450 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. X. 



once been in the garden for the last three months, so cold has 

 it been. Who is Mr., or is it Mrs., or Miss Zero, who is always 

 getting up or down in the cold weather? Is Zero black or 

 white, lady or gentleman, young or old ? I am told that Zero 

 is a mad milliner, who insists on dressing everybody in white, 

 and painting their noses blue. Is that trife? Why is she 

 always letting somebody get above her, or putting somebody 

 below her ? Is she a school-girl, and a dux or booby ? Is she at 

 school with you ? Tell me all about her. They say she has 

 something to do with the freezing point. What's it ? Is it the 

 point of the nose, or the end of the fingers, or the tip of the ear ? 

 Write me about these curious things. . . . Vivo is at present 

 in deep mourning, having lost by death, Lady Fanny Squirrel, 

 to whom he has long been engaged to be married. Poor fellow, 

 he has waited long, and we hoped it was to have ended other- 

 wise. He talks wildly at times about life being a burden to him, 

 but I don't perceive that his appetite has suffered ; and if any 

 other dog sets up chat to him, he draws his sword, and is at him 

 at once. He announces his intention of erecting a monument 

 to the memory of his peerless Fanny, and then he will join the 

 army, and spend the rest of his life fighting against the Turks, 

 i.e., the Cats." 



The lectures in the Philosophical Institution, already alluded 

 to, were four in number, their subject being the ' Graphic Indus- 

 trial Arts.' One of them has become familiar to the public under 

 the title, ' Paper, Pen, and Ink.' l Of it we shall have occasion 

 to speak again. Looking back at the session when past, he says, 

 " For the last two months I have been existing rather than liv- 

 ing. Sleepless nights ; aching limbs ; the whole day a chronic 

 malaise; and the smallest work an effort. My only painless 

 moments were when lecturing. Then I forgot all, as also, of 

 course, when asleep ; but though assuredly I did sleep at times, 

 I never had the feeling of rest, and hour after hour on to three 

 or four in the morning, I wearily rolled about, listening to an- 

 cient Job saying, < When I say my bed will comfort me, then 

 thou scarest me with terrors.' . . . The change of Government 

 compelled me to get up a new set of petitions for the Museum, 



1 ' Macmillan's Magazine/ November 1859. 



