sense, sanctifying and blessing science, from this which seemed always to us his proper sphere. Indeed, in the opinion of some good judges, the institution of such a chair at all, and especially in connexion with a University such as ours, and the attaching to it the conduct of a great Museum of the Industrial Arts, was somewhat hastily gone into, and might have with advantage waited for and obtained a little more consideration and forethought. Be this as it may, Dr. Wilson did his duty with his whole heart and soul— making a class, which was always increasing, and which was at its largest at his death.

We have left ourselves no space to speak of Dr. Wilson as an author, as an academic and popular lecturer, as a member of learned societies, as a man of exquisite literary powers and fancy, and as a citizen of remarkable public acceptation. This must come from some more careful, and fuller, and more leisurely record of his genius and worth. What he was as a friend it is not for us to say; we only know that when we leave this world we would desire no better memorial than to be remembered by many as George Wilson now is, and always will be. His Life of Cavendish is admirable as a biography, full of life, of picturesque touches, and of realization of the man and of his times, and is, moreover, thoroughly scientific, containing, among other discussions, by far the best account of the great water controversy from the Cavendish point of view. His Life of John Reid is a vivid and memorable presentation to the world of the true lineaments, manner of life, and inmost thought and heroic sufferings, as well as of the noble scientific achievements of that strong, truthful, courageous, and altogether admirable man, and true discoverer a genuine follower of John Hunter.

The Five Gateways of Knowledge is a prose poem, a hymn of the finest utterance and fancy - the white light of science

diffracted through the crystalline prism of his mind into the coloured glories of the spectrum; truth dressed in the iridescent hues of the rainbow, and not the less but all the more true. His other papers in the British Quarterly, the North British Review, and his last gem on "Paper, Pens, and Ink," in his valued and generous friend Macmillan's first number of his Magazine, are all astonishing proofs of the brightness, accuracy, vivacity, unweariedness of his mind, and the endless sympathy and affectionate play of his affections with the full round of scientific truth. His essay on "Colour Blindness" is, we believe, as perfect a monogram as exists, and will remain likely untouched and unadded to, factum ad unguem. As may be seen from these remarks, we regard him not so much as, like Edward Forbes, a great observer and quiet generalizer, or, like Samuel Brown, a discoverer and philosopher properly so called — though, as we have said, he had enough of these two men's prime qualities to understand and relish and admire them. His great quality lay in making men love ascertained and recorded truth, scientific truth especially; he made his reader and hearer enjoy facts. He illuminated the Book of Nature as they did the missals of old. His nature was so thoroughly composite, so in full harmony with itself, that no one faculty could or cared to act without calling in all the others to join in full chorus. To take an illustration from his own science, his faculties interpenetrated and interfused themselves into each other, as the gases do, by a law of their nature. Thus it was that everybody understood and liked and was impressed by him; he touched them at every point. Knowledge was to him no barren, cold essence: it was alive and flushed with the colours of the earth and sky, and all over with light and stars. His flowers - and his mind was full of flowers were from seeds, and were sown by himself. They were neither taken from other gardens and

stuck in rootless, as children do, much less were they of the nature of gumflowers, made with hands, wretched and dry and scentless.

Truth of science was to him a body, full of loveliness, perfection, and strength, in which dwelt the unspeakable Eternal. This, which was the dominant idea of his mind the goodliness, and not less the godliness of all science made his whole life, his every action, every letter he wrote every lecture he delivered, his last expiring breath, instinct with the one constant idea that all truth, all goodness, all science, all beauty, all gladness, are but the expression of the mind and will and heart of the Great Supreme. And this, in his case, was not mysticism, neither was it merely a belief in revealed religion, though no man cherished and believed in his Bible more firmly and cordially than he; it was the assured belief, on purely scientific grounds, that God is indeed and in very truth all in all; that, to use the sublime adaptation by poor crazy Smart, the whole creation, visible and invisible, spiritual and material, everything that has being, is to those who have ears to hear for ever declaring "Thou Art," before the throne of the Great I AM.

To George Wilson, to all such men and this is the great lesson of his life- the heavens are for ever telling His glory, the firmament is for ever showing forth His handiwork; day unto day, every day, is for ever uttering speech, and night unto night is showing knowledge concerning Him. When he considered these heavens, as he lay awake, weary, and in pain, they were to him the work of His fingers. The moon, walking in brightness, and lying in white glory on his bedthe stars were by Him ordained. He was a singularly happy, and happy-making man. No one since his boyhood could have suffered more from pain, and languor, and the misery of an unable body. Yet he was not only cheerful, he

was gay, full of all sorts of fun - genuine fun - and his jokes and queer turns of thought and word were often worthy of Cowper or Charles Lamb. We wish we had them collected. Being, from his state of health and his knowledge in medicine, necessarily "mindful of death," having the possibility of his dying any day or any hour, always before him, and that "undiscovered country" lying full in his view, he must, taking, as he did, the right notion of the nature of thingshave had a peculiar intensity of pleasure in the every-day beauties of the world.

"The common sun, the air, the skies,

To him were opening Paradise."

They were to him all the more exquisite, all the more altogether lovely, these Pentlands and the Braid Hills, and all his accustomed drives and places; these rural solitudes and pleasant villages and farms, and the countenances of his friends, and the clear, pure, radiant face of science and of nature, were to him all the more to be desired and blessed and thankful for, that he knew the pallid king at any time might give that not unexpected knock, and summon him away.

NOTES ON ART.

"The use of this feigned history" (the Ideal Arts of Poesy, Painting, Music, &c.) "hath been to give SOME SHADOW OF SATISFACTION TO THE

MIND OF MAN IN THESE POINTS WHEREIN THE NATURE OF THINGS DOTH

A

DENY IT, the world being in proportion inferior to the soul; by reason whereof, there is, agreeable to the spirit of man, A MORE AMPLE GREATNESS, MORE EXACT GOODNESS, AND A MORE ABSOLUTE VARIETY, than can be found in the nature of things. So it appeareth that Poesy" (and the others) 66 serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, morality, and to delectation. And therefore it was ever thought to have some participation of divineness because IT DOTH RAISE AND ERECT THE MIND, BY SUBMITTING THE SHEWS OF THINGS TO THE DESIRES OF THE MIND; whereas reason' " (science, philosophy) "doth buckle and bow the mind to the nature of things." — OF THE PROFICIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING.

"The statue" of the Duke Lorenzo by Michael Angelo "is larger than life, but not so large as to shock belief. It is the most real and unreal thing that ever came from the chisel." — Note in ROGERS's "ITALY." These two words, "real and unreal," comprehend the philosophy of art; which proposes to itself the idealizing of the real, and the realizing of the ideal.

ONE evening in the spring of 1846, as my wife and I were sitting at tea, Parvula in bed, and the Sputchard reposing, as was her wont, with her rugged little brown forepaws over the edge of the fender, her eyes shut, toasting, and all but roasting herself at the fire, a note was brought in, which, from its fat, soft look, by a hopeful and not unskilled palpitation I diagnosed as that form of lucre which in Scotland may well be called filthy. I gave it across to Madam, who, opening it, discovered four five-pound notes, and a letter addressed to