18,55. REQUEST FOR A GO WX. 415 



It will bring me no addition of salary, rather the opposite, but I 

 shall get more rest, and, please God, I will try to do some good 

 in my Museum." 



Before entering on the duties of the approaching Session, a 

 pleasant week was spent in Glasgow, at the meeting of the 

 British Association. 



Of the opening address by the President for that year, George 

 writes, " Last night the Duke of Argyle gave his address. You 

 will see it in full in the newspapers, and find a bit that made 

 my head hang down, about a new Professorship. I was glad I 

 was in a quiet corner, when named so unexpectedly." The 

 allusion was the following : " I. am happy to say that, in con- 

 nexion with the New National Museum, which is being organ- 

 ized for Scotland, there is to be a special branch devoted to the 

 industrial applications of Science ; and that a new Professor- 

 ship, one which has long existed in almost all the continental 

 universities that of Technology has just been instituted by 

 the Government. I am not less happy in being able to an- 

 nounce that to that Chair Dr. George Wilson has been ap- 

 pointed. The writings which we owe to the pen of Dr. 

 Wilson, and especially his beautiful Memoirs of Cavendish and 

 of Dr. Eeid, are among the happiest productions of the literature 

 of science." l 



When his induction as Professor drew nigh, Mrs. J. H. Glad- 

 stone received the following humble petition : 



" Do you happen to have a gown to spare ? A black gown ? 

 A silk gown ? A gown not much the worse of wear ? You 

 will be surprised at me making these requests, but there is a 

 person here known to me, who would willingly go to a meeting, 

 but cannot appear at it without a gown ; and though such 

 poverty on the part of a respectable party may surprise you in 

 rich England, I am sorry to say, that the individual on whose 

 behalf I would interest your kind heart, has only two gowns, 

 and these such singular articles of dress, that an appearance at 

 church in either, would infallibly provoke even the minister to 

 smiles, and lead to the gown-wearer being put out of doors. . . . 



1 ' Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, for 1855,' 

 p. 81. 



