176 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IV. 



pieces to be performed on the stage of theatres with which he 

 was professionally connected. But the genius of the man was 

 the more seen in thus, as it were, shackling himself. The ori- 

 ginals of many of Shakspere's plays, such as ' King John/ and 

 'Borneo and Juliet/ may be compared with his writings on 

 similar subjects, and such a comparison brings out the great 

 power of this wondrous man in more marked prominence ; 

 indeed often the only similarity between his play and preceding 

 ones is in the names of the dramatis personce ; all the force, truth, 

 and individuality of each separately drawn character, and all 

 the blending of the whole piece into one harmonious whole, are 

 his, and prove his possession of powers which no other writer 

 has ever exhibited. No one can read him, and remain for a 

 moment in doubt as to the originality of his conceptions ; no 

 one can be aware of the powers of his own language, and the 

 high rank of its poetry, who does not read, and read, and read 

 the wonderful works of Shakspere. The names of Dr. Johnson, 

 of Cowper, Wilberforce, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Isaac 

 Taylor, John Foster, Professor Wilson, and many more whose 

 names are passports for good to what they speak of, will urge 

 you to go on in your readings. Meanwhile, I'll stop to add 

 another name, that of your loving son, George." 



" LONDON, 21st February. 



" MY DEAR MARY, It shall never be that you and I shall be 

 left at the sport of the winds and waves, and debarred writing 

 to and loving each other, because the seas take a fit of wild- 

 ness, and the waves become impatient of the ceaseless beatings 

 of the steamboat wheels. Why, I have a project for a steam- 

 balloon, which I'll finish and put into practice. Would it not 

 be a glorious thing to leave this dull earth, and, far above its 

 mists and its vanities, fly straight as the crow to the point we 

 wished, and when that was reached, descend like a plummet, 

 witli as true an aim as the eagle has when he drops the tortoise 

 or the doomed oyster on the flinty rock ? 



" So manifold are the advantages such a machine would give 

 for loving intercourse, that now that my steam is up, I could 

 go on for the whole of this paper, ballooning. But I doubt if 



