1858. POPULAR LECTURES. 317 



alluded to, were four;in number, their subject being the 

 "Graphic Industrial Arts." One of them has become 

 familiar to the public under the title, " Paper, Pen, and 

 Ink." l Looking back at the session when past, he says, 

 " For the last two months I have been existing rather than 

 living. Sleepless nights ; aching limbs ; the whole day a 

 chronic malaise; and the smallest work an effort. My only 

 painless moments were when lecturing. Then I forgot all, 

 as also, of course, when asleep ; but though assuredly I did 

 sleep at times, I never had the feeling of rest, and hour after 

 hour on to three or four in the morning, I wearily rolled 

 about, listening to ancient Job saying, When I say my bed 

 will comfort me, then thou scarest me with terrors.' . . . 

 The change of Government compelled me to get up a new 

 set of petitions for the Museum, and I had three trouble- 

 some law cases to work at, and a sketch of Edward Forbes's 

 Life to write for the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is a 

 chapter of the book at which I am now working, and pro- 

 posing to work at till it is finished. I find it, however, so 

 painful a task, that again and again I put it aside. Now I 

 can look more calmly at the mournful history, and I have 

 much profitable reading for it in botany, geology, and 

 physical geography. . . . 



" Time in these telegraph days keeps up with the quickest 

 of electrical flashes. Did I not awake one morning in 

 February, and find myself forty 1 It is a desperate age for 

 all the good one has done, and I say to myself, ' Had I 

 known I should have lived so long, I would have done a 

 great deal more.' And yet, would 1 1 Perhaps much less, 

 little as it is. ... I finished, a week ago, my third course 

 on Technology. I have changed the subject each year, 

 and have now completed (1) the round of vegetable, 

 1 " Macmillan's Magazine," November 1859. 



