336 THE HIDDEN LIF& 



TO THE EEY. JAMES HAMILTON, D.D. 



'• Woodvelije, IGth Jan. 1856. 

 "My deae Sie, — We were talking of you this morning 

 at breakfast-time, and now your note is put into ray hand. 

 I often thought of yourself and ' Excelsior ' in the course 

 of the autumn, and bore in mind your application and my 

 promise to do what I could in the way of another paper. 

 I had rather a sore time of it, having not well got round 

 from the debilitating effects of an early spring illness, and 

 feeling somewhat feeble all summer ; then I was laid up 

 again by a severe attack of rheumatic gout, which confined 

 me to my room for nearly two months, and left me crippled 

 and very much shaken. As the winter advanced, I some- 

 how took it into my head that 'Excelsior' was finished, 

 and that any natural history article you might have 

 wanted had probably been supplied by some abler and 

 nearer hand. My autumn illness was very unfortunate, 

 as it came upon me in the middle of an article on Fisheries, 

 which I had promised Adam Black — a promise which I 

 fulfilled ineffectively and with ' difficulty and labour hard/ 

 for I could scarcely hold the pen. At this moment I 

 scarcely know what to say about anything beyond this, 

 that to-morrow morning Sir William Gibson-Craig, Mr 

 Bouvciic Primrose, and myself, have to start for Lonlon 

 as a deputation to Lord Palmerston on business of the 



