I have frequently been asked to write my Memoirs , or I should rather say, my Recollections . I have serious doubts as to whether I recollect anything of value; and, even if I do, I have no time at present to commit it to paper. But, as the University, when I first knew it, was a very different place from what it is now; and as it has fallen to my lot to write several biographical notices of distinguished Cambridge men, in the course of which I have noted incidentally a good many of the constitu

Full materials for the life of Dr Whewell are at last before the public. We say ‘at last,’ because ten years elapsed from his death in 1866 before the first instalment of his biography appeared, and fifteen years before the second. Haste, therefore, cannot be pleaded for any faults which may be found in either of them. Nor, indeed, is it our intention to carp at persons who have performed a difficult task as well as they could. Far rather would we take exception to the strange resolution of Dr W

Until a few years ago biographies of Bishops were remarkable for that decent dullness which Sydney Smith has noted as a characteristic of modern sermons. The narrative reproduced, with painful fidelity, the oppressive decorum and the conventional dignity; but kept out of sight the real human being which even in the Georgian period must have existed beneath official trappings. But in these matters, as in others, there is a fashion. The narratives which describe the lives of modern Bishops reflect

It is much to be regretted that Lord Houghton did not write his own biography. Those who know his delightful Monographs, Social and Personal , can form some idea of how he would have treated it. From his early years he lived in society—not merely the society to which his birth naturally opened the door, but a varied society of his own creating. He had an insatiable curiosity. It is hardly too much to say that in his long life he was present at every ceremony of importance, from the Eglinton Tour

A dramatist who undertakes to write a play which is to be almost devoid of incident, and to depend for interest on the development of an eccentric character, with only a single strong situation, even though that situation be one of surpassing power, is considered by those learned in such matters to be almost courting failure. Such a work is therefore rarely attempted, and is still more rarely successful. Yet this is what Mr Besant has had to do in writing the Life of Edward Henry Palmer; and we

On Sunday evening last the news reached Cambridge that Professor Balfour had met with a fatal accident in the Alps near Courmayeur [110] . It was only in November of last year that we drew attention to the extraordinary merits of his Treatise on Comparative Embryology , then just completed [111] . We felt that a ‘bright particular star’ had risen on the scientific horizon; and we expected, from what we knew of the great abilities and unremitting energy of the author, that year by year his reputa

The past twelve months have been singularly fatal to Cambridge; but no loss has caused grief so widespread and so sincere as that of the distinguished scholar and man of letters who passed quietly away while sitting at his library-table on the night of last Wednesday week [113] . If proof were needed of the respect in which he was held, we have only to point to the vast assemblage of past and present members of the University which filled the chapel of King’s College on Monday last to do honour

The death of the Master of Trinity College has severed almost the last of the links which connect the present life of Cambridge with the past. From 1828 until his death [114] in 1886 his connexion with his college was unbroken; for a brief absence soon after his election to a Fellowship, and the periods of canonical residence at Ely need hardly be taken into account. He was, therefore, up to a certain point, a typical Trinity man of the older school; a firm believer in the greatness of his colle

The Society of Trinity College had long been aware of the critical condition of their Vice-Master’s health, and his numerous friends in the wider circle of the University had shared their alarm. And yet, though everybody had been expecting the worst for several weeks, the news that the end had really come [116] fell upon the University with the stunning force of a wholly unexpected event. The full extent of the loss can only be measured by time; for the moment we can but feel that the University

The death of Dr Okes, though he had reached the mature age of ninety-one, has taken the University by surprise [117] . He had become an institution of the place. While everything around him changed, and old things became new, his venerable figure remained unaltered, like a monument of an older faith which has survived the attacks of successive iconoclasts, to tell the younger generation what manner of men the Dons of the past had been. He was fond of saying that the first public event he could d

Nearly half a century has elapsed since Dr Luard became a member of Trinity College. When he came up, the University was a very different place from what it is now; the Statutes of Elizabeth were still in force; and the only study which obtained official recognition was that of mathematics. It is true that a Classical Tripos existed, but anybody who wished to be examined in it was obliged to obtain an honour in Mathematics first. The first Commission was not appointed until 1850, the year in whi

A scientific naturalist who lived in England in the second quarter of this present century may be accounted a fortunate man. On the one hand was the vast field of the universe, undivided, unallotted; on the other, a public eager for instruction. At the present day, when men go to and fro, and knowledge is increased, we find it hard to realize the isolation of England until after the close of the great war, or the fear of invasion that absorbed men’s thoughts until after Trafalgar. That fear remo