280 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



Technology has just been instituted by the Government. 

 I am not less happy in being able to announce that to that 

 Chair Dr. George Wilson has been appointed. The writings 

 which we owe to the pen of Dr. Wilson, and especially his 

 beautiful Memoirs of Cavendish and of Dr. Reid, are among 

 the happiest productions of the literature of science." 1 



When his induction as Professor drew nigh, Mrs. J. H. 

 Gladstone received the following humble petition : 



"Do you happen to have a gown to spare? A black 

 gown 1 A silk gown 1 A gown not much the worse of 

 wear 1 You will be surprised at me making these requests, 

 but there is a person here known to me, who would willingly 

 go to a meeting, but cannot appear at it without a gown ; 

 and though such poverty on the part of a respectable party 

 may surprise you in rich England, I am sorry to say, that 

 the individual on whose behalf I would interest your kind 

 heart, has only two gowns, and these such singular articles 

 of dress, that an appearance at church in either would in- 

 fallibly provoke even the minister to smiles, and lead to the 

 gown-wearer being put out of doors. . . . The poor unfor- 

 tunate for whom I beg has in vain solicited the assistance 

 of the kind ladies of this quarter. Here the parties willing 

 to give gowns are either too tall, or too short, or too broad, 

 or too thin ; or the gowns are either too good or too bad, 

 or not all silk, or too fine silk ; and the end is likely to be, 

 that the poor thing will not be able to attend the meeting, in 

 spite of all my efforts. 



" Will you, then, my dear Mrs. Gladstone, give a look 

 over your dresses, and if you can spare a reasonably good 

 black silk gown, not excessively much the worse of wear, 

 send it by post to me, and I will be much, very much, your 



i " Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 for 1855," p. 81. 



