I843-44* CLASS AT SCHOOL OF ARTS. l6l 



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 

 were 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 

 elevated 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 great-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, 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. 



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 



G.W. M 



