340 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. VIII. 



" Dr. Wilson's work is intended as a simple introduction to 

 chemistry for the youth of both sexes ; but it deserves a higher 

 place than the author claims for it, from the excellence of the 

 spirit in which it is written. Most works of the class attempt 

 to do no more than to give an account of the strange and strik- 

 ing phenomena of the science, and rarely venture to discuss its 

 principles ; but Dr. Wilson has entered with considerable ful- 

 ness, and in a remarkably clear, simple, and intelligible manner, 

 into the general doctrines of chemistry, and has explained many 

 matters which are generally, but as we believe erroneously, con- 

 sidered too abstruse for the popular student." 1 A second edition 

 was desired by the publishers in 1857, but engagements on hand 

 put it out of his power to give attention to this request, as con- 

 siderable additions would have been necessary, owing to the 

 progress of chemistry since its first appearance. 



In 1851, the growing reputation of Dr. Wilson, both as a 

 scientific writer and a biographer, was greatly enhanced by his 

 ' Life of the Honourable Henry Cavendish.' 2 Eight years pre- 

 viously, while laid aside from active work, he had begun to 

 collect materials for the Lives of British Chemists, already 

 alluded to, and these were found of service in this arduous 

 undertaking. He had also had unusual opportunities of mas- 

 tering the difficulties connected with the discovery of the com- 

 position of water, and the claims of Watt and Cavendish in 

 respect to it. It was at the request of the council of the 

 Cavendish Society which includes nearly all the chemists of 

 the country, and many of its natural philosophers that Dr. 

 Wilson undertook this biography, and how thoroughly he identi- 

 fied himself with the subject of his memoir, we find from a letter 

 written while engaged in the work : " I read all biographies 

 with intense interest. Even a man without a heart, like Caven- 

 dish, I think about, and read about, and dream about, and 

 picture to myself in all possible ways, till he grows into a living 

 being beside me, and I put my feet into his shoes, and become 



1 ' Edin. Monthly Medical Journal,' December 1850. 



2 ' The Life of the Honourable Henry Cavendish, including abstracts of his more 

 important scientific Papers, and a Critical Inquiry into the Claims of all the al- 

 leged Discoverers of the Composition of Water.' London : Printed for the Caven- 

 dish Society, 1851. 



