Sir fwmpbn? 2>ax>\? 303 



showered upon him in abundance from all quarters; 

 his society was courted by all, and all appeared proud 

 of his acquaintance. 



"Such was his great celebrity at this period of his 

 career," writes Dr. Paris, "that persons of the hi 

 rank contended for the honour of his company at dinner, 

 and he did not possess sufficient resolution to resist 

 the gratification thus afforded, although it generally 

 happened that his pursuits in the laboratory were not 

 suspended until the appointed dinner-hour had passed. 

 On his return in the evening, he resumed his chemical 

 labours, and commonly continued them until three or 

 four o'clock in the morning ; and yet the servants 

 of the establishment not unfrequently found that he 

 had risen before them. The greatest of all his wants 

 was Time, and the expedients by which he economised 

 it often placed him in very ridiculous positions, and 

 gave rise to habits of the most eccentric description : 

 driven to an extremity, he would in his haste put on 

 fresh linen, without removing that which was under- 

 neath ; and, singular as the fact may appear, he has 

 been known, after the fashion of the grave-digger in 

 Hamlet, to wear no less than five shirts, and as many 

 pairs of stockings at the same time. Exclamations 

 of surprise very frequently escaped from his friends 

 at the rapid manner in which he increased and declined 

 in corpulence." 



A similar story is told of the late Dr. Joseph Wolff, 

 whose heroic expedition to Bokhara to ascertain the 

 fate of Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly, in 1844, 

 made him famous. I was in the house at which Dr. 



