1858. A PLEASANT CLASS. 329 



bothered me sufficiently to stop all extra work, including 

 hospitalities and letters. The said cornered board had on 

 it one of the plans for the New Industrial Museum, about 

 which I was much concerned. 







" Students abound this winter, especially juniors. I think 

 myself well off with thirty-five. My class is a very pleasant 

 one. An Indian general, an artillery lieutenant, who lost a 

 bit of his skull (but certainly none of his brains) at Lucknow, 

 an engineer officer, four Indian surgeons, a navy surgeon, 

 a W.S., several young ministers, and a wind up of farmers, 

 tanners, &c. They are a pleasant lot to lecture to, and I 

 have re-arranged my laboratory for them, where we meet 

 comfortably. Only a little better health and but why 

 complain ? 



" Forgive the valetudinarian haziness of this. We are well." 



The tendency to erysipelas, of which this letter speaks, 

 continued more or less from that time onwards, and com- 

 pelled him to even more seclusion than hitherto. Previously 

 it had been his custom to write or read for some hours 

 almost every evening to the sound of the pianoforte, or, as 

 he called it, his " private band." Favourite songs, and mor- 

 sels of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, or Handel, were encored 

 ad infinitum, with an occasional Nigger melody or simple 

 air. A whistling accompaniment betokened the special 

 favourites, work of the lighter kind going on all the while. 

 His love for music has already been spoken of. " Music ! 

 music ! Some time or other, if not in this world, at least 

 in the next, I will drink my full of it." After hearing Jenny 

 Lind sing, he says : " I was greatly delighted and comforted. 

 Music is an amazing thing even upon this earth j what must 

 it be in heaven ? " 



