Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

WRITING FOR

WESTMINSTER REVIEW".

87

unknown; but it was seldom practised with the same degree of persistence. I had learned the art in various schools, or from various writers, and had formed the wish to carry it out to the utmost. Iteration with emphasis, aided by a strong imagination, had been the teaching of Thomas Chalmers. While admirable for an individual idea, the defect of his method was soon discovered to be that it did not easily lend itself to a complication or compound of several co-ordinate ideas.

On the 18th July, I received a letter from Cole, in which he intimated the acceptance of the article in complimentary terms. It appeared in September.

I had wished to adopt, as the subject for a future article, "The Theory of Colours," apropos of the translation of a work of Goethe on the subject, but found I was talking very much at random, and that the work was not at all suited to be the text of a popular exposition. It was not till the end of the year that I came to an understanding with the editor, Hickson, in regard to a second article, entitled "The Constitution of Matter". There was a little hesitation on his part as to the possibility of giving the topic a popular handling, but he at last agreed to allow sixteen pages for the article in the following July

number; so that the composition was deferred till towards the end of the session, 1840-41, when I had had the benefit of Clark's Chemistry class.

The close of the session had left me in an exhausted condition, yet I had still to go through the composition of the second and most elaborate essay on Logic. After a short stay in the country, I went on a visit to Masson in Edinburgh, which, of course, included a survey of the glories of the place. To this was added attendance on the sittings of the General Assembly, then possessing a more than ordinary interest. The chief stress of the business was the Non-Intrusion

controversy. It still wanted three years to the Disruption, but the debates were tending in that direction. The speakers included Chalmers, Cook (leader of the Moderate party), M'Farlane, Begg, and Dunlop. Chalmers, as usual, towered above them all, and gave one of his splendid orations. There were absent from this Assembly the three notables who soon bore a distinguished part in the agitation then pending - Candlish, Cunningham, and Guthrie. I, of course, took a very great interest in the whole development of the question, which became, for several years, the leading topic in the youthful circle with which I was associated. It was debated on every possible ground-general politics, law, Scripture, and expediency. My

NON-INTRUSION CONTROVERSY.

89

most intimate companions and allies were on the Non-Intrusion side. Masson, in particular, was animated by a burning zeal at all points. Still, there were among our associates some who took the other side; and, consequently, the occasions of debate were frequent, both in our Theological Society and in more private intercourse.

I may say, once for all, that, while I sided with the Non-Intrusion party in its primary contention for the right of the people to appoint their ministers, when it came to disobeying the authority of the Courts of Law, I could no longer go along with the party. I could not see how the situation thus created could be rectified by any known means. My feeling was admirably put in an expression used by John Mill when he had to remonstrate with the leaders of the London working men, who were proposing to meet in Hyde Park in defiance of the Government. His language was: "You need to be convinced first that a revolution is necessary, and next that you are able to carry it out".

Returning from the Assembly in the end of May, I took up my abode in town for three months continuously, with a short run to Braemar in July. I had to finish the article for the Westminster Review, which was completed in June and published in September.

It was at this time that I made the acquaintance of John Shier, a most genial and intelligent man, who became helpful to me in many ways. He gave me good advice in the care of my health, at a period of growing scepticism as to the efficacy of medicines. That doctors were given to over-drugging at this time was their own confession, twenty or thirty years afterwards. As already remarked, the writings of Andrew Combe were much in vogue among young men, such as myself, beginning to suffer disturbed digestion. Shier was very sedentary in his habits, and I used to spend long evenings at his lodgings, when he read to me from his favourite authors, and gave me a considerable fillip in belles lettres, in which I was still very backward. He was a man both of scientific attainments and of literary refinement.

On the 24th March, my mother died, at the age of forty-seven, of a bad accident induced on an exhausted constitution. She did her duty to the utmost of her powers through a very hard life. Her household labours, which were too much for any one person, were aggravated by her chronic asthma. She murmured very little at her lot, and I doubt if any one could have done better in the management of her house and family. Two of my sisters were of sufficient

JOHN SHIER.-MOTHER'S DEATH.

91

age to take on the housekeeping as it then stood. My father was now breaking up, and soon became unable for his usual occupation, so that all he could do was to bestow a little attention upon the cooking and minor household matters.

Holding the office of Secretary to the Mechanics' Institution, I was involved in the carrying out of a great undertaking of the present summer, namely, to raise a fund by means of a grand exhibition-scientific, artistic, and antiquarian, for which a temporary building had to be erected. The chief labour of this undertaking devolved upon James Rettie, who spared no pains to make it a success. He took upon himself the arrangement of the scientific part, and was for many weeks employed almost daily in the preparations. Of course, many meetings of the Committee had to be held, and I had to carry out the wishes of the body in the matter of correspondence.

On Shier's recommendation, I was engaged by Hugh Lumsden, of Pitcaple, to act as tutor to his son Henry, by way of preparing him for attending the University of Edinburgh in the winter. I, accordingly, went to Pitcaple Castle in the middle of September, and remained till the end of October, when the winter session at Aberdeen began. The duties at the Mechanics'

« AnteriorContinuar »