192 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IV. 



the brink of the unstable raft is his only companion ; and this 

 simplicity in the elements of effect is one great charm of the 

 picture. The newspapers, and a host of fools here, have found 

 that the man is a ruffian by his look, because, like me, he forgot 

 in parting from home to take his razor with him. But this is 

 all nonsense ; and if it were truth, it would not alter the value 

 of the picture, for the instinct of life is probably doubly strong 

 in ruffians, who have no hope beyond the grave. Anyhow, the 

 intense eager look he casts towards the unbroken horizon, fills 

 up my conception of such a scene. The sea is that waveless, 

 silent abyss, which Coleridge's ' Ancient Mariner' was becalmed 

 in. I should not wonder though Harvey had been taking a 

 spell at that glorious poem. They say he painted it in ten days. 

 Such happy thoughts are not born every day. 



" I have much, too, to say in favour of David Scott, a great 

 favourite of mine. He has a picture of ' The Alchemist/ 

 representing Paracelsus among his pupils. It is a speaking 

 picture : in the students' faces are shown all the moods, from 

 utter carelessness to intense attention, which may be seen in 

 the hall of any College, only they are exalted, and made 

 delicately characteristic by the touches of genius. Two happy, 

 dark-haired Italians lean listlessly over their lutes, telling by 

 their looks that they have found in love and mirth an elixir of 

 life which could not be surpassed by the alchemist's art. A 

 sceptical Englishman near them looks incredulously on a mystic 

 vial which his friend declares to be a portion of the aurum 

 potabile, the all-powerful liquid which was to make us immortal. 

 There are few now-a-days who would drink that draught could 

 they have the refusal. I am sure I should not on any terms ; 

 but I think I might press a teaspoonful on some of my dear 

 friends to call them back from the precincts of the grave, that I 

 might have again those who make life worth possessing. Well, 

 of the picture. It is absurd to try describing the picture ; but 

 I am so haunted by the remembrance of the earnest, impassioned 

 air of a young enthusiast, who records on his tablets every wild 

 word of his master : the perplexed look of a grave old knight 

 who has lost the alchemist in his extravaganza, and is catching 

 the sound of a single familiar word here and there, but at such 



