THE MORAL PHILOSOPHY CHAIR. 215 



of censure upon him was proposed and carried by twenty-one to 

 six. On offering to apologize, this censure was withdrawn, and he 

 did apologize. The vote was then put, ' rescind or adhere,' and 

 carried 'adhere' by twenty-one to six, so that all is settled. The 

 sole object, apparently, in all these proceedings has been to annoy 

 me, my friends and supporters, and to give vent to the wrath of 

 party feeling. 



u I am anxious to know if you can get me Mylne's* notes. 

 It is with no view, I need hardly say, of using any thing of his, but 

 merely of seeing his course of discussion. 



"I am both able and willing to write my own lectures, every 

 word ; but before I begin to do so, I am anxious to have before me 

 a vista of my labors, and this might be aided by a sight of his or 

 any other lectures. But all this is confidential, for my enemies are 

 numerous and ready, and will do all they can to injure me in all 

 things. But they may bark and growl, for it will be to no purpose." 



The successor of Dugald Stewart was certain to have all eyes 

 upon him, and the circumstances of the election made him feel all 

 the more imperiously the need of acquitting himself well in a place 

 that had been filled by men so famous ; above all merely personal 

 considerations, too, he felt, with almost oppressive anxiety, the sa- 

 credness of the trust that had been committed to him as a teacher 

 of that science which embraces all the higher truths and precepts 

 which the light of reason can make known. He accordingly set 

 about his preparations with his usual energy, and for the brief pe- 

 riod that intervened before the opening of the session in Xovember, 

 appears to have worked incessantly. His portrait in his study is 

 thus playfully sketched by my mother : — " Mr. Wilson is as busy 

 studying as possible, indeed he has little time before him for his 

 great task ; he says it will take him one month at least to make out 

 a catalogue of the books he has to read and consult. I am perfectly 

 appalled when I go into the dining-room and see all the folios, 

 quartos, and duodecimos with which it is literally filled, and the 

 poor culprit himself sitting in the midst, with a beard as long and 

 red as an adult carrot, for he has not shaved for a fortnight." 



Of all the friends to whom he applied for counsel in this time of 

 anxiety, there was none on whom he so implicitly relied, or who 



* Professor of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow, under whom he had studied in 1801. 



