100 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. III. 



publishers, with whom his correspondent had then some trans- 

 actions : 



"MY DEAR DANIEL, I had just awaked from a tolerably 

 sound and refreshing sleep, at the excellent and philosophic 

 hour of half-past seven, when in bounced into my room, mother, 

 holding in her hand an opened letter, assuring me she had but 

 read one sentence. She proceeded to go over it again for my 

 satisfaction. I, still rubbing my eyes, and not very sure where 

 I was, patiently ensconced behind my curtains, sat trying to 

 collect my scattered ideas, and make out what mother and you 

 would be after, (those horrid steel pens, I could not write a 

 kind letter with them!) till my attentive ear felt the word 

 ' Moon,' which, coupled with the circumstance of my having 

 watched an eclipse of the said luminary the evening before, and 

 joined to the fondly-cherished belief that the word struck had 

 been kindly passed over by mother, explained the whole mys- 

 tery. Your conduct in the omnibus, which you so unblushingly 

 relate, justified my fear of your being moon-struck, and I needed 

 only to read your cautions against communicating the news to 

 feel satisfied. There is no surer proof of lunacy than suspicions 

 entertained of intimate friends. My only consolation and com- 

 fort is that it was into the power of the moon, and not that of 

 the graves, that you had fallen ; an accident which the treatise 

 on coffin-making in your last epistle to me made me dread had 

 befallen you. By the by, what a very odd and amusing thing, 

 of a sort, would the entry-book of one of these London performers 

 be. You can imagine some scamp who had spent his time in 

 kicking his heels in the air, like the donkeys, leaving in his 

 will, ' Item, that my coffin be made roomy at the heel end ;' or 

 a gouty old gentleman, who felt very doubtful how he should 

 reach the Styx without his sticks, and feeling also convinced 

 that in case of old Charon getting surly, and ' couping' the 

 boat, the said stilts would be of great use, might append a 

 codicil addressed to the undertaker, ' Item, that room be left 

 for my crutches;' and as for those unfortunate beings whom 

 Campbell used to characterize by his strangely expressive 

 phrase, as able to act Eichard in. without stuffing, I know what 

 they would say, perhaps, 'Wanted an Italic S coffin, to be 



