J856. GIFTS OF EXPOSITION. 439 



women, and it is a title which each should covet. For the 

 queen's hand there is the sceptre, and for the soldier's hand the 

 sword ; for the carpenter's hand the saw, and for the smith's 

 hand the hammer ; for the farmer's hand the plough ; for the 

 miner's hand the spade ; for the sailor's hand the oar ; for the 

 painter's hand the brush ; for the sculptor's hand the chisel ; for 

 the poet's hand the pen ; and for the woman's hand the needle. 

 If none of these or the like will fit us, the felon's chain should 

 be round our wrist, and our hand on the prisoner's crank. But 

 for each willing man and woman there is a tool they may learn 

 to handle ; for all there is the command, ' Whatsoever thy hand 

 findeth to do, do it with all thy might/ " 



After reading those extracts, we feel that Dr. Cairns does not 

 overstate the truth in saying, " His gifts of exposition and illus- 

 tration were perfectly wonderful. A scientific clearness of con- 

 ception and expression hardly to be surpassed, with fulness of 

 knowledge, ranging over a vast surface of inquiry, were in him 

 combined with a freshness of fancy, that seized on the most un- 

 expected analogies and contrasts ; an exuberant humour, that 

 gave zest and relief to the hardest and gravest subjects : and a 

 high strain of moral eloquence that linked every topic with 

 man's joys, and sorrows, and deep enduring interests. It would 

 not be easy to name examples of exposition more admirable and 

 delightful than his statement of the Atomic Theory in his paper 

 on 'John Dalton,' his various essays on 'The Electric Tele- 

 graph,' and his ' Five Gateways of Knowledge.' His most hasty 

 occasional lectures run into shapes of inimitable grace and 

 beauty, extracted often by the plastic hand of the artist from 

 the most intractable materials. One great charm of all his 

 writings is their radical simplicity and truthfulness. The eyes 

 of science precede and guide everywhere the wings of fancy. 

 No original scientific man, with so much of the genius of the 

 poet, had ever so little of the exaggeration of the rhapsodist." 1 



While he says, " My modesty is shocked by sending to so 

 many and so wise men my small rhapsody," he reports the 

 acknowledgments received as " of a threefold character/'- 



1 ' Macmillan's Magazine/ January 1860. 



