32 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



dead, for on consulting my sister I concluded that it was not 

 right to kill insects for the sake of making a collection. 

 From reading White's ' Selborne,' I took much pleasure in 

 watching the habits of birds, and even made notes on the 

 subject. In my simplicity I remember wondering why every 

 gentleman did not become an ornithologist. 



Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked 

 hard at chemistry, and made a fair laboratory with proper 

 apparatus in the tool-house in the garden, and I was allowed 

 to aid him as a servant in most of his experiments. He made 

 all the gases and many compounds, and I read with great 

 care several books on chemistry, such as Henry and Parkes' 

 'Chemical Catechism.' The subject interested me greatly, 

 and we often used to go on working till rather late at night. 

 This was the best part of my education at school, for it showed 

 me practically the meaning of experimental science. The 

 fact that we worked at chemistry somehow got known at school, 

 and as it was an unprecedented fact, I was nicknamed 

 " Gas." I was also once publicly rebuked by the head-master, 

 Dr.' Butler, for thus wasting my time on such useless subjects; 

 and he called me very unjustly a " poco curante," and as I 

 did not understand what he meant, it seemed to me a fearful 

 reproach. 



As I was doing no good at school, my father wisely took 

 me away at a rather earlier age than usual, and sent me (Oct. 

 1825) to Edinburgh University with my brother, where I 

 stayed for two years or sessions. My brother was completing 

 his medical studies, though I do not believe he ever really in- 

 tended to practise, and I was sent there to commence them. 

 But soon after this period I became convinced from various 

 small circumstances that my father would leave me property 

 enough to subsist on with some comfort, though I never 

 imagined that I should be so rich a man as I am ; but my 

 belief was sufficient to check any strenuous efforts to learn 

 medicine. 



The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by lectures, 

 and these were intolerably dull, with the exception of those 



