298 William Stevenson By Professor Duns. 



Mr Stevenson's father was a working cooper in Dunse, where 

 his family, for several g-enerations, were well to do feuars. 

 William was early apprenticed to Mr R. Young, draper. At the 

 close of his apprenticeship he sought earnestly for a situation as 

 a draper's assistant, but, after six weary weeks of unsuccessful 

 application at shops in Edinburgh and Glasgow, he had to return 

 home. As he had never taken heartily to shop work, he willingly 

 embraced an offer of emplojnuent in the office of Mr Allan Purves, 

 factor on Dunse Castle Estates, where he continued till 1848. 

 He had for several years been well known beyond his native 

 county. The recognised leaders in the departments of science 

 to which he was especially devoted — Meteorology and Geology — 

 had cordially acknowledged the value of his work. In such 

 circumstances it was not unreasonable to begin to cherish hopes 

 of work more congenial than the daily routine of that in which 

 he was engaged. He thought, for example, that he might be of 

 some service on the staff of the Geological Survey, and ventured 

 to say so to Murchison, who mentioned his name and claims to 

 Sir Henry T. De la Beche. But nothing came of this or other 

 applications. Deferred hope -brought its wonted sickness of 

 heart, and he resolved to spend the rest of his days in America, 

 where he believed merit and not interest or patronage determined 

 success. The results of this resolution are described by himself, 

 in a peculiarly graphic MS, entitled " Stevenson' n Voyages : Or 

 Notes of three unsuccessful attemvts to reach New York : Spring, 

 184-8. " The shrewd observations, strong common sense, and 

 picturesque details of scenes and incidents which occur in this 

 narrative will strike most. But it abounds also with illustrations 

 of aspects of individuality, which I had not hitherto associated 

 with Mr Stevenson. He bad reached the age at which all the 

 powers of man— moral and intellectual— seek their highest expres- 

 sion — powers, many of which, in the case of those studying for, 

 or just entered on, learned professions, are repressed by the very 

 seriousness of that earnestness of hope that springs from labour 

 as earnest. But Stevenson at this time does not seem to have 

 had much, if any, of the thoughtful sadness which Albert Durer 

 has so finally expressed in his great science-picture ^* Melancholia, " 

 as usually a fruit of persistent intellectual work. There is wit 

 in " The Voyages " but it is not genial. There is humour but it 

 is not quiet. It is worth noting that the period of Mr Stevenson's 

 greatest intellectual activity was the decade ending 1853 — that is 



