I844-54- UNIVERSITY TESTS. 2OI 



wood'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 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 need- 

 less obstacles which the Scottish University Test Act placed 

 in the way of those who, like himself, could not conscien- 

 tiously sign the Confession of Faith and the Formula of 

 Obedience. The test had been represented in Parliament 

 as a form which might be " relaxed where a good reason 

 for such relaxation existed." In the University of Edin- 

 burgh, 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. 1 The Glasgow Chair of Che- 

 mistry being a Crown appointment, Dr. Wilson addresses 

 his remarks to the Secretary for the Home Department. 2 A 

 few biographical data are incidentally furnished, while the 

 writer modestly sets forth his claims ; the object he had in 

 view, however, was not a selfish one, but rather the 

 ungracious task of standing forth on behalf of all who, 

 like himself, were not members of the Scotch Established 



1 Mr. Macdouall, now Professor in Queen's College, Belfast. 



2 " The Grievance of the University Tests, as applied to Professors 

 of Physical Science in the Colleges of Scotland : a Letter addressed to 

 the Right Honourable Spencer H. Walpole, Secretary of State for the 

 Home Department. " Edinburgh : Sutherland and Kn ox. 1852. 



