198 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IV. 



chemistry even in a boarding-school ; anything, so as I am kept 

 among the retorts and crucibles. Whatever happens I shall not 

 regret London and its advantages. 



" Meanwhile, I have almost finished a supplement, as long as 

 my essay, from which I hope for credit, as it is thought highly 

 of among the good people here. If I write any more I must 

 give over telling truths and take to lies, such as that pussy 

 (whom I would have called Miss Hamlet, had she not inten- 

 tions of early marriage), i.e., Lady Othello, sends her love to 

 Bob, not Bob H., but Bob Grimalkin ; and I, imitating her 

 Christian example, send kindest love to you and to all friends." 



On May 24th a postscript to a letter is as follows : 

 " The examinators at Physicians' Hall have rejected one of 

 the presidents of the Medical Society, and a great star among 

 the students to boot. This frightens us all, and will explain 

 my hasty, horrible scrawling. Samuel Brown has passed his 

 first examination. Poor B - is no better. 



" As you have so much labour on your hands, I shall tell you 

 a little incident I learned the other day. I have overdrawn my 

 bank in the article of sense, and so I add a piece of real non- 

 sense. You must know by name a certain medico, Dr. - , 

 who gives people certificates although they do not attend him, 

 and lives in a very sorry fashion, being in truth a misbegotten, 

 ill-conditioned, crack-brained knave. Well, the other day, he, 

 as is his wont, marched out at the head of a crew of raffs, bent 

 on the capture or destruction of weeds and wildflowers. Having 

 gained the wood of Colinton, they sat down on a bank to 

 examine a flower, and while the doctor was explaining the 

 envelopes of the plant, and descanting on them, one of his sa- 

 tellites, more curious about the Doctor's own outward covering, 

 saw with some surprise his preceptor's coat buttoned close to 

 his chin, and his bare wrists sticking out at his cuffs. ' Doctor,' 

 quoth the pupil, ' where's your shirt ?' ' Tout, tout,' was the 

 reply, ' just where it should be' (by which I suppose the Doctor 

 meant, hanging over the back of a chair at his garret fire; 

 although, as you will see from the nature of the case, the State 

 Paper Office, which holds so many documents valuable to prove 



