ch. II.] EDINBURGH, H 



dela, which are not found in Shropshire. I almost made up 

 my mind to begin collecting all the insects which I could 

 find dead, for on consulting my sister, I concluded that it 

 was not right to kill insects for the sake of making a col- 

 lection. From reading White's Selborne, I took much pleas- 

 ure in watching the habits of birds, and even made notes 

 on the subject. In my simplicity, I remember wondering 

 why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist. 



Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked 

 hard at chemistry, and made a fair laboratory with proper 

 apparatus in the tool-house in the garden, and I was allowed 

 to aid him as a servant in most of his experiments. He 

 made all the gases and many compounds, and I read with 

 care several books on chemistry, such as Henry and Parkes' 

 Chemical Catechism. The subject interested me greatly, 

 and we often used to go on working till rather late at night. 

 This was the best part of my education at school, for it 

 showed me practically the meaning of experimental science. 

 The fact that we worked at chemistry somehow got known 

 at school, and as it was an unprecedented fact, I was nick- 

 named " Gas." I was also once publicly rebuked by the 

 head-master, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time on such 

 useless subjects; and he called me very unjustly a "poco 

 curante," and as I did not understand what he meant, it 

 seemed to me a fearful reproach. 



As I was doing no good at school, my father wisely took 

 me away at a rather earlier age than usual, and sent me 

 (October 1825) to Edinburgh * University with my brother, 

 where I stayed for two years or sessions. My brother was 

 completing his medical studies, though I do not believe he 

 ever really intended to practise, and I was sent there to 

 commence them. But soon after this period I became con- 

 vinced from various small circumstances that my father 

 would leave me property enough to subsist on with some 

 comfort, though I never imagined that I should be so rich 

 a man as I am ; but my belief was sufficient to check any 

 strenuous effort to learn medicine. 



The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, 



* He lodged at Mrs. Mackay's, 11, Lothian Street. What little the records 

 of Edinburgh University can reveal has been published in the Edinburgh 

 Weekly Dispatch, May 22, 1888; and in the St. James's Gazette, February 16, 

 1888. From the latter journal it appears that he and his brother Erasmus 

 made more use of the library than was usual among the students of their 

 time. 



