CHAPTER V. Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE

Trinity College—First vacation at the Lakes—Second vacation at Aberfeldy—College friends—Entire breakdown in health—Third vacation in Germany—My father’s death

It was a notable day in my life when, in the year 1840, escorted by my father on the top of a stage coach, I caught my first view of the principal buildings of Cambridge. There was no railway to Cambridge then. I had been entered at Trinity College, where rooms were assigned to me on the first floor of B. New Court. My tutor was J. W. Blakesley (1808-1885), an accomplished classical scholar, contemporary with Tennyson and his set, and subsequently Dean of Lincoln. The then Master of the College, who, however, resigned his post after the close of my first term, was Christopher Wordsworth (1774-1846), brother of the poet and father of three distinguished classical scholars,—John; Charles, Bishop of St. Andrew’s; and Christopher, the headmaster of Harrow. The biographies of them all appear in the Dict. Nat. Biog. I found but few old friends among the undergraduates besides Matthew Boulton, but gradually fell into my place. I soon became conscious of the power and thoroughness of the work about me, as of a far superior order to anything I had previously witnessed. At the same time I wondered at its narrowness, for not a soul seemed to have the slightest knowledge of, or interest in, what I had acquired in my medical education and what we have since learnt to call Biology. The religious dogmas were of a more archaic type than I had latterly learnt to hold. I thought that just as the medicals wanted the thoroughness of the classicals and of the mathematicians, so these wanted at least an elementary knowledge of what was familiar to the medicals. Great and salutary changes have long since been introduced, and the above criticism, which was perfectly just at the time, is now, I believe and trust, almost wholly out of date.

I stood far behind the majority of my fellow-freshmen in classics, but less so in elementary mathematics, which were then much neglected in schools; for I had an innate love of them, and had indulged in some little private study. I pass lightly over my first year, which was a period of general progress, without much of note, until the first vacation arrived.

I then formed one of a reading party who went to Keswick in Cumberland, and had rooms in the same house with the two tutors, Matheson and Eddis. It was called “Browtop,” and was then a detached villa with a wide prospect, situated in the district that now bears that name. One other pupil lived there also; the rest had lodgings in the town. Being in those years careless of rain and little sensitive to the enervating air of the Lake District, I found myself perfectly happy. The hills being moderate in height and the distances small, an afternoon sufficed easily for most of the excursions, so the whole morning was left free for reading. Matheson, the mathematical tutor, was a well-known Fellow of Trinity College, a considerable pianist and a good walker. He also knew the country and many of its residents. Among these was the Rev. Frederic Myers (1811-1851), Vicar of Keswick, who had married into the Marshall family, and who showed me much kindness. He was father to the as yet unborn poet and spiritualist, Frederic W. H. Myers (1843-1901), and his house was a social centre.

I saw a most amusing scene in its drawing-room, which those who recollect the formidable presence of Dr. Whewell will appreciate. All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders. Whewell was not exempt from the common lot, though he had to sustain his new dignity of “Master of Trinity.” He was then paying court to the lady who became his first wife, and his behaviour reminded me irresistibly of a turkey-cock similarly engaged. I fancied that I could almost hear the rustling of his stiffened feathers, and did overhear these sonorous lines of Milton rolled out to the lady à propos of I know not what, “cycle and epicycle, orb and orb,” with hollow o’s and prolonged trills on the r’s.

The following skit indicates the feeling in regard to Whewell’s manner that was current in Cambridge after he had assumed his office. I was reminded of it not so very many months ago, by the late Lord Kelvin:—

“You may roam where you will through the realms of infinity And find nothing so great as the Master of Trinity.”

Those who have read Whewell’s Life, which was written by a loving hand and dwells mainly on his kindly, domestic character, will gather little idea of the rough power of the man and his too frequent overbearing attitude. In after-days he invited me to the Lodge, where I found him most unexpectedly gracious.

It may be worth mentioning that at the time of which I am writing, brakes to carriages were unknown in England except in the Lake Country, where the many hills made it difficult to travel without restraint, unless by frequently stopping to put on or take off the drag. Their use gradually spread, as the first sentimental opposition to them subsided. A near relative of my own, who was a devoted whip and drove his own four-horse drag for many years, was at first contemptuous towards brakes, but soon changed his mind, and ever afterwards used one.

One of the longer excursions was to Scawfell, where I found a small encampment of ordnance surveyors with theodolite and heliostat. Their immediate object was to obtain by direct observation the bearing of Snowdon, ninety-six miles off (as I think they said), to form the side of one of their principal triangles. A corresponding station was set up on the top of Snowdon, whence after many days’ waiting in vain the long-wished-for star of light reflected from the sun by the mirror on Snowdon, became faintly but clearly visible through the telescope at Scawfell. It had been seen on three days altogether, two of which were successive. The obstruction to light by a few miles of mist, etc., in the lower layers of the atmosphere, contrasts forcibly with the ease with which every detail of the far more distant moon becomes visible when risen but a few degrees above the horizon.

Talking of such things reminds me of an elementary but very neat little problem that was set about this time in one of the College examination papers. It has often served me as a rough reminder of the constants involved, so I give it:—

“The tops of two masts, each ten feet above calm water, are just visible to one another at a distance of eight miles; what is the diameter of the earth? Aerial refraction is not to be taken into account.” I leave its solution to the reader.

One of the features of my stay at the Lakes was the wrestling and other field sports, then much more homely in their accessories than they are now. I took lessons from one of the family of Ivens, among whom were many noted wrestlers. My teacher was the light-weight champion of the year. It was interesting to observe the wary approach and half-catchings of the opponents before one of them succeeded in grappling; then the tug-of-war began.

An event occurred at this time closely similar in many respects, but not in its most painful details, to one previously related by De Quincey in his reminiscences of S. T. Coleridge, as having occurred in the Lake District in the early years of last century. I was quite ignorant of it till very lately, when I happened to be reading his book. My story is that of a Polish Count, O., who appeared at Keswick with scant introductions, took a house, and made himself most agreeable. I fell at once under his influence, for he seemed to me extraordinarily accomplished. He had all sorts of books and instruments, and even a tame monkey! So the Count throve and prospered for a while. But a lady resident in the neighbourhood who had been connected in her youth with one of the German Courts, and who studied the Almanach de Gotha and the like, insisted that the Count’s claims to the title were totally unfounded. So a small warfare raged. In the meantime the Count won the affections of a simple girl, the orphan child of a somewhat wealthy “statesman,” that is what we should call a yeoman farmer. He married her, and afterwards ran away with as much of her money as he could get hold of, leaving her with the questionable title of Countess as her only consolation. This finale occurred after I had left.

I grieve deeply that I knew little at that time of the Lake Poets, except Byron’s lines on the correct poetical creed—

“Thou shall believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope; Thou shall not trust in Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey....”

In consequence, I made no effort to obtain the honour of seeing and possibly receiving some slight introduction to any one of its then living members. Neither did I ever see Dr. Arnold, though I walked with Strickland, one of our reading party and a former pupil of his, as far as his door, which he entered to spend half an hour with him, while I waited and envied.

Strickland was the son of a well-known Yorkshire baronet. He joined me in many pleasant walks from London after my college days, of which I especially recollect one in the then rural Isle of Wight, when there was little more than a single house at Shanklin, and that was its pretty, rustic hotel. The times of travel from London so fitted in, that the walk from Ryde about Easter-time began well before twilight, and we reached Shanklin not too late to be taken in and to thoroughly enjoy the moonlit evening. Strickland was a strong swimmer, but he got into some difficulty next morning owing to the surf and undercurrents at the place where he entered the sea. He returned safely to shore, to my great relief, but much tired from long battling with the water.

His end was tragic. It occurred in North America, when winter had just set in, near some well-known watering-place whose name I forget, separated by a low range of hills from another watering place about sixteen miles off. The road between the two was perfectly simple and easy in summer, but not so in the snowdrifts and darkness of winter. Strickland would attempt it, though much was said to dissuade him: he never reached his destination. A relief party tracked his wanderings. He seemed to have acted as one demented by the hardship, for he had stripped off his clothes and thrown them away, one after the other, even his boots, so that his dead body was almost wholly undressed. That was the story I heard from two persons.

On returning to Cambridge after the first long vacation, I was put steadily to mathematical work, coming at length under that most distinguished Cambridge tutor, William Hopkins (1793-1866), mathematician and geologist. He kindly took a good deal of interest in me and gave me much encouragement, but the hopes he fostered were shattered by serious illness, which precluded severe study during my third year, as will be mentioned farther on. At a later date I found myself his colleague as Joint Secretary to the British Association, but his health had by then declined and his fine intellect begun to fail. I never had a tutor whom I reverenced and loved so entirely as Hopkins.

It was early in my second year that I entered into a close friendship with two Etonians. The one was Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam (1824-1850), the younger son of the historian Henry Hallam (1777-1859) and brother to Arthur Hallam (1811-1833), the subject of Tennyson’s In Memoriam. The other friend was F. Campbell, the eldest son of Lord Campbell (1779-1861), then Lord Chief-Justice, and afterwards Lord Chancellor. F. Campbell became in later years, through succession, Lord Stratheden and Campbell. I owe much to each of these fast friends, but in different ways.

Harry Hallam had a singular sweetness and attractiveness of manner, with a love of harmless banter and paradox, and was keenly sympathetic with all his many friends. He won the Second Chancellor’s Medal. Through him I became introduced to his father’s house, still shadowed by the sudden death of his son Arthur and of a daughter. Mr. Hallam was very kind to me, and the friendship of him and of his family was one of the corner-stones of my life-history. I met many eminent persons at his house. Harry Hallam, like his brother and sister, died suddenly and young, to my poignant grief. His death occurred while I was away in South Africa. I have visited the quiet church at Clevedon where all the Hallams lie, each memorial stone bearing a briefly pathetic inscription, and kneeling alone in a pew by their side, spent the greater part of a solitary hour in unrestrained tears.

F. Campbell had set for himself an ideal of public life that was too high for his powers, and many would say that he greatly failed in it. It may be so, but he had what I prized beyond anything else, a capacity for steady friendship, and a disposition unalloyed by pettiness. I always found help when consulting him about any of my own difficulties, because he put things in fresh lights and always with noble intent. He died in 1893. Through being his friend, I was entertained with much kindness by his father at Stratheden House, and received important help on more than one occasion.

It was mainly through these two men, Hallam and Campbell, that I first became acquainted with most of the ablest undergraduates of that day. Of these Maine (Sir Henry S. Maine, 1822-1888) ranked the highest. He had a great charm of manner with much beauty of feature, and was one of the few non-Trinity men who became thoroughly at home in Trinity itself. In later years, when he had become an eminent jurist and had filled with distinction the highest legal post in India, I used to enjoy long talks with him at the Athenæum Club, mostly on topics connected with Primitive Culture.

The subject of prehistoric civilisation was novel even so late as the early fifties, and was discussed independently from two different sides. The line of approach that Maine followed was to investigate the customs of the so-called Aryan races. The other line was by the study of living savage races, and of such inferences regarding the past as might be drawn from implements and bones preserved in prehistoric graves and caverns. The horizon of the Antiquarians was so narrow at about the date of my Cambridge days, that the whole history of the early world was literally believed, by many of the best informed men, to be contained in the Pentateuch. It was also practically supposed that nothing more of importance could be learnt of the origins of civilisation during classical times than was to be found definitely stated in classical authors.

Sir H. Maine considerably extended this narrow horizon through his close analysis of classical writings in the light of his Indian experiences, but he was always tempted to look on what was really a very advanced form of civilisation as if it had been primitive, and thereby laid himself open to violent attack. Among his opponents, J. F. MacLennan (1827-1881), the author of Marriage by Capture, etc., was eminently impetuous, and Maine, knowing that I was well acquainted with him, begged me to do what I could to moderate his controversial tone; I tried in vain. This, however, is travelling many years ahead. I had often occasion to consult Sir H. Maine on subjects that I had then in hand, and always found him a most helpful adviser.

It is difficult to select illustrative episodes of my Cambridge days. William Johnson Cory, then known as Johnson of King’s (1823-1892), “Poet, and Master at Eton,” was a remarkable character. He was easily the first classic of his year, as tested by the brilliancy of his performance in gaining the Craven Scholarship soon after joining the University. At that time he was eccentric, very short-sighted, and Johnsonian in appearance, but these peculiarities wore off so much that, on his calling on me some years afterwards, fashionably dressed and polished in manner, I did not at first recognise him. He took an active part in a small Epigram Club which flourished for a while and then ceased, but which gave rise to some good verses. I recollect the roll of the first line of one by Maine—“King Daniel of Derrinane ...”—that referred to a recent action of Daniel O’Connell.

Tom Taylor (1817-1880), “Dramatist and Editor of Punch,” was full of vigour and versatility, but a few years older than those of whom I have been speaking. He had recently been elected Fellow of the College. In those days Punch was newly started, and Tom Taylor thought he could do better, so he founded a weekly comic paper called Puck, for which he endeavoured to obtain contributors. It was fairly good, but did not live long. Many years later he became editor of the very periodical he then wished to crush.

I saw much of Joseph and E. Kay, half-brothers of Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth (1804-1877), who was the “Founder of English Popular Education.” Joseph Kay (1821-1878), “Economist,” was appointed “Travelling Bachelor,” a University post that at that time attracted little competition, because the conditions attached to its tenure were inconvenient to most rising men. Its possession, therefore, carried little weight. But Joseph Kay utilised to the full his position of “Travelling Bachelor of the University of Cambridge” in obtaining help abroad, and he wrote and published a valuable Report with that title, which attracted much attention. He took in it an opposite position to one previously occupied by Whewell. I beg to be pardoned if my memory plays tricks, but my impression is that Whewell’s efforts to subdue his own indignation at being bearded in this way by a mere “Travelling Bachelor” were all the more amusing because he was impotent to retort. Joseph Kay was perfectly in order in asserting his rank; he was judged by competent outsiders to have written very ably, and he was no longer a resident in Trinity College within immediate reach of Whewell’s wrath.

E. Kay (1822-1897), afterwards Lord Justice of Appeal, had rooms on the same staircase as myself, and we wasted a great deal of time together, both in term and in my second summer vacation. But however idle he may have been at College, he richly made up for it afterwards by hard and steady legal work, out of which he finally emerged as a Judge with a large fortune made at the Bar.

Charles Buxton (1823-1871), son of the philanthropist Sir T. Fowell Buxton (1786-1845) and father of the present Postmaster-General, was another intimate friend. He was a far-off relative of my own, and one of the most favourable examples of a Rugby product under Dr. Arnold. Other similar examples of highly favourable products occur at once to the memory, such as Dean Stanley, Dean Lake, and Walrond, but unquestionably the common opinion of Cambridge undergraduates then assigned the epithet of “prig” to most Rugby boys. I can exactly recall the combination of qualities that occasioned the offence; they were partly an unconscious Phariseeism combined with want of “go,” and partly a Rugby voice and manner. Eton boys were rated far higher than they. I do not recollect whether any generalisation was formed at that time in respect to Harrow boys, who were then few in number. To return to Charles Buxton, he gave me the idea of perfection in respect to a highly honourable class of mind. This did not include exceptional brilliance, such as characterised some of the men mentioned above, but it did include most of the manly virtues and as much common sense as was consistent with a charming dash of originality. His elder brother Fowell, who has lately died, had rooms on the same staircase as myself.

W. G. Clark (1821-1878) was another contemporary of whom I saw much then and in after years. His strong bent had been towards diplomacy, but he wanted the fortune and connections necessary for success in such a career, so his desire remained unfulfilled. He loved to bring back impressions of travel, whether made in the Peloponnesus or in the rear of Garibaldi. He was Public Orator of the University for many years, and Vice-Master of Trinity College. Consequently, as a matter of course in those days, he was an ordained clergyman. But he chafed under the fetters of orthodoxy, and became a prominent member of the small group of men who procured the Act that allowed clergymen to retire from their office without retaining clerical disabilities. His career was clouded towards its end by insidious mental disease. He lived long retired in almost complete solitude in a Yorkshire inn, but sometimes sent bits of elegant Greek poetry to old classical friends, as to Justice Denman. A small volume of poems published under his initials contains some gems. He had lost a favourite male cousin in youth whose death affected him deeply and gave the chief motive to the book of poems in question.

My second long vacation was spent with a reading party in Aberfeldy, in Perthshire, under the guidance of two tutors as usual, of whom one was Arthur Cayley (1821-1895), whose mathematical work soon gained a world-wide reputation. He and Sylvester (1814-1897) became the two leading mathematicians of England. Cayley was reputed to be the more solid, Sylvester the more daring and brilliant. I saw much of Sylvester a dozen or more years after the date of which I now speak, and for a brief time also at the English Lakes. He was a great friend of Cayley, and corresponded with him very often about his own numerous new ideas, becoming subsequently depressed or elated according to the tenor of the answer. Over and over again I have heard him say, “I must send this to Cayley,” or again, “Cayley has pointed out a difficulty.” He was charmingly naïve, and both were men of prodigious mental power. When the time came for adjudging the Copley Medal to one or other of them, the highest honour of the Royal Society, which it annually bestows on the foremost man in science of whatever branch, in all Europe, there was much discussion as to which of the two should first have it. I was a member of its Council at the time; the opinions of most of us, including myself, were of course largely guided by those of the eminent mathematicians who were also members of it, and by the result of private inquiries. The opinions in favour of Sylvester prevailed; Cayley received the Medal a few years subsequently.

Never was a man whose outer physique so belied his powers as that of Cayley. There was something eerie and uncanny in his ways, that inclined strangers to pronounce him neither to be wholly sane nor gifted with much intelligence, which was the very reverse of the truth. Again, he appeared so frail as to be incapable of ordinary physical work; not a bit of it. One morning he coached us as usual and dined early with us at our usual hour. The next morning he did the same, all just as before, but it afterwards transpired that he had not been to bed at all in the meantime, but had tramped all night through over the moors to and about Loch Rannoch. As to memory, I found by pure accident that he could repeat poetry by the yard so to speak, and that of many kinds. His shy, retiring ways did no justice whatever to his gigantic mental capacity.

I was, in a very humble way, able to compare the work of various mathematical teachers with that of Cayley. The latter moved his symbols in battalions, along broad roads, careless of short cuts, and he managed them with the easy command of a great general. The very look of his papers, written in firm handwriting and well proportioned lengths of line, bore thoroughness and accuracy on their face. This is not over fanciful. William Spottiswoode (1825-1883), himself a mathematician and President of the Royal Society, of whom I shall have to speak later, laid much stress on the general aspect of mathematical papers as indicating in many ways the value of their contents, and I could quote other authorities to a similar effect.

We had a pleasant and a social time at Aberfeldy, for the residents in the neighbourhood were very kind to us. Sir Neil and Lady Menzies of Menzies Castle, to whom I had an introduction, lived amid Highland surroundings. One of these consisted of a full-dressed piper who strutted up and down the long hall during dinner with the self-sufficiency of the drum-major of a regimental band, squirling on his abominable instrument. But there was also an abundance of Southern culture.

The visit of the Queen to Lord Breadalbane at the neighbouring Castle of Taymouth gave rise to the following permanent impression on me. On returning to my rooms after a walk, I found all my books and things taken away and replaced by the gear of a cavalry officer, who was sitting uninvited at my own table as lord and master of it. I could hardly contain my wrath, but he was courteous and amused, though firm. He was billeted there, consequently I must give way and yield my occupancy to him. He had been told there was another room available for me to which my things had been taken, but go I must and at once. This little incident made me realise the odiousness and too probable insolence of military rule, and the lesson sank deep. I gained on the spot a Quaker-like repugnance to the sight of the accoutrements of a soldier, that exists to this day under certain conditions, and its source is still recognisable.

On returning to Cambridge the old life recommenced, but on an enlarged scale, and more friends were made, among whom were George Denman (1819-1896), afterwards a Judge, and the son of Lord Chief-Justice Denman (1779-1854). He combined classical capacity with power of muscle and endurance, both in a very high degree, for he was Senior Classic of his year and Stroke Oar of the University crew. He lived a double life, warily looking after his own boat crew, the First Trinity, and joining their rollickings in order to keep them within bounds, but doing hard mental work at other hours. I think he was perhaps the most respected of all the undergraduates. In after years he told me the following extraordinary anecdote of Macaulay’s memory. He, Denman, had obtained the prize for Greek verse and had to recite his composition. Macaulay was a guest at Trinity Lodge and heard the recitation. Some years after, when Denman had half forgotten the occurrence and imperfectly recollected what he had then written, he was introduced to Macaulay, who exclaimed at once, “Why, it was you who recited those verses,” which he straightway repeated.

Memories so crowd on me that I find it difficult to stop. Something ought to have been said of a singularly attractive man with quaint turns of thought, H. Vaughan Johnson, who lived on the same staircase as myself, and who collaborated in legal work with E. Kay, of whom I have already spoken. He married a sister of my friend, then F. Campbell, afterwards Lord Stratheden and Campbell.

Also I should mention W. F. Gibbs, who became tutor to the then Prince of Wales, now King Edward VII. Gibbs obtained his Trinity Scholarship at the same time as F. Gell, who was afterwards Bishop of Madras. Gibbs was gifted with agility; Gell was very short-sighted, and the reverse of agile, but he possessed a grand nose, the finest I have ever seen, and a glory to the College. These two, as Gibbs told me, exuberant with joy from gaining their scholarships, rushed down the avenue of limes at the back of the College and through the gate at the end, where a row of low bars confronted them; Gibbs, who led, jumped lightly over them, but Gell, who followed, blundered, tripped, fell heavily on his face, and ruined his grand nose for ever. The bars are still there; whenever I pass that way I recall the tragedy.

Two events may be mentioned to show how long the duelling spirit lingered. One was a row at the Union which nearly dismembered it. I partly forget how it originated, and it would hardly be worth while to record it if I did. It culminated in the formation of two fiercely opposed parties, P. and C., and by a leading member of the C. party being bludgeoned in the dark by two members of the P. party. They had awaited his exit from the dark staircase leading from his rooms into Neville Court. The tumult that this caused among the already excited undergraduates is barely conceivable. The C. party, to which I belonged, formed itself into a Committee and sent to an Indian officer, then living with his family in Cambridge, entreating him to come and advise us how to act. The officer himself happened to be delayed for half an hour, but he sent in advance, quite as a matter of course, a neat box containing a pair of duelling pistols ready for use.

I may add that a special meeting of the Union was forthwith called, for which it was obviously necessary to provide an exceptionally strong but neutral President. A man known as “First Trinity” Young (I forget his Christian name), who died in early life or he might have highly distinguished himself, was selected for the purpose, and he executed admirably his most difficult task. It gave me a lesson in administration. He began with a brief but emphatic request for cordial support from both sides, adding that every question had more than one aspect. Humorous but apt remarks were thrown out by him now and then. An equally patient hearing was given to all parties, and a few occasional interruptions were firmly repressed. The meeting parted with its members much more disposed towards working relations than before; so the extremity of the crisis was passed.

Its consequence was, however, the constitution of an opposition society, called the “Historical,” in which more attention should be paid to decorum and to the amenities of debate than had latterly been customary in the Union. About sixty members joined it, and, partly because I was then living out of College in a house where there was a possible meeting room, I was asked to preside, which I did. My old friend Dr. H. Holden (1823-1896), with whom I was speaking some few years ago of this very incident, assured me that among the active members of the “Historical” was Stanley, afterwards the 15th Earl of Derby (1826-1893). He entered the University not long before I quitted it, during, I suppose, my absence of one term from Cambridge through illness. Anyhow, I do not in the least recollect his presence.

Speaking of the still lingering practice of duelling, C. Bristed, an American who came to Cambridge for a couple of years or so, and whose racy ways made him everywhere an acceptable guest, had a strange experience. Some few years after we had left the University, F. Campbell asked us both to dine with him at Stratheden House, where he was at the moment the only member of his family in residence. Bristed gave us there the full account of a duel in which he had unexpectedly become engaged. It occurred near a German watering-place that lay within a short distance of French territory. He had been criticising his future opponent pretty freely in a local paper, with the result that on leaving church with his young wife, where they had just joined in taking the Sacrament, a note was handed to him containing a challenge, and suggesting a place in French territory for the encounter. There seemed no other feasible course than to accept that most untimely challenge, which he did. On arriving at the ground, the combatants were placed 40 paces apart, with instructions to walk towards one another, each to fire his one shot whenever he thought proper. Bristed, who was rather short-sighted, said that his opponent looked absurdly far away, and that he considered the safest plan for himself was to “draw” his adversary’s shot before they came nearer together, which he did. He fired harmlessly, and a harmless shot came in reply. All the time he was recounting this very irregular proceeding, I kept the corner of my eye fixed on a portrait of the Lord Chief-Justice, that hung opposite, and thought how incongruous the conversation was with its presence.

I received a kindly welcome from time to time after leaving Cambridge, in the homes of not a few of my fellow-undergraduates. One was that of Robert, afterwards Sir Robert Dalyell. His father, Captain Sir William Dalyell, was a naval veteran with a scar across his face left by a severe gash, who had quarters in Greenwich Hospital as one of the Captains in command, the constitution of Greenwich Hospital being then totally different from what it is now. The family consisted of himself, Lady Dalyell, and their two daughters. Numerous friends appeared every Sunday. We visitors walked and had tea, spending healthful and delightful summer afternoons, usually returning to London by river. The life of a young bachelor in not over elegant lodgings is vastly cheered by such occasional outings. They give great pleasure all round with very little expenditure either of exertion or of cost.

The family of Crompton Hutton, who lived at Putney Park, were most kind in a similar way, to myself, to E. Kay, and many others. That family was soon sadly broken up by deaths. One of the merriest of the sisters in those days was the wife, and latterly the widow, of Lord Lingen, who herself has died since I first wrote these lines. Lord Lingen was, I need hardly add, for a long time one of the most valuable civil servants of his country, first at the Education Office and afterwards at the Treasury.

It was during my third year at Cambridge that I broke down entirely in health and had to lose a term and go home. I suffered from intermittent pulse and a variety of brain symptoms of an alarming kind. A mill seemed to be working inside my head; I could not banish obsessing ideas; at times I could hardly read a book, and found it painful even to look at a printed page. Fortunately, I did not suffer from sleeplessness, and my digestion failed but little. Even a brief interval of complete mental rest did me good, and it seemed as if a long dose of it might wholly restore me. It would have been madness to continue the kind of studious life that I had been leading. I had been much too zealous, had worked too irregularly and in too many directions, and had done myself serious harm. It was as though I had tried to make a steam-engine perform more work than it was constructed for, by tampering with its safety valve and thereby straining its mechanism. Happily, the human body may sometimes repair itself, which the steam-engine cannot.

As it had become impossible for me to continue reading for mathematical honours, I abandoned all further intention of trying for them, and occupied part of my remaining time at Cambridge in attending medical lectures to fill up the necessary quota of attendances that should qualify for a medical degree. I spent my third long vacation in travelling with my sister Emma in Germany. We stayed some weeks in Dresden, where we joined the Hallams and accompanied them during a little further travel, and then I took my sister round by Vienna and back home. Those were days of travelling by voiturier and diligence.

There was a good deal of talk at that time about animal magnetism. Its practice in Saxony was forbidden by law, but an Austrian acquaintance in Dresden invited me to his house across the frontier, where I saw the elementary part of its practice, namely, its inducing catalepsy and insensibility to pain. I afterwards practised it at home, and magnetised some eighty persons in this way; but it is an unwholesome procedure, and I have never attempted it since. One experience was, however, of interest. I had been assured that success was the effect of strength of will on the part of the magnetiser, so at first I exerted all the will-power I possessed, which was fatiguing. I then, by way of experiment, intermitted a little, looking all the time in the same way as before, and found myself equally successful. So I intermitted more and more, and at last succeeded in letting my mind ramble freely while I maintained the same owl-like demeanour. This acted just as well. The safe conclusion was that the effect is purely subjective on the part of the patient, and that will-power on the part of the operator has nothing to do with it.

A main object of giving the foregoing brief notices of notable persons with whom I had the privilege of being acquainted at Cambridge, is to show the enormous advantages offered by a University to those who care to profit by them. The body of undergraduates contains a very large majority of men of mediocre gifts and tastes, but it has also a strong infusion of the highest intellects of their age and country, picked out of all the schools of England. Among any body of young educated Englishmen collected at random, some few will probably be found who are destined to rise to distinction, but among a group of those who are ranked as the foremost in a University, more than one half of them will do so.

For my own part, I had hoped to take respectable mathematical honours, though perhaps it was never in my power to do so, notwithstanding the assurances of my eminent tutor, Mr. Hopkins. But the utter breakdown of my health in my third year, as already explained, made further study of a severe kind impossible. I therefore followed my bent in reading what I could, and my time was by no means wasted. I contented myself with a Poll Degree. Judge therefore of my surprise a few years ago, while passing a winter on the Riviera, when a telegram reached me saying I had been elected to the rare honour of an Honorary Fellowship in Trinity College. I thought at first it must be a mistake, but it was not. Nay more, hearing that a copy of a portrait recently made of me by the late Charles Furse (see frontispiece) would be acceptable, I had one made and offered it to the authorities of the College. It now hangs in its Hall among those of men with whom I feel it the highest possible honour to be associated in any way.

I must recur briefly to the close of my medical education. As already mentioned, I attended some lectures during one term at Cambridge, but had not even admittance to the then small Addenbrook Hospital. I have little to tell about this period that would interest others than myself. It was thought well that I should complete my course in London at St. George’s, for the purpose of seeing new conditions of medical treatment. I attended these necessarily in a desultory way, on account of an impending domestic sorrow. My dear father’s originally fine constitution, long tried by severe asthma and gout, had at length seriously given way. He required continual medical and surgical treatment and trusted in me, so to him I went. The end came in October 1844 at Hastings. His remains had to be taken to Leamington. It was a wretched journey, for the railway was not even then completed the whole way.

The effect of his death was to remove the main bond that kept our family together, and we soon became more or less separated. Two of my sisters married within the year, and I found myself with a sufficient fortune to make me independent of the medical profession. So my status of pupilhood was closed, and I had henceforth to be my own director. Being much upset and craving for a healthier life, I abandoned all thought of becoming a physician, but felt most grateful for the enlarged insight into Nature that I had acquired through medical experiences.