SIR JAMES V. SIMPSON. 



" My Dear Mother, — Jessie's honeymoon and mine is lo 

 begin to-morrow. I was elected professor to-day by a majority 

 OF ONE. Hurrah ! ! ! — Your ever affectionate Son, 



"J.Y.Simpson." 



The congratulations of his sister Mary, who was just leaving 

 for Van Dieman's Land with her husband, were very true, and 

 tender, and sisterly. " My dear, dear, and fortunate Brother," 

 she wrote, " I have taken up my pen to wish you joy, joy ; but 

 I feel I am scarcely able to write. I never believed till now 

 that excess of joy was worse to bear than excess of grief. I can- 

 not describe how, but I certainly feel as I never did all my life. 

 I hope we will still be here to-morrow to learn all the particulars 

 of this happy event. My dear, dear James, may God Himself 

 bless you, and prosper you in all your ways. — Your sincerely 

 affectionate Sister, Mary Pearson." And long afterwards she 

 again wrote to his wife : " I am delighted with your description 

 of your dear little Maggie. All that you write of James, niy 

 James (for I have both a mother's and a sister's love for him), 

 is just what I expected. I knew he would be as kind a husband 

 as a brother. It is with feelings of proud joy I hear of his un- 

 bounded success. Long, long may he be spared to be useful 

 to others, and a joy to us all." Professor Duns, his biographer, 

 truly remarks that " Mary had guided him from childhood with 

 deep and watchful love. In her care and keeping he had often 

 felt *as one whom his mother comforteth.' Her praise had 

 frequently been to him an excitement and spur to exertion. 

 The care with which he preserved her note from 'Ramsgate 

 Harbour,' shows how much calm content it had given him — 

 linking, as it forcibly did, this triumph in a great contest with 

 the memory of all the love and encouragement that he had 



