a
deeper and more delightful description than I could easily con-
vey to most people, and I have totally failed to persuade that
stupid body of mine that its only business was to carry me
* upstairs and downstairs, and in my lady's chamber,* wherever
I pleased to go. An old grudge which it has against my soul,
has made it behavfi less obligingly than was desirable, but rest
has made it sweet tempered again, and it promises to be on its
good behaviour in future."

After returning to town, an amusing instance occurred of the
belief which seemed w pervade all classes, that he never could
be appealed to in vain, either for information or help. Fire-
works were to be displayed in celebration of the proclamation
of peace after the Crimean War, and by the aid of Mr. Tomlin-
son he was able to meet the wishes of the Provost and Council.
In acknowledging his friend's kindness he says, " It seems to

430

MEMOIR OP GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

1858.

be supposed here that on the day when I was made Professor of
Technology, there flowed into my head the whole Cyclopedia of
Useful Arts, and all the Encyclopaedias and other treasures of
knowledge, and in a liquified condition formed a well full to
overflowing somewhere in my pineal gland, so that whoever is
ignorant need only put down his bucket and draw it up full.

" One of my pupils asked me one day, ' What a harlequin's
dress was made of V This was in the pantomime season, and
the young man had been recreating himself at the theatre.
When I shook my head in reply and smiled, he interposed,
'Perhaps I have put an improper question?" I hastened to
compose his fears, and promised a reply. But how was the mo-
mentous question to be answered ? I used to know a fiddler
of a chemical turn, who belonged to the theatre, but he and his
fiddle had long ago vanished, I knew not whither, and he was
my only dramatic oracle. What was to be done ? My charac-
ter as a technologist was at stake, and I was casting about for
an introduction to that mysterious entity Harlequin himself,
when help came from an unexpected quarter. The sun would
not rise in a proper manner in the opera of the Prophet, and I
was waited on by an emissary from the theatrical manager, and
requested to assist his Sunship, which by means of a lime-ball
light I was enabled to do to the satisfaction of all. I bartered
my light for light upon the harlequin's dress, and was informed
it was made of the India-rubber elastic tissues, with trian-
gular spaces at intervals of a pervious material to allow of
perspiration. . . .

" After these experiences, I felt no surprise at being summoned
to the Town-Council to explain to them off-hand all about fire-
works, which, as one of our municipal rulers was pleased to ob-
serve, he did not doubt I had made special subjects of study.
After that it would have been a despising of dignities to have
hinted that a sky-rocket was above me, and I. proceeded to des-
cant on Eoman candles with all the learning and precision, con-
sistent with my attachment to Protestantism, which were to be
expected from so experienced a pyrotechnologist as I am known
to be. Well ! well ! I did my best, and you did better than my
best, and I hand over the civic crown to you."

1856.

UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE.

431

To be considered an authority upon things in general was no
new experience. Even in the High School he was distinguished
from the other boys in regard to this qualification. HLs classical
master, Mr. Mackay, had a fancy for asking out-of-the-way ques-
tions when strangers happened to be present, to impress them with
the fund of information possessed by his pupils. Soon perceiving
George Wilson's fitness to do him credit in this respect, he used
to call out at the appearance of visitors, " Wilson, make ready."
After his appointment as Professor, his fellow-citizens seemed
to look on him as their knowledge-box, and very peculiar were
often the demands made on him. While waitiog for an Mudience,
a gentleman one day informed the Museum -assistant of the pur-
port of his visit, and was assured, in reply, there was no proba-
bility that Dr. Wilson could solve his difficulty. The assurance
was vain, " For," urged the inquirer, " he knows everything."
The belief of this man seemed one generally held, and certainly
not without cause, for few applied in vain, and the assistance
was given so cheerfully and readily as to leave an impression
that he himself was the party under obligation. Once, while in
London on Museum business, he was amused at being hailed on
entering the Government office, "Oh, here's Wilson, he'll be
able to tell us," and so the puzzle over which they had been
cogitating was immediately solved.

While addressing .an assemblage of printers and their friends,
at a social meeting in the Music Hall, Edinbmgh, he showed,
incidentally, a familiarity with their work, which led a young
printer, on leaving, to speak of the speech " of the compositor."
Being asked to which of the speakers he referred, he replied,
" the one with spectacles," whose thorough acquaintance with
their craft he imagined could only be the result of long prac-
tice in its details.

Allusion has been made in a preceding letter to a lecture de-
livered to medical students. It was shortly afterwards published
along with other lectures,^ by request of the Medical Missionary
Society, at whose instance it was written. We have already
quoted from it, as illustrating his experience on entering hospi

1 'On the Character of God, as inferred from the Study of Human Anatomy.' —
' Addresses to Medical Students.' Edinburgh : A. and C. Black, 1856.

432

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

166&

tal practice. It grapples with the existence of evil, and appa-
rent frustrations of design, pronouncing the solution of aU that
is inexplicable in the morphology and teleology of the mortal
state, to be attainable only when design at last triumphs in the
heavenly life. The strain pervading the lecture is to be found
in others of his writings, especially the article on Chemistry
and Natural Theology,^ and an address on the Eesurrection, to
medical students, as yet unpublished.

Along with a copy of the lecture forwarded to Mr. D. Mac-
millan, is a note saying, " I send a sermon, which, when you have
nothing better to do, read. . . . Some bits of it you wiU read, as
I wrote them, with thoughts of ourselves ; but you will see, that
like yourself, I try to be ready either for life or death," To Dr.
Cairns, the lecture so painfully brought the impression that he
did speak unconsciously of himself in its pages, that he im-
mediately wrote to ask if he felt worse in health. In reply
George says, " Your v6ry kind letter took me by surprise. I
did not intend either in the lecture or letter to give expression
to feelings so sad as you have inferred me to be actuated by.
The lecture was delivered last February, not to provide an outlet
for grief, but to press some matters home to the minds of students
of medicine. Eead as a whole, I entertain the hope that the lec-
ture will not be found unbecomingly or morbidly sombre and
grave.

" As for the letter, it was written on Sabbath, and I there-
fore avoided lighter matters ; it was written also to you, recently
sorely tried by a mournful affliction, and therefore it was grave.
I do not at all disavow having been myself grave in writing it
for personal reasons, but I cannot allow you to expend an un-
deserved amount of sympathy on me, who really am not making
special complaint.

" If I were to sit in medical judgment on my own case, I
should find it quite impossible to pronounce upon my own
viability. To be well enough to work is all a man needs to be,
and is all I expect. Latterly my working power has certainly
been less than before, but it may quite well come back. I can
honestly assure you, that regarding my prospect of life as a

' ' British Quarterly Review.*

1860.

PHYSICAL WEAKNESS.

433

matter on which God lias not given me a decisive or preponder-
ating answer in the negative, and feeling that I do not deserve
(as a profitable servant) to die, and further despising the moral
cowardice of shrinking from work, I am studying and labouring
cheerfully as one who may live and must not cumber the ground.
. . . In reality, the other world and the shadow of death have
been in my thoughts since I remember. Often formerly as
much as now, have they been uppermost Do not, therefore,
think me given over to unusual or unworthy sorrow."

To a fellow-invalid like Daniel Macmillan, he confesses more
freely in June to being " very languid, weary, and unfit for work
of all kinds. To write even this letter is an effort, and I feel as
if to lie down and sleep were the only thing worth doing. I have
often been as ill before; but like you, I feel that some time must
be the last, and I often faithlessly and selfishly wish it had come.

" If I go out of town this autumn it will be to some place
near at hand, where I can be quite at rest, and loimge idly back
into vigour again. This long cold spring has put its mark upon
me, arid I slowly find myself burning nearer to the socket. . . .
I have no hope of being in Cambridge this year. I am not well
enough to travel willingly, and have no prospect of being com-
pelled to go south, though perhaps I may be."

From Melrose, whither he retired for six weeks in autumn,
he writes to his brother Daniel, " The weather has not been
propitious, yet I have contrived to spend a great deal of time in
the open air, and have profited by it. . . . The last three months,
up to the close of July, were spent in almost continual physical
uneasiness, rising often to pain ; and that is not pleasant. But
as I now am, I should be very, very ungrateful to the Giver of
all good gifts, if I made great complaint, and the future I leave
with Him. I enjoy the quiet, and on a Sabbath like this, can
meditate on that great world beyond the grave — ^towards which
I perceptibly approach nearer and nearer each summer —in a
way I cannot do in the whirl of town life."

While at Melrose, he prepared for the press what has been
unquestionably the most popular of his writings, " The Five
Gateways of Knowledge."^ It "was written to help a Sunday

I Macmillan and Co.
2 E

Cambridge.

434

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

school," its first delivery being in Leith, and the substance of
the whole being given in one lecture. Some years later, it
was offered in a more expanded form in two lectures to the
Philosophical Institution, Edinburgii, in 1853, and with slight
changes and additions, is published as then delivered. The title
has been supposed to bo borrowed froii Bunyan's town of Man-
PTil, a quotation from :■'■ beinr, M^eo as a riotto; but this
motto was an afi v-taougVi. ansj not ii. tuggestive one previous
to writing. A reverence for ! h( I m i with its wonderful powere
and capabilities, and the nobl desti-'' nwaifcing those sharing
the Christian's resurrection hopes, seems the stand-point from
which he gazes at those senses by which the soul and body most
freely commune together. The strongly prevailing tendency to
undervalue the body he regretted, and probably in this " prose
poem," as it is fitly called, he has done very much to counteract
it. The 'Five Gateways' may be taken as one of the best
specimens of his popular non-scientific lectures ; the pleasure it
affords is permanent, and answers to one test of a work of genius,
in being equally enjoyed by the young and the old. A cheap
edition was speedily called for, and in a second issue there ap-
pears a beautiful illustration, by Noel Paton, representing the
soul as a child, to whom the senses — female figures — tenderly
and lovingly minister. Mr. George Harvey was the medium by
which the request for an illustration was conveyed to Mr. Noel
Paton, as is shown by this note : —

" Dear Maestro Giorgio, — ^You were pleased to say that you
would visit Noel Paton the Good, with a letter from me about
the coveted design from his wonder-working pencil. Know
then, Maestro Eccellentissimo, that enclosed is the letter, and if
you will make it part of your Pilgrim's Progress to carry it to
Fairyland, where No 111 abides, aud deliver it with speech of
your own to him who should receive it, you will render another
kindness to your loving

" Giorgio Voluseno."

The difficulties surmounted by Noel Paton's beautiful design,
will be better appreciated by perusing a letter written previously.

Ifi66

OUn OWN LIMNER.

435

" Dear ( mjrge Harv«;y,- WheTev^r you are give me a little
help. A C. 'ib'idge booksell i insists on publishing a lecture
on the Eien^as, which y)U heard in whole or m part at the
Philosophic I Ins*"tution. He is bringing it out elegantly, and
rf his own xuove, resolves upon a medallion or vignette on the
loard of the book. . . The oookbinder's man of genius has
made a stupid design, and I now apply to my friend of genius
to help with a better. 1 have suggested, 1. Simply a classic
head, such as the Antinous, front face. 2. A five-rayed star (to
stand for the soul) ! surrounded by a glory. 3. A five- gated,
five -angled tower, as in the old ' Holy Wars.' The difficulty is
to draw the soul. Ye never seed the sowl, did ye ?

" Draw me something, like a good man, and send it here.
My last notion is a five-rayed star, whilk is the sowl ; a penta-
gon surrounding the same, whilk is the five-gated Ciiie of Man-
soul ; a serpent biting of his tail, whilk is Eternity, surrounding
that, as is lere drawn by our own limner,

W^i

r\ "

C ft /?. JTc/f. Mi

^" " Can you beat that ? If so, do it, and I'll be much obliged.
I am in a most pleasant country here, and pretty well.— Your
dearly loving George Wilson."

'"' Of the ' Five Gateways,' about eight thousand copies have
t)een sold up to this time, besides an unautliorized issue by a

436

MEMOIB OF GEOBGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

1(166.

house in Philadelphia, of which we have no return. It has been
spoken of as "a hymn of the finest utterance and fancy — the
white light of science diffracted through the crystalline prism
of his mind into the coloured glories of the spectrum; truth
dressed in the iridescent hues of the rainbow, and not the less
but all the more true." " He tries with that affectionate spirit, that
love of the good and the great, that reverential adoration of God's
wondrous works, which have made Dr. George Wilson's name
a pleasant sound in the ears of all who know liim, to make his
readers feel with himself an intense appreciation of those bless-
ings in which he revels, who knows how to make his soul and
his senses work in a wise harmony." We believe this book to
have become one of the great cords of love that knit George
Wilson so closely to the hearts of thousands. To heap up, as
might easily be done, the tokens of admiration lavished on it,
seems superfluous ; it needs them not. Let us rather refresh
ourselves with a few of its pictures : —

" The ivory palace of the skull, which is the central abode of
the soul, although it dwells in the whole body, opens to the
outer world four gateways, by which its influences may enter ;
and a fifth, whose alleys are innumerable, unfolds its thousand
doors on the surface of every limb. These gateways, which we
otherwise name the Organs of the Senses, and call in our mother
speech the Eye, the Ear, the Nose, the Mouth, and the Skin, are
instruments by which we see, and hear, and smell, and taste, and
touch : at once loopholes through which the spirit gazes out upon
the world, and the world gazes in upon the spirit; porches
which the longing, unsatisfied soul would often gladly make
wider, that beautiful material nature might come into it more
fuUy and freely ; and fenced doors, which the sated and dis-
sai/isueu ojjirit would, if it had the power, often shut and bar
altogether. . . .

" Its beauty [the eye] is, perhaps, most apparent in the eye of
an infant, which, if you please, we shall suppose not dead, but only
asleep, with its eyes wide open. How large and round they are !
how pure and pearly the white is, with but one blue vein or two
marbling its surface ; how beautiful the i-ainbow ring, opening
its mottled circle wide to the light ! How sharply defined the

llfid.

THE EYE AND TUB EAR.

437

pupil, so black and yet so clear, that you look into it as into
some deep, dark well, and see a little face look back at you,
which you forget is your own, whilst you rejoice that the days
are not yet come for those infant eyes, when ' they that look out
of the windows shall be darkened.' And then the soft pink cur-
tains which we call eyelids, with their long silken fringes of
eyelashes, and the unshed tears bathing and brightening all !
How exquisite the whole 1 How precious in the sight of God
must those little orbs be when he has bestowed upon them so
much beauty ! . . .

"What a strange interest attaches to that little darkened
chamber of the eye ! Into it the sun and the stars, the earth
and the ocean, the glory and the terror of the universe, ent/cr
upon the wings of light, and demand audience of the soul. And
from its mysterious abiding-place the soul comes fortli, and in
twilight they commune together. No one but He who made
them can gaze upon the unveiled majesty of created things : we
could not look upon them and live ; and therefore it is that here
we see all things 'through (or rather in) a glass darkly;' and are
permitted only to gaze upon their shadows in one small dimly-
lighted chamber. . . .

" Picture to yourself the contrast between a great orchestra,
containing some hundred performers and instruments, and that
small music-room built of ivory, no bigger than a cherry-stone,
which we call an ear, where there is ample accommodation for all
of them to play together. The players, indeed, and their instru-
ments, are not admitted. But what of that if their music be ?
Nay, if you only think of it, what we call a musical performance
is, after all, but the last rehearsal. The true performance is
within the ear's music-room, and each one of us has the whole
orchestra to himself. When we thus realize the wondrous capa-
bilities of the organ of hearing, I think we shall not fail to find
an intellectual and a3sthetical, as well as a great moral admoni-
tion in the Divine words, ' He that hath ears to hear, let him
hear.' ...

" If this apply to earthly music, how much more to heavenly !
Though everything else in the future state may be dim and dark,
and in all respects matter of faith or hope, not of vivid i-ealiza-

48S

MEMOIR OF GEORQli: WILSON.

CHAP. X.

tion, this at least can be entered into, that all the children of
Adam and Eve could unite in a common song. Of all the or-
gans of the body, therefore, the ear is the one which, though for
its present gratification it is beholden solely to the passing mo-
ment, can with the greatest confidence anticipate a wider domain
hereafter.

" In consonance with that home in eternity for which the Ear
expectantly waits, to it is promised the earliest participation in
the life to come. This divinely authenticated fact appears to
have made a profound impression on men of genius of all tem-
peraments since the days of our Saviour's presence upon earth.
Many of you must be familiar with that beautiful hymn of the
Latin Church, the ' Dies Irce,' in which the solemnities of the
last judgment and the sound of the trump of doom, are echoed
in mournful music from the wailing lines. Sir Walter Scott
translated this sacred song. Goethe has introduced a striking
portion of it into the cathedral scene in Faust, where the
Tempter assails Margaret. Martin Luther's hymn reads like an
echo of it. After all, it is itself but the echo and paraphrase of
passages in the New Testament ; and Handel, when he com-
posed the ' Messiah,' went to the original for those words which
he has set to imdying music. From these words we learn that
the summons to the life to come will be addressed first to the
Ear, and it first shall awake to the consciousness of a new exist-
ence : * for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incoryuptible, and we shall be changed.' . . .

"When I think of all that man's and woman's iiand has
wrought, from the day when Eve put forth her erring hand to
pluck the fruit of the forbidden tree, to that dark hour when
the pierced hands of the Saviour of the world were nailed to the
predicted tree of shame, and of all that human hands have done
of good and evil since, I lift up my hand, and gaze upon it
with wonder and awe. What an instrument for good it is!
what an instrument for evU ! and all the day long it never is
idle. There is no implement which it cannot wield, and it
should never in working hours be without one. We unwisely
restrict the term handicraftsman, or handworker, to the more
laborious callings ; but it belongs to all honest, earnest men and

I860.

■r.'j

GIFTS OF EXPOSITION.

430

women, and it is a title which each should co et For the
queen's hand there is the sceptre, and for the soldier's hand the
sword ; for the carpenter's hand the saw, and for the smith's
hand the hammer ; for the farmer's hand the plough ; for the
miner's hand the spado ; for the sailor's hand the oar ; for the
painter's hand the brush ; for the sculptor's hand the chisel ; for
the poet's hand the pen ; and for the woman's hand the needle.
If none of these or the like will fit us, the felon's chain should
be round our wrist, and our hand on the prisoner's crank. But
for each willing man and woman there is a tool they may leani
to handle ; for all there is the command, ' Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do, do it with all thy might.' "

After reading those extracts, we feel that Dr. Cairns does not
overstate the truth in saying, " His gifts of exposition and illus-
tration were perfectly wonderful. A scientific clearness of con-
ception and expression hardly to be surpassed, with fulness of
knowledge, ranging over a vast surface of inquiiy, were in him
combined with a freshness of fancy, that seized on the most un-
expected analogies and contrasts ; an exuberant humour, that
gave zest and relief to the hardest and gravest subjects : and a
high strain of moral eloquence that linked every topic with
man's joys, and sorrows, and deep enduring interests. It would
not be easy to name examples of exposition more admirable and
delightful than his statement of the Atomic Theory in his paper
on 'John Dalton,' his various essays on 'The Electric Tele-
graph,' and his ' Fiye Gateways of Knowledge.* His most hasty
occasional lectures run into shapes of inimitable grace and
beauty, extracted often by the plastic hand of the artist from
the most intractable materials. One great charm of all his
writings is their radical sim^, icity and truthfulness. The eyes
of science precede and guide everywhere the wings of fancy.
No original scientific man, with so much of the genius of the
l)oet, had ever so little of the exaggeration of the rhapsodist."^

While he says, " My modesty is shocked by sending to so
many and so wise men my small rhapsody," he reports the
acknowledgments received as " of a threefold character," —

* ' Macmillan's Magazine,' January 1860. ;,

440

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

1856.

" 1. Talleyrandish, i,e., have got the book, and expect plea-
sure from reading it. ■ ^
"2. Patronizing; will put a copy in the School Libraijv"'^':'^
"3. (a.) Hearty, such as Dickens, Wilson, Euskin, Canon
Wordsworth, Buxton, Argyll

"(6.) The same, but judiciously critical. ju%b£>:

"(c.) The same, but grumphy, and injudiciously critical. . .'.
" I read them all with interest, most with pleasure, none with
pain."

The following letter, written before leaving Melrose, is not
offered as a specimen of his official, or even semi-oflftcial corre-
spondence ; the style is peculiarly his own, and not a few such
did good service in securing specimens for the museum. It is
addresrod to his friend, Miss Abemethy : —

" Private and (Jonjidential, 7wt to he shown in Court.

" Dear Janet, — I am in a mood so lazy and languid that it
costs me an effort to write even to you, especially when I read
iu the newspapers such appalling accounts of damages for
breach of promise, and remember how many letters you have of
mine, and what dreadful damages juries give. If this letter
appears stiff and stupid, you will understand why it is so. It
is, indeed, a business letter, as you will immediately perceive,
and I trust, dear madam (I dare not venture on anything
stronger), you will reply to it.

" A message was brought to me that there lay at the shop of
mir grocer here, a pair of wonderful Curling Stones, made of
black granite (whatever that may be), mounted in silver, beau-
tifully polished, and to be had (cheap) for £S.

" The Director of the Industrial Museum, having money to
spend, went to-day to see the wondrous stones; found the
granite turned into whinstone, the silver into electro-plate, and
the £3 into £3, 10s. Further, the worthy grocer informed the
Director that the stones were sent to him by Mr. W. . . aid
that he was not to take a farthing less than the said £3, lOs.
for the stones, which indeed are very beautiful. Now, dear
madam (oh, how tempted J fee) to say, dear Janet), I write at

18S8.

PRIVATE AND CONf IDENTIAL.

441

the request of the Director, who— though an extraordinaiy
genius, and in truth, the only person in the world who knows
aught about a wonderful science called Tech-Knowledgy, is as
ignorant of the price of Curling Stones as that of Curling irons
or Curl-papers, and understanding from me, that you are very
learned about them (not the curl-paper or the curling irons,
dear madam, but the curling stones), and that you have a nephew
called, if I caught the name aright, Professor Neavn, also very
learned concerning the said stones — has requested me to ask
your ladyship's, and your ladyship's nephew's advice about
purchasing the stones.

" In a word, is it a large, a small, or a medium price to pay ?
Please to signify by your own esteemed (I would like to say
beloved) hand, or that of your respected nephew, what the price
of curling stones is, that I may decide, before leaving, about the
black granite ones.

" Mother, Jessie, two little pan'ots sent us from Australia,
the Director, the Professor, the gig, the horse, the driver, and /
are here, and those of Us that are well, are well, and those of us
that are not, are not. . . . Your (I was going to say dearly lov-
ing) obedient, humble servant, George Wilson."

In a Museum letter of the same semidemisemi-official kind,
the following passage occurs : " I have just discovered that I
have taken two sheets instead of one. Don't make this known
to Government, or they'll hang me in a noose of red tape, as a
warning to all wasters of public property. I try your ingenuity
in endeavouring to show my desire for economy. Eead the
pages according to the Eule of Three. If that does not succeed,
try them upside down ; if no sense comes of that, give up the
perusal."

Besides making purchases, he had a " begging cap, which," he
says, "since I was made Director of this Museum, I have in-
dustriously (and industrially) worn." No one was safe from the
begging cap, yet no one gi'imibled at tlie beggar, but rather
encouraged him to continue to wear it, and by its successes to
minister to industrial progress and liappiness.

On returning to town he reports all us " much the better of

443

MEMOIK OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAP, X.

the rustication. I certainly feel stronger, and though using all
precaution, have been assuring myself of increased strength, by
visits to Hat Factories and Comb-makers' premises."

In the opening lecture for the Session of 1856-7, while defin-
ing Technology as " the sum or complement of all the sciences
which either are, or may be made, applicable to the industrial
labours or utilitarian necessities of man," he dwells on those
most closely related to the recurring urgencies of daily labour,
and, therefore, of pre-eminent importance. The lecture appeared
in the 'Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine' for January 1857,
with the title ' On the Physical Sciences which form the Basis
of Technology.* It contains beautiful personifications of some
of the sciences, while abounding in practical scientific details.
Of these pictures we take one : " Geology is half of the heavens,
half of the earth. She stands an imperial queen, with her head
among the stars, and her tresses are white with the snows of
ages ; but her feet, graceful and quick, are beneath the young
grass, and are wet with the dews of to-day. Her hands are often
raised to shade her eyes, as she gazes through space to exchange
greetings with each sister-presence in the worlds around. But
her fingers are as often busy with homely cares, and with bended
forehead she traces for the tenant-lord of her estate the best
track for bis railway, and channel for his canal, and shows him
where to find coal and iron, and how to dig for gold,"

In order to extend a knowledge of the new science, and to
interest all classes in the Industrial Museum, he delivered, in
December, by request of the Educational Institute of Scotland,
an address ' On Technology as a Branch of Education ;' and on
Christmas Eve, by solicitation of the Committee of the " Art-
Manufacture Association," a lecture ' On tlu; Eelation of Indus-
trial to Ornamental Art.' The latter has been published,^

At a conversazione of the Royal College of Surgeons, before
the close of the year, he delivered the lecture on ' Chemical
Final Causes,' which forms one of the ' Edinburgh University
Essays for 1856,'^ In it he attempts to add to the ever-
accumulating proofs of design by showing, especially, that

' Erlinonston and Douglas. Edinburgh. 1857.
»A.&G, Black. Edinburgh. 1857.

1866-gi'j^

CHEMICAL FINAL CAUSES.

443

phosphorus, nitrogen, and iron are the best adapted of the known
elements for the purposes they are required to fulfil in animal
organisms."^

"What we call a final cause," he says, in the concluding
pages, " is not God's final cause, but only that small corner of it
which we can comprehend in our widest glance. The fragmen-
tary corner fills our intellects, not because it is vast, but because
they are small, and we find how small they have made it, the
moment we try to make the fragment a measurt .nfinite
wisdom. The wisest of us is but a microscopic snei J in the
ocean of Omniscience, and when left on the shore with a drop
of its waters in our cup, we cannot reflect in its tiny mirror
more than a drop's worth of the meaning of the universe. And
yet we speak as if out of that drop the whole universe might

t»

anse

During this Session, as in the followiug one, he occupied the
President's Chair in the Eoyal Scottish Society of Arts, in the
prosperity of which he ever took a lively interest. His addresses
on entering office and quitting it, are to be found in the Trans-
actions of the Society.^ While necessarily containing many
references of local interest only, some interesting topics, expanded
elsewhere, are touched upon. The good offices of this body
were by his efforts enlisted on behalf of the new Museum. The
meetings of such societies being in the evening, called for an
expenditure of energy unfavourable to his health, yet he deemed
it a duty as well as a pleasure to frequent them occasionally.
For some years he edited the ' Transactions of the Society of
Arts ;' he was twice elected a member of the Council of the
Royal Society of Edinburgh ; he was a member of the Council
of the Chemical Society, London ; a member of the Chemical
Committee of the Highland and Agriculturrj Society, and one
of the examiners for the agricultural diploma; an honorary
member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain ; and
corresponding member of the Medico- Chinirgical Academy,
Genoa,

Of the voluntary labours which he failed not to add to those

' See Appendix.

'^ -Trans. R. S. S. A.,' vol. v., pp. 1 and 43.

444

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

1857.

imperative on him, we find mention in a letter to his hrother of
March 26, 1857, — " Little more than a fortnight will bring my
lectures to a close. I begin dyeing on Monday, and we shall
dye away till the middle of April ' finishes our course.' I shall
be thankful. I like work ; it is a family weakness, though I
don't pretend to lift your elephant load. But one may have too
much : we grieve when we read of your labours. Even the
Pagan Hindus put only one world on the elephant's back, and
gave him, moreover, a tortoise to stand upon. The tortoise will
rebel if jov. try to carry another world, and infinite space will
engulf you.

" I don't preach to you. People do to me, and the very next
moment ask me to do what they preached against. I am looked
upon as good as mad, because on hasty notice I took a default-
ing lecturer's place at the Philosophical Institution, and dis-
coursed on polarization of light. You will understand why I
did. I was wearying of mere teaching, and wanted to grapple
again with a difficult subject, which in 1842 I had studied with
some fulness, and at intervals had worked at since, but never so
fully as for the sake of my new lectures I wished to do. So I
had a wrestle with it, and we finally tried strength against each
other in the Music Hall, and though I was not unbruised, nor
in all things victor, they gave me 1 y acclamation the crown ;
memcally I was much the robuster of this struggle, but not
physically. To be well enough to work is enough, but to cougli
half through the wakeful night, and awake to find your hand-
kerchief spotted with blood, is not encouraging. Yet I have
got through the winter better than usual, and am still wonder-
fully well. I have resolutely declined all fresh demands, and
am hoping for a little rest." Three weeks later he writes from
Bridge of Allan ; — " I fled hither a week ago, driven by east
wind, cough, and other ailments, and have been leading a dog's
life fo'- the last two or three days, — i.e., eating, sleeping, and
dri:ia.i;.jT, — much to my Ixjtterment."

"MYDKAii iMOT.fl.R,— - "3/«y 1,1857.

' How doth the little busy bee "

Iniprove, each sh ning hou , '!" "

A \"\ -(athcr Ir n ij all the d ly,
Fn;m everj' opening floM ar. .'.U'i''-

1867.

MANCHESTER CRYSTAL PALACE.

445

" Jessie and I seek to make these remarkable lines our motto,
but are a little hindered in our laudable object, because, in the
first place, we are not bees; 2d, By having no shining hours, the
sun obstinately hiding himself behind clouds ; Zdly, There is no
honey to be gathered, because, Uhly, there are no flowers. At
least, however, we resemble the bees in being busy, although I
cannot take it upon me to say that we are so ' all the day,' as
untruthful Dr. Watts declares the bees to be, in the face of the
fact that they are notorious for fighting, stabbing, and singing
songs, besides eating, drinking, and sleeping. At all events,
between us we despatched fourteen letters yesterday, and here
is a pile beside me to-day waiting for replies.

" This is the first of May, with promise of the sun ; the snow
is melted on the Perthshire hills, and the lambs are reposing on
the grass as if they were immortals. ... a;

" Don't think me selfish if I stay here to the last. This rest
of soul and body is to me welcome beyond description. I hope
to fall to work again stoutly on my return."

In July, Government business called him to England. " I
hope by the visit," he writes, " to do soul, body, and my dear
Museum good." A month later he spent a few days in Man-
chester viewing the treasures of the Exhibition held there in that
year, and then passed on to Dublin to study the arrangements
of its Industrial Museum, and also attend the meetings of the
British Association. Three bright and happy days were spent
in the Manchester Crystal Palace. He was accompanied by
his sister and a friend, and while each roamed about at will,
according to individual taste, it was their custom to meet at a
certain hour at which a daily concert was given, A note writ-
ten on one of those occasions expresses his delight : —

Atigiist 20, 1857.

MANCHESTER EXHIBITION.

" My DEAR Mother, — I have just halted for a rest in a quiet
comer near the orchestra, which is about to be filled with
musicians and play us a tune.

" This is dreamland ; faiiyland ; a bit of heaven upon earth.
Angels who once were ministering spirits have here entered

446

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

into a typical rest, and with their great white wings crystallized
into bright marble, look on with sweet and serene faces, and tell
us not to despair of rest.

" The spirits of some of tho wisest, and gentlest, and best of
their kind, are here embodied in iron and bronze, and metal and
ivory, and all sorts of workable materials ; dead painters, poets,
sculptors, artists — dead in one sense, alive in another and better
sense — here speak to us in terms the most winning and persua-
sive. Again and again do I wish they were living, that I might
thank them and bless them. Perhaps if they were living I
would rather dispute with them than believe them, but here
they have it all their own way. And their way is the best
here, for they cannot reply if you refuse their lesson, and you
lose the good of it if you carp as to its meaning.' And so I gaze,
and gaze, and gaze, and often find the tears in my eyes, and
often smile with delight, and altogether forget the clogging
weight of this evil-good body, through whose dim but not dark
windows we are compelled to look.

" Jessie will send you our news, which are simply none. —
Your loving son, George."

The visit to Dublin was made more enjoyable by the presence
of his friends, Dr. and Mrs. J. H. Gladstone, and Professor
Voelcker of Cirencester, "a happy family" being formed by
their means, so that he says, looking back on it, " my memories
of Ireland are very pleasant." A merrier party than they were
could scarcely have been found, while business was by no means
forgotten. Dr. Wilson read to the Natural History Section a
paper ' On the electric fishes as the earliest electric machines
employed by mankind,' which was more fully written out
for the * Edinburgh Philosophical Magazine ; ' ^ and to the
Chemical Section a paper 'On the processes for detection of
Fluorine.'^ ' '

After his return Dr. Gladstone received the following account
of his employments : —

1 ' Edin. New Pliil. Mag.,' October 18.57.
•■i ' Brit. Assoc. Reports' for 18.57, p. 61.

1867

ATTACK OF ILLNESS.

447

" My dear John, —

' Tliirty days hath September,
April, June, aud November,'

and on the last day of the first, A.D. 1857, I proceed to answer
your most welcome letter of yesterday.

" I am only getting into working order again. It takes me
some time to settle down after such a whirl as I was in. I have
not exactly been idle, but certainly I have not contrived to do
much. I am rather digesting plans than carrying them out. A
President's Address ; a Syllabus ; three Special Lectures on
Paper, Pens, and Ink ; one on Industrial Museums ; and a
course of prelections on Technology, are at present simmering
together in my head, like the diversified contents of Meg Mer-
rilees' gipsy camp-kettle. To-morrow, when the new month
comes in, I'll begin ladling them off into separate pots and pans,
and fall to the process of cooking properly so called. Mean-
while I am chiefly occupied with Forbes's Life, and Directorial
Correspondence. ... I subjoin two conundrums for May's be-
nefit. They made themselves in my brain the other day, and as
their study is fitted to invigorate the intellect, and act on it as
a powerful tonic, I recommend them to her meditation. The
answers I enclose in a folded paper.

1. In what couiitry are all the people's arms, legs ?

2. What fish are most active when the water is frozen ?

" . . . It is at my pen's point to write about India, but I for-
bear. We shall exchange thoughts on that solemn subject again.
Meanwhile, let me say that my sympathies are not least with
the humane Englishmen who are compelled to be God's battle-
axes on the guilty. Were I in India., I should be hanging and
shooting like the rest of them."

The travelling that autumn had been contemplated with con-
siderable trepidation ; and thankfulness at no apparent bad re-
sults from it was great. A return, however, of that trial vrhicli
had so often come upon him, namely, illness as the winter
session approached, was sent, so that he writes to Mrs. J. H.
Gladstone, on October 22d, " I have been confined to the house
for the last ten days with a sharpish inflammatory attack, de-

iiil

448

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

caxp. X.

manding leeches, and other medical delectations. I told yon
that the doctors had discovered a new malady in my distempered
body, a swelling in the side, which I knew too well was likely
to be used as a pin-cushion to stick thorns into by Satan, And
so it was, liut thanks to the leeches, and the medicines, and the
doctor, and the good nursing, and, above all, to the mercies of
God, I am back to my desk, warned in time to be veiy wary
this winter.

" I ought to be very thankful that the attack did not occur at
Dublin, or on the journey to and fro. I knew the risk I ran,
but the consciousness of duty, and the forgetfidness of that risk
which I made a point of fostering, lest hypochondriasis should
get the upper hand, set me at ease, and would again in similar
circumstances. Break the news gently to A., and if she takes
it too much to heart, remind her that I subscribe to the Widows'
Fund." A. was one of his little wives, then about three years of
aw..

i .. another friend — Miss Otte, St. Andrews-- he speaks of the
great risk of fatal ha-morrhage from sea -sickness, as a source of
anxiety to him while travelling, while he adds, " I am very glad
that I was compelled to travel, and I will go anywhere on duty,
but mere travel rug is to me a burdensome eftbrt. My cup is
full of blessings, -■ nd the tonic bitter-sweet infused into it is all
needed to temper the pleasant draught."

Amidst the varieties simmering in his brain, we have re-
marked a lecture on Industrial Museums. It was undertaken
by request of the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, and de-
livered to its members and a large circle of guests in December ;
the special subject being, ' The Industrial Museum of Scotland
in its relation ^o Commercial Enterprise.' Through the liberality
of Mr. James Eichardson, Master of the Company, it was printed
and distributed widely throughout the country, and wac the
means of securing valuable specimens. The birth of the Museum
he attributes to a conviction, slowly reached, and lying deep in
the hearts of men, that industrial museums were a want of the
age. The idea embodied in it he represents as fourfold, includ-
ing the conception of — 1. An ample Exhibitional Gallery ; 2.
Laboratory and Workshop ; 3. A Library ; and 4. Systematic

18C7-C8.

INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM.

449

re-

Lectures.' In regard to the Museum, lie urges the duties which
Merchant Companies have to discharge, and its claims on their
interest, protection, and encouragement. Most heartily did the
Edinburgh Merchant Company respond to the appeal, lending
influential aid to the success of the Museum, and giving ready
co-operation to the schemes of " their own professor," as they
were wont to call Dr. Wilson. The delay in erecting the pro-
mised buildings for the Museum — a session of Parliament hav-
ing passed without a vote of money for this purpose — was an
intense disappointment, not only to the Director himself, but to
many public bodies, whose interest he had secured, and from
which memorials and deputations had been sent. The site ori-
ginally purchased was too small for the necessary buildings, and
much harassing delay took place before even a promise of more
ground could be obtained. " No amoimt of business -writing,"
he says to his brother, " seems to do otherwise than multiply
letters, and the endless labour I have had to go tlirough in re-
ference to a better site for the Industrial Museum, makes me
soiTy for myself If Arg}'le Square be p\irchased by Government,
and a noble building erected there, whisper into your grandchil-
dren's ears, after I have become historical, that Uncle George had
a hand in that." To his young nieces in Canada, Uncle George
was an occasional correspondent. A note to one of them, dated
March 23d, contains the following inquiries after truth: — " I am
lying in bed, with a beautiful warm blister on one side to keep
the cold out, so that I can't venture upon a big sheet of paper.
. . . The weather here has been veiy inclement, and the fields,
whilst 1 write, are white with snow. Two months of such
weather are more than we are accustomed to, and you may
judge how little it suits us, when I mention that I have only

inatic

1 Arrangements on a different footing have been made since Dr. Wilson's death re-
garding the Museum ; and the Cliair of Tochnolo^'y, founded originally at the sugges-
tion of the Professors of the Edinburgh Univeiiiity, and so warmly welcomed by the
public, has been suppressed, the link closely uniting Commerce and Manufactures
to Science thus being broken. " We require perpetually to tninsfer knowledge
from the wise to the unwise ; from the more wise to the less wise ; and s'.ich a chair
as this, with its associated Museum, is what, in commercial language, would be called
an entrqmt, or exchange for effecting such transfers."— (' What is Technology ? Inau-
gural Lecture for 1855-.')6, p. l.*).) It is evident no want of success attended this Chair,
though unendowed.

2 F

460

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. X.

once been in the garden for the last three months, so cold has
it been. "Who is Mr., or is it Mrs., or Miss Zero, who is always
getting up or down in the cold weather? Is Zero black or
white, lady or gentleman, young or old ? I am told that Zero
is a mad milliner, who insists on dressing everybody in white,
and painting their noses blue. Is that true? Why is she
always letting somebody get above her, or putting somebody
below her ? Is she a school-girl, and a dux or booby ? Is she at
school with you ? Tell me all about her. They say she has
something to do with the freezing point. What's it ? Is it the
point of the nose, or the end of the fingers, or the tip of the ear ?
Write me about these curious things. . . . Vivo is at present
in deep mourning, having lost by death. Lady Fanny Squirrel,
to whom he has long been engaged to be married. Poor fellow,
he has waited long, and we hoped it was to have ended other-
wise. He talks wildly at times about life being a burden to him,
but I don't perceive that his appetite has suffered ; and if any
other dog sets up chat to him, he draws his sword, and is at him
at once. He announces his intention of erecting a monument
to the memory of his peerless Fanny, and then he will join the
army, and spend the rest of his life fighting against the Turks,
i.e., the Cats."

The lectures in the Philosop.'iical Institutlun, already alluded
to, were four in number, their subject being the ' Graphic Indus-
trial Arts.' One of them has become familiar to the public imder
the title, ' Paper, Pen, and Ink.' ^ Of it we shall have occasion
to speak again. Looking back at the session when past, he says,
" For the last two months I have been existing rather than liv-
ing. Sleepless nights ; aching limbs ; the whole day a chronic
malaise; and the smallest work an effort. My only painless
moments were when lecturing. Then I forgot all, as also, of
course, when asleep ; but though assuredly I did sleep at times,
I never had the feeling of rest, and hour after hour on to three
or four in the morning, I wearily rolled about, listening to an-
cient Job saying, ' When I say my bed will comfort me, then
thou scarest me with terrors.' . . . Tlie change of Government
compelled me to get up a new set of petitions for the Museum,

' ' Macniillan's Magazine,' November 1859.

185&

nNDS HIMSELF FORTY.

4&1

and I had three troublesome IfiW cases to work at, and a sketch
of Edward Forbes's Lifu to write for the Royal Society of Edin-
burgh. It is a chapter of the book at which I am now working,
and proposing to work at till it is finished. I find it, however,
so painful a task, that again and again I put it asido. Now I
can look more calmly at the mournful history, and I have much
profitable reading for it in botany, geology, and physical geo-
graphy. . . .

" Time in these telegraph days keeps up with the quickest of
electrical flasheo. Did I not awake one morning in February,
and find myself forty ? It is a desperate age for all the good
one has done, and I say to myself, ' Had I known I should have
lived 80 long, I would have done a great deal more.' And yet,
would I ? Perhaps much less, little as it is. ... I finished, a
week ago, my third course on Technology. I have changed the
subject each year, and have now completed (?) the round of
vegetable, mineral, and animal industrialism, and know my
ground. There are fearful gaps to fill up, and a thousand things
to learn, but I have had some of the same men all the three
years, and have interested even soap-makers in soap-making.
But all this is shockingly egotistical. Tlie meaning is, that we
have a vocation, and will do our best in it. . . . Have we not all
of us a thousand reasons for thanking God that He has been so
merciful to us, and that He has given us so much occasion for
gratefidness ? . . . We are in the hands of God, and know that
our Redeemer liveth, and that our life is hid with Christ in Ood.
I have been thinking a great deal about these things lately, and
with many reproaches, striving to live nearer the Unseen."

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33 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580

(716) 872-4503

452

MEM3IR OP GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

1858.

CHAPTER XL

THE STRUGGLE CLOSES : VICTORY WON.

"So much as moments are exceeded by eternity, and the sighing of a man by the
joys of an angel, and a salutary frov.Ti by the light of God's countenance, a few
groans, by the infinite and eternal hallelujahs ; so much are the sorrows of the godly
to be undervalued in respect of what is deposited for them in the treasures of eter-
nity."

" Translated into the Kingdom of His dear Son."

"April 25, 1858.

"My dear Jeanie, — If you wish to see a lazy man, take
Pussy, mesmerize her, and make her clairvoyante, desire her
(in spirit) to go the railway station, take a ticket, enter a first-
class carriage, and go on, on, on, till she comes to the Bridge of
Allan.

" Tell her to get out there, taking care not to leave her para-
sol or smelling-bottle behind her, enter the omnibus, and request
to be set down at Sunnylaw House. When she is there, she will
mysteriously tell you that an awful black dog, called Betty (in
reality, a very mild canine lady) guards the gate, whilst a con-
t.jxion of her own, stout and comfortable, basks in the sun, as
respec cable cat -matrons of her years love to do. She will far-
ther describe to you a room with one oriel window, looking
south on the bed of a fishing stream and a line of railway, which
occupy different heights in a valley rising into a fine sky-line
crowned with trees, behind which we see the sun set, and the
stars rise.

" Further, after describing a faymale, something like yourself
in look. Pussy will signify that there is a spectacled member of

1858.

FAR BEN IN HEAVEN.

453

the other sex, lounging in an easy chair, making pretence of
studying and working. His name. Pussy will spell for you, if
you give her letters of the alphabet, taking care, of course, that
she is in the mesmeric rapture, and putting down the whole al-
phabet before her on the floor. She will then hunt among the
letters till she finds one, snatch it up like a mouse, and deposit
it in a corner, then another hunt, and another deposit, and so
on, till the whole word is made thus : D — — S — I — E — ,
which being interpreted reads Dosie, a name given to me by,
we won't say whom, because I am always in a doze. You wiU
then immesmerize Pussy, and give her a bowl of cream. — Your
loving George."

Such are the directions given to a sister to discover the spring
retreat. Notes to his mother speak of the house as " delight-
fully situated, looking out over a wide stretch of hill and valley,
with something higher than hills on the horizon, a stream in the
lowest valley-bed, and fields between, occupied at present by
matron sheep with lambs, some black, some white. One patient
mother has, by maternal right or adoption, both a black and a
white lamb, and I interpret her language towards the thirsty
and impatient couple to be

* Drink fair
My piebald pair.'

" I wonder if an American ewe has ever one twin black and
the other white ? I reckon not. The greatest nation in crea-
tion would be endangered by such an event. Poor Blackie
would be quickly doomed to Lynch law. . . . Before I left
Edinburgh, a friend told me that his late grandmother, when
nearly ninety, speaking of heaven, said, ' It was nae for the
like of Jenny Brown and her to expect to get far ben ; but
may be they would get seats on the hinmost^ benks near the
door.' Good old body, I hope she is far ben by this time."

" Tuesday.

"As I have not the porcelain tablet^ beside me, I pick up

< Farthest back seats.
' « Conversation with his mother was often carried on by means of the tablet al-
luded to. It is now preserved, with the last words he wrote on it, no one being
permitted to use it after him.

454

MEMOIfi OF OEOBOE WILSON.

CHAP. XL

this scrap of paper instead thereof to write a line upon. I think
I begin to mend. Yesterday was a delightful day. My limbs
ache less. I sleep better, and feel less languid. The great quiet-
ness and serenity of this place calm and soothe me, and the
almost entire rest to which I surrender myself, is slowing my
pulse, and clearing my brains perceptibly. We have what I
have long wished for, a western window with a wide prospect.
Lambs and crows, and the sound of running water ; the steam-
engine whistle, and the lowing of distant cattle, prevent utter
solitude. The sky is ever changing, and in the evening a
crescent moon and the evening star play at hide-and-seek
among the clouds."

From this pleasant life, with "the absence of business-worry,
the easy morning's literary work, the long profitable readings
and meditations, and the soothing influence of green fields, and
blue or sunny skies," he was speedily roused, and cast into the
whirlpool of this world's cares. Intelligence reached him while
at Bridge of Allan of the death of Dr. Gregory, Professor of Che-
mistry in the Edinburgh University. He mourned the loss of
one so amiable and so accomplished, but did not consider his
own prospects affected by it. So passed a day or two, in un-
consciousness of the stir on his behalf in town, from which, at
last, came a kind friend urgently to insist on his appearing as a
candidate for the Chair. The result we shall give as much as
possible in his own words.

"May 7.

" My dear Daniel, — The enclosed [a letter to the patrons as
candidate] will startle you as much as it does myself. I left
Edinburgh three weeks ago, anticipating nothing but a long rest.
In my absence Dr. Gregory died very unexpectedly. He had
long been poorly, and had scarcely lectured this winter, but no
one thought him near death. I had no thought of trying for
this Chair, but without waiting for my consent, such a troop of
friends, including Councillors, have taken up my case that,
Tiolens volens, I am in the field. I look at the matter very com-
posedly. For purely personal reasons, I should rather remain
as I am ; for others I could change. I shall cheerfully abide

1868L

CHAIB OF CHEMISTRY.

the issue. The suspense is very, very unwelcome, but must be
borna As yet I scarcely feel that I am a candidate.

" May 14.

" Many thanks for your^ good wishes in reference to the
Chemistry Chair. A perfect phalanx of friends has gathered
around me, and shown me an amount of kindness enough to
make proud, and at the same time humble, any man. But as
yet I can say nothing of prospects. Meanwhile, don't stop col-
lecting for the Museum. We must make it and keep it famous,
whatever happens."

Such suspense was not helpful to physical -^ellbeing. " I
cannot write at length," he says, " for I have an open blister on
my right arm, and every now and then it makes my nerves
quiver as if my elbow were laid on a Euhmkoff"s coiL This
does not conduce to legible writing or elegant composition."

On May 20th, he encloses to his brother a letter of with-
drawal, saying, " The enclosed will let you know that I have
retired from the Chemistry Chair. I need not tell you that to
do this has cost a sore effort. I was sure of the Chair. A large
majority of the Council had declared for me. . . . The kind-
ness, respect, and admiration unsolicitedly expressed towards
me by people I never saw, have unspeakably touched and hum-
bled me.

" The Chair, you know, was the object of my youthful ambi-
tion. A position of honour and influence is afforded by it such
as few positions give. Why then refuse it ? Simply because it
would have been a fatal promotion. I could not have faced the
physical labour. So, convinced was I of this, that I had no pur-
pose of standing. ... I accept the issue without repining. We
have both been taught in different ways that ' man proposes,
but God disposes.' When He took away my health. He taught
me to lay aside as unrealizable my ambition ; and two years
ago I fully resigned myself to see the Chemistry Chair go past
me. I should be the most thankless of men if I made light of
what is left me, or disallowed the comforts and honours of my
present appointment. The one point which more than any

' Mr. Godfrey Wedgwood.

456

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

other weighed with me was the possibility of my allowing
a valetudinarian pusillanimity to keep me from hazarding new
duties.

• « • • •

" So farewell the dream that I should fiU the Chair of Black,
though I should have taken my chance as a public chemical
prelector against any of my contemporaries, and not been afraid
though the eidolon of Black himself had attended mthout a
ticket."

This letter is written apparently with effort, the writing being
unsteady. The next to Daniel, of June 4, gives evidence of
improvement in the " write arm," as he calls it, in its clear, firm
characters : —

" Many thanks for youi kind letter. By this time you will
have learned the issue of the Chemistry Chair election so far as
I am concerned. I need not repeat that to withdraw was a sore
trial, which is not lessened by finding on every side assurances
from Councillors that I should have been unanimously elected.
Nevertheless, I do not doubt that I did right. My intellectual
vigour is, I think, what it was. My moral faculties are, I trust,
disciplined for the better; but my body is frailer, especially
limgwards. Even in unusually balmy, genial weather hke this,
I find walking or climbing infallibly bring on difficulty of
breathing and frequently spitting of blood ; and in winter, when
the weather is otherwise, I scarcely walk at alL In these cir-
cumstances, I could contemplate with no prospect of success the
cares of the Chemical Chair. I gave way last winter in Feb-
ruary, and, till a week ago, have not known what painless exist-
ence is for an hour at a time. I can endure this with some
(though far too little) patience, but it leaves no surplus for the
energetic work of an important Chair. I therefore resign with
a composed air, hiding any disappointment I may feel. They
are in the thick of the canvass, and I am whirled into it, visiting
Councillors. It is work I exceedingly dislike, and it is not
made more likeable by Councillors on all sides telling me that
I might have saved them all this trouble by not withdrawing.

1858.

WITHDRAWAL FROM CANVASS.

457

However, one does for a friend what one would not do for one's-
self."

His tone in writing to friends is almost apologetic, so urgent
were they that he should stand. The zeal of one Councillor
amused him not a little, who replied to an objection on the
score of health, " I would give him the Chair though I knew he
should die the week after." To Dr. Cairns, whose counsel and
sympathy had been precious in those weeks of anxiety, he
writes : —

mg.

" I left the matter in the hands of God, and my prayer for
ligiit has been answered. I am quite satisfied that I have arrived
. t the wisest conclusion, and am very thankful to be rid of sus-
pense and serenely at work again. ... It costs an effort to give
up an honourable office for which one's life had been a training,
and which came within reach in so honourable a way. But I do
not repine in the least. On the other hand, I am very grateful
for the unlooked-for kindness and respect shown me, and bend
my knees in thankfulness to God for His abounding mercies."

During what remained of his life, he became ever more
satisfied as to the decision then made, and an increase of his
salary, as Director of the Industrial Museum, from £300 to £400,
was expressive, so far, of a consciousness of his value. This was
his last struggle with worldly ambition, and out of it he came
so visibly purified, that his growing gentleness and patience
were subjects of remark amongst those who most dearly loved
him.

The summer session was wound up by an address given at a
conversazione of the College of Physicians, Edinburgh. A few
days at St. Andrews followed, when, at the request of his host,
Dr. Day, he sat to Mr. Eodgers for the calotype from which the
portrait attached to this volume is engraved. The month of
August and part of September were spent in a small farm
house, near Innerleithen. The only dwelling visiV i from it is
a deserted house at a considerable distance. The Tweed passes
before it, and " the little hiUs rejoice on every side." To be
thus alone with nature was a solace to the weary worker, crav-

468

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XL

1868.

ing for rest. " We have been here," he tells hi& brother, " for
more than a month, beside the rippling Tweed and the quiet
hills, singularly well off in some respects ; nevertheless, I have
not felt moved to write to you, being too tired after a summer's
engrossing work to feel a pen a welcome instrument, and com-
pelled notwithstanding to keep it going for some hours each
day. A holiday without any heavy writing is one of the
delights I look forward to. Lots of continuous reading in the
open air, with many musings over what is read ; perhaps a verse
or two spun, but the brain upon the whole lying fallow, or get-
ting only a mild top-dressing of intellectual guano, is my lazy
notion of a rustical month of holidays. I would have written
to you if I had had anything to write, but I had nothing in the
way of business, and the reflection on paper of my monotonous
life here would give no amusement. I had a faint purpose of
going to Leeds to the British Association meeting, which comes
off ten days hence, but I don't feel strong enough for the excite-
ment, and won't go. I paid for my Dublin journey last autumn
with a sharp attack of splenitis, which pulled me down all the
winter ; and my w<^fl^ lungs bleed on the least provocation.
It makes me smile grimly to find that I must avoid a volume of
* Punch,' as he makes me laugh at a rate of which my wind
organ by no means approves. Here I am resting these trouble-
some bellows, so as to make them serviceable for winter's work."
A volume of 'Punch' was a frequent addition to the books
selected for country reading. On one occasion a large parcel,
brought to the railway station when starting, was found to con-
sist of four volumes of that periodical. A niece, about five or
six years old, shared the pleasure of this study one autumn.
Each day after dinner were the illustrations admired by the two
together, clear ringing laughter testifying to the appreciation of
them, till at last the child declared as her settled conviction,
" Oh ! Uncle George, I think ' Punch ' is the most delightful
book in the world !" and that Uncle George was of the same
mind she could not doubt.

While at Innerleithen the comet of 1858 began to show itself
distinctly to the naked eye, and was often watched from the
cottage door as it appeared above a hill directly opposite. At

1868.

THREATENED WITH ERYSIPELAS.

459

first George's mother had difficulty in distinguishing it, but one
night she announced having seen it. " Did you see it wag
its tail ? " asked he gravely, as if no other evidence could be
received. " All 1 George," was the reply, " the waggery is all
in you."

The Memoir of Edward Forbes nade some progress this sea-
son, but the associations it recalled made it very trying work.
" The reading of Ed. Forbes's papers," he says, " continually
brings before me the fate of my fellow-students, and often sad-
dens me beyond endurance. I would lose heart and hope my-
self but for the hope of an endless and blessed life beyond the
grave ; yet is not the life of Christ enough to show us that on
this earth sorrow and suffering are the appointed rule for most
(I do not say for all), and may we not suffer with Him that we
may rise in glory with Him also ? May the blessed Saviour lead
us in His own bleeding footsteps to the rest that remaineth for
the children of God!"

To Dr. Cairns he writes, after returning to town : — " Greatly
did I desire to see you, greatly wish to have a long, long talk
about heaven and earth, the world that is, and the world that is
to be. . . . Come to see us as soon as you can, and give me the
benefit of a long Christian gossip with you. The way of life
grows, blessed be God, clearer and clearer to me, and I know
Christ better and better, though there is much darkness and
despondency still, and weak faith, and downright sin. But I
am thankful for much light and peace, and hope for more."

The introductory lecture on Technology for 1858-9 has been
published, under the title ' The Progress of the Telegraph.' ^
Under what circumstances the session was opened, a letter to
his brother Daniel, of date November 25, explains: —

" Lest to-morrow should prove, like all recent Fridays for a
long time back, a letterless day, I take a sheet of paper into
bed with me and begin an epistle. ... In spite, as seemed, of
all needful rustication, I was threatened on the very eve of be-
ginning this winter's course with erysipelas in the legs, and had
to spend the day before opening in bed. I was induced to think

> Macmillan & Co., Cambridge and London. 1859.

460

MEMOIB OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

that I might require to bon-ow the deceased Peggy Brown's
lapidary inscription, with the due change of gender :—

I ' She had two bad legs and a baddish cough,

But the legs it was that carried her off.' ^

The legs got better, but by way of mending the cough, I contrived,
forgetting as I always do that I am a damaged locomotive, to fall
upon the cbrner of a thick board, and hit my side such a thump
that I thought I had broken a rib. However, it was not frac-
tured, though it has ached and bothered me sufficiently to stop
all extra work, including hospitalities and letters. The said
cr aered board had on it one of the plans for the New Industrial
Mujeum, about which I was much concerned.

• •••••

" Students abound this winter, especially juniors. I think
myself well off with thirty-five. My class is a very pleasant
one. An Indian general, an artillery lieutenant, who lost a bit
of his skull (but certainly none of his brains) at Lucknow, an
engineer officer, four Indian surgeons, a navy surgeon, a W.S.,
several young ministers, and a wind up of farmers, tanners, &c.
They are a pleasant lot to lecture to, and I have re-arranged my
laboratory for them, where we meet comfoitably. Only a little
better health and — but why complain ?

" Forgive the valetudinarian haziness of this. We are well."

The tendency to erysipelas, of which this letter speaks, con-
tinued more or less from that time onwards, and compelled him
to even more seclusion than hitherto. Previously it had been
his custom to write or read for some hours almost every evening
to the sound of the pianoforte, or, as he called it, his " private
band." Favourite songs, and morsels of Beethoven, Mendelssohn,
or Handel, were encored ad infinitum, with an occasional Nigger
melody or simple air. A v;histling accompaniment bctckened
the special favourites, work of the lighter kind going on all the
while. His love for music has already been spoken of, "Music !
music ! Some time or other, if not in this world, at least in the
next, I win drink my full of it." After hearing Jenny Lind

1888.

EVENINOS IN BED.

4GI

sing he says : " I was greatly delighted and comforted. Music
is an amazing thing even upon this earth, v hat must it be in
heaven?" On first hearing the Messiah in Exeter Hall, its
effect was so overpowering that he could scarcely stagger out of
the place.

But now these pleasures had to be foregone, and the evening
spent in bed, where, surrounded by books and writing materials,
he carried on his literary work for five or six hours consecu-
tively. "Special calls were attended to as before, but all avail-
able time was spent in a recumbent posture, with application of
lotions. At the close of December he tells his brother : " I
have no news to send you of a stirring sort. The winter hitherto
has been more than ordinarily monotonous : much of it spent
in bed, and much of it in doing work with an effort. This
morning I am somewhat seedy, in consequence of au hour and
three quarters' lecture last night at Leith.

" I was induced to give it to help the funds of a Free Church,
presided over by one of those pre-eminently good and lovable
men, to whom less good and lovable people cannot say No, and
who should be taken periodically before a magistrate and
cautioned against asking favours from their brethren. Ketum-
ing from this lecture I speculated, as I suppose you do on such
occasions, as to the good such prelections do. In this case I
had the comfort of knowing that I had helped to raise £50 for
the cause — a consolation seldom to be had. The ordinary res alt
I take to be such as was experienced by a young minister
lecturing on astronomy in the south countiy to an audience of
shepherds, etc. He had dUated pretty largely on the immense
distances which separate the heavenly bodies from each other,
and when his lecture was over, a friend heard two of the shep-
herds discussing its merits : — ' Jock ! d'ye believe a' the minister
said ? ' To which Jock replies (more Scottico), * Div ye ? ' and
Tam emphatically answers, ' No ae word ! '

" I am going off to Bridge of Allan for three or four days
next week, in hope that it will set me up a bit, and enable me
to work with less sense of oppressive dulness than has been the
case hitherto."

402

MKMOIR OF OEOROE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

18».

" Bhiikib or AMiAM, Deemibtr 20, 1868.

" My deau ^Iotiier, — ' How did Tubal-Cain first learn to
work iron ? ' J was about to have that momentous question
answered when the train reached this, and had to hurry out
without receiving a reply. The chance of having the problem
stated above made clear, is not likely to occur again. I may, 1
think, make up my mind that I won't, however long I live, find
any one in a condition to tell me how Smith the first learned to
hammer iron. Yet my neighbour in the railway carriage,
whom Uncle could not fail to recognise as having something
aiitcdiluvian about him, seemed to know all about the matter.
We had been talking about iron-manufacture, when suddenly
referring to a supposed improvement which a very ignorant
person had, as he imagined, ' introduced' into iron-making, not
aware that the practice was immemorially ancient, my fellow-
traveller said to me, ' Why, Tubal-Cain found that out the
second day.'

" Well, thought I to myself, if you know what T. C. did the
second day, perhaps you can tell me what he did the first, and
so I put the question which begins this note, I lost the onswer,
but I don't think, though I had gone on to Aberdeen with my
good friend, I would have got more than an oracular response.
He could answer other questions, however, and is largely to
help the museum, for which I begged all the way.

" We are in quiet comfortable lodgings. I am steadily pro-
gressing with my lectures. To-day is magnificently bright, and
we shall presently visit Dunblane.

" Your loving son

George."

On the first Sabbath of 1859, he tells Dr. Gladstone : —

" I found your kind and welcome letter awaiting me here on
my return from Bridge of Allan, where Jessie and I had four
very quiet and pleasant days. I have not felt up to the mark
at all this winter. . . . My worst complaint is a readily-recurring
haemorrhage from the lungs, which, though passive rather than
active, none the less steals the life-blood away, and is the cause,
I suppose, of the sense of weariness, good-for-nothingness,
slough-of-despondness, as May, I imagine, would call it, which

1809.

FOUR DAYS AT BRIDaE OP ALLAN.

4G3

has lain heavily upon me. I ran away to the Bridge of Allan
to mend this, carrying with me Jessie, a Bible, the Life of
Milton, the Life of Douglas Jerrold, Miss Adelaide Procter's
Lyrics, four or five volumes on chemistry, and paper, pens, and
ink. I studied some six hours, meditating and simmering over
the metals on which I am to give four special lectures, and
wishing a dozen times that you and other chemical friends were
within call. I read Jerrold, a bit of Milton, and lots of Miss
Procter, wrote out nearly a whole lecture, moralized and cJiiatted
with Jessie, visited the magnificent neighbourhood, dined early,
went to bed early, and came back decidedly the better of my
journey.

"I have done little this winter. You will receive one of
these days a new edition of the Electric Telegraph, also a lec-
ture on it. I raised a little money for a school by a lecture on
balloons, and helped at a very pleasant meeting to raise money
for the Special Indian Missionary Fund, and took a liearty part
at another assemblage intended to establish a Medicul Mission-
ary Dispensary, where the young men will be trained as medi-
cal practitioners and evangelists at the game time. It is a step
in the right direction, and I hope will prosper.

" When I heard of your lighthouse appointment, I said they
have selected John Gladstone not to look after the lights, as I
daresay he imagines, but to look after the b(u)oys, whom he has
done so much for at the Bloomsbury Branch. Here I will not
touch upon secularities. About coloured lights, etc., I will
trouble you with a week-day letter, containing some cl».emico-
physical speculations. This is a Sabbatic one.

" I rejoice to hear of your success with the young men. God
bless you in your work ! It is worth all other work, and far
beyond all Greek and Boman fame, all literary or scientific tri-
umphs. And yet it is quite compatible with both. Douglas
Jerrold's life is most sad to read. In many respects it gave me
a far higher estimate of him morally than I had had before.
Indeed, I did not pretend to know nor to judge him, but I fan-
cied him to have been a less lovable, domestic person than he
was. But what a pagan look-out ! What an ethnic view of
this world and the next ! He might as well have been bom in

464

MEMOIR 03" GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

I860.

the days of Socrates or Seneca as in these days, for any good
Christ's coming apparently did him. There is something un-
speakably sad in his life, and it was better than that of many a
litterateur. The ferocity of attack on cant and hypocrisy ; the
girding at religion, which they cannot leave alone ; above all,
the dreary, meagre, cheerless, formal faith, and the dim and
doubtful prospect for the future, are features in that litterateur-
life most saddening and disheartening,

"And the men of science, are they better? God forbid I
should slander my brethren in study, men above me in intel-
lect, capacity, and accomplishment. I delight to know that so
many of them are Christ's willing followers and beloved ser-
vants. Bat recently I have come across four of the younger
chemists, excellent fellows, of admirable promise and no small
performance. I was compelled to enter into some religious con-
versation (not discussion) with them, and found them creedless.
I don't mean without written or church creed, but having con-
structed no ' I believe' for themselves. Standing in that mad-
dest of all attitudes, viz., with finpr^r pointed to this religious
body and that religious body, expatiating upon their faults, as
if at the day of judgment it would avail them anything that the
Baptists were bigoted and the Quakers self-righteous !

" These scientific brethren of ours watxjh us, no doubt, not in
an unkind, but still in a critical and unconsciously analytical
spirit, and see the motes in our eyes as the spots in the sun.
And are they not entitled to count these spots ? and can we
Diamt; them for judging us as lights, which we ought to be, and
demand that the light that is in us be not darkness ?

" Oh to tell them kindly and wisely not to try themselves by
us, who are but dim and tarnished reflectors of the Divine
brightness, staining and colouring the few rays we do retain,
instead of sending them back pure and white as they fell upon
us, but to look to Him who is light, and ir whom is no dark-
ness at aU ; and when they find that they cannot look on that
awful splendour and live, to turn to Him who is the brightness
of His Father's glory, yet so veiled in sinless flesh that all live
the better by looking to Him, and none indeed truly live other-
wise than through and by Him who is the light of life.

to give

1860.

burns' centenary.

465

ser-

" I see I have been rhapsodizing, but i don't often do so. I
hope one of these days for an opportunity of addressing the de-
votional meeting of our Edinburgh University students. If so,
I shall try to urge the scientific class to believe in Christ as the
Head of the Schools of Science as much as of the Church called
by His name, and to ask the litterateurs ",vhat the tongues of men
and of angels will do for them if faith, hope, and charity, are
not in their hearts, and the greatest amongst the three — charity.

" Send me the Eecreation Essay. As a nation we are, I sup-
pose, the worst in the world at keeping holiday. We take our
pleasure sadly, and the sadly changes wofully fast into sinfuU3^

" The Total Abstinence Society here wanted me to speak at
a great Centenary Burns meeting, but I was glad that I had a
previous engagement. I wish the abstainers all success, but
their merits and those of Burns belong to very different cate-
gories. I could not praise them together, and to make a memo-
rial celebration of Burns an occasion for pointing morals from
his sins, is, I think, a duty not asked by God or man at our
hands. I refer to this as an unfortunate endeavour to turn a
holiday into a fast-day. Let holidays be holidays. I count on
a copy of your paper.

" The best of good wishes to May, and love the fondest, best,
and truest to A, till Valentine's Day come, Secularities an-
other time. I wiU allow my letter conscience a small siesta,
Jessie sends a Christmas-box full of love.

" Your affectionate friend, George Wilson."

To Dr. Cairns he speaks of the time spent at Bridge of Allan
as " four delightful days of rest and recruitment of body and
soul, including, or rather included in, ' rest in the Lord.' Since
returning, I have been greatly better, and I am now workably
weU. A load of labour has saved you the infliction of a letter
hitherto. ... I was at a very delightful devotional meeting of
medical students in the University on Friday night. They
asked me to preside, and after in vain tiying to wiite a suitable
address, I resolved, in God's strength, to speak from my heart
to theirs, in the name of Christ, and it pleased the blessed Spirit
to give me some utterance for them. I am to preside next week

2 G

466

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XL

at a veiy different meeting, viz., one of the Bums Centenary
meetings. I was asked to take part in two, which I declined.
I agreed to become a steward at the Music Hall, as the quietest
way of escaping ; but a week ago the Trades* Delegates came to
me as Industrial Professor, to take the chair at their meeting in
Queen Street Hall, and I agreed, provided the Music Hall people
would let me off. This they reluctantly did. I shall be criticised
and condemned by certain religious people for this step, but my
conscience approves it. The duty has come in a fourfold way to
me. I think it is quite possible to commemorate the birthday
of Burns without being guilty of idolatry, or partaking in his
sins. I think, moreover, that I may give the meeting a bias in
a direction no Christian will lament, and which another might
not do. I have made it matter of solemn consideration, and I
hope your prayers for me will not be wanting." Of this meet-
ing he says to his brother, " I believe I may honestly say that,
as a continuous success, it was the best meeting in Edinburgh.
The only shadow of mishap was occasioned by an ill-timed al-
lusion. . . . Otherwise a more decorous, cheerful, hearty meet-
ing, I never was at, and the old man Glover (a ganger, and now
a centenarian), who appeared at it, was a wonder himself The
scene between him and me — for to me he addressed all his re-
marks — was described by those who were onlookers as amusing
in the highest degree. He asked me, among other things, if 1
' kent what a clachan was ;' and after dating some event by the
year of the great storm, suggested interrogatively, ' But that wad
be afore your time ?' I asked the year : ' 1 795 !' The quiet man-
ner with which he told of his supplanting thievish carriers who
tapped the rum puncheons between Edinburgh and Dumfries,
and how ' nae bung started wi' him,' was great, especially when
he added, ' hut I had a gimlet !'...! write this in bed, far on
in the nig>t. Here we are all well."

Of the students' devotional meeting spoken of in a previous
letter, a record remains in a few notes, apparently written in
haste, and of which only the closing head can be clearly made
out. It is as follows, and is suggestive enough : " V. This
Blessed and Adorable Saviour, the Elder Brother, the Master,
the Eedeemer, the Life-Giver, the Judge, the Atoner, the Crea-

1859.

THE " ALPHA AND OMEGA."

467

tor, the Teacher." It was confessions like this that led Dr.
Alexander to say, " I have often felt as if there was something
sublime in this man, with his fragile frame and modest attitude,
standing amongst the aristocracy of science, or before some popu-
lar assembly, or in the presence of his students, and calmly,
imostentatiously, with the simplicity of a chUd and the unfal-
tering confidence of a confessor, giving utterance to the senti-
ments of faith and worship that came, as from his inner soul,
spontaneously from his lips."* The grace with which illus-
trations from Scripture were introduced into his public ad-
dresses was peculiarly his own, and the reverential love with
which all was evidently laid at the feet of the Saviour, had
something triumphant and joyous in it, elevating for the time
the most thoughtless of his audience. He had the power, so rare
even among earnest Christians, of consecrating to God every
act of business, thus offering the devotion of a worshipper as
truly in his laboratory and lecture- room as in the sanctuary.
To those who were privileged to join in prayer with him, this
was most apparent. ' In the morning there was the petition for
help, support, and guidance, and in the evening the calm offer-
ing up of all the acts of the day, to be purified and accepted for the
sake of the great Mediator. Few mannerisms marked his prayers,
but two desires often found expression, " that in all things Christ
might have the pre-eminence," and that "having begun in
Christ, we may end in none else." Jesus was the " Alpha and
Omega" to him, and therefore did his light shine clearly before
his fellow-men.

c-rEeference has been made to preparation of lectures during the
Christmas week. They were the last he delivered before the
Philosophical Institution, four in number, ' On the Metals in
their Industrial Eelations.' This was the eighth course of lec-
tures addressed to the audiences of this Association, and it
might have been imagined they had had enough of him. Men
of the highest eminence were on their staff of lecturers, and
many from a distance to whom novelty lent a new charm ; yet
so far from becoming weaiy of George Wilson during the four-
teen years that he appeared before them, they seemed to think

' Fiineval Sermon, by Dr. W. L. Alexander, p. 28. A. and C. Black, Edin. 1859.

468

MEMOIR OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

the last course better than the first. His own mind was ever
amassing fresh stores of knowledge, and he delighted to make a
feast of these for his brethren. Again and again, too, did he
come to their aid, on very brief notice, and at considerable
personal inconvenience, when a lecturer was unable to fulfil his
engagement to them; and of this they had a most grateful
sense.

After a professional visit to Newcastle in the beginning of
March, he tells Dr. Cairns, " Since I came back I have been
discoursing to Dr. Candlish's Bible-class, by his request, on a
physico-theological subject, and I have promised a word to the
Congregational Soiree of Lady Tester's. It is pleasant even to
sand the floor, or change the sawdust carpet of the outer vesti-
bule of the house of God. Would that 1 could only give them
a word in season !

" I am better than I was earlier in the winter, but constantly
visited by returns of haemoptysis, and compelled to be very wary
and watchful.

" I ask myself often, whether it is mere languor and stupidity,
or anything deserving to be called becoming contentment and
composure, that keeps me from complaining and repining. I
hope there is a little of sincere gratefulness to the Giver of all
good gifts ; but there ought to be, and might be, a great deal
more.

" When are you coming to stir me up ? You owe me a
return for staring out of the window of the railway carriage at
Berwick, in hope of seeing you."

Shortly afterwards, though "terribly over- worked, and far
from well," he had to visit London professionally, and was uu
able on this account to be present at the meeting in Lady
Tester's Church to which he alludes. On the journey up, the
lamp in the railway carriage went out. While his companions
slumbered, or chatted together in the darkness, " I fell to mus-
ing," he says, " and then to trying how many verses of the Bible
I could recall. I was very sorry to find I knew so few, but glad
also to find I knew so many." During the week spent in
London, he accomplished what one of his coadjutors asserted
would have taken three weeks in any hands but his. " I have

1860.

IN TWO PLACES AT ONCE.

4G9

been counting my visits, and find that I have been four times
at the Department of Science and Art, four times at the Office
of "Works, twice at the Council of Education, and once at the
Treasury, besides all the other doings. I v .a much knocked
about, but the weather was good, and the absence of lecture-
work saved me from suffering."

Eetiring to the country during the few weeks' interval between
the winter and summer sessions, he for the last time visited his
spring resort. Dr. Gladstone, to whom the following letter is
addressed, had shortly before been appointed as one of the Com-
missioners for the inspection of lighthouses : —

" Bridoe of Allan, April 20, 1859.

" My dear Light, Buoyant, and Beaconal Eoyal Commis-
sioner, — From the moment I set foot in Edinburgh on my
return, till three minutes past four o'clock, Greeenwich time,
yesterday, when the guard whistled, the bell rang, the engine
snorted, and the train * for the North' started, I have not known
what the feeling of rest was. When one piece of work was
completed, instead of the trumpets playing ' See the Conquering
Hero comes,' the drum-major, or some other noisy fellow shouted
out, * Silence in the ranks.' Order of the Day, ' G. W. to be in
two places at once, to do three things at the same time, to have
as many hands as a Hindu god, and all his Sabbaths to be
merely Sundays.' By command.

" In consequence of this order I have been showing the
Museum to the Duke of Argyle's family, whilst I was giving
evidence in a court of law on the nature of sea-water, and
examining the candidates for an agricultural diploma, and visit-
ing the glass-works with my class, and lecturing to the assembled
teachers of Glasgow, and studying calico printing with Mr.
Walter Cnmi, and writing certificates for my class, and adjudging
prizes, and reading a paper to the Royal Society of Edinburgh
on Cavendish, and paying away lots of money ; besides many
other things too numerous to mention.

" In 8ob3r seriousness, I have seemed for the last three weeks
to hear a little imp constantly dinning in my ear 'what ncxtT
and it was not one next, but a long line, the most of which I
have either disposed of finally, or at least chloroformed, and left

470

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

behind in a state of anaesthesia, guaranteed to last for a fortnight.
The more pressing and clamorous I have brought with me, and
am polishing off, beginning with your letter.

"At the sea-water^ trial I was asked a question, which I ad-
minister herewith to Lady May, with a view to test and strengthen
her intellectual agility, subtlety, and profundity. 'It being
admitted that the fresh water flows from mouths of rivers far
out into the sea, and is found floating fresh in the open ocean,
and you (G, W.) showing a manifest tendency to define a stream
of fresh water as a river, I (the cross [sometimes very cross]
examining counsel) ask you, if you call such mid-ocean fresh-
water a river, ivhat are its hanks ? ' The questioner, in this case
a good-tempered, very sharp fellow, thought he had me, and all
in court, as my German teacher used to say, ' pricked veil up
their ears.' I was totally unprepared for the question, but one
of the little turnkeys who keeps the door of a memory-cell
hastened to my help, and prompted by him, I replied, ' Lieu-
tenant Maury declares that the Gulf Stream is a river of hot
water flowing between banks of cold ; mine is a river of fresh
water flowing between banks of salt water.' The Court smiled
applause, and with a courteous glance from Advocate Crux, I
vanished from the witness-box.

" In conclusion I may say,
Fresh-water won the day.
Which holds out the prospect of much better ppy.

" Besides the multitudinous labours referred to so modestly
on a previous page, I have to mention that I addressed five
copies of Colour- Blindness to the Millbank Street office. I hope
the commissioners will make ' Light' of paying the carriage.

" You ask for my health. I was decidedly the better of my
visit to London. The stoppage of brain work ; the spectacle of
the great bee-hive, with all its drones and workers, honey-
makers and honey-eaters, its constitutional queen, and assault-
ing wasps, always immensely exhilarating to me ; the contact
with the great little men who rule the world ; the handling of
that most wonderful invention red tape, which, according as you
will, is so strong, that a Samson could not break a thread of it,

» The question at issue was, ' What is salt and what is fresh water V

1859.

THE WOKLD TO COME NEARER.

471

and so weak, that if you breathe on it, it disappears like heated
gun-cotton ; the gazing face to face, and as one always feels,
perhaps for the last time, at the good Faraday, and other great,
lovable, or at least admirable men ; the long profitable chats
with the landlord of the Tavistock ;^ the genial controversies
with Lady May, leader of Her Majesty's opposition ; the sweet
face of dear A. There ! I have got to the top of the hill, and I
must stop a bit to recover my wind. AU these London expe- ■
riences did me good, especially as my Sabbath at Cambridge
was, though a sad, yet a pleasant modulation in another key. of
the London strain.

" The change of weather has a little undone that good, yet I
don't think seriously. — Your affectionate friend,

" George Wilson."

Ungenial weather lessened out-door pleasures while in the
country. " The hiUs all round, and even low down, had white
mantles yesterday, and some of them are slow to part with them
to-day. The only plants that appear to enjoy the weather are
the snowdrops, and they come ready-made out of the sky."
" Snow, rain, and hail, have apparently been recommended
change of air, and come here in search of it. The day before
yesterday another stranger. High Wind, Esq., whom I never
met here before, paid the village a visit, and made a great row ;
but he has packed up, and I hear nothing of him to-day.

" I brought with me an aching ann, which, had it been a leg,
I should have declared was suffering from gout. To-day, how-
ever, I am better, and the peace and quietness are, as they
always do, doing me good."

At the close of May, in writing to Dr. Cairns, he alludes to
the physical languor felt throughout the previous winter, and
adds, " I cannot say that morally I have spent an unhappy or
an unprofitable winter. The powers of the world to come draw
nearer to me than ever, and stand in a more benignant relation.
lu " I have become wondrously indifferent to the praise of men,
but increasingly anxious to do my daily work, which is far from
unpleasant, honestly, heartily, and earnestly. I would count it

1 Dr. Gladstone, his host, was then resident in Tavistock Square.

472

MEMOIR OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAr. XI.

1869.

no healthy token if I shrank from daily work. Far otherwise,
I wish I were ten times stronger and healthier than I am, to do
ten times more work in the great Taskmaster's eye. But in spite
of many disheartening and even distressing things, and cares,
and fears, and sins, I have tasted so largely of the mercies of
God ; the all-attractiveness of the bleSsed Saviour's character,
and the perfection of his example, have risen more recently into
such prominence before me ; and the sense of a higher presence,
enabling me to enter into communion with God, and to pray
acceptably unto Him, has so filled my heart, that the tilings of
this life arrange themselves according to a new perspective, and
seem much smaller and farther off than they did before.

" After a year's experience, I have every reason to be satisfied
with my decision about the Chemistry Chair. I have never
once repented it."

"July 20.

" I have been very busy, w th a good deal of work connected
with my office.

" Tn health, however, I am wonderfully well, and abundantly
cheerful I have had the opportunity this summer of taking
part in several meetings of a religious character, and have felt
more faith, and courage, and comfort in being at them, than I
think I ever did before.

" I have increasingly to thank God that He makes my path
clear to me, and that to spend and be spent in Christ's service is
my chief desire.- These are not things I write about to almost
any one but yourself, and they are rather, as I always feel, to be
buried in one's own heart, or brought out in prayer to God, than
given to the light openly."

During tills spring and summer one or two scientific papers
were read to Societies. One addressed to the Royal Society has
already received notice ;^ another was read to the Photographic
Society ;^ and a third to the Botanical Society.^

1 ' On the Recent Vindication, ox the Priority of Cavendish as the Discoverer of
the Composition of Water.'— R.j.E., April 1869.

* * On Dryness, Darkness, and Coldness, as means of preserving Photographs
from fading.' — ' Journal of Photographic Society, 1859.'

* * On the Fruits of Cucurbitaceae and Crescentiacete, as Models of various articles
of Industrial Use.'—' Trans. Botan. Soc. 1859.'

XI.

i8n>

A • FUTTING ' IN PROSPECT.

473

The month of August was spent in Burntisland, as reasons, to
be found in subsequent letters, made it unsuitable for him to be
at a distance from town. A letter to Mr. Charles Tomlinson,
London, written on paper with the University stamp, gives one
reason.

"BUBNTISLAND, August 8, 1869.

" Carissime Carole, — See, my dear friend, what a pass the
Emperor of the French has brought us to ! The University of
Edinburgh transferred to Burntisland, which ^fter all is not an
island, and therefore not a bm-ned one, but only a Trappean
Peninsula, which looks out from the Kingdom of x^'ife, across the
Firth of Forth, to Arthur Seat and Edinburgh, and invites the
latter to dip its hot face and sun- stricken brains beneath its
cooling waters. In short, as there can be no manner of doubt
that the French are by this time half way across the Channel,
the University of Edinburgh has thought it proper to put its
valuables in safety, and accordingly — but modesty prevents me
enlarging on the topic — the Professor of Technology is secure
here for this current month." A more sober reason given is,
that "the lease of my laboratory has expired, and the New
Buildings are not (Hibemic^) begun, so that I have before me
the formidable horrors of a flitting. The bother of this is very
considerable, and is one reason for my keeping so near Edin-
burgh." " We in Scotland call a removal ' a flitting,' " he tells
Mrs. John Gladstone, "I suppose on the antithetic principle
that it is a process as totally unlike the flitting of a butterfly or
a bird as can well be conceived; and where all the contents and
machinery of a laboratory must be transported, it is no easy
matter. But fancy, further, that whilst turned out of my old
den in the middle of September, I have no new one to go to.
A butterfly preparing to flit from one rose to another has nothing
to pack up (or roll up) but its trunk, and is certain to leave
none of its goods behind, but if, after deserting its ancestral r: se-
leaf, it should find that it had left the * last rose of summer,' and
that there was no other to receive it, it would doubtless find it-
self in a sad predicament. In such a predicament am I.

" I have been in a heap of worries. Tliis is worry the first,
and most tiresome. . . .

474

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

" With all this, let me not forget to say that I have enjoyed a
peace and composure of spirit, interrupted only hy a few impa-
tient bursts, such as I have seldom known. The meaning of
Life, the purpose of God, the worth of this world and the next,
have all risen into a prominence which they had not formerly
displayed. I was not expecting or seeking this. It came
upon me like the wind blowing where it listeth. I hove
rejoiced to welcome it, but it has for the time driven me rather
in upon my own thoughts than led me to pour them forth to
others.

" I should add [as an excuse for not writing] that I have an
immense deal of official correspondence to keep up, which de-
vours the writing faculty, and also that I am trying to be done
with the Memoir of Edward Forbes. There, however, some of
those who should have been foremost to help have forgotten
their promises. ... I am sickened at the work."

To his cousin Alick he gives an epitome of his engagements
since spring. Amongst them is a lecture in Glasgow, which has
been noticed already in the list of things to be done all at the
same time. The lecture was requested by an Association of
Teachers. " It was a capital audience, and I had prepared with
some care an hour's written discourse on the * Educational Value
of Industrial Science.' I had also, however, taken with me a
sort of appendix, consisting of the best part of an old lecture ;
and when the hour was done, I left them to say whether I
should stop or go on. They left me in no doubt as to their
choice, so I gave them another half hour, in which they heard
some things which I hope would do them good. ... It is
curious the feeling of having an audience like clay in your
hands to mould for a season as you please. It is a terribly re-
sponsible power. ... On looking back I am struck with the
little good I know these performances to have done, or can on
the highest estimate suppose them to have effected.

" Against that, however, I can set off a steadUy increasing in-
difference to applause or commendation. I do not mean for a
moment to imply that I am indifferent to the good opinion of
others. Far otherwise ; but to gain this is much less a concern
with me than to deser»re it. It was not so once. I had no wish

lUO.

PEACE AND JOY.

475

for unmerited praise, but I was too ready to settle that I did merit
it. Now the word ' duty' '. ^oms the biggest word in the world,
and is uppermost in my serious doings. I must not deny that
this feeling is helped by bodily quiescence, to use no stronger
word. My physical activities and locomotive powers steadily
abridge their circle of energy. I am thus deban-ed from the
restless life I would otherwise lead, and I fear sometimes that I
set down to rational contentment what is only lazy valetudin-
arianism.

" Yet I have a peace of mind and a cabn joy, when not posi-
tively suffering (and then they look through the darkness) such
as I did not know before. Of such feelings it is not wise or safe
to write. They suffer by handling, and I say no more about
them. I was trying to make a clean breast of it, and have only
achieved this long drone. Set it down in part to an aching arm,
and the anti-rheumatic practice it demanded. . . .

" I hope to be at the Aberdeen meeting of the British Asso-
ciation a month hence, and if so, will write you all about it."

One more quotation from Burntisland letters ; it is addressed
to Dr. Caims : — " In body and soul I am at peace with God and
man, thanks to Him who giveth us the victory over all our
enemies. That wondrous 15th chapter of Ist Corinthians ! It
stirs me like a trump of doom. I cannot read it aloud without
finding my voice break down ; all the immortal dead I know
seem to gather about me as its miugled pathos, and jubilation,
and summons sound out from its solemn diapason. Tears and
confession and thanksgiving take the place of articulate didactic
words, and the image of the heavenly obliterates all else.

" It would be a very great kindness if you could lend me
youi- sennons on as much of the Corinthians as you please,
but especially those on the Eesurrection, the physical aspect
of which has much occupied me, and been twice preached
upon." ^

The hope of being present in Aberdeen at the meetings of the
British Association was realized. A house was taken, five

» /. friendly debate on tlietse Sermons on the Resurrection, which we) stalked over
amidst the hurry of the Aberdeen Meeting, was tlie last discussion held by those
friends in this world.

470

MEMOIU OF OEOUOE WILSON.

rilAP. XI.

friends from England forming with George "Wilson and his sister
a most pleasant family party, of which many hajjpy memories
remain. A pretty full account of the doings of the week, so fur
as George was concerned, is given in writing to his hrother.

" Septemher 23, 185D.

" Jessie and I got homo last night from Aberdeen, where we
have spent ten delightful days, and before going in to the galley
oar again, I send you some account of our doings. . . . My
paper^ [to the Chemical Section] will not at present be published
even in abstract ; but I believe it to contain some curious, novel,
and important observations on the ancient history of the Air-
Pump. I had the pleasure of seeing Faraday, Graham, Christi-
son, Gassiot, Eobinson, William Thomson, De La Hue, besides
others, listening with interest, and we had profitable talk about
it after. To dispose of myself : — I read to the Natural Histoiy
Section a brief paper on the Gymnotus,'' as used by the Indians
at the present day to give shocks. Two of the Gymnoti are
coming alive to me next summer.

" In the Statistical I gave them a blast about Colour-Blind-
ness,' preliminary to moving for a committee to inquire into the
statistics of the question on a large scale. I have got the com-
mittee, and £10 to carry out the scheme. In the Chemical
Section I also read a paper for Walter Crura, and one for James
Young. Altogether I was more than satisfied with my share in
Association work, and fulfilled every personal project that took
me there. . . .

" My limgs warned me, by some ugly bleeding early in the
week, to be careful, so that I did not go to Sir li Murchison's
Lecture, or to the first Conversazione. The second lecture by
Eobinson of Armagh was a gi'eat treat, or rather, J should say,
the experiments were. They were exhibitions of the electric
spark on the largest scale, including all the kinds of electric
light, the apparatus being brought from London, and of the

1 * On some of the Stages which led to the Invention of the Modern Air-Pamp.' —
' Report of Brit. Assoc. 1859,' p. 89.

* * On the Employment of the Electrical Eel, Oymnotus Electricus, as a medical
shock machine by the natives of Surinam.'— Ibid. p. 681.

3 ' On the Statistics of Colour-Blindness.'- - Ibid. p. 228.

18C0.

SCIENTIFIC MEETING.

477

;ric
the

finest kind. . . . The beauty of some of the lights is so f^Teat,
that 1 coukl not help uttering, when I saw them, a ciy of joy.
They are good for any man to see — poet, painter, philo8oi)her.
He ought to get good from them.

" Tliere were two Museums, one Archfcological, the other
Geological, but my lungs would not allow mo to visit either.
I went to the second Conversazione solely to see the electric
lights again, and after witnessing them went home."

His warm sympathies were called forth at this time on behalf
of one of his colleagues. Professor Kelland, whom he had hoped
to meet at the Aberdeen meetings, but who, instead, was lying
with fractured limb at a railway station, near which a collision
had occurred. On returning home, George sent him a full
account of proceedings, as the only method open to him, of
sending a ray of light into the sick- chamber of his fnend. The
letter has been published in full ;^ we take from it in part to
complete our sketch. " I write you mainly to ask if I can do
anything for you, and to beg that you will not hesitate to com-
mand me to the utmost. It will be the greatest pleasure to
serve*' you in any way ; meanwhile, I note down a point or two
about the British Association at Aberdeen, which may not be
uninteresting.

" We had a numerous meeting. Great are the attractions of
a Prince, and had he [Prince Albert] remained throughout the
week we should certainly have had to hold our meetings al
fresco, and to bivouac in the open air. Wisely, however, he gave
but one day to the sections, and the stir moderated thereafter.
. , . We had a lied Lion dinner on the Monday, when Owen
presided, and about sixty men from all the sections sat down.
We broke up very early, but not before Blackie had astonished
them with one of his songs. I welcome these dinners for the
opportunity they afford of seeing men you have long known by
report, and wish to know better. ... I spent a very happy and
instructive week, and came back a lowlier man. These meetings
ought to make one humble. I hope they made me so." At the
Eed Lion dinner Professor Blackie caused astonishment other-
wise than by his song, in coming from one end of the ^ng room

1 ' North British Review,' Article * Professor George Wilson.' February 1860.

478

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

to the other in order to enfold George Wilson in a loving em-
brace.

On returning to town, the difficulties to which he had been
looking forward, in making preparations for the winter, came in
full force. The number of visits to lawyers and others, and the
necessary worry kept up till the very day his lectures began,
were very wearing out, and a poor preparation for the labour and
excitement inseparable from an opening session, of which he had
said long before, "At the beginning of our session I have always
more to remember than I can call to mind. ... Its constant
high-pressure work has left me with great weariness both of
soul and body."

Where he was to deliver his lectures remained an unsolved
problem till near the close of October. By the kindness of
Professor Donaldson, however, the use of the room he had occu-
pied in the University, and which he was quitting for the new
Music-Eoom in Park Place, was obtained. So little time was
left, that only by constant importunity and much annoying
labour was it got ready in time, the introductory lecture being
delivered with wet walls, and with carpenters' shavings on the
floor.

To his life-long friend Professor Christison he was under
even greater obligations, as his laboratory within the University
walls was given up by him to Dr. Wilson for the winter. Here
was a circle completed : the youthful chemist who in that very
laboratory iirst obtained familiarity with the practice of his
favourite science, now ratuming to it as one whom men de-
lighted to honour, with, in his turn, young and ardent students
working under his directions. It was found to be too small to
accommodate Dr. Wilson's numbers, and a second laboratory,
also within the college, was fitted up, but never used, the ar
rangements in it being scarcely completed when the session
began. His opening lecture was on " Technology as a Branch
of Liberal Study," and was chiefly devoted to illustrations of
the benefits resulting from science and art, theory and practice,
doctnne and work, acting and reacting on each other. Viewing
his own Chair as in some measure the uniting link between the
two, h 3 considered historically the evils resulting from every

1860.

A NEW WELCOME.

479

attempt at a monopoly in knowledge, as, e.g., with the monks
and knights of old. Even the Universities of Christendom had
been tainted with the spirit of selfish exclusiveness ; and thus
the " intellectual blood which should have flowed in the veins
of the World, was left to stagnate in the Heart, and paralyse its
motions."

The plan and purpose of his Chair, and the Museum in con-
nexion with it, are more fully developed in this lecture than in
any previous one ; and, as befits his intermediate position, hd
pleads, on the one hand, that scientific knowledge be extended
and made servit^able to every practical worker ; while, on the
other, he shows what claims the workers in pure science have
on the gratitude of all.

The crowded audience on this opening day seemed to give
him a new welcome, and open before him a bright vista of use-
ful and honourable service to his feUow men. Each succeeding
day confirmed the promise of this one, till the difficulty came
to be how his audience coidd be accommodated in the lecture-
room. The disadvantages of previous years in regard to such
matters became more than ever obvious, and it was felt that
now, for the first time. Technology was having fair play. So
passed the early part of November, each day adding to the roll
of pupils, and he exhibiting an energy and freshness surprising
to those who knew t)\e state of his health, the hsemorrhage,
which had increased to more than the usual extent for two
months previously, being accompanied by sadly diminished ap-
petite. But his buoyant cheerfulness compelled one to forget
all this, and, while in his presence, to share the happiness of
which he had apparently a store not only enough for his own
needs, but to spare for all around him, " It is a becoming act
of Christian thanksgiving," he wrote to a lady on her birth-day,
" to acknowledge God's kindness in granting us so great a gift
as life." Not the less did he feel this that he never looked for-
ward, but sought, from the time of entrance on his public career,
to " live as a dying man ; the best preparation for a happy life ;
the best preparation for a peaceful death." " I spin my thread
of life from week to week rather than from year to year."
About six months previously, when visiting his friend, Miss

480

MEMOIR OF GEORGB WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

Abernethy, he said solemnly to her on parting : " Janet, I am
trying to live every day so that I may be ready to quit on an
hour's notice." More strongly were his desires apparent in the
few words he addressed to her nephew, Dr. Niven : " I am re-
signed to live." Such readiness for both worlds is difficult to
realize. This life seemed to him so full of exhaustless springs
of delight, that the only way of reaching in thought his eleva-
tion, is by entering into the spirit of his favourite words : " To
be with Christ is far better."

It has been supposed by some that he had at this time a pre-
sentiment of death being close at hand. This has originated in
their knowledge of some of those expressions of consciousness
of his physical liabilities, which were frequently used by him.
Further than that he was aware his time on earth could not be
prolonged rmich longer, we believe he had no presentiment such
as has been imagined. In October he writes : " I find myelf
steadily getting weaker, and less fit for work. Constant attacks
of bleeding from the lungs sap my strength, and warn me how
easily I would give way under any acute attack of illness. I
am cheerful enough, nevertheless, and it may please God to
prolong my days, but I am compelled to look gravely at the
opposite possibility."

He has himself been the narrator of his life. Once again,
and for the last time, let us listen to him telling his brother
how the busy month has passed : —

" Elm Cottage, Nov. 17, 1859.

" My dear Daniel, — I have determined not to let another
week pass without writing, although duty seems to say, * Write
at your lectures,' and a pair of barking lungs bid me lie down
and sleep. I write in bed, which is the explanation of anj zig-
zagginess you may perceive in the slope of the words. I am
thankful to creep early to my couch, but I don't ' turn in' till
about 1 A.M. generally.

" We have had a month of great excitement, in which I have
had my full share. First came, as a sort of preliminary gym-
nastic, an address to the Pharmaceutical Society.^ Tlien the

1 'The Education of the Pharmaceutical Chemist.'— 'Pliamiaceutical Journal/
Pec, 1859.

len.

OPENING OF SESSION.

481

Brougham Banquet set us all astir. It was a totally unsecta-
rian meeting, and, so long as I was able to remain, it went off
famously ; but I lost, I believe, the second-best speech, that,
namely, from the Lord Justice- General M'Neill.

am
till

lave
^m-
the

"Two days after, came on one day the installation of Sir
David Brewster, as Principal, and the election of Chancellor
and Graduates' Assessor {i.e., representative in the University
Court). The former the Senatus had all to itself. . . .

" Well ! carrying our newly-made Principal with us, we ad-
journed to the Music Hall, where, by a dreadful, but unavoid-
able arrangement, we were locked in, after the voting began, and
had to listen to a roll of 1300 names read over. However, it
was an interesting scene, which I witnessed to advantage from
the platform. . . . The votes for Chancellor were watched with
immense interest, till it was quite certain that Brougham must
win ; and then the faces showed, like sun-dials, which Star they
obeyed. I admired the pluck of the defeated men about me.
It is a grand feature in our national character, and is not in the
Yankee nature, to submit to a majority, and take a fair defeat
uncoruplainingly, ...

" Next week came the opening. I hope to send you with this
Sir David's speech. He gave me a good word, which the stu-
dents took in hearty part.^

" The day after, our separate classes began. I lectured for
Kelland at 10 o'clock, and for myself at 12. You will be happy
to learn that he got back to Edinburgh on Saturday from Hit-
chin, near London, where he has been lying for nine weeks
with a compound fracture of the left leg, above the ankle. I
found him very hearty and cheerful. He gave me a most gra-
phic account of the railway smash, and what befell him, ending,
as one likes to hear a man end, with saying, that he had no idea
there were so many kind people iu the world : that everybody
had been kind to him.

" When I came back from Aberdeen, I wrote him an account

1 Sir David, in speaking of tlie Chair of Technology and the Industrial Museum,
refers to their being "under the guidance of Dr. George Wilson, one of our most dis-
tinguished philosophers,"—' Introductory Address by Sir D. Brewster, on the Open-
ing of Session 1859-60,' p. 17. Constable and Co., Edinburgh.

2 II

482

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

of matters there to amuse him, and added, that if I could do
anything for him I should be glad. It never, however, entered
my head that he would ask such a non-mathematician as
myself to open his classes for him. When he did I could not
refuse, and I am glad I did not, for the lecture was graciously
received by a crammed class-room, and the class has not fallen
off in numbers. Neither has my own class suffered. To get
all ready I have, indeed, had a battle, which would only have
exhilarated me had it not overtasked me physically, and ended
in giving me so scattered a series of domains, that I am con-
stantly providing what an Irishman loves so much, i.e., an alibi.
My laboratory is in two places ; my lecture room in a third ;
my Museum in a fourth. Nevertheless, the lecture-room within
the University is a great matter, and old students have returned,
and new ones have come, till I have enrolled eighty-three as
pupils — the biggest class I have had, and considering that it is
not imperative, very creditable to all concerned.

" When the Friday came I could have gone to bed, but instead
I had to travel to Glasgow in most inclement weather, and
thereafter to drive five miles out, through darkness and rain.
Next day I was up before breakfast, and at work from about six
onwards in connexion with a patent-infringement, affecting a
very kind friend.

" The result was a terrible cold, cough, etc., which blisters I
hope are dispelling, but I lost last Saturday with election for
Eector by the students, at which we all had to be present.
What a row in the quadrangle ! I could scarcely reach the
Senatus Eoom, but fortunately had on my gown and cap (we
have taken to square caps), and when the students saw that,
they handed me through the shouting crowd, who were waiting
to hear how the vote had gone, and seemed on both sides coming
to Nievcsl^ : , - , T.v

" All this is terribly egotistical I hope to add a P.S.

to-morrow. — Ever lovingly yours, Georgk"

The severe cold under which he had laboured all that week
did not cause special anxiety. Frequently in the years gone by

> The choice was between the Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone, M.P., and Lonl
Neaoea.

1859.

LAST LECTURES.

483

liting
lining

P.S.

[E."

week
Ine by

Ll Lonl

had work been carried on with similar symptoms, and with
eager anticipations of the rest attainable on the Saturday and
Sunday ; for one of the most touching features of his case was
the good resulting from even a little ease. During this month
of November his friends had been watching him with evident
solicitude, kindly suggesting caution and care, then unattainable.
It amused him much when Dr. John Brown proposed, as the
best plan, " to put him under trustees," who should look after
his health.

On the week ia which the letter we have given was written,
the days were counted off with longing for the Saturday, with
its opportunities for care and nursing. It was with distress,
therefore, that his sister learned his intention, in such a state of
health, of giving his students a second lecture on the Friday.
Seeing her about to remonstrate, he with naive simplicity gave
as a reason, the force of which must be evident to any sensible
l^erson, " They are not up in the Atomic theory."

The breakfast table was usually loaded with books of reference
for the subject of the day's lecture, and notes in pencil were then
written for it, in addition to those in uie from year to year. So
it was this Friday morning ; and after breakfast he went into
town with his wonted cheerfulness, desirous of obtaining infor-
mation to go by that day's post to his brother in Canada, in the
postscript to his letter. Afterwards it transpired that he had
felt a stitch in his side that morning. It was a busy day in
town. After the first lecture to his class, new pupUs came to be
enrolled, many visitors called, and he was compelled to converse
much. Closing his Canadian letter, he says, " I have been at
work all day." Not having ascertained all that was desirable,
he promises to give the result of further inquiry by next post.

The second lecture was delivered with great difficulty, and
with an apology to his students for sitting while addressing
them.

On his return home, between four and five o'clock, his sister
was startled by his appeaTance, why she could scarcely tell, but
a nameless dread of impending danger fell heavily on her heart.
This was not diminished by his saying, in a low and constrained
voice, " I'll just creep up stairs." After sitting for half an-hour

484

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

on a low chair in the drawing-room, with an air of great pros-
tration, and not saying a word, he was with difficulty helped
into bed. The pain in his side was treated as pleurodyne, from
which he had frequently suffered, but next day his medical
attendant. Dr. J. Matthews Duncan, being apprised of his ill-
ness, came, and announced that inflammation of the lungs and
pleurisy were both present.

Now then had come the time to which he had so long looked
forward. How did he meet it ? Many talk lightly of death, as
if to the Christian it has no terrors. Not so did he, and few
have so often been on the verge of the grave and come back to
speak of it. In 1847, he wrote to a friend in failing health : —
" I am persuaded, from what I have experienced, that the world
fills but a small space in the thoughts of one near to death. I
believe, from what I have felt when brought very near to the
grave, that the engrossing, devouring idea is, that of one's own
individuality or personality, — and of God's personality. The
prevailing feeling is that of the great Judge waiting for our soul
as if there were no other soul in existence, and we, in our naked
spirituality, without one relative, earthly friend, or well-wisher,
about to pass away into the darkness, and stand before God.
No transmutation which chemist or alchymist ever hoped for, or
ever realized, has equalled, or can equal, the strangeness of that
transformation which we shall undergo when we gasp out of
this life into the next. Chemistry will not help us then. 'If
there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.'" In 1848, a letter
to Mr. Daniel Macmillan contains the following passage : — " I
have been reading lately, with great sadness, the Memorials of
Charles I-amb and the Life of Keats. There is something in
the noble brotherly love of Charles to brighten, and hallow,
and relieve the former ; but Keats's deathbed is the blackness
of midnight, unmitigated by one ray of light.

"God keep you and me from such a deathbed! We may
have physical agonies as great to endure. It is the common
lot. I feel that our heavenly Father can better choose for us
than we can for ourselves, of what we should die ; but I pray
our blessed Lord and Master to be with us in our last fight witli
the last enemy, and to give us the victory. If He does, what

UTTER PROSTRATION.

485

shall pain be but liko other bitter medicines, the preparative
for the unbroken health of an endless life?" And in 1857 he
says : — " Often and often, as I have asked myself of what
should I die, I have felt that, had I the choice offered me among
physical deaths, I should not know how to choose, and would
leave to God the appointment of the mode of dying, beseeching
only to be spared maddening agony, and to be kept, above aU,
from losing faith in the blessed Saviour."

Those expressions of trust and hope are almost the only clue
we have to his feelings during the few days of his illness, but
they are sufficient. It had ever been his custom, in previous
attacks, to carry on his daily work in bed as much as possible
in the same way as usual. Books and writing materials sur-
rounded him, and the day was divided into portions : so many
hours for writing and study, so many for lighter reading, and
so many for rest. Lively talk and fun made his sick-room a
place of real enjoyment at most times, his ailments often being
the subject of the jests. He disliked having any one to read to
him, saying it set him to sleep.

Now all wap different. Scarcely a word was uttered, and his
.weary look of utter prostration, being interpreted as a meek
supplication not to be disturbed, as few were addressed to him.
There seemed to be little pain, but no inquiry was made as to
this. A distressing restlessness, and difficulty in coughing, were
the most marked symptoms. It was touching to see the attempts
to read to himself as formerly. A light newspaper was taken
up at intervals throughout the first day of confinement to bed,
but as often wearily laid down, with apparently no knowledge
of its contents. s

The only earthly care that appeared to disturb him was his
class ; and early on Monday morning the following note was
written at his request to Professor Balfour, his sister kneeling
with the paper on the bed, while with effort he slowly dic-
tated : — . ,

f^ir '0

yi, "My dear Balfour, — A sudden and unexpected attack of
pleurisy, with accompanying inflammation of part of the lung,
came on on Friday ; and, as you may suppose, lays me aside

486

MEMOIR OF GEOKGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

from lecturinjT, much to my distress, at the very beginning of
the session.

" It woukl be a very great favour if you could lecture for me
this week, beginning on Tuesday. My present topic is the
Amylaceous group, including starch, gum, sugar, and cellulose,
and falls quite in your way. My assistant will see that the
carriage goes down every day to bring you up, with diagrams
and spechnens, and four assistants will be at your service
every day. I trust you will be able to render me this service ;
but if you cannot, please inform the bearer, that I may make
other arrangements."

Dr. Balfour kindly consented, and no further allusion was
made to temporal affairs. Towards mid-day, on Monday, he
requested a note to be addressed to Dr. Duncan, saying, that as
there was no improvement, he thought it would be prudent to
have another medical friend associated with him, naming Dr.
Bennett as the one he should prefer. This done, he asked his
sister to read to him, from the ' Athenteum' of the week. Captain
M'Clintock's Narrative of his Voyage to the Arctic Seas. To-
wards evening there seemed tokens of Death's approach, and the,
medical men could only cherish fond hopes from the marvellous
recoveries he had made before. His voice also was clear and
strong, and this was a hopeful symptom. Stimulants were
ordered to be given at short intervals during the night. On the
first being brought, he looked at it with reluctance, but learning
the doctors' wishes, he made an effort to take it, saying after-
wards, " I did not think I could have swallowed it." The good
effect of the draught soon appeared in the distressing cougli
being soothed to quietness. "The doctor was right," he ro
marked; and the next restorative was taken with readiness.
The night passed peacefully, and at its c'ose he said, with a
gleam of his old cheerfulness, " I think 1 have turned over ii
new leaf." Hope once more animated his nurse's heart : sho
had seen him as ill before, and yet recover. The doctors con-
firmed this hope, saying, that if a few days were got over all
might be 'well. So sanguine notes were addressed to several
friends, Dr. Cairns amongst the number. But at mid-day the

1860.

NEAUINO HOME.

487

peculiar and distressing restlessness returned. The senses were
preternaturally acute, that especially of smelling, perfumes of
any kind being unbearable. The only soothing offices were a
continual change in the position of the pillows, and bathing face
and hands with vinegar. His hands had been remarkable for a
mre beauty in the rich carmine tinting the palms, and contrasting
with the pure whiter skin. " Your hands seem on fire," had been
said to him once ; and much admiration had they elicited. Now
it was obsci'ved while bathing them that the delicate palms and
naOs were black. To one so conversant as he with such symp-
toms, this was an unmistakable token, had there been any doubt
before, that the pitcher was broken at the fountain, and the
spirit summoned to return to Him who gave it. Still not till
the second medical visit in the afternoon was hope quenched in
others, and a telegraphic message sent to Dr. Cairns. George
expressed desire to converse with Dr. Duncan, but said he could
not from the difficulty in breatliing.

In the afternoon he asked his sister to read the ' Athenaium'
to him, saying, " You know 1 always read it from beginning to
end :" while listening, occasional remarks showed that he clearly
understood what he heard. He surprised her by saying abruptly,
" The room will be darkened at nine ; I wish to get to rest."
She believed this implied being quiet for the night, and replied,
with many wondering thoughts, " Veiy well."

Occasionally an inquiry was made as to the hour, with some
reference to this " getting to rest." About six o'clock the 23d
Psalm was read at his request, and then some detached verses, —
" When thou passest through the waters, I will bo with thee ;
and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee : when thou
walkest through the fire, thou slialt not be burned ; neither shall
the flame kindle upon thee, for I am the Lord thy God, the
Holy One of Israel thy Saviour."

" Fear thou not, for I am with thee : be not dismayed, for 1
am thy God : I will strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee ;
yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteous-
ness.''

" Let not your heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe
also in me.

488

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

" In my Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so,
I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

" And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again
and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may he
also."

"To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden
manna ; and I will give him a white stone, and in the stone a
new name written, which no man knoweth saving ho that
receiveth it."

" To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my
throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with n)y
Father in his throne."

" Eead me something secular," he then said, " I don't wish to
go to sleep yet." Possibly the excessive tremulousness of voice
in reading such heart-stirring words, suggested this change ; for
no act of self-denial was too great for him. Standing near the
gas, for the light was kept low, his sister spent the next three
hours in continuous reading, picking out from various journals
lying around, papers interesting but not exciting. One, it is
remembered, was on Gems, another on the Scilly Isles, and
occasional obsei.ations showed he was listening with perfect
comprehension. His mother entering the room while he was
alone, for a few minutes, saw him evidently engaged in prayer,
and quietly withdrew.

Dr. Cairns arrived at nine o'clock, and went to him almost
immediately. Though unaware that a summons had been sent,
he showed no surprise at the presence of this dearly- loved
friend. " I found him very low," Dr. Cairns says, " and to my
eye — long familiar with death — it was only too visible in his
face. He was quite conscious, though he could speak but little.
He asked me to pray, which 1 did, and he fei-vently assented,
saying, ' I am in the hands of a good and kind Eedeemer ; I
rejoice in that every way ;' and in answer to my query whether
he had peace, replied ' Yes,' with his usual sweet smile, sweeter
than ever on the pallid face of death. On leaving the room, ho
said, ' Come as often and stay as long as you please.' "

His kind friend Dr. Duncan once more visited him, and when
he left, the oft-expressed wish for "rest" was repeated. Dr.

1860.

ENTERS INTO REST.

489

Cairns returned for a few minutes : to the inquiry made onco
again, " Is all peace ?" came the same reply " Yes," with a smile.
This question elicited the only smiles that had been seen in
those days of weakness. " Shall I pray with you ?" " Yes, but
short," evidently feeling the moments numbered. His undo
coming in, they shook hands and parted, he saying, " Don't vex
youi-self about me ; you've been very kind to me." His mother
then came and kissed his hand ; he in reply (knowing she could
not hear his voice) raised his right arm, pointing significantly
heavenwards. Each one was calm outwardly, the utmost self-
control being exerted, that he might not be distressed by witness-
ing emotion on their part. A love of quiet, and avoidance of
anything like bustle were ever strongly characteristic of him,
and now this was borne in mind. He was therefore left alone
with his sister, the light being lowered as much as possible : she
bathed once more his face and hands ; it was evidently soothing,
and he said, " How can I ever thank you for all your care and
kindness ?" For the first time she then expressed her conscious-
ness of his state, by saying, " You're going home, dear." With
distinctness he uttered the words, " I've been an unworthy
servant of a worthy and gracious Master," then the voice broke,
and only one word more could be distinguished, " sin." Two
portions of Scripture were repeated with the hope of pointing
from sin to the sin-Bearer, " If any man sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." " Ye are complete
in Him." A very marked change appearing in his countenance,
a bell at hand was rung, which brought his mother and John
Cairns again beside him. " He was breathing rapidly and with
difficulty, and his end was near.^ I shortly prayed again, and a
slight elevation of the eyes showed that he recognised me. Your
mother, Jessie, and I watched him intently as the breathing
became more laborious and slow, and the eyes nearly closed.
At length a slight convulsive effort announced almost the last
struggle ; but his breathing was, after a pause, resumed, and the
actual falling asleep was so gentle that it could not be distin-
guished. His features retained the most peaceful expression,"

1 We quote from a letter written by Dr. Cairns, an hour later, to the absent sister
Jcanie. . . ■ ■• - , • *

400

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XI.

and thus nt eleven p.m. was his wish fulfilled, and ho entered
into the rest for which he had so lou{^e(l. Kneohng around the
bed, a thanksgiving was offered, that for liini the Saviour's
prayer was answered, " Fnther, I will that they also, whom thou
hast given nie, be with mo where 1 am ;" and then the pent-up
agony broke forth, for to each had this beloved one been d(>ar(!r
than life.

Many years before had such a time been pictured to his miml
as follows : —

TIIK CHRISTIAN SOLDIER PUTTING OFF IIIS ARMOUR AT THE

GATES OF HADES.
Epp. tI. 13-17.
A SONG OF THE NIGHT DURING SICKNESS.

Helmet of the hope of rest !

Helmet of salvation I
Nobly has thy towering crest

Pointed to this exaltation.
Yet I will not thoe resume.
Helmet of the nodding plume ;
Where I go no foeman Hghteth,
Sword or other weapon sniiteth ;
All content, I lay thoe down,
I shall gird my brows with an immortal crown.

Sword at my side 1 Sword of the Spirit I

Word of God ! Thou goodly blade !
Often have I tried thy merit ;

Never hast thou me betrayed.
Yet I will no further use thee.
Here for ever I unloose thee ; . ,

Branch of peaceful palm shall be .

Sword sufficient now for me ;
" Fought the fight, the victory won,"
Rest thou here, thy work is done.

Shield of faith 1 my trembling heart

Well thy battered front has guarded ;
Many a lierce and fiery dart

From my bosom thou hast warded.
But I shall no longer need thee,
Never more will hold or heed thee.
Fare-thee-well ! the foe's defeated,
Of his wished-for victim cheated ;
In the realms of peace and light
Faith shall be exchanged for sight.

18S0.

A BONO or THE NUUIT.

401

crcd
the
)ur'8
thou
t-up
'aror

nind

Girdle of tlio tnitli of (I.mI t

BrvaMtplutu (if IIU HijIiteouiineM !
Uy the Lonl Hiinnelf Ixmtowcd

On liiH faithful wicneMRen,
Never have 1 dared iiiu'.laHi> thuo,
LcHt the Nuhtle fuu Hhoiild ^^Ta,n\) me ;
Now I may it length unbind yc,
Leave you here at ruxt behind ine ;
Nought Hliall harm nvy houI eiiuifipcd
In a robe in Cliribt'K blood di]i]>ed.

Sandals of the preparation

Of the newH of poiioe !
There muHt now be Hopunition,

Here your UHeH ceaHe.
Ohidly hIiuII my naked feet
Go my blcHsctl Lord to meet ;
I shall wander at bis side
Where the living waters glide ;
And these feet shall need no guard
On the unbroken heavenly swartl.

Here 1 stand of all unclothed,

Waiting to be clothed upon
By the Church's great Betrothed,

By the Everlasting One.
Hark ! He turns the admitting key.
Smiles in love, and welcomes mo ;
Glorious forms of angels bright
Clothe mo in the raiment white,
Whilst their sweet-toned voices say,
" For the rest, wait thou till tlie Judgment Day.

492

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. xn.

CHAPTEE XII.

vale!

" Thanlcs be tnito God, who giveth us the victory ! "

" Wrong not the dead with tears !
Think not the spirit fears
To cast away its earthly bonds of clay,
To rise from death to everlasting day !
Wrong not the dead with tears !
A glorious bright to-morrow
Endeth a weary life of pain aud sorrow."

, , Wyke Bayliss.

The tidings of George Wilson's death spread next day with
mournful speed. As often happens, his long struggle with dis-
ease had led to the hope that again he would triumph over it.
" We had begun to fancy that he possessed, not a charmed, but
a blessed life, which was to be prolonged for further usefulness."
The illness, also, had been of such short duration that many
knew not of it. A gentleman, who had written to him a few
days before, and received no reply, went on the morning after
his death to the University, unaware of the state of things, to
make inquiry about him, and addressed to the first student he
met, the question, whether he knew if Professor Wilson would
be at the CoUege that day. The sole reply was a burst of tears.

Professor Balfour met the class, according to previous arrange-
ment, not to speak of " gum or starch," but of the marvellous
transition from the earthly tabernacle to the heavenly home of
their much-loved teacher. A student, in reply, expressed the
dismay with which the tidings had been heard, and the grief
with which they could not but regard the mementoes around
. — class specimens and diagrams — without hope of again hearing
the voice that had expounded them, " Even in classes never
personally connected with him, the students showed their sense

1839.

GENERAL MOURNING.

493

of the common calamity, by the hushed attention, and even re-
verence with which they received every allusion to his memory."

For two days a deep gloom settled on the city, not on any
one class in particular, for rich and poor, learned and unlearned,
seemed equally affected. The experience of one seemed that of
all : " Though not much in the habit of meeting with Professor
Wilson, he felt almost as if suffering from a family bereave
ment."^ In the Chamber of Commerce a touching allusion was
made by its Chairman,^ before reading a report on the Industrial
Museum : " The Technological Chair promised to be one of the
most popular in the University ; and by none, next to his own
relatives and personal friends, will his loss be so much deplored
as by those who were more immediately connected with him in
his class, the laboratory, and the Museum, even to their most
humble dependants, who worked as much from love as duty.
Who, indeed, would not have worked for Dr. Wilson ? Though not
a stone had been laid of the building which was to be the Indus-
trial Museum of Scotland, it had obtained a name that reached
to distant lands, from which gifts were continually flowing in
to assist the Museum, established with so much diligence and
success." A lecture to this body had been promised by Pro-
fessor Wilson in the December following, the subject having
reference to the combination of lasters and workmen in indus-
trial pursuits.

An instance of the love of dependants was strikingly afforded
in the case of a workman whom he had for many years em-
ployed occasionally, and with whom, as was his wont, many a
kindly word and jest had passed. This man, now old and
feeble, was lying iU at the same time as his friend, and, knowing
the strength of his love, the relatives around tried to keep him
in ignorance of Dr. Wilson's death. The attempt was vain. It
was the one subject on every lip, and learning it from a visitor,
he sank from that moment, unable to bear the shock.
If Some few were able to forget themselves in his joy, as
when one lady said, on hearing of his dismissal, " How glad I
am !" so intensely realizing the blessedness of the change to

■at'-

I Mr. Charles Cowan, at a meeting of the Merchant Company, Nov. 25.
» Mr. R. RL Smith.

494

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XII.

him, as to rest in that for the time. But the greater number
could only try to hush their grief to submission ; and his words
on John Eeid came unbidden to remembrance, as if giving the

most fit expression to their mingled feelings : —

•'•od

" Thou wert a dsily lesson

Of courage, hope, and faith ;
We wondered at thee living,
We envy thee thy death.

" Thou wert so meek and reverent,
So resolute of will,
So bold to bear the uttermost.
And yet so calm and still.

'P ^p "^ ^F

" Well may we cease to sorrow :

Or if we weep at all, '

Not for thy fate, but for our own,
Our bitter tears should fall.

" Twere better still to follow on
The path that thou hast trod.
The path thy Saviour trod before,
That led thee up to God."

.,i\x:

The direction of the wind, so often keenly watched on his
account, seemed unimportant nmv, for, as he had anticipated
years before, in speaking of the effects of cold spring weather,
" the air of heaven will put all to rights. It never blows there
from the east."

Two of his fellow-professors wrote as follows on the first im-
pulse of sorrow : — " The intelligence of the death of my beloved
colleague, your son, has quite unnerved me. Of the loss which
Scotland has sustained others will speak ; suffice it for me to
state, that I have lost a friend, the brightness of whose genius
was only equalled by the warmth of his heart. When lying far
away, wounded and low, his ready sympathy and aid cheered
me ; and it is sad to think that I shall not be able to return his
kindness in this world. But he did it as a Christian, as he did
his every act, and he shall in nowise lose his reward. Think of
him as entered into his rest, where his bright spirit basks in the
full sunshine of that presence which made it shine. May He
comfort you and teach you to acknowledge the words which

1859.

TRIBUTES OF LOVE.

495

his
did
Ik of
the
He
lich

your son addressed to me in this room just a week ago, ' It is
good for me that I have been afflicted.' "^

Another^ says, "You cannot wish George Wilson back in
this world. His soul was well fitted for a better ; whilst his
body was not fitted to remain in this world without much con-
tinued suffering, borne so unrepiningly for the sake of those he
loved.

" His memory will always remain with us tenderly cherished.
His elegant and graceful mind, his genial and happy spirit,
made him many friends, but never a single enemy."

At the next meeting of the Philosophical Institution, before
the lecture began, Mr. Smith, the Vice-President, alluded with
tenderness to the loss they had sustained : " We can all remem-
ber — alas ! it is now only in memory that we can recall the
pleasure — how often he has charmed as well as instructed us
here ; how often, in his prelections from this desk, the clear,
scientific exposition has been enlivened and adorned by his
graceful play of fancy. ... At the risk of intruding within the
domain sacred to private friendship, I would venture to say,
that a gentler, nobler, more true-hearted man we have not left
among us."

Looking back on the last few weeks of his life, those more
intimate with him began to recall daily visits paid, in that too
busy month of November, to a literary Christian friend near
death. Though much enfeebled, and with work pressing on
him, yet day by day did George Wilson read and pray by his
bed, soothing his fears at the approach of the last enemy, and
sharing his joyful anticipations of the employments of heaven.
Physically he suffered from the exertion of those visits, but they
afforded him great delight, and were doubtless an aid to himself
in passing through the same dark valley so soon after.

To the public mind it seemed that the closing words in an
article in the November number of ' Macmillan's Magazine,' on
• Paper, Pen, and Ink,' were a farewell legacy. It will be re-

» From Professor KcUand.

■•' Professor Playfnir. To several of the Professors, especially to Professors Playfair
and Balfour, much gratitude is due for their kindness in making anangemcnts in re-
ference to the Technological Class.

496

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XII.

membered that it had originally been delivered as a lecture in

the Session of 1857-58, but now appearing as almost his last

published words, the close had a new and striking significance.

" When Paper, Pen, and Ink," he says, " have made the tour of

the world, and have carried everywliere the acknowledgment of

brotherhood between people and people, and man and man,

and the Song of Bethlehem, fulfilled to the full, has enlightened

every intellect and softened every heart, their great mission will

be ended. And let us not complain that our writing materials

are one and all so frail and perishable, for God himself has been

content to write His will on the frailest things. Even His

choicest graphic media are temporal and perishable. The stars

of heaven are in our eyes the emblems of eternity, and they are

the letters in God's alphabet of the universe, and we have

counted them everlasting. Great astronomers of old have told

us that the sidereal system could not stop, but must for ever go

on printing in light its cyclical records of the firmament. But

in our own day, and amongst ourselves, has arisen a philosopher^

to show us, as a result simply of physical forces working as we

observe them do, that the lettered firmament of heaven will one

day see all its scattered stars fall, like the ruined type setting

of a printer, into one mingled mass. Already the most distant

stars, like the outermost sentinels of a flock of birds, have heard

the signal of sunset and return, and have ])egun to gather closer

together, and turn their faces homewards. Millions of years

must elapse before that home is reached, and the end comes, but

that end is sure. God alone is eternal, and they who through

His gift are partakers of his immortality.

"It is wonderful to find a patient, mechanical philosopher,
looking only to what his mathematics can educe from the phe-
nomena of physical science, using words which, without exag-
geration, are exactly equivalent to these : — ' Thou, Lord, in the
beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens .
are the works of Thy hands ; they shall perish, but Thou ro-
mainest, and they all shall wax old as doth a garment, and as a
vesture shalt Thou fold them up, and they shall be changed ;
but Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail !' "
» Professor William Thomson of Glasgow.

ONLY MAN IMMOKTAL

497

" If God's Paper, Pen, and Ink are thus perishable, shall we
complain that ours do not endure ? It is the writer that shall he
immortal, not the writing."

These last words, as Dr. Cairns has remarked, " are now the
best consolation to the wide circle who lament his sudden de-
parture and unaccomplished aims, and the strongest incentive
to pursue and aspire after the same Christian immortality."

In a graceful tribute to his worth, offered by Professor Kel-
land, in addressing the pupils of the classes of mathematics,
at the close of the Session, the words are compared to the
last expression of Baron Cauchy, a celebrated mathematician.
" When requested to give repose to his mind, and thus to second
the efforts of those who were praying for him, he replied, * Men
pass away, but their work remains — pray for the work.' The
one declared that man alone is immortal, his works perish ; the
other, that man passes away, but his work remains. But yet, are
they not the same ? Like the rays which issue from a cloud that
obscures the setting sun, they seem to diverge, this to the right
hand, tliat to the left, but they are in reality essentially parallel."

Biographical notices appeared in many of the periodicals of
the day. From one by his friend. Dr. John Brown, we have
made extracts occasionally. In a French Eeview, L'Abb6
Moigno says, " Sa mort k un c^ge si peu avanc^ (quarante et un
ans) est presque un malheur national." ^ From America there
soon rebounded similar testimonies : " The University of Edin-
burgh has lately suffered severely by the death of one of its
most distinguished teachers. The department of science has
been specially unfortunate. Since the death of the venerable
Jameson, Professor Forbes, whose fine genius and extensive
erudition gave promise of an illustrious life, has been laid in
the sepulchre of his fathers ; and ere yet his country, and we
may say the world of science, has ceased to mourn for this most
gifted of her children, another equally honourable and beloved
has been laid in the dust. The name of Professor George
Wilson, whose recent appointment as Itegius Director of the
Industrial Museum of Scotland, and to the Professorship of
Technology in the University of Edinburgh, was hailed with so

' ' Cosmos,' le 6 Janvier 1860.
2 I

4«8

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XII.

much satisfaction by all who had any acquaintance, cither with
his personal character or numerous contributions to literature
and science, will, we are sure, be held in lasting and alfec-
tionate remembrance." ^

Bequests from the magistrates, and the representatives of
public bodies, that his funeral should be a public one, at which
they might be present, continued to pour in during the week
subsequent to his death. Amongst such proposals the most
touching and gratifying was a letter from " An Artisan," in a
newspaper, suggesting that every working man in the city should
follow the remains to their last resting-place. These requests
for publicity coidd not be put aside, though it was felt that
privacy would have been more in accordance with his retiring
modesty of character. The torrent of love, however, carried all
before it, and on Monday, the 28th November, the hush and awe
of expectancy pervaded the city. A bright sunny day it was, as
if for once that gloomy month cast off her despondency, in
acknowledgment of the truth, " light is sown for the righteous,
and gladness for the upright in heart," and as if the influence of
the bright and sunny spirit still lingered to shed a parting
radiance when the body was laid to rest in hope.

The company of personal friends assembled at Elm Cottage
joined in a short religious service before leaving the house, Dr.
Alexander presiding over one group, and Dr. Cairns over
another. We — now conversant with his life — can imagine why
the latter chose the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians, and can
understand what tender memories crowded on him, making the
voice tremulous with suppressed emotion while reading it. A
prayer followed, and then the carriages with private mourners
l^assed slowly into town.

On the long line of streets through which the cortege defiled,
the shops were closed, and " business suspended for a time in
other parts of the city : multitudes of both sexes crowded the
way ; and as the hearse moved along, many tears were shed,
and the crowd looked on with bated breath, and even the
rude and thoughtless imcovered their heads, and offered their
si_nt tribute of homage. Never before was such a tribute of

» * Tlie Canadian Naturalist and Geologist,' June 18C0.

1859.

SOWN IN CORRUITION.

4^9

'!
7
n

respect and love offered at the grave of any of our citizens." '
On through Princes Street it came, every balcony and window
filled with gazers, dim-eyed and heavy-hearted, till at the Royal
Institution, Mound, the climax was reached, by the public
bodies there awaiting its arrival joining in, and the crowd up-
wards to George Street forming one dense mass of onlookers.
The arrangement then made was that first in order were the
members of Dr Alexander's congregation ; after them the Uni-
versity students, those of the Technological class keeping
together ; the Pharmaceutical Society ; the Royal Scottish
Society of Arts ; the Chamber of Commerce ; the Philosophical
Institution ; the Merchant Company ; the Senatus Academicus
in their gowns ; the Lord Provost and Magistrates in their scar-
let robes; then came the hearse, and —following it — ^his empty
carriage, familiar to Edinburgh eyes, and associated with pleasant
thoughts now turned to sadness. Private carriages and the
general public brought up the rear, the whole number being not
fewer than a thousand.

While all move slowly on, four abreast, through the pic-
turesque portion of Princes Street yet to be traversed, and while
the crowd thickens on every point of eminence, let us proceed to
the Old Calton burial-ground and await its arrival. What is now
a level road, Waterloo Place, once looked down on a valley, with
a cemetery and the Calton Hill beyond it. In 1 81 5 a bridge was
made to span the gulf, while the road was carried (painful neces-
sity) though the cemetery, of which a portion now lies on each
side of the road. That to the right side is the larger and more
interesting ; and it is with it we have to do.'^

The gates to-day are strictly guarded, and no one has been
admitted. As the procession approaches, the niches in the
sci-een-wall — separating on each side the road from the ceme-
teries—are filled with High School boys who, on their way
home, scramble up to see the marvellous homage to one who
sat in the halls where they meet for lessons, and played where
they play, when he too was a little boy. » It seems strange that
the meek yet noble face beneath that coffin-lid should be the

» ' Funeral Sermon' by Dr. Alexander, p. 25. A. & C. Black, Ediiilmrgli.
' Appendix B.

500

MEMOIll OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XII.

centre of all this stir. We can only understand it by listening
to these words : " Them that honour me, I will honour." Now
that they have come close to the gate, the procession is inverted,
those in front falling back and lining the road, while the hearse
passes up the centre, and the relatives immediately follow.
During the short period spent within the walls, the overpower-
ing grief of the mourners passes beyond bounds. But this
last putting to sleep does not take long, and he soon lies with
his twin-brother and the many dearly-loved ones there before
him. " The heavens waited just till they covered him in, and
then wept a quick cold shower, which cleared off, and the new
moon lighted up the west." The private mourners left the
burial-ground while the remainder of the procession was still
passing in. " The grave is the great laboratory, whence alone
the incorruptible, glorious, powerful, spiritual product of the
Eesurrection can emerge. Death is the gate of life. Let us see
those we love borne through it without dismay, since they go
in the train of Christ, and come forth from the temporary shade
in the brightness and splendour of their Divine leader." ^

To the relatives in distant lands those tokens of love came
with soothing power. Speaking of the multitude who thus
gave unmistakable evidence of affection, his cousin in Australia
writes : " God bless all their warm hearts ! " And his brother
Daniel says : " It is not a light thing now to remember that
one whose years of public life have been so few, and even these
encroached on by the ever-increasing impediments of failing
health, has been laid in his grave amid demonstrations of public
sorrow such as have rarely indeed been accorded, in that native
city of his, to Edinburgh's greatest men." ^ " There was some-
thing rare and touching in the homage with which Edinburgh
— the least demonstrative of cities — followed him to the grave." ^

Over his resting-place there has been raised, by his uncle, an
antique cross, harmonizing with that he suggested for his cousin
James Eussell. Tlie iwo stand side by side, alike but different.
It is twelve feet in height, and bears the inscription :

' From unpublished Sermon on 1st Corinthians xv., by the Rev. Dr. Cairns.

« ' Canadian Journal,' March 1860.

' ' Macmillan's Magazine,' January 1860.

i8e».

MONUMENTAL CROSS.

501

IN MEMORY OF

GEORGE WILSON, M.D.

PROFESSOK OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY 01' EUINBUKOU,

AND

DIRECTOR OF THE INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND.

BORN FEBRUARY 21, 1818.

DIED NOVEMBER 22, 1859.

THEM THAT HONOUR ME I WILL HONOUR.

At its base is the emblem of his " dear museum," as expressed
in more than one printed lecture. "When that Museum
shall be erected, I will ask its architect to sculpture on its front
an emblematical device, namely, a circle, to imply that the
Museum represents the industry of the whole world ; within
the circle, an equilateral triangle, the respective sides of which
shall denote the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, from
which industrial ari; gathers its materials ; within the triangle
an open hand, as the symbol of the transforming forces which
change those materials ; and in the palm of that hand an eye,
selecting the materials which shall be transformed." ^

" I hope" — he said of the museum to a young lady in 1856 —
" it is to become a great and famous institution, and that, un-
numbered years heuce, when the daisies have covered me for
many a season, and you are a venerable lady with white hair,
you will walk with some grandchild, as gentle and kindly as
yourself, around its well-filled halls, and show her all the
wonders of the museum." The daisies do cover him now ; and
in spring, snowdrops, symbolical alike of him and of the glorious
resurrection to come, arise, and mutely minister comforting
thoughts to the visitors of that quiet retreat, where, though in

» ' On the Industrial Museum of Scotland in its Relation to Commercial Enterprise.*
A Lecture delivered to the Merchant Company of Edinburgh, and printed for private
circulation, -

502

MEMOIK OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XII,

the very heart of the city, complete scchision is attained, and
one may echo his words : " to be wi' Eichie !" ^

As early as 1847 we find anticipations in his mind of the
time when for him earthly things should have ceased. " My
dear D.," he writes, "had it pleased God to grant us bodily
health, I venture to say that we should both liave done some-
thing to help forward the gi-eat cause of science, and have
earned the love and respect of our fellow-men. But it is plain,
from the wasting illness that God has sent us, that He does not
need us as expositors of the laws He, the great Chemist, has
imposed upon His own universe. Neither you nor I, in all
human probability, will be long left to study earthly chemistry.
We shall soon, very soon, I anticipate, be called away from seeing
all things through a glass darkly, to meet God face to face, and
shall have to answer to Him for the deeds done in the body.
We should certainly exhibit the most inordinate vanity if we
thought that the great mass of our fellow-men would be losers
by our being swept off this great chess-board of a world. This
board, indeed, is always so crowded, that, with the exception of
our attached relatives and a few friends, the greater number of
our neighbours will be glad to know that our being cleared
away has left more elbow-room. Think how soon the world gets
over the death of a Chalmers or an O'Connell, and let us be con-
tent that the place that knew us once shall know us no more."

Those who were in George Street, Edinburgh, about mid-day
on the Sabbath following the funeral would have been tempted
to say that such forgetfulness of him could never be. Long
before the hour for afternoon service crowds. were pressing into
the Music Hall, where a funeral sermon was to be delivered by
Dr. Alexander. The place was chosen for its size, but a hall
three times as large would have been required to admit all who
desired entrance.

From the words, " I heard a voice from heaven saying imto
me. Write, blessed are the dead that die in the Lord," occasion
was taken to point to the hopes of the Christian in anticipating
death with heaven-taught courage, and the inexpressible joys to
which it introduces him. Then followed a sketch of George

, > Ante, p. 368.

1800.

SECRET OF INFLUENCE.

503

Wilson's life, listened to with eager interest, and towards its
close swaying the audience irrepressibly, till even young men
and old bowed their heads and wept without restraint. The
secret of his great attractiveness was dwelt on before concluding,
and estimated aa due not merely to his genius and talents, his
reputation as an author, or his popularity as a lecturer. He had,
it is true, " addressed himself to so many different classes in tjie
community, and he had invariably so gratified, instructed, and
captivated his audience, that there was a very large number of
persons lying, as it were, under personal obligations to him, and
whose feelings toward him were consequently greatly beyond
those which mere admiration of talents or of authorship could
inspire. Added to this was the affection which his unfailing
gentleness, his brave resolution to work, notwithstanding manifest
bodily infirmity and fluctuating health, and his promptitude to
meet the wishes of the public, at whatever sacrifice of time,
energy, and personal convenience, could not fail to excite. Aa
in private, so in public life, there was something about him
which inspired love. P-iople came to feel as if they would like
to do something kind to him, even when they were not per-
sonally acquainted with him. No wonder, then, that a feeling
of this sort, which had been gradually accumulating for years
in the hearts of the commiuiity, shoiild have burst forth in such
a demonstration as that of which our city was the scene when
an opportunity of showing respect to him, which was felt to be
the last, was presented.

" But I believe t ^at that which chiefly moved the multitude
to do him homage was the sense of how true and good a man he
was. It was his religion, so simple, so sincere, so unobtrusive,
yet so constantly operative, that stamped upon his character its
highest worth ; and it was this, I believe, which drew to him
the confidence, the respect, and the love of the community more
than anything else. Men felt that in him there stood before them
one of the finest combinations of genuine science and genuine
Christianity that had ever been presented to their view. For
with him religion and science were not two things — they were
one; so interwoven with each other^ that every contribution

S04

MEMOm OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XII.

which lie made to science was also laid as an offering on th(5
altar of religion. He did not, as is too connuon with men of
science, content himself with merely making his obeisance to
religion, and then passing by on the other side to prosecute an
independent course, lieligion went with him all along his
path, and it was on her head he sought to place the crown that
science had enabled him to Min. It was his daily endeavour to
make all his work bear on the glory of his God and Saviour, to
turn all into a solenm liturgy that should rise up as incense
before God. And in this he so succeeded, that his whole soul
came to be pervaded with Christian influences ; and religious
thoughts and feelings flowed unbidden, and with the most per-
fect naturalness, into all his discourses and writings." ^

Another friend" has endeavoured to account for the intensity
of the mourning : " The stroke was felt in a very peculiar man-
ner by the community of Edinburgh, to whom Dr. Wilson was
endeared by special ties. He had grown up and attained to
distinction among them, had always been looked upon by them
as one of themselves, and his rising reputation and influence
were regarded by his fellow- citizens with a just pride and satis-
faction. He had interested himself actively in whatever tended
to their instruction or improvement, yet always in such a way
as to disarm the hostility of contending parties, and to place
high above suspicion his own spotless integrity, his comprehen-
sive sympathies, and his extraordinary firmness and candour.
His voice had been ever ready to instruct or delight his towns-
men. His personal character, too, had been felt to be an in-
valuable power for good among them, and good of the highest
kind; for it was scarcely possible to avoid receiving an en-
hanced impression of the reality and beauty of genuine religion,
when it was seen embodied in a living character of such piety
and buoyant energy, such lofty aspiration combined with tioie
humility, such generosity, and delicacy, and tenderness, with
unbending truth and integrity of principle, — in short, such a
general gi*ace and loveliness, united with such masculine deter -

I ' Funeral Semion,' by W. L. Alexander, D.D., pp. 26-28. A. and C. Black, Edin-
burgh, a Professor MacDougall.

mWffn

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE.

505

T»i nation, activity, and force. It was a community thus fondly
att'cctionod towards him that were suddenly startled and horrified
Ly the intelligence of his death."

All this is beautifully expressive of the truth ; but probably
no endeavour to analyse the constituents of that influence over
others which George Wilson exercised, consciously and uncon-
sciously, can be more than partially successful. In looking at a
flower or a bird, we can scarcely tell from what it is we receive
delight : form, colour, odour, and grace of motion, all conspire
to please, and it is not necessary to know why we are pleased.
If it be so with a simple organism, how nnich more difficult is
it to solve the problem with a being whose higher nature com-
munes with us through media in themselves so attractive, that
we can only bask in the sunshine of its radiance with un-
questioning joy ? Wortli of character is often unattractive in
itself, but united to genius it is well-nigh irresistible. I^et us
not on this account, however- if unable to lay claim to this
rarer charm-- put aside the lessons taught us by George Wilson's
life, but rather let us look on him as one who, like St. Paul, ob-
tained mercy, for a pattern to them who should hereafter belie\ e
to life everlasting.

When great lights are removed from this dark world, does it
not become those less brilliant to seek to shed their rays over
a larger surface, that the gloom may be somewhat diminished,
and the bright shining of the true Light everywhere hastened ?
" Allow net the unobtrusive meekness you have witnessed, the
steady truth, the upright integrity, the Unostentatious self-
denial, the patient sweetness, the hopeful resignation of the
loved and lost to die away in your temporary admiration of
them ; but let them fall into your hearts like living seeds, there
to be cherished as precious things, which are in due season to
bear fruit after their kinds in your own life and experience,
— fruit which shall be the strength and comfort of those who
come after you, and your testimony to the faithfulness of your
God."^

» 'The Ascension of our Lord :' a Sermon by R P. Graves, M.A , p. 11.
ton, Adams, and Co., London.

Hamil-

506

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

CHAP. XII.

We attempt no further estimate of his life or character. He
himself has narrated the facts, from which each may draw his
own conclusions. Where these fail to influence, further words
would be of little avail. And so farewell, dear reader: may
we meet him in the temple of our God, to go no more out for
ever !

\ XII.

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APPENDIX.

ESTIMATE BY DR. J. H. GLADSTONE.

In endeavoming to form an estimate of Dr. George Wilson as
a scientific man, it is necessary to remember that he passed
through the ordinary curriculum of a medical student, then
devoted himself more especially to chemistry and the allied
natural sciences, and afterwards had his attention particularly
directed to the useful arts as Professor of Technology. It should
be also borne in mind that he was a literary as well as a
scientific man, and that he spent a large portion of his time as a
public teacher. I shall therefore, for the sake of convenience
and greater clearness, regard him from four different points of
view, — as an original investigator ; as a technologist ; as a
scientific historian or biographer; and as a teacher or expounder.

id
Si
3\
i£

.■,f08

lil

AS AN ORIGINAL INVESTIGATOR.

Though it is not as an investigator that Dr. Wilson acquired
his principal fame, yet his researches were by no means few in
number or limited in range. He added to our store of know-
ledge in chemistry, in physiology, and in natural philosophy ;
but not so much by actual discoveries as by elucidating points
that were previously involved in obscurity. While some of his
fellow-inquirers followed up any hint that Nature might give,
and formed their crude theories, he was generally content to
expound and illustrate their views, and to devise, if possible,
some crucial experiment that would decide between rival hypo-
theses. And if the inquiry bore in any way on the welfare of
his fellow-men, he felt it to possess a greater claim on his atten-
tion. As he published much, with little leisure for quiet
research, he also frequently suggested thoughts and processes

510

MEMOIR OP GEORGE WILSON.

which others have pursued to a successful issue. Thus he had
great influence on the science of the day, though he never added
to the list of chemical compounds, which is now growing to
such portentous dimensions, or made any anatomical discoveries.

His first investigation was his boldest, and that farthest re-
moved from ordinary human interest. In chemistry there has
long been a notable question, — What becomes of a Haloid salt
in solution ; or, to take a particular instance, when common
salt dissolves in water, does it remain chloride of sodium, or
does it become hydrochlorate of soda ? Dr. Wilson, when a
student, thought he had solved this riddle. He communicated
his discovery to the British Association, and published his
* Experimental Demonstration of the Existence of Haloid Salts
in Solution,'^ resting mainly on the fact that hydrobromic acid
dissolved in water with terchloride of gold produces the scarlet
bromide of that metal. The argument in the then state of
chemical knowledge was perhaps unanswerable ; but, from
frequent communications with him on the subject in later years,
I know that he altered his opinion of its conclusiveness. He
brought the matter again before the British Association in 1855,
with further experiments, and in the meantime he had published
a paper on "Tlie Argument for the Binary Theory of Salts,
derived from the non-action of the anhydrous oxygen acids on
organic colours."^

In the early part of Dr. Wilson's career, his fellow- student

» This is to be found in the * Edinburgh Academic Annual' for 1839. It formed
part of one of the Inaugural Dissertations, selected by the Faculty of Medicine to
compete for their annual gold medal at the public graduation, August 1, 1839.

* ' Quarterly Journal of the Chemical Society,' vol. L p. 332. In a letter to
Dr. Gladstone in May 1865, Dr. Wilson speaks of this inquiry while referring to a
paper of Dr. Gladstone's, ' On Circumstances Modifying the Action of Chemical
Affinity.' (See Pliil. Trans, for 1855.) "As for the Salt question, remember
that my paper was written so far back as 1837, when I was a student, and that
the BerthoUet doctrines of affinity, although pleaded for by Professor Graham, were
not appreciated as your papers will now lead tliem to be. Graham himself volunteered
his adhesion to my views at the British Association meeting of 1839, so little did he
think of questioning them by such reasonings as yours. I did not purpose to call
in question the general justness of your conclusions. On the other hand, I fully
admit and admire them, and freely acknowledge that my inferences must be modified
in the light of your views, which are far beyond and above Bertliollet's in many
respects. At the same time, I think my conclusions substantially unaffected, and
that your recognition of what our older chemists called ' Elective Affinity' occuniiig
accoi^ing to the law of equivalents, leaves me all I demand."— J. A. W.

APPENDIX.

511

and friend, the late Dr. Samuel Brown, propounded his ingenious
1 1 Atomic Theory, and believed he had found an experimental sup-
port for his views in the conversion of carbon into silicon. This
alleged transmutation of elements created a great sensation in
the scientific world, especially as the then vacant chair of
. chemistry at Edinburgh was claimed by his friends for Dr. Brown,
! as an appropriate reward for his dissertations and discoveries.
But the reputed facts were denied ; and Dr. Wilson undertook
to sift the matter to the bottom. He spent the winter of 1 843-44
in repeating the experiments in conjunction with Mr. John
Crombie Brown, and they printed together an account of them;^
and Dr. Wilson pubKshed a paper on isomeric transmutation,'"^
in which the whole question was very cabnly discussed, the
difficulty presented by the atomic weights fairly set forth, and the
statement made that the experiments were insufficient to prove
the important deduction which had been drawn from them.

During the previous year, a discussion had arisen in the Zoolo-
gical Society of London, about the bones of that gigantic fossil
bird, the dinornis. Those bones, and those of many other extinct
creatures, were found to contain an enormous amount of fluoride
of calcium, instead of the doubtful trace which had been detected
in recent bones. The theory had been started by Dr. Falconer,
that this fluoride might have come from a transmutation of the
ordinary phosphate of lime, while the more orthodox opinion
was maintained by Mr. Middleton, that the fluoride had been
somehow dissolved and deposited in the bones while buried in
the earth. Here was just a question after Dr. Wilson's own
heart, especially as it glanced at the bewitching idea of trans-
. mutation. He entered on the subject, and during several years
produced a series of papers, the titles of which are given below,*

•r

» ' Trans. R S. E.,' vol. xv. part iv.

2 ' Edin. New Phil. Journal,' July 1844.

» On the Solubility of Fluoride of Calcium in Water, and its relation to the occur-
rence of Fluorine in Minerals, and in recent and fossil Plants and Animals.— ' Trans.
R, S. E.,' vol. xvi. part ii.

On the Presence of Fluorine in Blood and Milk, &c.— * Edin. New Phil. Journal,'
October 1850.

On the Presence of Fluorine in Ocean Waters.—' Edin. New Phil. Journal/ April

1850.
On Two New Processes for the Detection of Fluorine when accompanied by Silica,

512

MEMOIR OF GEOBGE WILSON.

in which he showed the presence of fluoride of calcium, not only
in the bones and teeth, but in the blood, milk, and other secre-
tions of recent animals ; then he traced it back to the vegetable
world, finding it in the stems of many of those plants which the
mammalia use for food. Attacking the question. How does the
plant derive its supply of this element? he found the fluoride of
calcium soluble to a slight extent even in pure water, and occur-
ring not merely in the mineral fluor spar itself, but also in
small quantities in granite, porphyry, and many other rocks.
He found it to be dissolved by the springs, and thus what is
not absorbed by the plants feeding on the soil makes its way
into the rivers, and ultimately into the sea, among the salts
of which fluorine was discovered to be an ordinary constituent.
Dr. Wilson was led to the conclusion that the fluoride found
in some of these big bones of ancient times had filtered into
them, forming a very insoluble compound with the phosphate
of lime.

Dr. Wilson's researches on Colour-Blindness appear to me the
most complete of his investigations, and those with which his
name will be most inseparably associated. In November 1853
he commenced a series of papers in the ' Edinburgh Monthly
Journal of Medical Science' on Colour-Blindness, or Chromato-
pseudopsis, as he termed it. During this investigation, he not
merely brought together the substance of everything that had
been previously written on the subject, but he collected accounts
of all the colour-blind whom he could induce to describe their
peculiarities faithfully in writing, or to let him examine them.
There were tailors who matched a scarlet waistcoat with green
strings ; clerks who signed their names in red instead of black
ink ; physicians who never saw the tint of their patients' com-
plexions ; and laboratory students who were never sure of the

and on the presence of Fluorine in Granite, Trap, and other Igneous Rocks, and in
the Ashes of recent and fossil Plants. — 'Trans.'B. S. E.,' vol. xx. part iii.

On the Extent to which Fluoride of Calcium is Soluble in Water at 60» F.— ' Trans.
Brit. Assoc' 1847, p. 61.

On the Presence of Fluorine in the Stems of Graminea;, Equisitacea;, and other
Plants, with Observations on the Sources from which Vegetables derive this clement.
— 'Bot. Soc. Ediu.'1852.

On M. J. Nickle's Clpim to be the Discoverer of Fluorine in the Blood.— ' Phil.
Mag.' March 1857.

APPENDIX.

513

colour of a precipitate. He examined the sight of his brother
professors and of his pupils, and had drawn up before him the
police, and the attendants at a lunatic asylum, and whole com-
panies of soldiers, infantry, artillery, and hussars. Thus he was
able to determine, with some accuracy, the proportion of the
colour-blind, — about two per cent, being found defective as
Dalton was, that is, mistaking greens, reds, and browns, and
sometimes calling red black ; while about five per cent, were
found subject to this peculiarity in a minor degree. Dr.
Wilson's mode of experimenting was usually with coloured
diagrams and Berlin wools, but he also employed the prismatic
spectrum itself. Thus he was able to show the small perception
of red, which is the principal symptom of colour-blindness ; and
that many of the most curious mistakes, such, for instance, as
confounding light red purple with dark blue, arise from the red
rays being scarcely luminous to such patients. I believe he
was the first to point out that there is often a shortsightedness
in regard to colour when there is none in respect to form ; and
that to many patients red is more visible by artificial light, so
that, while unable to distinguish by their colour the red flowers
from the green leaves of the geranium by day, they enjoy the
chromatic contrast as they walk through the conservatory by
gas-light. On this fact Dr. Wilson founded the most practical
suggestion for the alleviation of this defect, namely, the substi-
tution of artificial light for day-light in the examination of
colours, and the employment, for a similar purpose, of glasses
coloured slightly orange or yellow. He was not content with
ascertaining the symptoms, but desired also to discover the
cause of colour-blindness; hence he was led to examine the
theories which had been previously propounded, and to investi-
gate the necessaiy chromatic effect of the yellow spot on the
retina, the colour of the choroid coat, and of the tapetum lucidum
in animals, and the vision of Albinoes. These inquiries did not
lead to an explanation of the matter, but they were interesting
in themselves, and gave rise to two special papers,^ which he

1 On the Extent to which the received Theory of Vision requires us to regard the Eye
as a Camera Obscura. — ' Trans. R.S.E.' vol. xxi. part ii.

On the Transmission of the Actinic rays of light through the Eye, and their relation
to the Yellow Spot of the Retina.—' Trans. R.S.E.'

2 K

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From the fre-
quency of this defect, Dr. Wilson perceived the danger attending
the use of red and green signals on railways, and of the red and
green lamps on the port and starboard sides of our naval and mer-
cantile steam-vessels, and of the use of the same colours in light-
houses. He brought the matter before the notice of the Eoyal
Scottish Society of Arts, and the attention of the railway
companies was seriously drawn to the necessity of examining
their engine-drivers as to their ability to distinguish the '^oloured
signals. The whole of his observations on this subject were
published as a tieparate work, entitled ' Eesearches on Colour
Blindness.' ^

Another of Dr. Wilson's important investigations wfi.i " On the
action of dry gases on organic colourmg laatters, and its relation
to the theory of bleaching,"^ from which, after experimenting
with various gases an^ solvents, botli in darkness and sunlight,
he drew the conclusion, that "chlorine can bleach though
oxygen be absent ; neither water nor any other liquid is essen-
tial to the decolorising action of chlorine, otherwise than as
enabling the gas and the colour to come within the sphere of
chemical action, by dissolving both. A similar conclusion,
mutatis mutandis, may be extended to oxygen, sulphurous acid,
hydrosulphuric acid, and hydrochloric acid, but with this quali-
fication, that specific differences may be expected to occur with
all the gases named, as to their action on any one colouring
matter, and with different colouring matters as to their depoit-
ment with any one of the gases."

Beside these researches, Dr. Wilson attempted to decide the
question of the decomposition of water into its constituent gases
by heat alone, by analyzing the bubbies that rise %\;\en the red-
hot drop of oxide that is produced during the combustion of
iron in oxygen falls into water ; but this neither confiimed nor
disproved the views of Professor Grove.^ lie read communica
tions also before the Eoyal Society of Edinlurgh, " On Dr. Wcl-
laston's argument from the limitation of the atmosphere as to

> SutlieWanii & Knox, Edinburgh.

■■> 'Trans. RH.E./ vol. xvi. part iv.

3 ' Quarterly Jcnrnal of Chemical Society.' 18J7.

^---yf'^.

APPENDIX.

515

the finite divisibility of matter ;"^ and on the probability of the
nitric acid sometimes found in the air being one source of the
nitrogen found in plants. '^ As to chloroform, at one time he
took its specific gravity,' at another he observed the strange
phenomena of capillary attraction which it exhibits ;* and yet
again he wrote on " Chloroform as an anaesthetic from a pa-
tient's point of view." He once published an analysis of a sup-
posed meteoric stone ; and then he turned to discover in which
organs lead accumulated, when some horses were slowly poi-
soned by that metal ; he observed the crystallization of bi- car-
bonate of ammonia in spherical masses, or speculated on the
origin of the diamond.^ Most varied, too, were the subjects on
which he gave practical suggestions, — the electro-magnetic bell,
for experiments on the conduction of sound f oxygen, for the
restoration of our half-drowned fellow-creatures ;^ and artificial
sea- water for our actiniae.^

AS A TECHNOLOGIST.

Long before Dr. Wilson's appointment as Regius Director of
the Indufitripl Museum of Scotland, he had, in his laboratory
practice, been led to investigate several of the chemical arts. He
had even published papers bearing more or less on some of them,
as, for instance, that already referred to, which elucidated the
theory of bleaching. But when his mind was specially turned
to the subject of Technology, he put all his heart into it. It
appealed at once to his intellectual and his moral nature : there
was a vast range of inquiry, not too profound ; and what was
better still, that inquiry had a direct bearing on the happiness
of bis fellow-men. In the formation of the Industrial Museum
he worked hard ; and those who have enjoyed the advantage, as
I have, of being conducted by him through the rich stores in

• 'Trans. R.S.E.,' vol. xvi. part i.
« 'Trans. R.S.E.,' vol. xx. part iv.
3'Monthly Journal of Medical Science.' 1848.

* ' Quarterly Journal of Chemical Society.' Vol. i.

* ' Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.' 1850. « Ibid. 1846.

7'Trans. R.S.S.A.' 1845.

* ' Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.' 1855.

516

M£MOIH OF GEOBGE 'VILSON.

readiness for the future building, can alone appreciate the care
and thought which must have guided him in the selection and
arrangement of such varied mateiials. Most wonderful and
refreshing too was it to behold the enthusiasm with which he
bore his feeble body ov°-r a manufactory, peeping into every
process, collecting samples, and gathering the workmen around
him, who always seemed delighted to tell him all they knew,
or to listen to his kind and instructive remarks. His technolo-
gical course, too, \va3 largely attended, and in his inaugural
lecture for 1855^ he explained the nature of Technology as the
science of the utilitarian arts, and expressed his intention of at
once giving a systematic course, "so that the Museum will
minister to the Chair, not the Chair wait upon the Museum.'
The plan of the course is thus described in a recent article in
the ' North British Review,' quoting from his class syllabus : —

" The course was divided into mineral, vegetable, and animal
technology. Under the first were included the relation of the
atmosphere, the ocean and tributary waters, and the earth, to
Technology ; and among special subjects, fuel, building material,
glass and glass-making, pottery, earthenware, stoneware, and
porcelain ; metallotechny, electrotechny, and magnetotechny.
Under the second, or vegetable technology, were considered
saccharo-amylaceous substances, sugar- making, albuminous sub-
stances, and fermentation, distillation, wood and wood fibres,
textile tissues, oleaching, dyeing, calico-printing, paper-making,
scriptorial or graphic industrial arts, caoutchouc, gutta-percha,
and the resins, fats, and oils. Under the third section, or ani-
mal technology, were included the mechanical application and
chemical products of bones, ivoiy, horns, hoofs, tortoiseshell,
shells, and corals; skins, tanning, fish-scales, hair, fur, wool,
bristles, quiUs, and feathei-s, animal refuse."

The introductory prelection of the following year was on the
physical sciences which form the basis of Technology;^ and for
1858 and 1859 he chose the progress of the telegraph.' He

> ' What is Technologj' V Sutherland & Kuox.

* Printed in the 'Edinburgh New PliilosophicalJournal.'

* Published as a separate treatise by Macmillan & Co.

January 1857.

APPENDIX.

617

pressed the importance of this study on many classes of the
community in lectures which have been separately published.
Thus he taught the farmers of the Highland and Agricultural
Society how deeply interested they are, or ought to be, in the
advance of the useful arts. He brought the subject before the
Pharmaceutical Chemists, and before the Company of Merchants,
urging on them their fourfold duty " to gather workable ma-
terials from the ends of the earth ; to send forth finished pro-
ducts, derived from these, to the four quarters of the heavens ;
to employ the most perfect mechanical and chemical appliances
which can change the one into the other, and facilitate their
transmission throughout the world ; to encourage new arts, and
hope for still newer ones ; " and lastly, as a Christmas lesson,
he taught in the National Galleries the relation of ornamental
to industrial art, showing that while Beauty remains Beauty, the
Beast Utility may become " a graceful Prince, losing the clumsi-
ness, but keeping the strength of his former state, and Prince
and Princess join hands, each possessed of gifts which the other
has not. Not like to like, but like in difiference."

Not merely as Director, or rather collector of the Museum,
and as Professor of Technology, did Dr. Wilson advance the
cause of this science which he had made his own, but also as
President of the Koyal Scottish Society of Arts. He foimd time
too for writing on such subjects : as, for instance, two papers
on Photography,^ full of ingenious suggestions ; articles in the
' Builder' on the Chemistry of Building Materials ; and a little
monograph on Paper, Pen, and Ink, which appeared in ' Mac-
millan's Magazine' for last November, the same month in which
ceased his labours for the material and mental advancement of
his brother men.

» On the Production of Photographs on Fluorescent Surfaces.—' Journal of Pho-
tographic Society.' 1857.

On Dryness, Darkness, awl Coldness as means of preserving Photographs from
foding.— Ibid. 1859.

Some of the theoretical views expressed in the first of these papers, relating to the
slight photographic efTect of fluorescent substances, I have had the pleasure of proving
experimentally to be correct. For some curious photographic observations of Dr.
Wilson, see also ' Cosmos,' Nov. 11, 1859, p. 613.— J. H. G.

618

MEMOIK OF OEOROE WILSON.

AS A SCIENTIFIC HISTORIAN AND BIOGRAPHER.

In the preface to his ' Life of Cavendish/ Dr. Wilson swys :
— " During the enforced leisure of a long illness, I commenced
in 1842 to collect mutorials for a projected work on the lives of
the chemists of Great Britain, in which Cavendish should occupy
a prominent place, and I had made some progress in my task
when the Cavendish Society was founded. . . . When, however,
at the call of the Society, I laid aside the more general under-
taking in which I was engaged, and turned my attention solely
to the works and character of the Honourable Henry Cavendish,
circumstances had occurred which gave him an importance in
the eyes of the lettered public such as no other chemist at the
time possessed." And well and laboriously did Dr. Wilson
portray the great philosopher, and imravel the mysteries of the
water controversy. His description of the man isolated from
his fellows is quite photographic ; and after once reading it, we
have always a mental portrait of him wandering about the house
at Clapham, inspecting his thermometers and rain-gauges,
dining his few friends off the invariable leg of mutton, and in-
different to objects that excite or gratify the imagination, emo-
tions, or higher affections. " His theoiy of the universe seems
to have been, that it consisted solely of a multitude of objects
which could be weighed, numbered, and measured ; and the
vocation to which he considered himself called was, to weigh,
number, and measure, as many of those objects as his allotted
threescore years and ten would permit." From a lengthy re-
view of all the documents bearing upon the subject, ^r. Wilson
came to the conclusion that as far as the discovery oi the com-
position of water by synthesis is concerned. Cavendish has
the highest claim ; and when, some years afterwards, other
documents came to light, he had the satisfaction of finding
that his view of the case was fully established ; and this more
complete vindication of the priority of Cavendish he brought
before the public in the 'Athenaeum,' and before the Royal
Society of Edinburgh.

Dr. Wilson never carried out his projected work on the lives
of the chemists, but he has left behind various monographs on

APPENDIX.

6lft

Wollastou, Black, Robert Boylo, and Dalton.' His hioj;;raphical
sketches, too, were not confined to chemists ; and at the period
of liis death he was engaged on the memoir of his fellow-student
and colleague, the lato Professor Edward Forbes. The only com-
plete biography, however, besides that of Cavendish, which we
possess from his pen, is that of Dr. John Keid, and this is rather
a literary than a scientific work ; but it contains such a portrait
as could be only delineated by a man who at the same time felt
the interest of Dr. Reid's jdiysiological discoveries, and appreci-
ated his religious life.

Dr. Wilson's attention was directed to the history of appara-
tus as well as of the inventors themselves, and he urged upon
his contemporaries the preservation of those models and actual
machines which represent the earliest forms of important en-
gines.'^ In 1849 he published a paper on the early history of
the air-pump in England,^ with diagrams of the different ma-
chines, in which he rectified errors that other historians had
fallen into ; and those who were present at the opening of the
chemical section of the British Association at Aberdeen will re-
member the beautiful diagrams with which he covered the walls,
in illustration of his further researches in the same direction.
In another paper,* he claims as the earliest electrical machine,
not Otto von Guericke's famous sulphur ball, but an electrical
fish ; he points out the antiquity and generality of the practice
of using such fishes as remedial agents, and brings together an
immense store of information from many unheard-of sources re-
specting the Torpedo, the Silurus of the Nile, the Gymnotus, and
especially the Malapterurus Beninensis, which is found in the
muddy brackish waters of the rivers of Old Calabar, and appears
to be put by the native women into the tubs in which they wash
their children, in the belief that its shocks render them healthy
and strong. Under this head I may also class the paper on the
fruits of the CucurbitacefB and Crescentiacese,'' in which he shows

> ' British Quarterly Review.'

' See his Address ns President of the Royal Society of Arts, 1857.
"Edin. New"^ ; Journal,' April 1849.

* On theElectiical Fishes, as the earliest Electric Machines employed by Mankind.
- ' Edin. New Phil. Journal,' October 18.57.
« 'Trans. Dot. Soc. Edin.,' vol. vi.

620

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

by a similar accumulation of miscellaneous lore, that different
species of gourds furnish the models for different utensils,
namely, the long- necked bottle with the egg-shaped body, the
constricted pilgrim's bottle, and the cupping-glass.

AS A TE\CHER AND EXPOUNDER.

While many of Dr. Wilson's contemporaries could pursue a
train of research with greater ability, none perhaps could render
the new truth thus obtained so attractive by copious imagery
and varied illustration. The expansiveness of his style, which
led to his strictly scientific works being considered in some quar-
ters too diffuse, is a beauty in those where he appears as the
illustrator of our physical knowledge, for every figure tells, and
every fresh point of view has its own peculiar value. His popu-
larity as a lecturer, both with his students and with the public
at large, was very great. This arose partly from his thorough
knowledge of the subjects he handled, but more from the felicity
of his descriptions, the clearness of his explanations, and the
poetry and pathos which rendered the whole beautifuL His
little book on chemistry in ' Chambers's Educational Course,'
which is adapted for those who desire a knowledge of the fun-
damental principles and leading facts of the science, without
entering into any great detail, has already attained a sale of
upwards of twenty-four thousand, and that prose poem, the
' Five Gateways of Knowledge,^ has led many to find a new
world of thought and enjoyment in the old region of their five
senses. His treatise on Electricity and the Electric Telegraph^
gives a most intelligible account of this wonderful agency ; and
the * Chemistry of the Stars' shows how he could carry the fancy
of his readers forward from the results of dry analysis.

As instances of the extraordinary clearness with which Dr.
Wilson illustrated difficult points, I would refer to his expo-
sition of the numerical laws of chemistry in the educational
treatise just mentioned, which I think the most easily compre-
hensible in existence, and to his more popular description of the
nervous system, given in Dr. Reid's Life.

' Macmillan and Co., Cambridge.

« These are printed togetlier, and constitute Part 26 of the ' Travellers' Library.'

APPENDIX.

521

The beauty of Dr. Wilson's discourses and writings depended
not a little on his religion, and on his fine {esthetic taste. His
quotations from the Holy Scriptures, and references to spiritual
things, were frequent, not in the form of a pious deduction
dragged in imcomfortabl^' at the end of a lecture, but as the
natural reflections of a mind thoroughly embued with the love
of God and man, and accustomed to refer every good gift to the
Father of Lights. In his addresses to medical or other students,
he delighted to draw attention to the great facts of the spiritual
world ; but his * Chemical Final Causes'^ is the only one of his
scientific writings which has a deliberately theological character.
In it he attempts to add to the ever-accumulating proofs of de-
sign, by showing especially that phosphorus, nitrogen, and iron,
are the best adapted of the known elements for the purposes
they are required to fulfil in animal organisms.

As to Dr. Wilson's aesthetic taste, he was an instance that a
chemist is not one (to quote his own humorous description^)
whose " vocation has been to prowl aroimd, like a very demon,
seeking what of the poet's property he might lay hands on and
devour ; to prove himself a man of the earth, earthy alike by
profession and by relish for the work of a disenchanter, to whom
a mystery is interesting only because it may be explained, and
an object beautiful because the cause of its beauty may be dis-
covered." The popular impression about some chemists, that
" the aquafortis and the chlorine of the laboratories have as
effectually bleached the poetry out of them, as they destroy the
colours of tissues exposed to their action," certainly never arose
from an acquaintance with Dr. Wilson. In his writings there
is often a rhythmical charm and balance of expressions which
suit well with the poetic quotations in \/hich he sometimes
freely indulges. As instances, I take abriost at random from
his discourse on the Progress of the Telegraph : — " We nicely
discuss whether telegram is a proper word or not, and invoke
the heroes of Homer to side with us for or against a term which
would have tried every Greek tongue in its utteranc e and vexed
every Greek ear in its hearing ; and all the while the bees who

» ' Edin. Univ. Essays,' 1856.

' In 'The alleged Antagonism between Poetry and Chemistry.'

522

MEMOIR OP GEORGE WILSON.

rejoice amidst the sugar plantations of our heather warn and
welcome each other in songs which the bees of Hymettus sang
to each other ; and the grasshoppers signal from meadow to
meadow as they did of old, when the musical shiver of their
wings rang over Greece as its cradle-psalm." And again, speak-
ing of the compass-needle " as the guide of Vasco de Gama to
the East Indies, and of Columbus to the West Indies and the
New World, it was pre-eminently the precursor and pioneer of
the telegraph. Silently, and as with finger on its lips, it led
them across the waste of waters to the new homes of the world ;
but when these were largely filled, and houses divided between
the old and new hemispheres longed to exchange affectionate
greetings, it removed its finger and broke silence. The quiver-
ing magnetic needle which lies in the coil of the galvanometer
is the tongue of the electric telegraph, and already engineers
talk of it as speaking."

One might almost think that Dr. Wilson was the living ana-
logue of that astronomical fact which he thus describes:* "I would
liken science and poetry in their natural interdependence to those
binary stars, often different in colour, which Herschel's telescope
discovered to revolve round each other. ' There is one light of
the sun,' says St. Paul, ' and another of the moon, and another
of the stars : star differeth from star in glory.' It is so here.
That star or sun, for it is both, with its cold, clear, white light,
is SCIENCE : that other, with its gorgeous and ever-shifting hues
and magnificent blaze, is poetry. They revolve lovingly round
each other in orbits of their own, pouring forth and drinking in
the rays which they exchange ; and they both also move round
and shine towards that centre from which they came, even the
throne of Him who is the Source of all truth and the Cause of
all beauty."

* In ' The alleged Antagonism between Poetry and Chemistry.'

APPENDIX.

523

APPENDIX B.

The following notice of the Old Calton Burial Ground, and
the historical reminiscences associated with it, is from the pen
of Professor Daniel Wilson : —

" It stretches southwards to the brow of the precipice which
overhangs the Old Town of Edinburgh, lying there at a depth of
about a hundred feet below, and --where the crowded monuments
and family enclosures admit of a peep beyond — the elevated
site commands a wide view of the distant Pentlands, the Castle,
with the Old Town piled up to its rocky heights, and the
crowded avenues between the Old and New Towns, whence the
busy hum reaches the ear, mellowed by the distance into sounds
of life that mingle not unpleasantly with the echoes of that
silent scene. Tlie cemetery is of comparatively recent date ; and
though heaved into many a mouldering heap, its grassy mounds
have few associations with illustrious names. Nevertheless the
locality is not without its historical reminiscences ; and from its
commanding site, must have been a point of considerable im-
portance both to the assailants and defenders of the Scottish
capital, when in olden times it was guarded by embrasured wall
and gate. Eight below the crag, now crowded with the monu-
ments of modern generations, there foimerly stood the ancient
Collegiate Church founded by the widowed Queen of the second
Scottish Jamus in 1462, and beyond it St. Anthony's Port, which
commanded the northern entrance to the steep avenue leading
to the Netherbow. A Roman causeway has been traced along
the very base of the cliff ; and the discovery of some fine red
Saurian ware in 1815, when digging the foundations of the Post-
ofl&ce, which bounds the cemetery on the west, leaves no doubt
that the footprints of the Poman conqueror have been there.
An old map of 1544 — the earliest memorial of Edinburgh topo-
graphy — now preserved in the British Museum, shows the Earl
of Hereford with his army occupying the Calton Hill, before
putting the city to fire and sword, according to the barbarous

524

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON,

instructions of Henry vni, who took this way of forcing an
alliance between the infant Queen Mary and his son Edward,
But a more definite account, pertaining to a later year of the same
unfortunate Scottish Queen, points out the locality of the modem
cemetery as the site of batteries erected by the Kegent Lennox in
1572, when the castle and city were held by the brave Sir
William Kirkaldy of Grange on behalf of the Queen, The
Regent's party were bent on holding a Parliament within the
city ; and the ' Queen's men,' to prevent this, took possession
of St. Giles's Church, and manned the steeple, which completely
commanded the Parliament House, Thereupon the Estates {i.e.,
the Scottish Parliament) assembled in the Canongate, without
the walls, but within the liberties of the city, which extended to
St, John's Cross ; and a battery was erected for their protection
— as the gossiping old Diarist chronicles in the 'Diurnal of
Occurrents,' — upon ' the Dow Craig abone the Trinity College
beside Edinburgh, to ding and siege the north-east quarter of
the burgh,' This Dow (Gaelic, Du or black) Craig is undoubt-
edly the spot. The Calton Hill, with the adjacent suburban
district of Calton, belonged to the barony of the Lords BaJmer-
inoch, and in the earlier part of the 18th century the last Lord
Balmerinoch, who perished on the block in 1746 for his fidelity
to the Stuarts, presented the Dow Craig and adjacent ground to
his Calton vassals as a public cemetery. Since then the rugged
scene of foreign violence and rude civil strife has been dedicated
to the sacred rites, where all that is mortal of many a loved one
has been laid to rest, earth to earth ; and the hallowed spot is
consecrated by many a humble memorial of affection, clustering
around the mausoleum of the great philosopher and sceptic,
David Hume, to which has since been added by pious hands the
sculptured emblem of the Christian's hopes, — looking like an
afterthought, appended by later hands, to some old pagan Eoman's
sepulchre,"

R(
Tl

Iij

APPENDIX.

025

APPENDIX C.

TITLES OF WORKS AND PAPERS PUBLISHED BY
PROFESSOR GEORGE WILSON.

WORKa.

Chemistry : an Elementary Text-Book. W. & R. Chambers, Edin-
burgh. 1850.

The Life and Works of the Honourable Henry Cavendish ; including
a Critical Inquiry into the relative claims of all the alleged Dis-
coverers of the Composition of Water. Printed for the Cavendish
Society. 1851.

The Life of Dr. John Reid, late Chandos Professor of Medicine in the
University of St. Andrews. 1852. Second Edition. Sutherland
and Knox, Edinburgh.

The Travellers' Libmry, No. 26. — Electricity and the Electric Tele-

* gi'aph (Reprinted from the Edinburgh Review). The Chemistiy
of the Stars (Reprinted from the British Quarterly Review). 1852.

Researches on Colour-Blindness. Sutherland and Knox. Edinburgh.
1855.

The Five Gateways of Knowledge. Macmillan & Co., Cambridge and
London. 1857. Second Edition.

PAPERS ON CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS, CHIEFLY CONTRIBUTED TO

TRANSACTIONS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.

1839.

Inaugural Dissertation on the Existence of Haloid Salts in Solution.
Read before British Association in 1839 : published in Edinburgh
Academic Annual for 1840.

1842.
Chemical Analysis of Organic Fluid, in which Sarcina Ventriculi was
first detected. Edinburgh Med. & Surg. Journal, No. 151.

1844.
On Isomeric Transmutation. Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.
Account of a Repetition of several of Dr. Samuel Brown's Processes for
the Conversion of Carbon into Silicon. By George Wilson, M.D.,
and John Crombie Brown, Esq. Trans. R.S.E.

1845.
On the Employment of Oxygen as a means of Resuscitation in Asphyxia,
and otherwise as a Remedial Agent. Trans. R.S.S.A.

526

MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON.

On a Simple Mode of constructing Skeleton Models to illustrate the
Systems of Crystallography. Trans. R.S.S.A.

On WoUaston's Argument from the Limitation of the Atmosphere, as to
the Finite Divisibility of Matter. Trans. RS.E.

1846.

On the Solubility of Fluoride of Calcium in Water, and its Relation to
the occurrence of Fluorine in Minerals, and in Recent and Fossil
Plants and Animals. Trans. R.S.E.

On the Applicability of the Electro-Magnetic Bell to the trial of Expe-
riments on the Conduction of Sound, especially of Gases. Trans.
R.S.S.A., and Edin. New Phil. Journal.

1847.
On the Decomposition of Water by Platinum and the Black Oxide of
Tion at a white heat ; with some Observations on the Theory of Mr.
Grove's Experiments. Memoirs of Chemical Society, London.

1848.

On the Specific Gravity of Chloroform, and its Superiority, wlien pure,
as an Anaesthetic. Edin. Monthly Journal of Medical bcience.

On some Phenomena of Capillary Attraction observed with Chloroform,
Bisulphuret of Carbon, and other liquids. Journal of Chemical So-
ciety, London.

On the Action of Dry Gases on Organic Colouring Matters, and its Re-
lation to the Theory of Bleaching. Trans. R.S.E.

On the Argument for the Binary Theory of Salts from the Non-action
of Anhydrous Oxygen Acids on Organic Colours. Memoirs of
Chemical Society, London.

1849.

On the Early History of the Air-Pump in England. Read to the R.S.E. :
published in Edin. Phil. Journal.

On the Extraction of Mannite from the Root of Dandelion. Trans.
RS.E.

1850.

On the Crystallization of Carbon and the Possible Derivation of the
Diamond from Graphite and Anthracite. Read to R.S.E. : published
in Edin. Phil. Journal.

On the Presence of Fluorine in Different Ocean Waters. Read to
RS.E. : published in Edin. Phil. Journal.

On the Presence of Fluorine in Blood and Milk. Read to British
Association : published iu Edin. Phil. Journal.

1852.
On the Organs in which Lead accumulates in the Horse in Cases of
Slow Poisoning by that Metal. Read to RS.E. : published in Edin-
burgh Monthly Medical Journal.

APPENDIX,

627

1852.

Oh Two New Processes for the Detection of Fluorine when accom-
panied by Silica ; and on the Presence of Fluorine in Granite, Trap,
and other Igneous Rocks, and in the Ash?s of Recent and Fossil
Plants. Trans. R.S.E.

On a supposed Meteoric Stone, alleged to have fallen in Hampshire in
September 1852. Trans. R.S.Fi.

1853.

On Nitric Acid as a Source of the Nitrogen found in Plants. Trans.
R.S.K

1855.

On Colour-Blindness in Relation to the Danger attending the Present
System of Railway and Marine Coloured Signals. Trans. R.S.S.A.
Reprinted as Supplement to Researches on Colour-Blindness.

On the Extent to which the received Theory of Vision requires us to
regard the Eye as a Camera Obscura. Trans. RS.E.

On the Artificial Preparation of Sea- Water for the Aquarium. Read to
British Association : published in Edin. New Phil. Journal.

1856.

On the Transmission of the Actinic Rays of Light through the Eye, and
their Relation to the Yellow Spot of the Retina. Trans. R.S.E.

1857.

On M. J. Nickl^'s Claim to be the Discoverer of Fluorine in the Blood.
Read to R.S.E. : published in Edin. New Phil. Jour.

On the Electric Fishes as the Earliest Electric Machine employed by Man-
kind. Read to Brit. Assoc. : published in Edin. New Phil. Jour.

On the Production of Photographs on Fluorescent Surfaces. Journal
of Photographic Society.

1859.

On the Recent Vindication of the Priority of Cavendish as the Disco-
verer of the Composition of Water. Read to R.S.E. : published
in Athenaium.

On Dryness, Darkness, and Coldness, as means of preserving Photo-
graphs from fading. Journal of Photographic Society.

On the Fruits of the Cucurbitaceae and Crescentiacetc. Tvans, Edhi.
Botanical Society ; and Edin. New Pliil. Journal.

On some of the Stages which led to the Invention of the Modern Air ■
Pump. Read to Brit. Assoc. Report of B.A. for 1859. In brief
abstract.

On the Employment of the Electric Eel, Gymnotus ElecUiciia, as a Me-
dical Shock-Machine, by the natives of Surinam. Do. do.

On the Statistics of Colour-Blindness. Do. do.

528

MEMOIR OF GEORJE ^V1LS0N.

PUBUSHED LECTURES AND ADDKESSES.
1846.

On the Alleged Antagonism between Poetry and Chemistry, — Torch.
Sutherland & Knox.

ir49.
On the Sacrudness of .'ledicii)/. « - a •rofession

16.)0.
Introductory Address d^vew? u! the opening of the Medical School,
Surgeons' Hall, xJinbia'sli.

1^.54,
On the Chemistry of Building Materials. Trans. Architectural Institute,

Edinburgh.
Recent Scientific Ballooning. British Quarterly Review.

1855.
What is Technology 1 Sutherland & Knox.

1856.
On the Physical Sciences which fonn the Basis of Technology. Suther-
land & Knox.
Tlie Objects of Technology and Industrial Museums. Do.
On the Relation of Ornamental to Industrial Art. Edmonston &

Douglas, Edinburgh.
On Pharmacy as a Branch of Technology. Pharmaceutical Journal.
On the Relations of Technology to Agriculture. Trans, of Highland

Society.
Chemical Final Causes. Edin. University Essays. A. and C. Black.
On the Character of God as inferred from the Study of Human Ana-
tomy. A. and C. Black, Edinburgh.
Addresses as President of Royal Scottish Society of Arts. Trans.
R.S.S.A.

1857.
The Industrial Museum of Scotland in its Relation to Commercial En-
terprise. Printed for Private Circulation.

1858.
The Progress of the Telegraph, being the Introductoiy Lecture on Tech-
nology for 1858-59. Macmillan and Co.

1859.
The Education of the Pharmaceutical Chemist. Pharmaceutical Journal.
Paper, Pen, and Ink. An Excursus in Technology. Macmillan's Mag.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.

1845.
Life and Discoveries of Dalton. British Quarterly Review.

APPr,NDIX.

629

1846.
.Sketch of the Life und Works of Wollae^m, British Quarterly Review.

1849.
Sketch of the Life and Works o^ tl^a Hun. Robert Boyle. Do.
A few unpublished Particulurs regarding the late Dr. Black. Trans.
R.S K

1856.
Sketch of Jamus Wilson, Esq. of Woodville. Edin. New Phil. Journal.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Tlie Grievance of the University Tests : A Letter addressed to thp
Right Hon. Spencer H. Walpole, Secretary of ^State for the Homo
Department. Sutherland and Knox. 1852.

Anaesthetics in Surgery, from a Patient's Point of View. Simpsori's
Obstetric Memoirs, vol. ii.

POEMS IN BLAOKWOOD's MAC'AZINE.

To the Stethoscope. March 1847.
To Professor Edward Forbes. 1855.
The Atlantic Wedding Ring. 1858.

IN macmtllan's magazine.
The Sleep of the Hyacinth. 1860.

2 I,

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INDEX.

Abercrohbif Dr., 57, 367.
Abernethy, Migg, letters to, 183, 287,

290, 303, 362, 440, 480.
Academy, Royal Scottisb, Exhibition,

152, 191, 236.
Addresses to Medical Students, 36, 65.
Agriculture, Lecture on Belations of

Technology to, 424,
Air-pump, history of, 837.
Albums, Ladies', contributions to, 137.
Alexander, Rev, Dr., 48, 321, 498;

funeral sermon for Dr. Wilson, 467,

499, 502.
Alison, Rev. A., 'Essay on Taste,' 76.
Alison, Professor, 52, 65, 79.
Alison's ' Europe,' estimate of, 285.
Analytical Balance, presentation of, by

students, 350.
Anatomy, studies, under Mr. Lizars, 38,

52.
Anatomy Bill, 1832, changes consequent

on, 40.
Anaesthetics, use of, in Surgical Opera-
tions, 297.
Anderson, Christopher, 48.
Animal Chemistry, course of lectures on,

274. _
Asphyxia, paper on Oxygen as a means

of resuscitation in, 331.
Arago, 109, 118.
Argyle, Duke of, 342, 415.
Arran, excursion to, 76.
Art-Manufacture Association, lecture to,

442.
Arts, School of. See School of Arts.
Athanasius Contra Mundum, 369.
Atlantic Wedding Ring, verses on, 347.
Atomic Theory, 72, 483.
Aurora Borealis, 73.
Aytoun, Professor W. E., 282.

BAOiiELORnooD, delights of, 259.

Balfour, Professor J. H., 67, 486, 492,
495.

Ballantine, Mr., lectures on Jacobite
music, 405.

Balloon, Steam, 176.

Barry, Dr., 118.

Bartolom6, Mariano Martin de, 110, 116.

Bell, Sir Charles, 151, 201 ; death of, 276.

Bell, Electro-magnetic, use of, in con-
ducting sound, 331.

Bennett, Dr., 225, 230.

Blackie, Professor, 247, 477.

Blindness, Colour. See Colour.

Books, early love for, 7.

Botany, fondness for, 17 ; studies under
Professor Graham, 65-67 ; unsuccessful
competition for medal, 68, 69 ', class
resumed, 81.

'Bottle Imp,' 118, 186.^

Brewster, Sir David, his review of ' Re-
searches on Colour-blindness,' 332 ; in-
stallation as Principal of Edinburgh
University, 481.

British Association, first meeting of, at
Edinburgh, 41 ; meeting at Birming-
ham, 213; at Glasgow, 415; at
Dublin, 445 ; at Aberdeen, 475.

British Museum, visits to, 163,

Brotherhood of Truth, 225; its aim
and objects, 226, 245; Illustrious
Brethren, 227.

' British Quarterly Review,' contributions
to, 338. See Appendix C,

Brougham Banquet in Edinburgh, 481.

Brown, Samuel, a fellow-student, 70, 140,
155, 179, 196, 280, 511 ; illness of, 103,
106; recovery, 114; holiday with,
138 ; first examination, 198, 201, 209;
proposes Dr. Wilson as a member of

532

INDEX.

tho 'Brotherhood of Truth,' 221t ;
boontnes cnndidnto for Chemiiitry
Ohftir in Edinburgh University, 310 ;
oxpcrimonts on trunsmutatiun, 310.

Brown, Rov. Dr. John, 295.

Brown. Dr. .John, 5 ; critique of ' Life
of Ciivcndiiili,' 341 ; BuggeBtion of,
483 ; biograpiiicul sketch of Dr. Wil-
son, 407.

Brown, Mr. .T. C, 302, 511.

Buckland, Dr., 41.

Building materials, lecture on chemistry
of, 40(5.

Bulwer, 59, 01.

Burns' conteimry meeting, 405.

Bute, holidays spent in, 73-75.

Cairns, Dr. John, 231, 248, 275, 278,
280, 294; letters to, 310, 314, 315,
817, 321, 344, 353, 300, 301, 304, 370,
878, 892, 407, 459, 405, 475, 480,
remarks on chomical lecture, 275;
reminiscences of Dr. Wilson's conver-
sion, 295 ; remarks on his gifts of ex-
position and illustration, 439 ; present
at the closing scene, 488, 489.

Calculi, composition and mode of analys-
ing, 272.

Calton Burial-ground, 523.

Camera Obscura : verses on the Sick-
room, 381.

Campbell, Mr., of Rothesay, 72, 74, 100,
101.

Candle, chemistry of a, 329.

Capping of young doctors described, 200.

Cauchy, Baron, 497.

Cavendish, Life of, 340, 415.

Chalmers, Dr., 320.

Chemia, the Virgin, 243.

Chemical papers, 81, 232, 314, 836, 337.

Chemistry, juvenile researches in, 39 ;
enters Professor Hope's class, 39 ; rapid
advance of chemistry from 1830 to 1855,
40, 41 ; studies under Professor Chris-
tison, 70; under Mr. K. Kemp, 79;
enters laboratory of Professor Qraham
in London, 164 ; search for lecture-
room in Edinburgh, 241 ; first course of
lectures, 253 ; second session, 202 ;
course on animal chemistry, 274 ; popu-
lar lectures, 324-330 ; various scientific
papers, 337 ; pamphlet on Glasgow

Srofessorship, 349 ; proposed as candi-
ate for Edmburgh chair, 454; with-
draws from canvass, 467.
Cherriman, Professor, 332.
Children, love for, 382-384.

ChriHtison, Professor, 42, 70, 115118,
245, 478 ; incidtintfl in laboratory, 97,
100, 10, 112.

Chroinato-pseudopsis. See Colour-blind-
ness.

Clark, Professor, of Abenleen, 216>

Cogswell, Dr., 81.

Coliego nhiloHophors, J 09.

Coloiir-biindnoss, rosearchcs on, 831-830 ;
statistics of, 8.35. See Ai'penuix A.

Comet of 1858, 458.

'Confessions of an Opium-eater,' reflec-
tions on reading, 48-50, 54, 02.

Cooi)ur, Mr. White, his critique of ' Re-
searches on Colourblindness,' 333-836.

Cowper's poetry, early admiration of, 14.

Creed, odvantagc of a, 368.

Crum, Mr. Walter, 409.

Crystal Poluce, visit to, 877.

Crystallography, speculations on, 182-881.

Cuinbernaulu, school holidays spent at,
18, 23.

Curtain lectures, 391.

Cuvier, 109.

Da Costa, Signer, 266, 207.

Dalton, Lifeol; 332 ; paper on, in 'British

(Juarterly,' 338, 339, 439.
Dassnuville, Mr. Philip, 15.
David, the French sculptor, 109, US-
Day, Professor G. E., of SU Andrews,

231,337,457.
Dependants, love of, 498.
De Quincey, 48, 02.
Diagnostic Society, 80.
Diary, intention expressed of keeping a,

47 ; first entries, 58-64 ; reflections on

the anxiety felt at examination for

Surgeon's D ^ree, 88, 89; troubles

come thickly, ^OG-
Dick, Mr. Maxwell, of Irvine, 28, 88, 41 ;

letter to, 29.
Dick, Professor, 850.
' Dies Irtc,' the, 438.
Dispensary practice, 145.
Dobbie, Air., 104, 105, 109, 118.
' Doctor, whore's your shirt ? ' 198.
Domestic pets, 8.
Dreams, remarks on, 60, 54.
Druidic remains in Bute, visited, 76.
Dublin, visit to, 446, 440.
Duncan, Dr. J. Matthews, 484-487.
Dying, feelings of the, 89.

Educational Institute of Scotland, lec-
ture to, 442.

Eleq
8
Ele<
in
Elm
Emt
Epi
Epp
Erys
Exai

INDEX.

633

Electricity and the Electric Telegraph,
846, 480.

Electro-rongnotic Bell, uie of, in conduct-
ing sound, 831.

Elm Cottage, 398.

Emotions, speculations on the, A7.

Episcopacy, impreHHlons of, 109.

Epping Forest, viHit to, 163.

Erysipelas, thrcatuiiud with, 859.

Examination for College of Surgeon's
Decree, 83 ; for M.U., 200.

Exhibition of Royal Scottish Academy,
152, 192, 236.

Exposition, gifts of, 489.

Eye and Ear as gateways of knowledge,
487.

Falconer, Dr., 511.

• Fame, the desire of,' Essay read at
Physical Society, 221, 224, 231.

Family Reunion, 399.

Faraday, 217, 476.

Final CauBOR, Chemical, lecture on, 442.

Fire, sensations on witnessing, in Edin-
burgh — scene described, 46 ; Grey-
friars Church, 313.

Flowers, delight in, 179, 308, 316;
verses on the Snowdrop, 181 ; to a
Polyanthus, 194 ; Sleep of the Hya-
cinth, 354.

Fluorine, researches on, 386, 446.

Forbes, Edward, introduction to, 127,
216, 223; his connexion with the
• Brotherhood of Truth,' 228 ; verses
by, 230 ; natural history pursuits, 240;
is introduced to Daniel Wilson, 246 ;
his estimate of Dr. Wilson's lectures
on Chemistry, 255 ; his death, 400 ;
lines to bis memory, 404 ; Dr. Wilson
agrees to become his biographer, 402,
447,451,459,474.

Forbes, Professor, J. D., 342.

French language, estimate of, 228.

Friendships, early, 15.

* Funeral performers' in T ondon, 100.

Qabes, Chemistry of the, 324.

' Gateways, Five, of Knowledge,' publi-
cation of, 433 ; classification ui critiques,
440.

German, study of, under Dr. Kombst,
223 240.

Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., 482.

Gladstone, Dr. J. H., of London, 216,
331, 332, 409, 428, 447, 462, 469;
estimate of literary character by, 509-

522 ; letters to Mrs. Gladstone, 307,
878, 415. 447.

Gold mcdHi, hopes of, disappointed, 68.

Goodsir, Rov. Joseph, Joint- Secretary of
the Brotherhood of Truth, 230.

Goodsir, Professor John, 231, 271,272,
273, 290, 801, 312, 824, 360.

Gown, petition fur a, 415.

Graham, Professor, study of botany under,
06.

Graham, Professor (of University College,
London), his Laboratory, 164 ; his ex-
cellence as a teacher, 169, 244.

Graphic Industrial Arts, four lectures on,
450.

Gregory, Dr., Professor of Chemistry,
death of, 454.

Guthrie, Rev. Dr., 266.

Harvey, George, R.S.A., visit to, 109;
his picture, * The Castaway,' 191; let-
ter to, on design for the • Five Gate
ways,' 434, 435.

Hats, stories of, 113, 196, 197, 2.35.

Heaven, studies in, 346 ; ' far ben' in, 453.

Henry, Dr. W. C, 332.

Herschel, Sir John, 335.

Hieroglyphics, specimen of. 111.

High School of Edinburgh, reminiscencbs
of, 16; removal to Calton Hill, 22;
ludicrous incidents in class, 27 ; leaves
the School, 81.

Highlands, visits to the, 21, 23.

Hill, Rowland, a dream of, 218.

Holiday Excursions, 10.

Hodgson, Dr. W. B., 326.

Home, Professor, 62, 66.

Home Education, 139.

Hope, Professor, 39.

Hope, Dr. James, 367.

' Horse Subsecivse,' by Dr. John Brown,
quoted, 5, 841 .

Hospital life, impressions of, 34.

Huie, Rev. James, of Wooler, 15.

Hunter, John, the celebrated physiolo-
gist, 67.

Hyacinth, verses on, 854.

Industrial Museum, Scottish, appoint-
ment as Director of, 408 ; buildings
for, 449.

Infirmary, Royal, of Edinburgh ; enters
Laboratory as apprentice, 33 ; first im-
pressions described, 33-36 ; liberality to
patients, 36-38; aacredness of the dead.

534

INDEX.

66; hospital wards, 52, 65, 80; antici-
pation of holiday pleasures, 71.

Inglis, 278.

Intellect, cultivation of, by ladies, 90.

Invalids, sympathy with, 365, 395.

Iodine, paper on, 81.

Jacobite stories, 405.

Jameson, Professor, 79, 138.

Jefirey, Lord, 320, 346, 353 ; letter from,

358.
Juvenile Society, 17, 38.
Juvenile wives, 382.

Keats's deathbed, 484.

Kelland, Professor, 481, 495, 497.

Kemble, Fanny, portrait of, 109.

Kemp, Mr. Kenneth, lecturer on Practi-
cal Chemistry, tribute to, 80 ; interest
in Chemical investigations, 134 ; his
death, 291.

Kingsley, Rev, C, 325.

Knight, Dr. John, 15.

Knight, Mr., teacher, 5.

Kombst, Dr. Gustaf, 223, 240.

Laboratort incidents, 97, 106, 110,
112, 115-118.

Ladies, their neglect of mental cultiva-
tion, 90 ; home lectures to, on Chem-
istry, 108; ideas of dress, 178.

' Lalla Rookh,' Moore's, 60.

Lamb's, Charles, 'Letters,' 119; 'Me-
morials of,' 484.

Last illness, 483-489.

Lavoisier, 341.

Leith, incident at ' Black Rocks,' 289.

Letter-writer, troubles of a, 195.

Lees, Mrs Henry, 417.

Liebig, 284.

Light, lecture on polarization of, 444.

Lillie, Mrs, rhymes for, 242.

Lindsay, Dr. L., 309.

List of published works, 525-529.

Literary labours, 323-349.

Livingstone, Dr., the African explorer,
165.

Lizans, Mr., lecturer on Anatomy, 102,
245 ; classes attended, 38, 39, 65.

London, arrangements, for visiting, 156 ;
incidents of voyage, 157 ; enters La-
boratory of Professor Graham, 164 ;
pastimes, 167 ; laboratory duties, 167 ;

" subsequent visits. 216, 260,445.

Luc, De, 341.

Maodouall, Professor, of Belfast, 348.

MacDougall, Professor, 217, 326, 504.

Macgillivray, John, 108, 112, 233.

Mackay, Mr. Benjamin, of High School,
16, 23, 431.

Mackay, Mr. Hugh, of Glasgow, 24, 136.

Mackay, Miss Margaret, 24, 118; letters
to, 144, 151 (now Mrs. Daniel Wil-
son), 257.

Mackenzie, Dr. Richard, death of, 401.

Maclagan, Mr. A., 20.

Maclapm, Dr. P. W., 15, 16, 19.

Macmillan, Mr. D., of Cambridge, 243,
352 ; letters to, 390, 394, 426, 433, 484.

Macmillan, Mr. Alex., of Cambridge, let-
ters to, 368, 372, 382.

Maclaren, Duncan, 411.

M'Clintock, Captain, 486.

M'Donald, Mr., 105, 118, 131.

M'Lure, John, 136, 221, 224.

M'Neill, Lord Justice-General, 481.

Maga, University, 118, 123, 225.

Manchester Exhibition, 445.

Martineau, Miss, 316.

Materia Medica, study of, under Pro-
fessor Christison, 42.

Maxwell, Professor Clerk, of Aberdeen,
332.

Medical Society, Royal, paper read at,
232.

Mental phenomena, 58.

Memoirs, Scientific, 338.

Merchant Company, Edinburgh, lecture
to, 448 ; tribute to memory, 493.

Midwifery, study of, under Professor
Hamilton, 79.

Miller, Hugh, 325, 405.

Missionary (Medical) Society, lectures for,
366,426,431.

Moffat, the African missionary, 256.

Moigno, M. I'Abbe, 336, 497.

Monomania, singular case of, 199.

Monro, Professor, 39.

Monumental Cross for Dr. Wilson, 501.

Murchison, Sir R., 476.

Museum, College, description of, 129.
See Industrial.

Music, passionate love of, 82, 267, 460.

Mynheer van Scratch, 185.

Natural History, love of, 8, 18, 20, 72 ;

studies under Profc ,. Jameson, 79.
Neaves, Lord, 482.
Nelson, Mr. William, 15 ; letters to, 42-

51.
Nickle, M. J., 337.
Niven, Dr. John, letter to, 92 ; a pun of,

INDEX.

535

lecture

to, 42-
, pun of,

101 ; his qualifications as a physician,
146 ; invites Dr. Wilson to Penicuik,
219; name mentioned, 155, 201,209,
238, 247, 250, 441, 480.
Numbers, inaptness for, 92.

OpHTHAtUALOGiCAL Congress at Brussels,

333.
Ornamental Art, lecture on relation of

Industrial Art to, 442.
Otte, Miss, 448.

' Paper, Pen, and Ink,' lecture on, 450.

Paracelsus and his pupils, 193.

Paris, Scotchmen in, 117.

Patients, kindness to, 37.

Patriots, what makes, 375.

Pedestrian Excursions, 95, 247, 251.

Percy, Dr.,, 255.

Pharmacy as a branch of Technology,
425.

Pharmaceutical Society, 425.

Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh,
324, 325, 425, 435, 444, 450.

Physical Society, papers read at, 221,
232 ; Dr. Wilson becomes third Presi-
dent of, 231.

Playfair, Dr. Lyon, 164, 171, 215.

Poems. See Verses.

'Pompeii, The Last Days of,' 59, 61.

Popular Lectures, 324.

Pnestley, Dr., 345.

Pupils, attachment of, to Dr. Wilson,
350-352.

Ragged School, lecture to, 329.

Eed Ribbon, becomes a, 223.

Reid, Dr. D. B., 232.

Eeid, Dr. John, 'Life' of, 342, 415;

verses on, 342.
Resurrection, thoughts on the, 63, 64, 65,

note, 475.
Retrospect of life, 389.
Review, British Quarterly, contributions

to, 338.
Richmond Court, laboratory in, 149.
Rodgers, Mr., calotypist, 457.
Royal Society, Edinburgh, papers read to,

314, 337.
Ruskin, 325.

Russell, Rev. John, of Muthil, 1 3.
Russell, John, Catharine, .Tames, :mi

Alexander, join the family circle, 13;

illness and death of Catharine, 187,

189 ; letter from James, 203 ; letters

to, chap, vi.patsim; 300-305 : illness,
last days, and death of James, 315-319 ;
death of John, 377 ; removal of Alex-
ander to Australia, 398 ; letters to^
401, 474.
Russell, Mr. J. S., lecturer on Natural
Philosophy, 38.

Sacredness of the Medical Profession,

366, 367.
School of Alts, Edinburgh, attends Che-

mistry Class, 40 ; Dr. Wilson becomes

lecturer, 307 ; a favourite class, 308.
School companions, recollections by, 16,

17.
Scientific Papers, 232. See Appendix A.
Scotch, advantage of being able to speak,

117.
Scott, David, his ' Alchemist,' 192.
Sea Animals, phosphorescence of, inquiry

regarding, 245.
Seller, Dr., 350.
Shakspere, originality of, 175.
Signals, Railway and Ship, 334, 414.
Simpson, Dr. J. Y., letter to, on Anses-

thetics in Surgery, 293, 297.
Sickness, Thoughts in, 387.
Skae, Dr. David, of Morningside, 231,

252.
Slave-laliour, practical protest against, 14.
' Sleepy Hollow,' Morningside, described,

321, 339.
Smith, Dr. J. A., 15, 16.
Smith, Mr. R. M., 493,
Snow-ball riot at College, 119-123, 130.
Snowdrop, verses on, 181.
Soap-bubble, lineH to a, 143.
Society of Arts, Royal Scottish, award tc>

Dr. Wilson, 331 ; papers read before,

331 ; App. C.
Society, Juvenile, for the Advancement

of Knowledge, 15, 16; gives place to

Zetalethic Society, 38.
Sonierville, Mrs., 99.
SouLm, transmigration of, 257.
Sound, use of Electro-magnetic Bell in

conducting, 331.
Sprunt, Mr. Alex., 15, 17.
Sprunt, Mr. James, 15.
Stevenson, Mr. Alan, 376.
' Stars, Chemistry of the,' paper on, 347.
Star-fish, Edward Forbes's book on, 240,

246.
Stirling, visit to, 249.
Stethoscope, poem addressed to the, 352,

353.
Studio described, 105.

536

INDEX.

Sturge, Joaeph, introduction to, at Bir-
mingham, 213.

Sun, annular eclipse of, in 1836, 65.

Sunday-travelling, 256.

Surgery, study of, under Professor Tur-
ner, 42 ; obtains College of Surgeons'
degree, 82.

Surgical operation,the first witnessed, 35.

Syme, Professor, 52, 65, 277, 290, 297,
302.

Taylor, Isaac, 139.

Technology, dHfined, 420-1 ; appointment

to Professorship of, 412 ; relations of,

to Agriculture, 424 ; as a branch of

education, 442.
Telegraph, Electric, 346 ; ' Progress of,'

459.
Terrier, pet, 320 ; lines to a deceased, 363.
Terrot, Bishop, of Edinburgh, 217.
Tests, Scottish University, pamphlet on,

348.
' Text-book of Chemistry,' 339.
Thesis, Chemical, 171, 193, 209; abstract

read at British Association meeting at

Birmingham, 215.
Thomson, Dr. R. D., 215.
Thomson, Dr. Thomas. 348.
Tomlinson, Mr. Charles, 328, 341, 429 ;

letter to, 473.
' Travellers' Library,' 346.
Traill, Professor, 201.
. Transmutation, experiments on, 310 ; lec-
ture on. 320.
Tributes of love to Dr. Wilson's memory,

493-497.
Trosachs, visit to the, 21.
Truth, Brotherhood of, 223, 225-231.
Tubal-Cain, 462.
Turner, Dr., 367.
Twin-brother, death of, 51.
Tyndall, Professor, 332.

Vahghan, Rev. Dr., 338.
Verses — To a Soap-Bubble, 143; Origin
of the Snowdrop, 181 ; Mermaids'

Tears, 186; to a Polyanthus, 194;
rhymes for Mrs. Liilie, 242 ; to the late
Dr. John Reid, 342 ; on the Atlantic
Wedding Ring, 347; to the Stetho-
scope, 352 ; The Sleep of the Hyacinth,
354 ; The Wings of the Dove and the
Eagle, 355 ; One of the advantages of
not being able to write your name,
356; To the Spirit of a deceased
Terrier, 363 ; Athanasius contra Mun-
dum, 369 ; Camera Obscura, 381 ;Hjrmn
for the Sick-room, 397 ; The Chair of
Technology and its Cushion, 417 ; The
Christian soldier putting oflf his armour,
490.

Versification, 135, 185, 354; rhyming
forsworn, 222.

Veterinary College, Edinburgh, appoint-
ment as Lecturer on Cbeniistry to, 307.

Voelcker, Prof., of Cirencester, 446.

Wardlaw, Rev. Dr., 48, 255, 319.

Watson, Rev. John, of Cumbernauld,
18, 32.

Wedgwood, Mr. Godfrey, 14, 455.

Westminster Abbey, visits to, 161, 172.

White, Adam, a school fellow, 103.

Williamson, Dr. David. 199, 218.

Wilson, Daniel ; reminiscences of his
brother George, 9-16, 18-25, 37, 38,41,
224, 500 ; leaves the family circle for
London, 94 ; removal to Canada, 398 ;
lotter.s to, 131 151, 153-155, 190-193, cf
seij., 218-223, 231-247, 252-254, et seq.,
454, 459, 480 ; notice of Old Calton
Burial-ground, 524.

Wilson, George. (See Table of Contents.

Wilson, Rae, interview with, 79.

YouNO Men's Society, lectures to, 327.
Young, Mr. James, 164.

Zetalethic Society, organization of, 38,

72.
Zoological Society of London, 511.

■'/

EDlNBUnOH : T. CONSTABLE,
PltlNTER TO THE QUEEN, AND TO THE UNlVEKfilTV.

rhyming