UNIVERSITY CAREER. 75 



" All this may be to you inexplicable ; that I cannot help ; that it 

 is the fact, I know to my sorrow. Blair is with me, and unless he 

 had been so, I must have died. Before my examination, my state 

 of mind got dreadful. He sat up several nights with me, and at 

 last I was examined and got my degree 'cum laude,' a matter 

 certainly of indifference to me. I do not wish you to come to Lon- 

 don if you could, for I shall not be there. The only reason I have 

 for writing is to show you how perfectly I am your friend, and ever 

 will be so, for by your last I saw my silence had surprised you. If 

 I feel more at home to-morrow, I will write you again, but unless 

 I saw yourself I could not tell you my feelings and future plans of 

 existence, which must be joyless and unendeared. Thine eternally, 



"J. Wilson." 



"Oxford, 1S07. 

 "'My dear Bob: — I received your letter this morning, and it has 

 confirmed me in what I feared, that I have written some infernal 

 thins: or another to Mareraret: the truth is, that about the time I 

 wrote her I was in a curious way, as indeed I am now, from having 

 taken laudanum, not exactly with a view to annihilation, but spirits. 

 That blessed beverage played the devil with my intellects, and ab- 

 solutely destroyed my capacity of distinguishing right from wrong, 

 or what was serious from ludicrous. At times I was in the same 

 state as if I were as drunk as Chloe ; and at others, sober, sad, and 

 sunk in despair and misery. If this be any excuse to you for what 

 I may have said, of which I do not recollect one word, you can em- 

 ploy it as such ; if not, you are a severer judge than I have ever yet 

 found you. As to saying any thing savage to Margaret, I scarcely 

 think that possible, for why should even a madman do that ? I 

 have since written her, and hope whatever offences I have com- 

 mitted, I have her forgiveness. If you regard my soul, go again to 

 her and try to explain my conduct as best you can, for I am unable 

 to justify myself, my thoughts are so dreadful when I wish to write 

 to her. This love of mine has been a fine thing; first kept me manj 

 years in misery, and now perhaps alienated from me the friendship 

 and good opinion of those I love and regard ; however, I need not 

 expatiate much on that. As to the other parts of your letter, I can 

 say nothing to them. Do you really imagine that I would easily 

 give up the prospect of eternal felicity? I have corresponded with 

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