282 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VI. 



one's heart good. As I lay on the sofa this morning, ' fast 

 anchored' as usual, I recalled in thought a most beautiful poem, 

 written by a young Edinburgh advocate, called Aytoun, and 

 which you will find in Blackwood for last year. The title is 

 ' Harmotimus/ or some similar name, and should you stumble 

 on it, read it ; besides other points of interest, it will make you 

 acquainted with a beautiful but difficult measure, borrowed 

 from the German, a language which infinitely transcends ours 

 in its capabilities of modulation, and can, in fact, imitate the 

 measures of every nation under heaven. The poem is founded 

 on an old Greek story of a philosopher who possessed the power 

 of separating his soul from his body, and sending the former on 

 errands of its own. As his soul, to which time and space were 

 nothing, was often absent for days together, he gave strict 

 injunctions to his wife to take care of his body during its soul- 

 less condition, and not to be alarmed though it should seem 

 lifeless even for long periods. Secure in this arrangement, he 

 made many spiritual excursions in all safety, but at last, lin- 

 gering away too long, his wife thought his body was fairly dead, 

 and burned it. Truly it was a dangerous power to put in the 

 hands of a woman. We know a wife or two who would be very 

 glad their husbands had the disembodying secret, and with 

 help of a lucifer-match would effectually secure against their 

 revisiting the glimpses of the moon. I accuse not, however, 

 the old Grecian matron, though hers may have been a Lucifer- 

 match, which she was thankful to burn to ashes as fast as she 

 could. But as a process for getting rid of a husband it beats 

 arsenic hollow. Your arsenic settles Mr. B.'s connexion with 

 this world, and once he's coffined, unless those prying wretches 

 the chemists dig him up to analyse him, you are done with him. 

 But there's another world, Mrs. B., and what will you say when 

 you have to face him there ? Matron lone (please to observe it 

 is lone, no relation of either Jenny or widow Jones), however, 

 had fired the match at both ends, and philosopher Glaucus had 

 ' lost his vote ' in both worlds. In vain did the shivering soul 

 come back for its body-coat ; it was dust and ashes. It could 

 not sit down in its own mansion, though empty seats, with soft 

 cushions, were there in abundance, for the same reason that 



