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    NOTICES OF BOOKS. 209

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    M^ In Emoir The Of University George Wil...

    he and James Russell started for a pedestrian tour , and the result of some unwonted exertion to George was a sprained anklewhich

    , " might have yielded readily to simple appliances ; but a dislike to give troublecombined with a childlike forgetfulness of pain not

    , immediately pressing , led to concealment . 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 sisterof this walk and all it recalled to his mind . Three days

    , later he went to Glasgow to attend the meeting of the British Association . A work of exertion and excitement caused further

    injury to health , and he returned home seriously ill . " It was while laid aside by this illness that his first course o £

    lectures was arranged . He had received a license as a Lecturer on Chemistry from the Royal College of Surgeons , and 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

    afforded similar advantages . He at once became a favourite lecturer . It was a delight to him 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 his subject . In 1844 Professor Forbes

    writes , " Wilson is one of the best lecturers I ever heard , reminding me more of the French school than our humdrum Englishand

    is a man of high literary taste , and great general knowledge . " , Had his health and strength enabled him he would have been a most

    successful teacher , but general feeble health made his life of public teaching one long trial . How noblyhow sweetlyhow cheerily

    he bore all those long baffling years , ; how his bri , ght , active , ardentunsparing soul lorded it over his frail bodymaking it do

    , , more than seemed possible , and as it were hy sheer force of will ordering it to live longer than was in it to do , those who lived

    with him will not soon forget . It was a lesson of what true goodness , elevated and cheered by the highest of all motives , can

    make a man endure , achieve and enjoy . About this time he writes to his cousin James" It is a delicious

    feeling , that sober exultation which successful , , pleasurable study brings ; the exulting and abounding emotion with which some

    long and _rugged hill of difficulty being at last clomb , we behold a Pisgah point from which a Canaan of promise can be seen . Such

    a feeling have I known ; at present I creep along on a" pair of crutchesliterally a lame , blind man . Nevertheless you will be

    , glad to hear I am mending , lame legs no lamer , much profitable and promising work chalked out for future performance ; on the

    whole , quiet contentment , sometimes cheerfulness overflowing in its old channels . " And to Daniel : " I have been working double tides

    all the week on the lectures I spoke of , and was fairly worn out with four hours' speaking per diem , not to mention preparation , & c .

    TOIi . X . Q

    Notices Of Books. 209

    NOTICES OF BOOKS . 209

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1862, page 209, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111862/page/65/