1858. CHAIR OF CHEMISTRY. 455 



the issue. The suspense is very, very unwelcome, but must be 

 borne. As yet I scarcely feel that I am a candidate. 



" May 14. 



" Many thanks for your 1 good wishes in reference to the 

 Chemistry Chair. A perfect phalanx of friends has gathered 

 around me, and shown me an amount of kindness enough to 

 make proud, and at the same time humble, any man. But as 

 yet I can say nothing of prospects. Meanwhile, don't stop col- 

 lecting for the Museum. We must make it and keep it famous, 

 whatever happens." 



Such suspense was not helpful to physical wellbeing. " I 

 cannot write at length," he says, " for I have an open blister on 

 my right arm, and every now and then it makes my nerves 

 quiver as if my elbow were laid on a KuhmkofFs coil. This 

 does not conduce to legible writing or elegant composition." 



On May 20th, he encloses to his brother a letter of with- 

 drawal, saying, " The enclosed will let you know that I have 

 retired from the Chemistry Chair. I need not tell you that to 

 do this has cost a sore effort. I was sure of the Chair. A large 

 majority of the Council had declared for me. . . . The kind- 

 ness, respect, and admiration unsolicitedly expressed towards 

 me by people I never saw, have unspeakably touched and hum- 

 bled me. 



" The Chair, you know, was the object of my youthful ambi- 

 tion. A position of honour and influence is afforded by it such 

 as few positions give. Why then refuse it ? Simply because it 

 would have been a fatal promotion. I could not have faced the 

 physical labour. o convinced was I of this, that I had no pur- 

 pose of standing. ... I accept the issue without repining. We 

 have both been taught in different ways that ' man proposes, 

 but God disposes.' When He took away my health, He taught 

 me to lay aside as unrealizable my ambition ; and two years 

 ago I fully resigned myself to see the Chemistry Chair go past 

 me. I should be the most thankless of men if I made light of 

 what is left me, or disallowed the comforts and honours of my 

 present appointment. The one point which more than any 



1 Mr. Godfrey Wedgwood. 



