8-1 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. II. 



its cell, and pulling off my gloves, laid them, hat and cane, aside. 

 I now learned that one of the gentlemen at the window had 

 passed the day before, and that one (comforting thought) had 

 been rejected ; and I was awaked out of a chirurgical reverie 

 by the other fellow singing out, ' Have you any tremors V 'No,' 

 said I, and thrust my head up against the wall, and planted my 

 feet firmly on the floor, that the said tremors might not appear. 

 They were two good-natured fellows, and were busy telling me 

 to answer as quickly as possible, lest they should hear too dis- 

 tinctly. Hem ! thought I, and the bell rang, and in I was 

 ushered to the grandees, whole four inquisitors. There they fell 

 to ; shoved me Gregory, made me translate, twice write a pre- 

 scription, tell them as much about drugs and chemistry as 

 would fill a pharmacopoeia, and so much about the anatomy of 

 the arm, skull, neck, etc., the surgery of the same part, and the 

 philosophy of broken skulls, and the method of coopering such 

 casks, that I might rival Syme, Listen, or Lizars. ' You may 

 depart, sir,' said the President. I was kept for a moment in a 

 small side-room, and then pulled in to be told, ' that my exami- 

 nation was highly creditable to me, and that they were very 

 much pleased.' Eejoiced in heart, here I am, your affectionate 

 brother, GEORGE." 



To his cousin James, also from home at that time, he gives 

 the same news, with some interesting additions. TTames Eussell, 

 four years his junior, had distinguished himself at the High 

 School, and given proofs of the genius which was afterwards 

 developed with great promise. The brotherly love and compa- 

 nionship between him and George, so tender and true through 

 many years, was now beginning to be established. 



" September 9, 1837. 



" MY DEAR COUSIN, I am breaking through the acknowledged 

 rules of epistolary correspondence in writing, for all learned 

 judges of such matters teach, that he who departeth from home 

 to sojourn in a foreign land oweth the first letter to those at 

 home ; for the most cogent of all reasoning, that he who is left 

 at home has but the accustomed round of everyday duties, 



