1840-41. LECTURES ON CHEMISTRY. 1 17 



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 supplementary 

 Saturday lectures, that I might bring before them new 

 doctrines never taught here, at least in chemistry classes. 



" In my week-day ordinary discourses, for "the sake of 

 my youngest pupils, I have made everything 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 had simplified too 

 much, determined to give him if he came, a knock-down 

 question. However, last week we were on a subject diffi- 

 cult enough in its simplest form ; and the crestfallen genius 

 announced to me mournfully that he could not follow one 

 word of what I had been saying. I laughed, and told him 

 never to mind. He is settled. 



" I shall only add further about myself, that I have just 

 got out of bed, having been sleeping there after the 

 excessive labour of last week. It was knocking me up, and 

 my wound, after healing, opened afresh and began to in- 

 flame : to prevent the serious results that might follow I 

 rested yesterday and all to-day. And I shall have much 

 more leisure in the week to come." 



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 commu- 

 nicated 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 



