1838-39. A PHYSICIAN GRUB. 203 



one, and prodigal of good words and benefits to all around me. 

 I am in an ocean of self-contentment, swayed about by every 

 changing impulse ; I am a fettered slave with my limbs set free, 

 and my ears undoomed to listen to the music of my chains. In 

 short, though the ' world is all before me where to choose/ and 

 I am rudderless, compassless, unprovided with ammunition, and 

 about to taste of ( the fever, and the strife here, where men sit 

 and hear each other groan,' I am as light-hearted and as gay as 

 if ' heaven had opened on my view,' and I had left ' earth and 

 its dull cares behind me.' 



" Like the thirsty convalescent from a malignant distemper, 

 who declared, as he drank his invigorating wine draught, that 

 the gods knew not what nectar was, for they never had the 

 ' yellow fever,' so I say, that you must try the tortures of a 

 medico's fortnight before his examination, before you can revel, 

 like a summer fly, in the feeling of perfect liberty. 



" By working devouringly in gulps at my cabbage leaves, I 

 managed to go over a great deal; and though I very nearly 

 knocked myself up with this sort of work, now that it is over 

 I am perfectly well satisfied, glad that I have the power to work 

 double tides when there is a need for it." 



From his cousin James, the following congratulatory letter 

 was received : 



" GLASGOW, 5th July 1839. 



" MY DEAR GEORGE, I received the news of your distinc- 

 tion with very great pleasure, which was the more enhanced as 

 it relieved me of certain doubts and fears I had begun to en- 

 tertain about your success, for Miss Mackay had not heard of 

 it, and you know I did not hear from home for a long while. 

 I expected you would have let us know, and the only event of 

 sufficient importance to have prevented you from doing so, 

 that occurred to me, was that perhaps, by your close applica- 

 tion, you had so etherealized yourself, that you had evanished 

 through your window in a flash of genius, and were perhaps at 

 the moment, when my cogitations were employed about you, 

 twinkling on the tail of the Great Bear. I was debating with 

 myself whether to put it beyond doubt, by a personal exaniina- 



